Can You Pass The Iran Quiz ?

The U.S. and Britain . ( Stephen Kinzer; All The Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror; John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; New Jersey: 2008.)

-According to Kinzer, Iranians had been complaining that the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) had not been sharing profits on Iranian petroleum with Iran fairly; and Iran's parliament (Majles) had tried to renegotiate with the AIOC. When the AIOC rejected renegotiation, Mossadegh introduced the nationalization act in 1951. In response, Britain and the U.S. organized a global boycott of Iran which sent the Iranian economy into a tailspin. Later, the military coup was orchestrated that reinstalled the shah. (One irony is that Britain itself had nationalized several industries in the 1940s and 1950s.)

True. According to Ali M. Ansari, Professor of Iranian history at the University of St. Andrews, “[K]hatami, moved quickly to offer his condolences to the US President [after the 9/11 attacks]. … [T]he Iranians soon recognized the opportunity that now confronted them. The United States was determined to dismantle Al Qaeda, and in the face of Taleban obstinacy decided on the removal of the Taleban. Nothing could be more amenable to the Iranians, who had been waging a proxy war against the Taleban for the better part of five years. … The collaboration which took place both during and after the war against the Taleban seemed to inaugurate a period of détente between Iran and the United States … It came as something of a shock therefore to discover that President Bush had decided to label Iran part of the ‘Axis of Evil' … Now it appeared that the [Iranian] hardliners within the regime had been correct after all; the United States could not be trusted …” ( Ali M. Ansari; Modern Iran: The Pahlavis and After Second Edition; Pearson Education; Great Britain: 2007; pp. 331-332.)

$692 billion. (http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25279.htm)
-There is also little doubt that Israel could defeat Iran in a conventional war in mere hours. ( Juan Cole; Engaging the Muslim World; Palgrave Macmillan; New York: 2009; p p.206-7.)

According to William Blum, a highly respected author and journalist, "The notorious Iranian security service, SAVAK, which employed torture routinely, was created under the guidance of the CIA and Israel in the 1950s. According to a former CIA analyst on Iran, Jesse J. Leaf, SAVAK was instructed in torture techniques by the Agency. After the 1979 revolution, the Iranians found CIA film made for SAVAK on how to torture women." (http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/Torture_RS.html)

Over 60%. ( M. Axworthy; A History of Iran : Empire of the Mind; Basic Books; New York : 2008.)

-In fact, many women—even married women—have professional jobs.

No. Alone among the Middle Eastern peoples conquered by the Arabs, the Iranians did not lose their language or their identity. Ethnic Persians make up 60 percent of modern Iran, modern Persian (not Arabic) is the official language, Iran is not a member of the Arab League. Based on language, ancestry and religion, Iran is not an Arab country.

Zero. There is not a single known instance of an Iranian suicide-bomber since the end of the Iran-Iraq War in 1988. ( Robert Baer; The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower; Crown Publishers; New York: 2008.)

-According to Baer, an American author and a former CIA field officer assigned to the Middle East, it is i mportant to understand that Iran has used suicide bombers as the ultimate “smart bomb.” In fact there is little difference between a suicide-bomber and a marine who rushes a machine-gun nest to meet his certain death. Therefore, while Iran had used suicide bombers for tactical military purposes, Wahhabi extremists use suicide bombing for vague objectives such as to weaken the enemy or purify the state.

Yes. ( http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/04/18/world/AP-ML-Iran.html )

No.
-According to Juan Cole, the Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan, Iran has not launched such a war for at least 150 years. ( Juan Cole; Engaging the Muslim World; Palgrave Macmillan; New York: 2009; p.199.)
-It should be appreciated that Iran did not start the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s: “ The war began when Iraq invaded Iran, launching a simultaneous invasion by air and land into Iranian territory on 22 September 1980.

25,000. It is one of the many paradoxes of the Islamic Republic of Iran that this anti-Israeli country supports by far the largest Jewish population of any Muslim country. After the 1979 Islamic revolution, thousands of Jews left for Israel, Western Europe or the U.S., fearing persecution. But Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran's first post-revolutionary supreme leader, issued a fatwa, upon his return from exile in Paris, decreeing that the Jews and other religious minorities were to be protected, thus reducing the outflow of Iran's Jews to a trickle.

A task force sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations and chaired by two prominent members of the American foreign policy establishment, former CIA director Robert Gates and former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, recommended “a revised strategic approach to Iran.” Their report included the above statement. (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2005/mar/24/clouds-over-iran/?pagination=false )

$9.6 billion. (http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25279.htm)

No.
Still there has been no sanction against Israel.
( http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/04/18/world/AP-ML-Iran.html )

Yes. (http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/how_bush_created_a_theocracy_in_iraq )

-One wonders what the Bush administration thought the party name entailed? Would it have been unreasonable to assume it had good relations with Iran and might support an Islamic Revolution?

-In 2007, the party, showing good public relations, changed its name to the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq .

True. Iranian television ran a widely watched serial on the Holocaust, Zero Degree Turn , based on true accounts of the role Iranian diplomats in Europe played in rescuing thousands of Jews in WWII.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJljqWQAqCI&feature=related)

True. In March 2002, the Arab League summit in Beirut unanimously put forth a peace initiative that commits it not just to recognize Israel but also to establish normal relations once Israel implements the international consensus for a comprehensive peace—which includes Israel withdrawing from the occupied territories and a just settlement of the Palestinian refugee crisis. (This peace initiative has been subsequently reaffirmed including at the March 2009 Arab League summit at Doha.) All 57 members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, including Iran , "adopted the Arab peace initiative to resolve the issue of Palestine and the Middle East ... and decided to use all possible means in order to explain and clarify the full implications of this initiative and win international support for its implementation." ( Norman G. Finkelstein; This Time We Went Too Far: Truth and Consequences of the Gaza Invasion; OR Books; New York : 2010; p. 42.)

No.
-"We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons
program …” “ We judge with high confidence that Iran will not be technically capable of producing and reprocessing enough plutonium for a weapon before about 2015.” ( U.S. National Intelligence Estimate Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities November 2010
http://www.dni.gov/press_releases/20071203_release.pdf )

-According to U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency Chief Lt. Gen. Ronald Burgess, "The bottom line assessments of the [National Intelligence Estimate] still hold true, " … We have not seen indication that the government has made the decision to move ahead with the [nuclear weapons] program." (http://www.globalsecuritynewswire.org/gsn/nw_20100115_1438.php)

20%. ( Juan Cole; Engaging The Muslim World; Palgrave Macmillan; New York : 2009; p.197.)

According to the Washington Post, “Just after the lightning takeover of Baghdad by U.S. forces … an unusual two-page document spewed out of a fax machine at the Near East bureau of the State Department. It was a proposal from Iran for a broad dialogue with the United States , and the fax suggested everything was on the table -- including full cooperation on nuclear programs, acceptance of Israel and the termination of Iranian support for Palestinian militant groups. But top Bush administration officials, convinced the Iranian government was on the verge of collapse, belittled the initiative. Instead, they formally complained to the Swiss ambassador who had sent the fax with a cover letter certifying it as a genuine proposal supported by key power centers in Iran …” ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/17/AR2006061700727_pf.html )

Madeleine Albright: U.S. Secretary of State , 1997 -2001. ( Stephen Kinzer; All The Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror; John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; New Jersey : 2008; p.212.)

75%. ( Juan Cole; Engaging the Muslim World; Palgrave Macmillan; ( New York : 2009); p.197.)

-One wonders what the percentage of Canadians—or Americans—held the same view?

Yes.
-According to Juan Cole, The NPT specifies that “Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination.” Therefore, as long as Iran meets its responsibilities under the NPT and continues to allow inspections by the IAEA, it is acting within its rights. The sorts of research facilities maintained by Iran are common in industrialized countries. The real issue is trust and transparency rather than purely one of technology. Yet, Iran has not always been forthcoming in fulfilling its obligations under the NPT.

Ruhollah Khomeini. ( Juan Cole; Engaging the Muslim World; Palgrave Macmillan; New York : 2009; p.201.)

-This wasn't a surprising statement to come from the leader of the 1979 Revolution as Israel had been a firm ally of both the U.S. and the Shah.

-According to Cole, Ahmadinejad quoted this statement in 2005 yet wire service translators rendered Khomeini's statement into English as “Israel must be wiped off the face of the map.” Yet, Khomeini had referred to the occupation regime not Israel , and while he expressed a wish for the regime to go away he didn't threaten to go after Israel . In fact, a regime can vanish without any outside attacks, as happened to the Shah's regime in Iran and to the USSR. It is notable that when Khomeini made the statement in the 1980s, there was no international outcry. In fact, in the early 1980s, Khomeini supplied Israel with petroleum in return for American spare parts for the American-supplied Iranian arsenal. As both Israel and Iran considered Saddam's Iraq a serious enemy, they had a tacit alliance against Iraq during the first phase of the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s. It should also be noted that Ahmadinejad subsequently stated he didn't want to kill any Jews but rather he wants a one-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. While Ahmadinejad's preferred solution is a non-starter, Israel 's refusal to pursue a comprehensive peace creates space for Arab hardliners whose agendas do not include a realistic peace with Israel .

Martin van Creveld: Distinguished professor of military history and strategy at Hebrew University in Jerusalem . ( http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/21/opinion/21iht-edcreveld_ed3_.html )
-It should not be surprising that Creveld would deem it rational for Iran to want nuclear weapons. "For more than half a century, Britain and the US have menaced Iran . In 1953, the CIA and MI6 overthrew the democratic government of Mohammed Mossadegh, an inspired nationalist who believed that Iranian oil belonged to Iran . They installed the venal shah and, through a monstrous creation called SAVAK, built one of the most vicious police states of the modern era. The Islamic revolution in 1979 was inevitable and very nasty, yet it was not monolithic and, through popular pressure and movement from within the elite, Iran has begun to open to the outside world – in spite of having sustained an invasion by Saddam Hussein, who was encouraged and backed by the US and Britain.
At the same time, Iran has lived with the real threat of an Israeli attack, possibly with nuclear weapons, about which the ‘international community' has remained silent.” ( http://www.antiwar.com/orig/pilger.php?articleid=8533 )

1.4%. ( M. Axworthy; A History of Iran : Empire of the Mind; Basic Books; New York : 2008.)

Flynt Leverett: Senior director for Middle East affairs in the U.S. National Security Council from March 2002 to March 2003. He left the George W. Bush Administration and government service in 2003 because of disagreements about Middle East policy and the conduct of the war on terror. ( http://www.antiwar.com/orig/porter.php?articleid=8590 )