Field Notes

Iran is in the headlines almost every day. The Neolithic-Conservatives in the Cheney Camp continue to pound the drums of war, preparing the US with a steady beat that ends with planes bombing in Iran.

Today the Bush Administration announced more sanctions against Iranian Banks and Companies that support the Iranian Military, claiming Iran is spreading WMDs across the middle east. That WMD acronym worked well to prepare the US for the war against Iraq. Iran is next on the hit list.

Pushing Iran further away from Western Society will heighten tensions in the region and inside Iran itself, strengthening the hand of its repressive regime. This is just what the Cheney group wants to see, the worse it gets inside Iran the more persuasive their Caveman (NeoCon) arguments become.

In the Guardian today there is an article relating how the the most popular “book store cafes” are being closed by the government in Iran. Quoting the article:

Four bookshops in Tehran this week closed their coffee shops after receiving a 72-hour ultimatum from Amaken-e Omoomi, a state body governing the retail trade. The order has led to the closure of the cafe in one of the city’s best-known bookshops, Nashr-e Sales, which has hosted reading sessions by writers, including the Nobel prize-winning Turkish author, Orhan Pamuk, and become a popular meeting point for literary types.

The story is written by Robert Tait in Tehran, and is found in the Guardian Book News Section. This is a good source for book reviews and occasional geo-political commentary. Robert Tait writes frequently for the Guardian and is stationed in Tehran.

We need to promote more business with Iran and more cultural exchanges, doing this could help open their society, the Caveman Neo Cons want to bomb them back to the stone age.

See other Field Notes about Iran, the best points to the article by Thomas Barnett “Nixon Went to China” written in April of this year.