Zoroastrian fire temple in West Azarbaijan, Iran. It was destroyed at the order of the Byzantine emperor Heraclius in the 7th century AD. Folk legends later sprang up that Solomon had imprisoned demons in the depths of in the crater lake.
Posts Tagged ‘Iran’
The remains of Adur Gushnasp
Thursday, July 2nd, 2009Gaza leading up to attack on Iran?
Saturday, January 10th, 2009Nah.
Juan Cole links to a piece by William Lind suggesting that if Likud comes into power on February 10th, then Israel might finally go ahead with that plan.
This attack on Gaza seems more like cheap jab before the whistle is blown. For once, I don’t feel like crying wolf, howling that on a strike on Iran is imminent. Obama will be tested, but that’s too suicidal of a gambit for Israel.
It’s the crazy evangelicals here in the U.S. who are trying to bring about an apocalypse. Whatever problems that I have with the ruthless lack of ethics of the hardliners in Israel in their goals of “security,” they are pragmatic. Even if some renegade Iranians are caught red-handed lobbing rockets, there will be restraint.
Damavand and Dmanisi?
Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008Tim at Remote Central notes an article from an Iranian news agency that states rather blandly that artifacts “very similar to those found in East Africa” are being excavated by Iranian teams from caves near Damavand.
Know what would make that cooler? If fossils turned up looking like Homo georgicus.
More wild speculation on South Ossetia & Iran
Saturday, August 9th, 2008After watching Bush being like a petulant child at the Olympics last night (including what seemed to be a terse exchange with Putin, who looked comfortable,) and seeing how severe the Russian action is in South Ossetia (and it spilling into more of Georgia, including the region of Abkhazia,) i’m even more convinced that this was to be a distraction leading to a U.S. strike on Iran. The change in my thinking is that the gambit has already failed.
If we are to have learned anything in the past eight years, unless it’s about conning the American people, every plan that the Bush administration undertakes turns to shit. Even though every news report i read now casts Russia as the aggressor, the first ones had Georgian peacekeepers inexplicably begin firing on their Russian counterparts. Russia has responded with overwhelming force. I can imagine that in Beijing, Putin coolly brushed off Bush’s words, dropping hints that Russia is well aware of the carriers enroute to the Persian Gulf.
So we get this:1
Now Bush is going to have to slink back to Big Daddy Cheney to explain that once again, Putin spanked his ass. The Iran strike is probably off, but South Ossetia is fucked.
- I loathe Bush far more than the average citizen, but his public behavior is usually caused by something. Simple boredom is possible, but almost certainly there was more on his pea brain than the Olympic opening ceremonies. Mock him for being a failure as much as possible, but with a potentially major crisis unfolding, as the president of the United States, he had other duties to attend to, even if it was just sniveling back to Cheney that Putin stole his lunch money and gave him a wedgie. [↩]
Could South Ossetia be the first move in a gambit?
Friday, August 8th, 2008Since i’m on a conspiracy jag anyway, i might as well post this.
The Georgia-Russia conflict over South Ossetia spooked the hell out of me this morning. I didn’t see it coming, but there just seemed somethign weird about the timing. A Georgian official was attributing the timing to most officials being in Beijing for the Olympics, so most nations would be caught off guard. It makes sense, but then i ran across a comment in the thread of a Metafilter post on the subject. It pointed to this blog, which insists that this is the prelude to the U.S. making a strike on Iran. It seems that he actually made the call on South Ossetia on Thursday (unless he forged the post.)
It sounds a little extreme, but yep… two American carriers are indeed heading to the Persian Gulf:
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
The Kuwait government has learned that two aircraft carriers are scheduled to arrive in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea in case of a U.S.-Iran war, the Kuwait Times reported on its Web site, citing an unnamed senior official.
The report didn’t identify the ships. However, the Jerusalem Post said on its Web site Thursday that they were the USS Theodore Roosevelt and the USS Ronald Reagan.
The Post cited an unidentified defense analyst, and said the U.S. Navy would neither confirm nor deny that carriers were en route.
Kuwait is preparing an emergency plan in case the situation escalates and war breaks out between the U.S. and Iran, the Kuwaiti report said Thursday, citing the official.
Acting Kuwait premier Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah has asked the interior minister and others to hold meetings with different departments to reveal and resolve the country’s weaknesses, the Kuwait Times reported.
The connection that that blog makes is that the South Ossetia conflict was deliberately provoked by Georgia to keep Russia occupied while the Iran strikes begin. It doesn’t help that Israel has beefed up its strike abilities considerably this summer. I don’t buy all of those bioweapon theories, as that’s too far out even for me, but distracting Russia makes sense.
Then again, i’ve been wringing my hands worrying about an attack on Iran for the past two years at the very least. Nothing might come of this, and the South Ossetia conflict will be an isolated tragedy, not an opening move in a widespread regional war.
Iran’s Yafteh Cave yields 35,000 year old jewelry
Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008Here goes:
Iranian and Belgian archaeologists have found Neolithic stone tools in Iran’s Yafteh Cave located in the western Luristan Province. The tools and other remains found in the cave’s late Ice Age sediments show that Persian Neolithics were very similar to their European peers.
Radiocarbon dating carried out during the second phase of archaeological studies showed that Yafteh Cave dates back to over 35000 years ago.
Previous archaeological studies had yielded decorative beads, two pierced shells, two deer teeth and a piece of Hematite, which were possibly used as pendants.
Archaeologists believe these ornamental objects are the oldest of their kind to have ever been found in Iran.
“Jewelry” is not that accurate. This article says “ornamental objects.” That sounds better. Trying to be more systematic with this. Also, i’m tinkering with the idea of tracking down where all of these sites are. It seems that it could be interesting in theory, but tonight i’ve hit a wall in getting the thing to behave.
