Near the shores of Tripoli......

One wonders why under the circumstances of the international posturing between the U.S. and Iran that any American would ‘visit' that country or even be allowed to go there by our government. If you can't go to Cuba, then why can you still go to Iran, since they tend to enjoy detaining Americans.

It would seem to me that a simple naval blockade of any and all oil shipments out of Iran to anywhere in the world would cause them to change their attitudes quite quickly. It would certainly not result in war and would impress on a lot of people that there is a world-wide economic interest in solving these otherwise religious Christian/Muslim problems.

I suspect that the Europeans, Asians and American car-buffs enjoy Iranian oil and I'm equally certain that the Iranians don't want to have to become bedouins again without a pot to pee in!

Academic from U.S. center arrested in Iran

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Washington-based academic with dual Iranian and U.S. citizenship has been arrested in Tehran after meeting with officials at the Ministry of Intelligence, her U.S. institution said on Wednesday.

Haleh Esfandiari, the director of the U.S. Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars' Middle East program, was arrested on Tuesday and taken to Tehran's Evin prison, according to a statement issued by the center and her family.

The statement also said she needed medical attention but did not say why. She was allowed one phone call from the prison, it said. Iranian officials were not immediately available for comment.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack condemned the arrest and said Esfandiari was among a number U.S.-Iranians being detained by Tehran.

Iran has also confiscated the passport of Parnaz Azima, a reporter based in Prague for U.S. funded Radio, Farda, which broadcasts programs about Iran. Azima went to visit her ailing mother in Iran in January and has been prevented from leaving.

"We want to see them returned back to their families," said McCormack. "These two women are an academic on the one hand, a journalist on the other. They are both grandmothers and so I am not sure what it is the Iranian government has to fear from these ladies," he added.

"It is an insight into the nature of this regime," McCormack said of the case of the two women.

Esfandiari flew to Tehran in December to visit her mother. As she drove to the airport to catch a flight back to Washington she was robbed of her belongings, including her U.S. and Iranian passports, the statement said.

INTERROGATION
She applied for replacement Iranian travel documents and was interviewed by a representative of Iran's intelligence ministry, which was then followed by weeks of interrogations focusing on her work for the center, it said.

The center's president, former U.S. Rep. Lee Hamilton, sent a letter in February to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad explaining the work of the organization and seeking his help in securing Esfandiari's return to the United States.

"The president has yet to acknowledge or reply to it," the center said in the statement. "Attempts to resolve this issue through various channels and without publicity were also not successful."

Hamilton was the co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group which last year issued recommendations for ending the violence in Iraq, including engaging with long time U.S. foe Iran.

The center's Middle East program focuses on the political, social and economic developments in the Middle East and examines American interests in the region and the threat of terrorism.

U.S. officials believe Tehran may also be holding former FBI official Robert Levinson who went missing early in March while on a visit to the Iranian island of Kish.

Levinson's wife was due to meet State Department officials in Washington on Wednesday to seek more information about her husband, McCormack said.

He said the United States still had no details on Levinson's whereabouts but believed the Florida resident was still alive. Iran has denied it is holding him.