Bombing Iran - with Information

The Wall Street Journal has opened it's subscription-only web site to unregistered, unpaid users - for 10 days.

Among other items of interest, this report from Kenneth Tomlinson, chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees U.S. international broadcasting, on US efforts to broadcast Persian-language news into Iran:

In recent weeks, we've heard a great deal in Washington about how we ought to be broadcasting to Iran. But it might be instructive to examine what U.S. international broadcasting is already doing.

Very recently, on a Persian-language satellite television broadcast from the United States, the people of Iran learned that Iran's oldest and largest student organization, Tahkim Vahdat, urged the government to suspend uranium enrichment and to cooperate with the international community by restricting nuclear development to peaceful uses. The group called the government's behavior "irrational and confrontational." Needless to say none of this appeared in Iran's government-controlled media; few rulers on earth exercise the degree of censorship enforced by the Iranian government.

Another program featured the story of Hossein Derakhshan, once jailed in Iran for starting an Internet blog. Upon his release, he managed to get to Canada where he now runs the most popular blog -- in Iran.