Fire Hydrant of Freedom
Politics, Religion, Science, Culture and Humanities => Politics & Religion => Topic started by: Crafty_Dog on October 24, 2006, 05:54:25 AM
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U.N. Official Says Iran Is Testing New Enrichment Device
By DAVID E. SANGER
Published: October 24, 2006
NY Times
WASHINGTON, Oct. 23 ? The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said Monday that Iran had begun testing new uranium enrichment equipment that could double the capacity of its small research-and-development facilities.
The action appears to be a signal to the United Nations Security Council that Iran would respond to sanctions by speeding ahead with its nuclear program.
Since February, when Iran publicly celebrated its first production of enriched uranium, progress at its main nuclear complex at Natanz has reportedly been slow. Iran has sporadically operated a single ?cascade? of 164 centrifuges, the devices that spin at high speed and turn ordinary uranium into a fuel usable for nuclear power plants ? or, at higher enrichment levels, nuclear weapons.
Those reports had prompted speculation that Iranian engineers had run into considerable technical difficulties.
But in an interview on Monday, Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the I.A.E.A., said that ?based on our most recent inspections, the second centrifuge cascade is in place and ready to go.? He said that no uranium had yet been entered into the new system, but could be as early as next week.
Even with two cascades running, it would take Iran years to enrich enough uranium to produce a single nuclear weapon.
The United States director of national intelligence, John D. Negroponte, has said repeatedly that he believes Tehran is 4 to 10 years away from developing a weapon, even though its technology base is far more advanced than that of North Korea, which conducted a nuclear test 15 days ago.
Unlike North Korea, Iran has insisted that it does not intend to build a weapon. Nonetheless, Iran ignored an Aug. 31 deadline, set by the Security Council, to stop enriching uranium.
Since then, European nations, China, Russia and the United States have been debating what sanctions, if any, should be imposed. China and Russia have resisted, and in a speech on Monday at Georgetown University?s School of Foreign Service, Dr. ElBaradei made clear that he believes sanctions are unlikely to work.
?Penalizing them is not a solution,? he said. ?At the end of the day, we have to bite the bullet and talk to North Korea and Iran.?
Unlike American officials, he says that he remains unpersuaded that Iran?s ultimate goal is to build a weapon, though I.A.E.A. officials say they believe that Iran wants to have all of the major components of a weapon in hand so that it is clear that it could build one in weeks or months.
?The jury is still out on whether they are developing a nuclear weapon,? Dr. ElBaradei said at Georgetown, after meeting earlier in the day with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
After the meeting, Sean McCormack, the State Department spokesman, said there was now ?widespread agreement, although not total agreement,? on elements of an initial sanctions package. He did not speculate about when the sanctions might come to a vote; at the end of the summer, administration officials insisted that the Security Council would act in September.
Mr. McCormack said the Iranians seemed to be moving ahead ?inexorably at this point,? so that at some point ?you will have industrial-scale production.?
?You don?t want that,? he said.
Some European diplomats have expressed concern that, should the Security Council act, the moderates in the Iranian government who have been involved in negotiations over the nuclear program could be shoved aside, and that some combination of military leaders and hard-line mullahs would push the country to speed its nuclear production.
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"the moderates in the Iranian Government" :roll:
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Living la vida na levo in Tehran
Barnett
OP-ED: "Iranian Moolah," by Farouz Farzami, Wall Street Journal, 26 October
2006, p. A18.
Sorry, but had to zone out a bit after China. Caught up to my reading last
night, thanks to the extra hour (God, I wish that were every weekend!).
This description reminds me so much of the summer I lived in Leningrad in
1985 (the summer of the great crackdown on vodka, which never bugged me,
because I liked chatting up Russians while standing in line) and spent every
night I could with the blackmarketer "Big Al" and his constant stream of
customers. My big impression from all those nights: the populace had so
effectively opted out of political life and simply made their own
"house-arrest" style economic life na levo ("on the side," or literally, "on
the left" in Russian) that it was like they lived in their own little
universe of close friends, treasured objects, and media content from the
West (everyone in Leningrad seemed to live on American VHS tapes dubbed by a
screaming Finnish guy who did every voice the same--it was mesmerizingly
bad!). Of course, the most treasured objects were forbidden books, which I
brought in numbers with fake dust jackets.
The author of this piece is--natch!--a journalist who is "forbidden to
publish in Iran" (Sound familiar? Everyone I knew in the Russian ex-pat
community in the 1980s was a forbidden author. It was a modest
accomplishment, which is what made it so sad.).
Great story. He talks of coming upon a special stand of imported American
books (authorized by the mullahs, no doubt) in Tehran and notices one about
cocktails. Then he launches in:
I live in a country where alcohol is officially banned, but where the art of
home-made spirits has reached new heights. Sharing my astonishment about the
cocktail book with some friends with better connections to the Islamist
regime, they explained the government had a silent pact with the educated
and affluent in Iran's big cities, who render politics unto Caesar, provided
that Caesar keeps his nose out of their liquor cabinets.
In other words, the well-to-do Iranian drinks and reads and watches what he
wishes. He does as he pleases behind the walls of his private mansions and
villas. In return for his private comforts, the affluent Iranian is happy to
sacrifice freedom of speech, most of his civil rights, and his freedom of
association. The upper-middle class has been bought off by this pact, which
makes a virtue of hypocrisy.
The accommodation runs both ways. A friend who had made a small fortune in
the pharmaceutical business told me that recently the enforcers of Islamist
law appeared on the roof of his condominium in the northwest Tehran suburb
of Sharak-e-Qarb to seize all the satellite dishes. Every household received
an order to attend a hearing of the revolutionary court, where the
magistrate--typically a mullah--will levy fines. The fines help feed the
friends of the courts, while for my wealthy pharmacist friend, erecting
another satellite dish is as easy as refueling his car--and even the
inconvenience of replacing the dish will not be necessary for long.
Technology is more than up to the challenge posed by the morals police. "I
have heard there is a state-of-the-art dish made of invisible fiberglass
that I can install on the window pane of my apartment," my friend told me.
"I'm going for it."
Many Iranians believe the occasional crackdowns are being organized by
corrupt officials who secretly own interests in the new generation of
satellite dishes. The confiscations just create markets for new products.
Sound unbelievable? It isn't. It's exactly what you found in Moscow and
Leningrad back in the 1980s: a huge social network of hypocritical enforcers
and two-faced citizens, and everybody exchanged money in the process. It's
just that no wealth is truly generated, and the people get stupider and more
ambivalent and lazy and disconnected from the future. It's all so sad and
pathetic. I remember crying myself to sleep one night from thinking about
how everyone in the USSR felt like they will just living in some weird
prison and all they could claim for themselves was whatever they could beg,
borrow or steal. It was supremely depressing to see all that talent wasted,
and their profound sense of injustice.
This guy describes the workarounds, but that's not a life, and no one
trapped in that existence pretends it is.
But, of course, this rich guy is trapped by nothing. It's only the lower
classes who really are disconnected from their desires. This rich pharmacist
vacations 2-3 months abroad each year, putting him more in the category of
the KGB general (who, frankly, never had it THAT good).
The saddest part here is that the rich guy expects the revolution will come
only when the masses are disillusioned enough to take matters into their own
hands.
Sounds to me like Iran's rich are about as cynical as the mullahs.
Still, the larger point is this: this is not robust authoritarianism. It's
weak. It's flabby. It hypocritical to a fault. It's not going anywhere. It's
not accomplishing anything.
In short, it's ripe.
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Delay
Has the president made a conscious decision to not act on Iran?
By Michael Ledeen
If the president knows that Iran is waging war on us, he is obliged to respond; the only appropriate question is about the method, not the substance. If he does not know, then he should remove those officials who were obliged to tell him, and get some people who will tell the truth. They are not entitled to withhold information on the grounds that they don?t like the obvious policy implications. He must have that information, and he must be able to get more of it. The people in high positions of the intelligence community have demonstrably acted to limit his full knowledge of the war; the refusal to accept further information from proven sources of reliable information on Iran, all by itself, warrants a significant purge of Intelligence officials. As Bob Woodward suggests in State of Denial, there has been much more of that.
It is more likely that the president knows we are at war with Iran, but has chosen ? wrongly, in my opinion (but then I wasn?t elected either) ? to delay our response. That could be due to any number of reasons, ranging from a belief that he had to give the Europeans every chance to force the Iranians to abandon their nuclear project, to purely domestic calculations that he lacks sufficient political capital to directly challenge the mullahs. But whatever his reasoning, it reinforces the original failure of strategic vision that has characterized the Iraqi and Afghan enterprises from the beginning. Once you see that Iraq and Afghanistan are battlefields in a larger war, you must figure out how to win that war, and not the one that was drawn up on the Power Points before the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom, based on the false assumption that we would fight a series of limited wars, one country at a time.
At a minimum, the real war is a regional war, and most likely a world war. That becomes obvious as soon as you see that Iran, sometimes in tandem with Syria and with covert help from Saudi Arabia, is waging war on us in Iraq and Afghanistan, and sponsoring terrorist assaults against us and our allies from Lebanon to Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine, with their preferred instrument, Hezbollah, as the organizing army. But our national debate, with the exception of rare men like Senator Santorum, is limited to Iraq and Afghanistan alone, and thus our war plan is wrongly limited to Iraq and Afghanistan alone. If we expand our vision to the Middle East, current ?hot topics? dissolve, because they are only urgent in answer to the wrong question. Instead of asking, ?How do we win in Iraq and Afghanistan (and these are foolishly treated as if they were separate issues)?? we must instead ask, ?How do we win the real war, the war against the terror masters??
Iraq and Afghanistan are part of that war, but only a part of it. And we cannot win in Iraq and Afghanistan so long as the terror masters in Tehran and Damascus have a free shot at us and our democratic partners in Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Israel, which is the current situation.
The debate over the appropriate number of American troops in Iraq is a typical example of how our failure of strategic vision distorts our ability to win the war. So long as the terror masters? killers can freely cross the borders from Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Iran in order to deliver money, weapons, expertise, and manpower, it is hard to imagine that any conceivable number of American soldiers could defeat them.
Lacking a regional strategy, our military is essentially fighting a holding action in Iraq and Afghanistan, and there is clearly a premium on avoiding casualties. Some critics have noticed that we have created large bases, complete with astonishing creature comforts including air conditioned tents and Starbucks cafes. The soldiers on those bases are rarely in the field; they wait until they get good intelligence about enemy movements, and then go after them. But that is not the proper way to fight this sort of war, and probably not even the best way to hold down casualties.
The best book I know on counterinsurgency was written by a Frenchman, David Galula, after his experiences in Algeria in the 1950s. He stresses that such a war is won or lost on the basis of popular support and cooperation. If the population supports the insurgents, they will win. Therefore, effective counterinsurgency requires the constant engagement of soldiers with the people, and a durable demonstration that we are there to stay, that once an area has been taken by our forces, it will remain so. That is also the best way to get good intelligence.
But time and again, we have moved into an area, killed lots of terrorists, and created a momentary stability, only to move on. This permits the terrorists to come back in, kill anyone who cooperated or sympathized with us, and compel the survivors to join the insurgency. The monster bases underline the distance between our troops and the people, which is precisely the opposite of a winning strategy. Galula puts the issue nicely: ?As the war lasts, the war itself becomes the central issue, and the ideological advantage of the insurgent decreases considerably. The population?s attitude is dictated not by the intrinsic merits of the contending causes, but by the answer to these two simple questions: Which side is going to win? Which side threatens the most, and which offers the most protection??
But the only way we can demonstrate we are going to win is to defeat the terror masters. Without that, the populations of Iraq and Afghanistan are entitled to doubt our ability to defeat the terrorists. And it is utterly misleading to claim that we will eventually be able to entrust the future of the war to Iraqi and Afghan forces. They cannot win a war by fighting on their own territory alone, any more than we can, no matter how effective they turn out to be.
The hell of it is that we act as if Iran and Syria were imposing regional forces, whereas they are actually very brittle dictatorships. Their tyrants are under constant pressure from their own people, and despite the run-up in oil revenues, both countries are in abysmal economic shape. The Japanese have just withdrawn their participation in a major Iranian oil field, in large part because of the high political risk.
Cheerful reports from captive Western journalists suggest that the likes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are popular leaders, but first hand accounts from ?migr?s and bloggers tell a very different story, and there are even online photographs attesting to substantial recent protests against the Iranian president. Like Ahmadinejad, Bashir Assad is not only unpopular, but has become an object of ridicule throughout the region, and there is every reason to believe that Western support for democratic revolution could succeed in both countries. Certainly, both Iran and Syria meet every criterion for social, economic and political revolution: the regimes are hated and despised, the people are suffering, and the denial of elementary human rights is a constant prod to revolt.
Revolutions rarely succeed without an outside base of support; just ask George Washington. Yet there is a regrettable tendency for our policymakers to dream that the Iranians will do it all by themselves. This is bad analysis, and worse policy. If, as Secretary Rice tells us, we do believe in spreading democracy in the Middle East, Iran is, and always has been, the best place to start. Nothing would help the prospects for a reasonable solution to the Arab-Israeli crisis so much as the downfall of the Tehran regime and its Siamese twin in Damascus. Indeed, like Iraq and Afghanistan, it is impossible to imagine freedom and security for the Palestinians so long as Khamanei and his ilk rule in Iran, and the Assad family dictatorships reigns in Syria.
But these considerations belong to a strategy to win the real war. As far as I can tell, we are very far from seeing the war plain and devising ways to win it. The first step is to embrace the unpleasant fact that we are at war with Iran, and it is long past time to respond.
? Michael Ledeen, an NRO contributing editor, is most recently the author of The War Against the Terror Masters. He is resident scholar in the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute. Ledeen?s wife has worked in the Senate Republican Conference under Rick Santorum.
National Review Online - http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MjkxYmY5MDU5Njg5MDQ3Yjg2ZTcxYTY4NDA0M2MxYTA=
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Getting Serious About Iran:
A Military Option
Arthur Herman
As the impasse over Iran?s nuclear-weapons program grows inexorably into a crisis, a kind of consensus has taken root in the minds of America?s foreign-policy elite. This is that military action against Iran is a sure formula for disaster. The essence of the position was expressed in a cover story in Time magazine this past September. Entitled ?What War with Iran Would Look Like (And How to Avoid It),? the essay focused on what the editors saw as the certain consequences of armed American intervention in that country: wildly spiking oil prices, increased terrorist attacks, economic panic around the world, and the end to any dream of pro-American democratic governments emerging in the Middle East. And that would be in the case of successful action. In fact, Time predicted, given our overstretched resources and an indubitably fierce Iranian resistance, we would almost certainly lose.
Thus, in the eyes of Time?s experts as of many other observers, military action against Iran is ?unthinkable.? What then can be done in the face of the mullahs? implacable drive to acquire nuclear weapons? Here a variety of responses can be discerned. At one end are those who assure us, in the soothing title of a New York Times op-ed by Barry Posen of MIT, that ?We Can Live with a Nuclear Iran.? (Newsweek?s Fareed Zakaria is similarly sanguine.) Others, like Senator Joseph Biden, insist that we have at least ten years before we have to worry about Iran?s getting a working bomb. According to Ashton Carter, who served as an assistant secretary of defense in the Clinton administration, we at least have enough time to explore every possible diplomatic avenue before contemplating any direct military response.
Taking a more openly appeasing line, critics of the Bush administration like Ray Takeyh of the Council on Foreign Relations and Chatham House?s Ali Ansari urge us to enter into extended engagement or ?dialogue? with Iran, with an eye toward persuading the mullahs to end or at least to modify their nuclear program. This is essentially the tack that has been followed by European and European Union diplomats for the past three years, with notably little success.
Finally there is the tougher solution preferred by the Bush administration: economic sanctions imposed by the UN. The problem here is that the more effective such sanctions are designed to be?proposed measures include freezing Iranian assets abroad and suspending all business and financial ties?the more reluctant have been France, Russia, and China (our partners on the Security Council) to go along. Sanctions that do pass muster with these governments, whose aggregate business dealings with Iran far outstrip those of the United States, are precisely the ones with little or no bite. And even watered-down sanctions, as U.S. Ambassador John Bolton admitted in a recent interview, are ?by no means a done deal.?
To a greater or lesser extent, all of these recommendations fly in the face of reality. Despite Iran?s richly developed repertoire of denials, deceptions, and dissimulations, there is ample evidence that it has no intention whatsoever of relinquishing its aim of becoming a nuclear power. Moreover, this aim may be achievable not within a decade (as Senator Biden fancies) but within the next two to three years. In September, the House Intelligence Committee reported that Iran may have already succeeded in enriching uranium; some intelligence analysts believe that it may already have access to fissionable nuclear material, courtesy of North Korea. If that is so, no diplomacy in the world is going to prevent it from acquiring a bomb.
But neither are nuclear weapons the only threat posed by the Islamic Republic. While the international community has been preoccupied with this issue, the regime in Tehran has been taking steady steps to achieve hegemony over one of the world?s most sensitive and economically critical regions, and control over the world?s most precious resource. It is doing so, moreover, entirely through conventional means.
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To put it briefly, the Islamic Republic has its hand on the throttle of the world?s economic engine: the stretch of ocean at the mouth of the Persian Gulf known as the Straits of Hormuz, which are only 21 miles wide at their narrowest point. Through this waterway, every day, pass roughly 40 percent of the world?s crude oil, including two-thirds of the oil from Saudi Arabia. By 2025, according to Energy Department estimates, fully 60 percent of the world?s oil exports will be moved through this vital chokepoint.
The Straits border on Iran and Oman, with the two lanes of traffic that are used specifically by oil tankers being theoretically protected by international agreement. Since 9/11, a multinational force comprising ships from the U.S., Japan, six European countries, and Pakistan have patrolled outside the Straits, in Omani waters, to make sure they stay open. But this is largely a token force. Meanwhile, the world?s access to Saudi, Qatari, Kuwaiti, and Iraqi oil and gas, as well as other petroleum products from the United Arab Emirates, depends on free passage through the Hormuz Straits.
The Tehran regime has made no secret of its desire to gain control of the Straits as part of its larger strategy of turning the Gulf into an Iranian lake. Indeed, in a preemptive move, it has begun to threaten a cut-off of tanker traffic if the UN should be foolish enough to impose sanctions in connection with the Islamic Republic?s nuclear program. ?We have the power to halt oil supply,? a senior Iranian official warned the European Union last January, ?down to the last drop.?
In April of this year, as if to drive the point home, Iranian armed forces staged elaborate war games in the Gulf, test-firing a series of new anti-ship missiles capable of devastating any tanker or unwary warship. In the boast of one Iranian admiral, April?s ?Holy Prophet war games? showed what could be expected by anyone daring to violate Iran?s interests in the Gulf. A further demonstration of resolve occurred in August, when Iran fired on and then occupied a Rumanian-owned oil platform ostensibly in a dispute over ownership rights; in truth, the action was intended to show Western companies?including Halliburton, which had won a contract for constructing facilities in the Gulf?exactly which power is in charge there.
A 30-page document said to issue from the Strategic Studies Center of the Iranian Navy (NDAJA), and drawn up in September or October of last year, features a contingency plan for closing the Hormuz Straits through a combination of anti-ship missiles, coastal artillery, and submarine attacks. The plan calls for the use of Chinese-made mines, Chinese-built missile boats, and more than 1,000 explosive-packed suicide motor boats to decimate any U.S. invasion force before it can so much as enter the Gulf. Iran?s missile units, manned by the regime?s Revolutionary Guards, would be under instruction to take out more than 100 targets around the Gulf rim, including Saudi production and export centers.
The authenticity of the NDAJA document has been vouched for by at least two defectors from Iranian intelligence. Of course, it may not be authentic at all. And military contingency plans are just that?contingency plans; the file cabinets of defense ministries around the world are full of them. Nor do all analysts agree that the Straits of Hormuz can be effectively mined in the first place. Nevertheless, even the threat of mines or suicide boats would likely be enough to induce Lloyds of London to suspend insurance of ships passing through the Straits, causing tanker traffic to cease, oil markets to rise precipitously, and Asian and European economies to reel.
Something like this very nearly happened in 1987 during the Iran-Iraq war, when only direct U.S. intervention kept the Straits open and the world?s oil flowing. For the United States is hardly the only country with a stake in keeping the Gulf and Straits free of Iranian control. Every country in Western Europe and Asia, including those that complain most bitterly about American policy in the Middle East, depends on the steady maintenance of the global economic order that runs on Middle Eastern oil.
But?and herein lies a fruitful irony?so does Iran itself. Almost 90 percent of the mullahs? oil assets are located either in or near the Gulf. So is the nuclear reactor that Russia is building for Iran at Bushehr. Virtually every Iranian well or production platform depends on access to the Gulf if Iran?s oil is to reach buyers. Hence, the same Straits by means of which Iran intends to lever itself into a position of global power present the West with its own point of leverage to reduce Iran?s power?and to keep it reduced for at least as long as the country?s political institutions remain unprepared to enter the modern world.
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Which brings us back to the military option. That there is plentiful warrant for the exercise of this option?in Iran?s serial defiance of UN resolutions, in its declared genocidal intentions toward Israel, another member of the United Nations, and in the fact of its harboring, supporting, and training of international terrorists?could not be clearer. Unfortunately, though, current debate has become stuck on the issue of possible air strikes against Iran?s nuclear program, and whether such strikes can or cannot halt that program?s further development. Optimists argue they can; pessimists, including those highlighted in Time?s cover story, throw up a myriad of objections.
The most common such objection is that the ayatollahs, having learned the lesson of 25 years ago when Israel took out Saddam Hussein?s nuclear reactor at Osirak, have dispersed the most vital elements of their uranium-enrichment project among perhaps 30 hardened and well-protected sites. According to Time?s military sources, air sorties would thus have to reach roughly 1,500 ?aim points,? contending with sophisticated air-defense systems along the way. As against this, others, including the strategic analyst Edward Luttwak in Commentary (?Three Reasons Not to Bomb Iran?Yet,? May 2006), argue convincingly that it is hardly necessary to hit all or even the majority of Iran?s sites in order to set back its nuclear program by several years.
But, as I have tried to show, the most immediate menace Iran poses is not nuclear but conventional in nature. How might it be dealt with militarily, and is it conceivable that both perils could be dealt with at once? What follows is one possible scenario for military action.
The first step would be to make it clear that the United States will tolerate no action by any state that endangers the international flow of commerce in the Straits of Hormuz. Signaling our determination to back up this statement with force would be a deployment in the Gulf of Oman of minesweepers, a carrier strike group?s guided-missile destroyers, an Aegis-class cruiser, and anti-submarine assets, with the rest of the carrier group remaining in the Indian Ocean. The U.S. Navy could also deploy UAV?s (unmanned air vehicles) and submarines to keep watch above and below against any Iranian missile threat to our flotilla.
Our next step would be to declare a halt to all shipments of Iranian oil while guaranteeing the safety of tankers carrying non-Iranian oil and the platforms of other Gulf states. We would then guarantee this guarantee by launching a comprehensive air campaign aimed at destroying Iran?s air-defense system, its air-force bases and communications systems, and finally its missile sites along the Gulf coast. At that point the attack could move to include Iran?s nuclear facilities?not only the ?hard? sites but also infrastructure like bridges and tunnels in order to prevent the shifting of critical materials from one to site to another.
Above all, the air attack would concentrate on Iran?s gasoline refineries. It is still insufficiently appreciated that Iran, a huge oil exporter, imports nearly 40 percent of its gasoline from foreign sources, including the Gulf states. With its refineries gone and its storage facilities destroyed, Iran?s cars, trucks, buses, planes, tanks, and other military hardware would run dry in a matter of weeks or even days. This alone would render impossible any major countermoves by the Iranian army. (For its part, the Iranian navy is aging and decrepit, and its biggest asset, three Russian-made Kilo-class submarines, should and could be destroyed before leaving port.)
The scenario would not end here. With the systematic reduction of Iran?s capacity to respond, an amphibious force of Marines and special-operations forces could seize key Iranian oil assets in the Gulf, the most important of which is a series of 100 offshore wells and platforms built on Iran?s continental shelf. North and South Pars offshore fields, which represent the future of Iran?s oil and natural-gas industry, could also be seized, while Kargh Island at the far western edge of the Persian Gulf, whose terminus pumps the oil from Iran?s most mature and copiously producing fields (Ahwaz, Marun, and Gachsaran, among others), could be rendered virtually useless. By the time the campaign was over, the United States military would be in a position to control the flow of Iranian oil at the flick of a switch.
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An operational fantasy? Not in the least. The United States did all this once before, in the incident I have already alluded to. In 1986-88, as the Iran-Iraq war threatened to spill over into the Gulf and interrupt vital oil traffic, the United States Navy stepped in, organizing convoys and re-flagging ships to protect them against vengeful Iranian attacks. When the Iranians tried to seize the offensive, U.S. vessels sank one Iranian frigate, crippled another, and destroyed several patrol boats. Teams of SEALS also shelled and seized Iranian oil platforms. The entire operation, the largest naval engagement since World War II, not only secured the Gulf; it also compelled Iraq and Iran to wind down their almost decade-long war. Although we made mistakes, including most grievously the accidental shooting-down of a civilian Iranian airliner, killing everyone on board, the world economic order was saved?the most important international obligation the United States faced then and faces today.
But the so-called ?tanker war? did not go far enough. In the ensuing decades, the regime in Tehran has single-mindedly pursued its goal of achieving great-power status through the acquisition of nuclear weapons, control of the Persian Gulf, and the spread of its ideology of global jihad. Any effective counter-strategy today must therefore be predicated not only on seizing the state?s oil assets but on refusing to relinquish them unless and until there is credible evidence of regime change in Tehran or?what is all but inconceivable?a major change of direction by the reigning theocracy. In the meantime, and as punishment for its serial violations of UN resolutions and of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran?s oil resources would be impounded and revenues from their production would be placed in escrow.
Obviously, no plan is foolproof. The tactical risks associated with a comprehensive war strategy of this sort are numerous. But they are outweighed by its key advantages.
First, it would accomplish much more than air strikes alone on Iran?s elusive nuclear sites. Whereas such action might retard the uranium-enrichment program by some years, this one in effect would put Iran?s theocracy out of business by depriving it of the very weapon that the critics of air strikes most fear. It would do so, moreover, with minimal means. This would be a naval and air war, not a land campaign. Requiring no draw-down of U.S. forces in Iraq, it would involve one or two carrier strike groups, an airborne brigade, and a Marine brigade. Since the entire operation would take place offshore, there would be no need to engage the Iranian army. It and the Revolutionary Guards would be left stranded, out of action and out of gas.
In fact, there is little Iran could do in the face of relentless military pressure at its most vulnerable point. Today, not only are key elements of the Iranian military in worse shape than in the 1980?s, but even the oil weapon is less formidable than imagined. Currently Iran exports an estimated 2.5 million barrels of oil a day. Yet according to a recent report in Forbes, quoting the oil-industry analyst Michael Lynch, new sources of oil around the world will have boosted total production by 2 million barrels a day in this year alone, and next year by three million barrels a day. In short, other producers (including Iranian platforms in American hands) can take up some if not all of the slack. The real loser would be Iran itself. Pumping crude oil is its only industry, making up 85 percent of its exports and providing 65 percent of the state budget. With its wells held hostage, the country?s economy could enter free fall.
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To be sure, none of these considerations is likely to impress those who object in principle to any decisive action against Iran?s mullahs. To some, the scenario I have proposed will seem just another instance of rampant American imperialism or ?gunboat diplomacy.? To others, a war of this kind will surely appear calculated further to inflame anti-Americanism in the Middle East, arousing the fury of the dreaded ?Arab street.? Still others will point with alarm to the predictably angry reaction of Iran?s two great patrons, Russia and China. And many will worry that decisive U.S. action will boomerang politically, by alienating Iran?s democrats and dissidents and thus jeopardizing the hoped-for eventuality of a pro-Western government emerging in Tehran.
Let me address these concerns in turn. In the colonial era, gunboats were used to intimidate helpless peoples, not countries bent on intimidation themselves and actively underwriting global terrorism. Nor does America?s immediate self-interest, ?imperial? or otherwise, enter the picture; it is Europeans and Asians, not Americans, who rely on Iranian oil and natural gas. By safeguarding that supply, and keeping the Hormuz Straits open to other shippers, we can prevent a world-wide crisis of the sort that might well be triggered by Tehran itself in the face of economic sanctions or air strikes against its nuclear sites. Predictably, those complaining the loudest about American ?imperialism? would be its most direct beneficiaries.
As for anti-Americanism in general, the specter of the Arab street has proved itself to be a chimera. If the forcible removal of an Arab dictator (Saddam Hussein) failed to produce the incendiary reaction predicted by many experts, war on a non-Arab regime is hardly likely to do so. To the contrary, it is by dragging out the crisis, and by appearing weak in the face of Tehran?s blustering and deception, that we help to consolidate the formation of a radical Shiite Crescent in the heart of the Middle East. By finally removing the head of the radical Islamic monster, the military campaign contemplated here would perform a service both for neighboring Sunni regimes and for moderate Shiites in search of political breathing room, even as groups like Hizballah in Lebanon and Moqtada al-Sadr?s militia in Iraq would begin to find themselves politically and militarily orphaned and incapable of concerted action.
Then there are Moscow and Beijing. What these two regimes want out of Iran is a return on their investments there?and, in China?s case, oil. No doubt their first choice would be to have everything stay the way it is; but clearly their second choice is to prevent Iran itself from becoming the dominant player in the region. By ensuring a continuous flow of oil from the Gulf, and leaving untouched Russian and Chinese investments in the development of Iran?s Caspian Sea fields, an aggressive military strategy could actually work to those countries? advantage.
Would U.S. action permanently traumatize Iranian national pride and alienate its democrats for generations to come? This is the worry of analysts like Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute, who on these same grounds also opposes air strikes on Iran?s nuclear installations. If anything, however, the current American policy?namely, pursuing economic sanctions?would seem likelier to produce that long-term damaging effect than would a short, sharp war to neutralize and perhaps even to topple a hated regime.
_____________________
That the regime in Tehran is indeed hated, and also radically unstable, is a point on which both advocates and opponents of American action can agree. In this connection, it is important to bear in mind that Iran is rent by ethnic divisions and rivalries almost as fierce as those that divide Iraq or such former Soviet republics as Georgia and Russia itself. Almost half of Iran?s population is made up of Kurds, Baluchis, Azeris, Arabs, and Turkomans. Unlike the Persians, who are Shiites, most of these minorities are Sunni. Thus, Iran is a country ripe for constitutional overhaul, if not re-federation. Unless the current regime and its backers are willing to change course, decisive military action could open the way for an entirely new Iran.
The key word is ?decisive.? What has cost us prestige in the Middle East and around the world is not our 2003 invasion of Iraq but our lack of a clear record of success in its aftermath. Governments in and around the Persian Gulf region are waiting for someone to deal effectively and summarily with the Iranian menace. Saudis, Jordanians, Egyptians, and others?all feel the pinch of an encroaching power. The longer we wait, the harder it will be to stop the Iranian advance.
In 1936, the French army could have halted Hitler?s reoccupation of the Rhineland with a single division of troops, but chose to do nothing. In 1938, Britain and France could have joined forces with the well-armed and highly motivated Czech army to administer a crushing defeat to the German Wehrmacht and probably topple Hitler in the bargain. Instead they handed him the Sudetenland, setting in motion the process that in 1939 led to the most destructive war in world history. Do we intend to dither until suicide bombers blow up a supertanker off the Omani coast, or a mushroom cloud appears over Tel Aviv, before we decide it is finally time to get serious about Iran?
Arthur Herman, a new contributor, has taught history at George Mason University and Georgetown University. He is the author of, among other books, The Idea of Decline in Western History, How the Scots Invented the Modern World, and, most recently, To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World (2004), nominated in 2005 for the Mountbatten Prize in naval history. Mr. Herman thanks Chet Nagle and J.R. Dunn for help and advice in the writing of this essay.
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article.asp?aid=12204030_1
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U.N. Indecision on Iran Leaves Bush With Tough Choices
BY DANIEL PIPES
October 31, 2006
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/42617
Where, one wonders, will the desultory, perpetual efforts to avert a crisis with Iran end? With a dramatic calling of the vote at the U.N. Security Council in New York? Around-the-clock negotiations with the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna? A special envoy from the European Union hammering out a compromise in Tehran?
None of the above, I predict. As the Iranian government announced a doubling of its uranium enrichment program last week, the Security Council bickered over a feeble European draft resolution. It would do no more than prohibit Iranian students from studying nuclear physics abroad, deny visas for Iranians working in the nuclear area, and end foreign assistance for Iran's nuclear program ? oh, except from Russia.
Recent evidence suggests that Tehran is not likely to forgo its dream of nuclear weaponry.
? Hostile statements provoking the West. Perhaps the most notable of these was President Ahmadinejad's warning to Europe, reported by Reuters, not to support Israel: "We have advised the Europeans that ... the [Muslim] nations are like an ocean that is welling up, and if a storm begins, the dimensions will not stay limited to Palestine, and you may get hurt." Yet more outrageously, the chief of the Iranian judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, said America stands "on the threshold of annihilation."
? A mood of messianism in the upper reaches of the government. In addition to the general enthusiasm for mahdaviat (belief in and efforts to prepare for the mahdi, a figure to appear in the end of days), reliable sources report that Mr. Ahmadinejad believes that he is in direct contact with the "Hidden Imam," another key figure of Shiite eschatology.
? The urgent nuclear program. Bolstered by the economic windfall from oil and gas sales, since mid-2005 the regime at almost every turn has taken the most aggressive steps to join the nuclear club, notably by beginning nuclear enrichment in February.
A focused, defiant, and determined Tehran contrasts with the muddled, feckless Russians, Arabs, Europeans, and Americans. Six months ago, a concerted external effort could still have prompted effective pressure from within Iranian society to halt the nuclear program, but that possibility now appears defunct. As the powers have mumbled, shuffled, and procrastinated, Iranians see that their leadership has effectively been permitted to barrel ahead.
Nonetheless, new ideas keep being floated to finesse a war with Iran. A Los Angeles Times columnist, Max Boot, for example, has dismissed an American invasion of Iran as "out of the question" and proffered three alternatives: threatening an economic embargo, rewarding Tehran for suspending its nuclear program, or helping Iranian anti-regime militias invade the country
Admittedly, these no-war, no-nukes scenarios are creative. But they no longer offer a prospect of success, for the situation has become crude and binary: Either the American government deploys force to prevent Tehran from acquiring nukes, or Tehran acquires them.
This key decision ? war or acquiescence ? will take place in Washington, not in New York, Vienna, or Tehran. (Or Tel Aviv.) The critical moment will arrive when the American president decides whether to permit the Islamic Republic of Iran to acquire the bomb. As the timetable of the Iranian nuclear program is murky, that might be either President Bush or his successor.
It will be a remarkable moment. America glories in the full flower of public opinion on taxes, schools, and property zoning. Activists organize voluntary associations, citizens turn up at town hall meetings, associations lobby elected representatives.
But the American apparatus of participation fades away when it comes time to make the fateful decision to go to war. The president is left on his own to make this difficult call, driven by his temperament, inspired by his vision, surrounded only by a close circle of advisers, insulated from the vicissitudes of politics. His decision will be so intensely personal that which way he will go depends mostly on his character and psychology.
Should he allow a malevolently mystical leadership to build a doomsday weapon that it might well deploy? Or should he take out Iran's nuclear infrastructure, despite the resulting economic, military, and diplomatic costs?
Until the American president decides, everything amounts to a mere rearranging of deck chairs on the Titanic, acts of futility and of little relevance.
Mr. Pipes (www.DanielPipes.org) is director of the Middle East Forum and author of "Miniatures" (Transaction Publishers).
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Iran offers to arm enemies of Israel with rocket arsenal
By Kay Biouki and Harry De Quetteville
Last Updated: 12:19am GMT 12/11/2006
Iran has offered to arm neighbouring countries in the Middle East with sophisticated missiles for use in battle with the "Zionist regime" of Israel.
The offer was made last week by Yahya Rahim Safavi, the commander-in-chief of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, as Iran and the US staged rival shows of military might in Gulf waters.
Clerics watch as a nuclear-capable Shahab-3 missile, with a range of 1,200 miles, soars into the Iranian sky in military exercises near Qom
During the "Great Prophet" manoeuvres, Iran's military showcased a range of rockets and missiles, including the Shahab-3, which has a range of 1,200 miles and can carry a nuclear warhead.
It also tested anti-ship missiles with a range of more than 100 miles and shoulder-borne anti-helicopter weapons. The missiles mean shipping across the Gulf is now within Iran's sights, as well as the Strait of Hormuz, through which passes a fifth of the world's oil supply.
The tests were described by Iran's Adml Sardar Fadavi as a "warning to the US", which last week held its own exercises just 20 miles from the Iranian coast.
Speaking on Iranian TV, Maj Gen Safavi said that Iran would be willing to share its arsenal. "We are able to give our missile systems to friendly and neighbouring countries," he declared.
His comments appeared to be directed primarily at Lebanon, where the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia fought a summer war with Israel, raining down missiles on the northern areas of the country. Now Iran has offered to open its armoury to the official Lebanese army, providing air defence systems that could target Israeli warplanes.
"Teheran considers this as its duty to help friendly countries which are exposed to invasion by the Zionist regime," said Iran's ambassador to Lebanon, Mohammad Reza Sheibani.
Growing military tension between America and Iran has been accompanied by a rhetorical confrontation. Vice-Adml Patrick Walsh, commander of US naval forces in the Gulf, said that Iran's manoeuvres were a "message of intimidation and fear".
Adml Fadavi, who is the deputy navy chief of the Revolutionary Guard, demanded that "our enemies keep their hostility off the Gulf".
In Teheran, growing pressure over Iran's nuclear programme ? which it insists is for energy but which America suspects is to build atomic weapons ? has left some resigned to a new conflict.
"War is a real possibility," said Ali Homayoon, 55, a clerk. "We would suffer a great deal. Iranians want to see the end of all conflicts and live a normal life."
But Republican losses in last week's midterm US Congressional elections could have a dramatic impact on American military plans for Iran and its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Robert Gates, the former CIA director who has taken over as defence secretary from Donald Rumsfeld, has a reputation as a pragmatist.
In a 100-page report for the Council on Foreign Relations, entitled Iran: Time for a New Approach, written in 2004, he argued that isolating Teheran was "manifestly harmful to Washington's interests".
"Political and economic relations with Iran cannot be normalised unless the Iranian government demonstrates a commitment to abandoning its nuclear weapons programmes and its support for terrorist groups," he said. "However, these demands should not be preconditions for dialogue."
Maj Gen Safavi was confident Iran would be ready to repel a US military strike.
"Iran has its own defence and deterrent power," he said. "It is unlikely that America will cause us problems."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/12/wiran12.xml
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IRAN SAYS NUKE PROGRAM IS NEAR COMPLETE: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday that Iran would soon celebrate completion of its nuclear fuel program and claimed the international community was ready to accept it as a nuclear state. Iran has been locked in a standoff with the West over its nuclear program. The United States and its European allies have been seeking a U.N. Security Council resolution imposing sanctions on Tehran for refusing to suspend uranium enrichment.
Levine news
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Geopolitical Diary: Russia Cooperates, For Now
Russia appeared to make some conciliatory moves toward the United States on Tuesday. Russian President Vladimir Putin directed Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to coordinate with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in drafting a U.N. Security Council (UNSC) resolution on Iran and its nuclear program. Lavrov also implored Iran to answer all of the questions posed by the International Atomic Energy Agency, while criticizing Tehran for failing to address international concerns over its nuclear ambitions. He further expressed Moscow's concern at Iran's refusal to accept the package of incentives offered by Russia, the United States, China, the United Kingdom, France and Germany.
This cooperative tone from the Russian foreign policy contingent is a marked reversal, and seems to be the product of the two meetings last week between Putin and U.S. President George W. Bush. Bush has helped to facilitate Russia's entrance into the World Trade Organization (WTO), and it appears that the bargain is paying off. However, this is Russia -- nothing is that simple.
The most help on Iran that the Bush administration can hope for from Russia is Moscow's abstention from vetoing a sanctions resolution in the UNSC. Russia has submitted amendments to the existing draft, demanding that any imposed sanctions not be punitive and that Iran be allowed to retain its civilian nuclear program. In light of the newfound spirit of cooperation between Moscow and Washington, any final resolution is thus likely to contain language of compromise on those matters.
However, there is only so far Russia will go toward the U.S. position. Moscow will protect its geopolitical interests at all costs, including abandoning the ever-closer prospect of WTO membership if the Kremlin deems that necessary. Russia is aggressively seeking to secure its own interests, whether it be through using energy as an arm of its foreign policy, jockeying for influence in Middle Eastern affairs, or targeting its own former operatives in exile. The Kremlin's goal is to distract Washington as much as possible, in order to prevent the United States from paying too much attention to Russia's internal affairs and its near abroad.
The overarching tensions between the two Cold War adversaries jeopardize any real consensus on Iran or any other issue. While Bush's breakfast diplomacy appears to be paying off so far, Russia's helpful streak will continue only as long as it is advantageous (or at least not detrimental) to Russian political and economic interests.
Certainly, Washington can -- and might -- do more to coerce Moscow's cooperation. Russia's WTO membership could still be jeopardized by Georgia, which has rescinded its signature from their bilateral agreement. Tbilisi could come to compromise on its position, however, with a little incentive from Washington.
Russia and the United States will take measured steps toward each other, always retaining the option to reverse course if their interests evolve to require it. Although Tuesday's statements suggest a degree of compromise between Moscow and Washington, they do not signal a lasting strategic consensus -- merely a tactical, and temporary, bout of cooperation.
stratfor.com
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ROCKETS TO IRAN: Russia has begun deliveries of the Tor-M1 air defence rocket system to Iran, Russian news agencies quoted military industry sources as saying, in the latest sign of a Russian-US rift over Iran. "Deliveries of the Tor-M1 have begun. The first systems have already been delivered to Tehran," ITAR-TASS quoted an unnamed, high-ranking source as saying Friday.
Levine Breaking News 11/24/06
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Russia has begun deliveries of the Tor-M1 air defence rocket system to Iran, Russian news agencies quoted military industry sources as saying, in the latest sign of a Russian-US rift over Iran.
Those bastards!
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Political news aside. This is about an Iranian TV star who is famous there for her faith and loyality to the mullahs. Now it turned out that a porn movie of her is a bestseller in the streets, with about 100.000 copies sold. The Iranians have a love for porn?
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,451449,00.html
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Geopolitical Diary: Russia's Plans for Iran
The director of Russia's state nuclear fuel exporting firm, Atomstroyexport, announced on Tuesday that his company will begin preparing to transport Russian-fabricated nuclear fuel to Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant -- which was also built by the Russians -- in January 2007. He estimated that Bushehr will become operational approximately six months after the fuel arrives in March.
The statement raised heckles throughout the West, where governments -- particularly those of the United States, France, Germany and the United Kingdom -- are attempting to slow and, if possible, stop Iranian efforts to launch a nuclear program. And since sanctioning Iran for its nuclear amibitions is the only headline item on the U.N. Security Council's to-do list, international diplomacy seems firmly on track for a train wreck.
But the picture is not nearly as clear-cut as it seems, and no player's role is murkier than that of Russia.
Yes, the Russians are constructing the Bushehr facility and making a pretty penny for doing so; yes, they are contractually committed to supplying Bushehr with Russian-fabricated nuclear fuel; and yes, in order to protect these contracts and their political influence in Iran they have threatened to veto any U.N. resolution that enacts strict sanctions against the country, particularly if those sanctions mention the Bushehr project.
But that hardly means they are enthused about the idea of Iran possessing a robust nuclear program. Russia's interests are simply better served by keeping the project in limbo.
An operational Bushehr would drastically reduce Russia's options and influence, both with the West and with Iran. Once Bushehr goes online and the Russians collect their payment, the West will no longer see Russia as an integral player in the international conflict because Moscow's commercial obligations to Tehran will have been fulfilled. Additionally, the West will not look kindly on any Russian steps to help Iran operationalize its nuclear program.
Moreover, buried in the Russian fuel supply contract is a clause that requires all spent nuclear fuel from Bushehr (which contains plutonium) to be repatriated to Russia. There is little to no doubt that Iran's nuclear agenda is not limited to civilian energy purposes. Should Iran divert such material to a weapons program, Russia would know immediately. In that case, not only would Russia have become a major contributor to the Iranian nuclear project, but it also would be shouldered with the responsibility of restraining a soon-to-be nuclear Iran.
However, so long as Bushehr is not yet operational -- or even better, nearly operational -- the picture is starkly different. The West needs Russia to use its influence over Iran to bring the country to the nuclear negotiating table. Iran needs Russia to use its influence at the U.N. Security Council to shield it from sanctions. Should Bushehr become an operational reality, those needs, and the influence that goes with them, will disappear.
Russia likes to insert itself into issues that let it meddle with U.S. interests, and the Middle East makes for a good playing field. The Iranian nuclear controversy allowed Moscow to carve out a place for itself at the table and assume the role of either spoiler or facilitator, depending on Russian interests. After gaining entry into the World Trade Organization in November, Russia began to soften its stance on sanctions and has now come up with a new draft that shows some promise of surviving a Security Council vote. (The draft conveniently leaves the Bushehr project out of the sanctions package.) At the same time, Russia has been careful not to alienate its friends in Tehran; it has repeated its promises of nuclear fuel shipments while assuring the Iranians that it will make sure any Security Council resolution on sanctions is watered down. Even though such weakened sanctions would hold little significance and be almost impossible to enforce, they would allow the United States to signal to Iran that the nuclear issue will not be ignored while the world watches Iraq.
In the end, however, Russia knows the limits of its influence over Iran; Moscow can best manage its position by leaving the Iranians -- and Bushehr -- hanging.
The only remaining question is: How long can Russia milk this?
The answer is: Longer than one might think. The original deal to build Bushehr dates back to 1995. The project was scheduled to be completed in 1999, and even the Russians have quietly admitted that the reactor core has been ready since late 2004. But because Russia has always based its decisions on politics rather than on reality, the reactor's unveiling might still be a long time coming.
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1220 GMT -- UNITED NATIONS -- Russia canceled talks on Iranian nuclear sanctions late Dec. 12 because the United States raised the issue of a jailed Belarusian politician during a closed-door U.N. Security Council session on Cote d'Ivoire and Lebanon, Russian diplomats said.
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Stratfor.com
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The following piece by a Syrian was written for what I understand to be a major Indian newspaper. Interesting.
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A bitter struggle for power in Iran
By Sami Moubayed
DAMASCUS - Much is being written in the international media about the twin elections in Iran, which take place on Friday. Some, like veteran Iranian journalist Amir Taheri, are expecting the "first major political defeat" for Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad.
One election will be for municipalities, the other for the Council of Experts (COE). This congressional body of 86 ayatollahs selects the supreme leader of Iran and supervises his activities. Members have to be experts in Islamic jurisprudence so they can debate
Islamic law, and see that the grand ayatollah does not violate the Holy Koran.
The COE can hire and fire the supreme leader, a post held since 1989 by the strong and all-powerful Ayatollah Ali al-Khamenei. It is currently headed by the old and ailing Ayatollah Ali Meshkini, who has re-nominated himself for office but stands a very slim chance of succeeding since he is supported neither by Ahmadinejad nor by Khamenei.
For this reason, Ahmadinejad has his eyes set on winning elections for the COE, which are by direct votes for an eight-year term. Khamenei, who is 66 and also in frail health, is likely to be ousted - if Ahmadinejad gets his way - before the new council's term expires in 2014.
By all accounts, the president does not like the overpowering influence that Khamenei has on Iranian politics. Some expect that if the president's list wins the elections, they would ask Khamenei to step down on the grounds of ill health.
The man earmarked to replace Khamenei by the president is Ahmadinejad's ideological mentor, Ayatollah Mohammad Taghli Misbah Yazdi. Born in 1934, the radical cleric studied in Qom and was educated in Islam by none other than Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic in 1979. He graduated with honors from the religious seminary in 1960 and worked as editor-in-chief of a anti-Shah journal called "Revenge".
He was also a member of the board of directors at an influential religious school in Iran. In recent years, he has headed the Imam Khomeini Education and Research Institute and is a current member of the outgoing COE. During the 1990s he rose to fame for seriously challenging the reformist president Mohammad Khatami, arguing that contact with the West is un-Islamic and claiming that the reformists were straying from the pure revolutionary ideals of Khomeini.
He encouraged disobedience to Khatami through his writings and sermons on Fridays, prompting the former president to describe him as a "theotrician of violence". Yazdi's day in the sun came when his student Ahmadinejad was voted to power in August 2005. To him, Western culture means "misleading ideas" and it resembles injecting Iran "with the AIDS virus".
If this man becomes the new leader of Iran, all talk about curbing Ahmadinejad's powers and re-engaging Iran in dialogue with the West will come to an abrupt end. But luckily for opponents of the Iranian president, his ambitions face strong obstacles from within Iranian politics. These have been created by the Khamenei-backed Guardian Council.
This body is made up of 12 officials (six being clerics appointed directly by the supreme leader) and has ultimate executive, judiciary and electoral authority. The remaining six members are lawyers appointed by a judicial authority, which in turn is approved or vetoed by Khamenei.
Although Khamenei originally supported Ahmadinejad's rise to power in 2005, the two men have parted on a variety of issues and the president sees Khamenei as an obstacle to his powers at the presidency. He wants - but cannot so long as Khamenei is in power - to clip the wings of the supreme leader. Khamenei, a smart man by all accounts who also served as president in the 1980s, realizes the threat coming from Ahmadinejad. That is why he ordered his supporters - all 12 members of the Guardian Council - to veto most of the 493 candidates running for elections on Friday who are declared supporters of the president.
Among those vetoed are Yazdi's son. They also banned any woman from standing for office at the CEO. All reformists running for office were also rejected because they are trying to pass an amendment in the Iranian constitution allowing non-clerics into the CEO - something that Khamenei curtly refuses as well.
Other candidates turned down include pro-business and modernizing clerics supportive of former presidents Mohammad Khatami and Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who challenged Ahmadinejad for the presidency in 2005. The very fact that Khamenei and the Guardian Council allowed Rafsanjani to run for the CEO, given his animosity toward the wild policies of Ahmadinejad, is also an indicator that they want to make life more difficult for the president.
Victory for Rafsanjani, however, is doubtful, since both Ahmadinejad and Khamenei are opposed to him, and it is rumored that he is in favor of reaching a deal with the United States on Iran's nuclear program. In short, Khamenei has engineered elections that guarantee continuity of his post as the grand master of Iranian elections. Iranian observers are saying that out of the 86 seats contested at the CEO, only 17 new members will be voted into office. The remaining 69 clerics will all be pro-Khamenei.
For the above reasons, along with a recent Iranian poll affiliated with the Rafsanjani-led Expediency Council, show that the future is not promising for Ahmadinejad. Khamenei, however, has not come out to challenge Ahmadinejad - at least not yet - and insists on being a godfather to all Iranians. He has even called on all able citizens to vote, saying that it is a national and religious duty.
Despite that, Iranian observers claim that voter turnout will be no more than 49%. The poll showed that out of the Iranians surveyed, 90% said that their support for the president had diminished over the past 16 months. This was made clear by student demonstrators on December 11 at the Amir Kabir University of Iran, when young men burned pictures of Ahmadinejad and raised slogans that read "death to the dictator".
Unable to crack down on the rioters, for fear of losing support in the upcoming elections, Ahmadinejad did not arrest or harass them. On the contrary, he released a statement saying that he was pleased by the demonstrations. They reminded him of his student days under the Shah in the 1970s when students were prohibited from expressing their views.
If he fails to control the COE, however, Ahmadinejad plans to take the municipality elections through a list of candidates headed by his sister, Parvan Ahmadinejad. Her list is called "The Enchanting Scent for Services", and it is campaigning on the same youth-related issues that Ahmadinejad touted when he was voted in in 2005. The ambitious president, however, will not be satisfied unless he wins the COE.
One might ask, how is it that this president, who surprised the world with his victory in 2005, finds himself in a difficult position today, unable to impose his will on Iranian society? Is the Ahmadinejad myth a fabrication created by the US? Is the superman president really human - and weak - after all? Perhaps the Americans concentrated on Ahmadinejad more than they should have, because the real powerbroker in Iran is Khamenei - not Ahmadinejad.
It is Khamenei who supports Hezbollah and Khamenei, rather than the president, who is stubborn when it comes to Iran's nuclear issue. Ahmadinejad is simply a figure of state who has limited domestic authority and by no means is a dictator like Saddam Hussein. He achieved victory not because of his revolutionary views, nor for his support and conviction in the Islamic Revolution, but rather because of his promises to grassroots Iranians. By rhetoric, action, dress and origin, he mirrored their plight and realities.
But Ahmadinejad promised more than he could deliver, forgetting during election time that he was not the ultimate ruler and would have to share power with the Majlis (parliament), the Guardian Council, the COE - and Khamenei.
Young Iranians, born after the revolution of 1979, had not experienced the autocracy of the Shah and were (and still are) unimpressed by the revolutionary rhetoric of the 1980s. They wanted a president who could provide jobs for the university-educated Iranians who were unemployed. They wanted a leader who could combat the 16% unemployment rate ( 21.2% among women and 34% in the 15-19 age group.)
Currently, 800,000 Iranian youth enter the job market every year and Ahmadinejad would have to double job creation efforts to meet this staggering number. This would require huge investment and an economic growth rate of more than 6% per year. Iran's economy is now down to 1.9%, after growth of 4.8% for 2004-2005.
One slogan devised under Ahmadinejad read: "$550 for every Iranian citizen", Ahmadinejad also won because he was Khamenei's man since the supreme leader did not want to deal with a political strongman like Rafsanjani. It was believed that Ahmadinejad would follow Khamenei's orders and not defy him.
Rafsanjani, however, would have worked with Khamenei as an equal. The supreme leader wanted someone he could manipulate. For the exact same reasons, he is now working against Ahmadinejad, who apparently no longer wants to be manipulated or overpowered.
Rather than criticize Ahmadinejad, the US could bide its time and see how Friday's polls play out. Change can be achieved - through evolution of the Iranian regime and its own system of checks-and-balances - rather than revolution, or war.
Sami Moubayed is a Syrian political analyst.
(Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
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Iran “Votes”
About this week's elections.
By Michael Ledeen
The first step toward understanding the Iranian “elections” is that they weren’t. Elections, that is, at least in our common understanding of the term, namely the people vote and the counters count those votes and so we find out what the people want. That’s not what happens in Iran, where both the candidates and the results are determined well in advance of the casting of ballots. Yes, people get mobilized and go to the polls and mark their ballots and put them in the ballot box. But then Groucho comes into play: “I’ve got ballots. And if you don’t like them, I’ve got other ballots.” So, as usual, candidates (featuring, as usual, the unfortunate Mehdi Karubi, the eternal loser who nonetheless remains at the top of the mullah’s power mountain) complain that ballot boxes disappeared, and new ones magically appeared, and numbers change, and counters are replaced. It’s all part of the ritual.
Which is not to say they weren’t significant. They certainly were. And, as most every news outlet has noticed, they brought bad news to the country’s madcap president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The Iranian electoral ritual doesn’t tell us what the people want; it tells us what the tyrants have decided. This time, the decision had to do with the very intense power struggle going on inside the regime, catalyzed by the recent evidence of the worsening health of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. In considerable pain from his cancer, for which he consumes a considerable quantity of opium syrup, Khamenei recently was forced to spend 2-3 days in a Tehran hospital after complaining of a loss of feeling in his feet and breaking out in a cold sweat. His doctors told him several months ago that he was unlikely to survive much past the end of March, and he seems to be more or less on schedule.
Western media, always looking for the next big celebrity, have been fascinated with Ahmadinejad, an outspoken and charismatic leader with a kind of wacky charm, especially when he launches into his Vision Thing: seeing funny blue lights surrounding him at the General Assembly when he spoke there, having prophetic visions of the elimination of the United States from the face of the earth (“Today, it is the United States, Britain, and the Zionist regime which are doomed to disappear as they have moved far away from the teachings of God”), and proclaiming his expert opinion on the errors of thousands of scholars who have documented a Holocaust-that-never-was-but-soon-Allah-willing-will-be.
Fair enough, if I were a big-time editor I’d give him plenty of attention (although I’d point out his curious taste in fashion; the guy dresses like an Israeli! Open collar, never a hint of a tie, never a hat or even a turban...). However I’d be at pains to point out that the position of president of the Islamic Republic doesn’t bestow much in the way of executive power. It’s always gone to a person who can play a largely deceptive role in world affairs. Prior to the current holder, we had Khatami-the-reformer-who-never-reformed-anything, a man who gave politically correct speeches calling for a dialogue among civilizations and whispering soft words to Western intellectuals and diplomats at the same time he ruthlessly purged anything free anywhere in the country, and presided over the murders of students, professors, and other dissidents. That was a period when Iran sought to lull the West into the arms of Morpheus, distracting attention from the real horrors of the regime and its preparations for war against us, including the nuclear program.
With Ahmadinejad, the mullahs bared their fangs to us. Convinced they were winning in Iraq, foreseeing the destruction of Israel, the domination of Lebanon, a jihadist reconquista in Afghanistan and the expansion of their domain into the Horn of Africa, they gave us the face of the unrepentant conqueror. He’s played his role well, and he will continue to play it. Just yesterday he proclaimed that Iran has become “a nuclear power,” leaving us to wonder exactly what that means. Is it the bomb? Or is it a technical advance that will lead to a bomb? Whatever it means, it’s an act of defiance, a reassertion of Iran’s will to prosecute the twenty-seven year old war they have waged against us ever since Khomeini’s seizure of power.
The war policy is not in dispute among the rulers of Iran, whether they call themselves reformers or hard-liners. Nor is the decision to use the iron fist of the regime against any and all advocates of freedom for the Iranian people. What is decidedly at the center of the current fighting within the regime — a fight that has already produced spectacular assassinations, masqueraded as airplane crashes, of a significant number of military commanders, including the commander of the ground forces of the powerful Revolutionary Guards — is the Really Big Question, indeed the only question that really matters: Who will succeed Khamenei?
We don’t yet know the answer, but recent events make it pretty clear that it won’t be Ahmadinejad. Khamenei and his cohorts staged a neat political melodrama in two acts to deliver this message. The recent protest on the campus of Amir Kamir University in Tehran was no surprise; Iran is constantly riven by public demonstrations against the regime. The news was not the demonstration, but the amount of attention it received. Why this one and not the scores of others? The answer, I think, is that this protest was covered by the official Iranian media, which made it safe for foreign correspondents to report it. And why did the official media cover it? Because it was the first move in a campaign — culminating in the “election results” — to demystify Ahmadinejad and his messianic allies, one of whom had declared himself a candidate to succeed Khamenei. So Act One was the protest and Act Two was the “election.” Maybe there will be a third act, maybe not.
At the same time, Act One served another function: it helped the thugs in Tehran identify the current student activists. “The Amir Kabir Newsletter,” as reported by the intrepid passionaria of the Iranian-American community, Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi, says that the student demonstrators have gone into hiding, most notably the student who bravely held up the sign “Fascist president, you don’t belong at the polytechnic.” Thoughtlessly, various foreign newspapers published his photograph.
This is a dangerous game for the regime to play, and the repression at Amir Kabir provoked, of all people, Italian Youth and Sports Minister Giovanna Melandri, to call for a demonstration in Rome, supporting the Iranian students. Another demonstration is scheduled for tonight, sponsored by a truly bipartisan group of young people, including Jewish organizations already enraged by the Holocaust Conference.
Alas, there is not a peep from our leaders. Silence from the White House. Silence from the State Department. As Russell Berman rightly intones at Telos, it’s just like before the (1979) revolution — with the difference Western liberals and the left sided with the democratic student movement “before the revolution.” Where are they today?
Faster, Please.
— Michael Ledeen, an NRO contributing editor, is most recently the author of The War Against the Terror Masters. He is resident scholar in the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute.
National Review Online - http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZTkyMzc5MGNkOTFlMGQxYjNkOTQzODQyMTFjODljM2U=
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Geopolitical Diary: Iran's Sudden Opportunity In Turkmenistan
Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov unexpectedly died of a heart attack on Thursday. The death of the autocratic and eccentric Niyazov -- also known by his grandiose self-bestowed name "Turkmenbashi" or "father of all Turkmen" -- provides Iran with a unique opportunity to secure its northern border and gain a stronger foothold in energy-rich Turkmenistan. But it also creates a new source of tension between Moscow and Tehran that could ultimately impact Iran's agenda for Iraq.
The fall of the Soviet Union and the birth of Turkmenistan in 1991 forced Iran to pay closer attention to its northern border. Iran, lodged between Iraq and Afghanistan, was still recovering from the war it fought against Iraq in the 1980s and the guerrilla war it helped fund against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Turkmenistan and Iran share a 621-mile border, but are split by an ethnic, historical and ideological divide that leaves the two countries with little in common, unlike the Persian linkages Iran has with nearby Tajikistan.
Iran pursued a cooperative relationship with Turkmenistan, based primarily around energy assets. Though Iran is home to the world's second-largest natural gas reserves, it had not yet developed into a major natural gas exporter, primarily due to constraints involving financing, lack of indigenous technology and political isolation. Building a strong energy relationship with Turkmenistan -- the world's fifth-largest supplier of natural gas -- would allow Tehran to use Turkmen gas to supply its domestic market in the north of the country, a cheaper option than having to transport natural gas from its closest domestic source in Iran's south. A Turkmen supply of natural gas in the north of Iran allows for a greater amount of Iranian gas to be shipped off to other export destinations for a greater profit.
To meet this objective, Iran and Turkmenistan ended up building a pipeline from Korpedzhe in Turkmenistan to Kurt-Kui in northern Iran in 1997. But this was only a small step toward Iran's grander vision to become a major energy player in Central Asia. The $190 million pipeline is about 124 miles long and has a limited capacity of 10 billion cubic meters (bcm) per year, though to date it has only supplied about half the intended amount due to the complications involved in dealing with the Turkmenbashi.
Iran's real goal was the development of a 1,420mm-diameter pipeline that would begin in Turkmenistan and run 870 miles along a route through northern Iran to Turkey, into the European market. The pipeline was projected to supply 28 bcm per year and would cost between $1.6 billion and $2.5 billion. It was a grand plan that caught the eye of Royal Dutch/Shell, Snamprogetti and Gaz de France; but in the end, the lack of international financing (due to U.S. sanctions imposed on Iran in 1996) and general wariness by U.S. investors to deal closely with the Turkmenbashi killed the project, leaving Russian state-owned energy major Gazprom to tighten its grip on Turkmenistan's energy assets.
The death of the Turkmenbashi revives the tug-of-war between Russia and Iran over Turkmenistan. The Turkmenbashi provided the Iranians with a buffer zone that kept the Russians at a safe distance. With Turkmenistan now up for grabs, the Russians will be swooping in to make the country a wholly owned subsidiary of Moscow, posing a threat to Iranian interests in Central Asia.
Iran has been following a careful-yet-aggressive strategy to broaden its influence in the region, primarily through its gains in Iraq and its development into a nuclear power. Iran's bid for the regional power-broker position inevitably involves expanding its influence in Central Asia through political and economic ties. This was heretofore done via a variety of energy and infrastructure projects, including hydroelectric investments and the building of the Anzab tunnel in Tajikistan. Iran's interest in Turkmenistan remains centered around energy relations, which Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has vowed to strengthen.
Iran does not want to see a further consolidation of Russian influence across its northern border that could end up unraveling the relationship Tehran built with the Turkmenbashi. Rolling Iranian military forces across the border into Turkmenistan to fill the power-vacuum might prove a tempting option for Iran to secure its energy interests and firmly insert itself in the Central Asian arena. Yet the Iranian military lacks the bandwidth for such an operation, and probably cannot afford to take the risk of increasing the vulnerability of its western border while the Iraq situation remains far from settled. Moreover, Iran has not been able to make any substantial inroads among the Turkmen political elite that it could use to manipulate the power struggle in its favor.
In the end, Iran knows that Russia is best positioned to influence the course of events in Turkmenistan. This unsettling reality will put a strain on Tehran's relationship with Moscow, on which Iran has relied heavily to run interference in the U.N. Security Council. The development of Turkmenistan into a point of contention between Russia and Iran weakens one of Tehran's key levers in countering the United States. Iran's main focus has been on reinforcing U.S. weakness in Iraq to consolidate its own hold over Baghdad. With the death of the Turkmenbashi, the inevitable strengthening of Russia in Turkmenistan creates a new distraction that Iran will need to deal with in its struggle for cash and resources in Central Asia. Soon enough, Russia will acquire the ability to redirect Turkmenistan's natural gas supplies to the north and cut off Iran's strongest energy link to Central Asia.
This new challenge gives the Iranians a lot to contemplate in planning out next steps for Turkmenistan. This is an issue of priorities for Tehran. The Turkmenbashi's death presents an enormous opportunity for Iran to expand its presence in Central Asia; but provoking a conflict in Turkmenistan runs the risk of jeopardizing Iran's plans for Iraq. The last thing Iran wants is to be placed in a position where it simultaneously has to fend off Russia and the United States on two fronts. Grabbing hold of a post-Turkmenbashi Turkmenistan makes for an alluring expedition for Iran to reaffirm its position as the regional kingmaker, but we suspect the Iranians will end up resisting the temptation.
www.stratfor.com
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WSJ
Persian . . . or Iranian?
By ROYA HAKAKIAN
December 28, 2006; Page A14
Holiday parties always seem to bring out the semi-inebriated men who find their way to my corner. There is, as expected, an opening line, which hardly ever leads to a conversation. But if it ever does, and if that conversation shows signs of vitality, even a dim glimmering of erudition, a rhetorical question is sure to follow. They lean into me and murmur: "Did you say you were Persian or Parisian?" They count on the tie, the long-stemmed wine glass, or the exalted titles on their name tags to make flirtation pass as ethnographical inquiry.
The "compliment" is clearly a profound insult: When an Iranian proves to be sophisticated, she no longer qualifies as Iranian. She is exchanged into a creature whose cultural currency is tangible for the Westerner. If unfamiliarity with Iran is less shallow than "My college classmate's father was the personal pilot for the Shah" (Royal Pilot number 1,654 and counting), or "Our local Eyeraynian serves great tandoori," then the real biases begin to emerge. The unveiled and urbane Iranian jars the Western mind. For the Anglophone, Iran's history begins in 1979, and the model for an authentic Iranian male is bearded, preferably turbaned and robed; and the female is submissive and veiled. Fist-throwing, frenzied behavior is a plus. The rest are simply the have-beens: exiles who are at best irrelevant, if not thoroughly out of touch. Non-Shiites need not apply.
But the Westerner is not entirely to blame. The country's presidential machinery is dedicated to convincing the world of just that. The main task of every ideology is to create identity, which is what Tehran's taskmaster-in-chief is attempting. With the symbolic Palestinian scarf around his neck in the land where public support for the Palestinian cause has been consistently diminishing, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's existential mission is to recast the ethos of being Iranian. In truth, he is peddling a pan-Islamism, by regional extension a pan-Arabism, for which neither Iranians nor Arabs have an appetite. As uranium is enriched, the Iranian identity is plundered. Mr. Ahmadinejad's numerous spectacles, most recently the Holocaust conference, are meant to bring a sense of transcultural and transethnic unity through a common political purpose. On the domestic scene, this is an old act -- a familiar blunder to annihilate Iranian nationalism, or to force it to become subordinate to the Muslim, with Arab undertones.
The effort began by Ayatollah Khomeini. He made no secret of his contempt for the non-Muslim dimensions of Iranian life. He injected Persian with so many Arabic words that it confounded the ordinary listener, something for which he compensated by repetitiveness. He did all but officially ban Nowrooz, the traditional Iranian new year with its roots in the pre-Islamic era, and refrained from delivering a traditional Nowrooz message in March 1979 (weeks after the victory of the revolution). But as popular as he was in those early days, the public's backlash against his stance on Nowrooz was so powerful that he, who rarely relented, eventually caved in. Since then, and especially as a result of the arduous Iran-Iraq war, patriotism has been on the rise. Pre-Islamic holidays are being celebrated with unprecedented fanfare. The Persian lexicon has turned into a bastion of nationalism. Numerous Persian synonyms have been invented to replace the most commonly used foreign words, primarily Arabic ones. To everyone's wonder, the new words have caught on.
Yet even the ayatollah was borrowing a page from history. The battle to define the Iranian identity, Muslim versus Persian, is an old one. Since the Arab conquest of the 7th century, Iranians have struggled to maintain their heritage through language and tradition. Though the nation fully embraced Islam, the religion of the conquerors, they made it uniquely their own by Persianizing it, which, to a great extent, marks the historical beginnings of Shiism. A leading Iranian philosopher argues that failure and loss have branded the Iranian psyche. The loss here refers to the loss of the Sassanian Persian army against the Arab Muslim army in the year 636 at Qadesiyyah -- a battle which Saddam Hussein often invoked as he unleashed his army into the Iranian territory.
The tension is also a tension between simplicity and complexity. The ruling elite wants to summarize Iran in a formula -- that of another outpost of Islamic fundamentalism, whereas Iranians have always been elusive. The best definition that a typical Iranian would most likely offer of herself is as a poem, which can only compound the enigma. But the poem serves, as poems often do, as an invitation to being recognized as complex, a notion that the Westerner allows and can easily grasp about his European counterparts. The Westerner knows not to reduce its own politics to a few eccentric leaders -- the U.S. to Jerry Falwell, the Netherlands to the late Pim Fortuyn, or France to Jean-Marie Le Pen. To reduce Iran to Mr. Ahmadinejad would be just as grave an aberration. In tangible terms, it means to scratch the nuclear surface to let the light of the other Iran shine through. It means to report the Holocaust conference along with the student demonstrations against Mr. Ahmadinejad within the same week, or the new grass-roots initiative by women to ban stoning, or the astonishing statistics released by Tehran's Office of Cultural Affairs showing a dramatic drop in the number of Iranians who pray daily.
Today, the Westerner can no longer afford to be a bystander to this historical tension. Be it policy makers or ordinary citizens, the decision on Iran will be, on some level, a vote in this ancient referendum. To choose one side or the other is a declaration of the Westerner's position on a pressing political issue; but it is also his proof of recovery from the colonial mindset. To have transcended colonial thinking is not to embrace the displays of fanaticism as manifestations of authenticity. It is to recognize all global citizens as equals, and as such as deserving of the indisputable rights enjoyed in the West.
Whatever happens to Iraq and the dream of creating a democracy in the Middle East, Iran is already going through pains of transition. Iranians are turning to the notion of civil society and moderation, not simply as political necessities, but also as ways to define themselves as distinct, and thus to pay contemporary tribute to a past that has, despite the centuries, remained a formative force in their present.
Ms. Hakakian, author of "Journey from the Land of No: A Girlhood Caught in Revolutionary Iran" (Crown, 2004), is writing a book about the assassination of Iranian Kurdish leaders.
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Second post of the morning on Iran:
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Showdown
By Kenneth R. Timmerman
FrontPageMagazine.com | December 27, 2006
The nuclear crisis boiling away under the surface for the past three years with Iran has finally erupted. Over the next three to six months, expect things to get much worse, with a very real possibility of a war that could spread far beyond the confines of the Persian Gulf. How we got here was entirely predictable – and avoidable. So is the path to a violent future.
We got to this point because the White House essentially caved in to intense pressure from the CIA and the foreign policy establishment, and refused to do the one thing that could have headed off this crisis: that is, to support the rights of the Iranian people and their struggle for freedom against this clerical tyranny. And now, it is almost – almost – too late.
The immediate trigger for the crisis occurred on Saturday, just two days before Christmas, when the UN Security Council finally quit dithering and passed a binding resolution to impose sanctions on Iran because of its illegal nuclear program.
While far from perfect (remember: this is the UN), UNSC Resolution 1737 bans nuclear and missile-related trade with Iran, and includes a short list of Iranian government entities and individuals whose assets could be subject to seizure and who could be banned from international travel.
(The United States had wanted both to be mandatory measures in this resolution, but gave in to a Russian demand to again give Iran more leash).
The UN Security Council passed a similar, binding resolution on July 31 giving Iran one month to suspend its nuclear programs in a verifiable manner, or else…It’s taken all this time since that the earlier deadline expired for China and Russia to exhaust their formidable bag of diplomatic tricks. Now even they have come to acknowledge the obvious, that Iran is using the IAEA as a foil for acquiring all the technologies it needs to make the bomb.
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad responded typically to the news from TurtleBay in New York. “This resolution will not harm Iran and those who backed it will soon regret their superficial act,” he said on Christmas Eve.
“Iranians are neither worried nor uncomfortable with the resolution...we will celebrate our atomic achievements in February,” he added.
In earlier statements, he has claimed Iran would have a big nuclear “surprise” to unveil to the world by the end of the Persian year, which ends on March 20. So unless he is just blowing smoke (and I will explain shortly why I don’t believe that he is), then we will be facing very bleak choices in very short order.
Remember, just a few weeks ago, Ahmadinejad announced to the world that Iran had completed its uranium enrichment experiments and was now preparing to install 3,000 production centrifuges at its now-declared enrichment plant in Natanz, in central Iran.
His announcement fell exactly within the timeline that Israeli nuclear experts have derived from Iran’s public declarations to the IAEA, and the on-site inspections by IAEA experts in Iran.
As I wrote after interviews in Israel this past June, the Israelis projected that Iran would complete work on two 164-centrifuge experimental enrichment cascades within six months, and that installation of the 3,000 centrifuge pilot plant would take another nine months. From then, it would take Iran twelve months more to make its first bomb’s-worth of nuclear fuel.
So far, Iran is right on schedule. This will give it nuclear weapons capability by September 2008 – just in time for the U.S. presidential elections. (And remember: this timeline is not speculative. It is based on information, not intelligence.)
Once the UN Security Council resolution was passed, Ahmadinejad’s top nuclear advisor, Ali Larijani, said the regime now planned to accelerate the installation of the production centrifuges.
__________________
“From Sunday morning [December 24] , we will begin activities at Natanz – the site of 3,000-centrifuge machines – and we will drive it with full speed. It will be our immediate response to the resolution,” Iran’s Kayhan paper quoted him as saying.
How is this possible? Well, for one thing, it is likely that Iran has been producing centrifuges in factories and workshops it has not declared to the IAEA. Worse, it may be operating a clandestine enrichment facility buried deep underground already, as many in Israel and U.S. intelligence have long believed.
The Israelis told me this summer this was their “worst-worst case” scenario. But a senior Israeli intelligence official I saw recently said the likelihood of that “worst-worst case” now appeared to be far greater than he or others had previously believed. “There can be no doubt they have a clandestine program,” he said.
And because it’s clandestine, we don’t know the size or shape of it, and therefore can’t make estimates of Iran’s nuclear timeline based on speculation and fear. But now the Israelis, the Americans and the British are beginning to understand – finally – that what they don’t know about Iran could be fatal.
After all, they are facing a president in Iran who has said that the Holocaust never really occurred under Hitler, but that he intended to carry it out himself, by accomplishing Ayatollah Khomeini’s goal of “wiping Israel off the map.”
On December 21 – just two days before the UN Security Council resolution – British Prime Minister Tony Blair gave the bleakest assessment of his entire tenure at 10 Downing Street of the threat posed to the West by the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Speaking in Dubai, he gave an unusually blunt speech that warned of a monumental struggle between Islamic moderates and Islamic extremists, and that labeled Iran as “the main obstacle” to hopes for peace.
For the first time, a key world leader actually uttered parts of the laundry list of Iranian regime misdeeds that people like myself and Michael Ledeen and Iranian dissidents such as Rouzbeh Farahanipour and Reza Pahlavi have been warning about for years.
Blair said there were "elements of the government of Iran, openly supporting terrorism in Iraq to stop a fledgling democratic process; trying to turn out a democratic government in Lebanon; floutting the international community's desire for peace in Palestine - at the same time as denying the Holocaust and trying to acquire nuclear weapons capability.”
Blair expressed surprise that despite these overt deeds, “a large part of world opinion is frankly almost indifferent. It would be bizarre if it weren't deadly serious.”
"We must recognize the strategic challenge the government of Iran poses," Blair added. "Not its people, possibly not all its ruling elements, but those presently in charge of its policy."
While all of this is developing, the United States and Britain have begun a quiet buildup of their naval forces in the Persian Gulf, with the goal of keeping the Strait of Hormuz open to international shipping.
The spark point of open military confrontation could occur in many different ways.
The Iranians, for example, might choose to get directly involved should the U.S. military aid the Iraqi government in a crackdown on the Iranian-backed Mahdi Army and the Badr brigade, two Shiite militias fueling the sectarian violence in Iraq. (A clear sign that Iran is contemplating just such a move was revealed on Christmas day, when the U.S. Acknowledged it was holding four Iranians captured during a raid on the Headquarters of Abdulaziz al-Hakim in Baghdad just three weeks after he met with President Bush in the Oval Office).
Should Iran send troops, or escalate its current level of military involvement in Iraq, the U.S. might choose to take the war into Iran, say by attacking Revolutionary Guards bases near the Iraqi border that were involved in aiding the Iraqi Shi'ite militias.
Should the United States bomb a Rev. Guards base here or there, the Iranians might choose to respond by launching “swarming” attacks against U.S. warships in the Persian gulf, or by attacking a foreign-flagged oil tanker carrying Iraqi or Kuwaiti oil, or by increasing rocket and missile supplies to Hezbollah in Lebanon to spark another diversionary war against Israel.
There are scores of ways this could happen. But where it gets us is to a direct military confrontation with Iran – an Iran which could be a nuclear power, and certainly will be a suspected nuclear power, in a matter of months, if not weeks.
And there is no easy way of walking this back. Even the insane Baker-Hamilton proposal of a direct dialogue with Iran will not get them to abandon their nuclear program, which this regime in Tehran has clearly identified as a strategic asset it is willing to make great sacrifices to develop and protect.
So fasten your seat belts. We are in for a rough ride.
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January 03, 2007, 7:00 a.m.
Iran Sobered Us Up on New Year’s
A message of nuclear proportions.
By Joel C. Rosenberg
The new year may not be so happy if Iranian leaders have their way. The Islamic messiah known as the “Twelfth Imam” or the “mahdi” may come to earth in 2007 and could be revealed to the world as early as the spring equinox, reports an official Iranian government news website. The Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) website says the world is now in its “last days.” It claims that the mahdi will first appear in Mecca, and then Medina. He will conquer all of Arabia, Syria, Iraq, destroy Israel, and then set up a “global government” based in Iraq, interestingly enough, not Iran. Such Islamic eschatology is driving the Iranian regime and helps explains why Iran has no interest in helping the United States and European Union create peace in Iraq or the region, much less in ending its bid for nuclear weapons, the Iraq Study Group Report notwithstanding.
Anticipation of the imminent arrival or “illumination” of the Islamic messiah has been steadily intensifying inside Iran since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad emerged as president of the country in June of 2005. An Iranian television series called The World Towards Illumination has been running since last November to help answer the many questions Iranians have about the end of the world as we know it. The series explains the signs of the last days and what to expect when the Islamic messiah arrives. The program also says that Jesus is coming back to earth soon as a Shiite Muslim leader and it denounces “born again Christians” for supporting “the illegal Zionist state of Israel.” An Israeli news site was the first to pick up the story and its significance to Israeli national security, noting that the mahdi will soon “form an army to defeat Islam’s enemies in a series of apocalyptic battles” and “will overcome his archvillain in Jerusalem.”
Some intelligence analysts are growing concerned by Ahmadinejad’s announced plans “to hold the big celebration of Iran’s full nuclearization in the current year.” Iran’s calendar year ends on March 20, which is the usual date of the spring equinox. Is Ahmadinejad signaling that Iran will have nuclear weapons by then? Is he suggesting that a messianic war to annihilate Israel could come in 2007, perhaps as early as this spring or summer? It is not yet clear, though Ahmadinejad today vowed to “humiliate” the U.S. and Israel soon.
The Iranian TV series is important in that it offers some intriguing clues as to how Iranian Shiites believe their prophecies will play out.
After [the Twelfth Imam’s] uprising from Mecca all of Arabia will be submit to him and then other parts of the world as he marches upon Iraq and established his seat of global government in the city of Kufa. Then the Imam will send 10 thousand of his forces to the east and west to uproot the oppressors. At this time God will facilitate things for him and lands will come under his control one after the other....He will appear as a handsome young man, clad in neat clothes and exuding the fragrance of paradise. His face will glow with love and kindness for the human beings....He has a radiant forehead, black piercing eyes and a broad chest. He very much resembles his ancestor Prophet Mohammad. Heavenly light and justice accompany him. He will overcome enemies and oppressors with the help of God, and as per the promise of the Almighty the Mahdi will eradicate all corruption and injustice from the face of the earth and establish the global government of peace, justice and equity.
The TV series notes that:
in our discussion of the world in the last days of the earth we had said in our previous editions of this programme that no source has pointed to the exact date when the Savior will appear and only God knows about the exact timing of the reappearance of Imam Mahdi....There are various versions of the exact day of his reappearance. Some say it would be Friday and the date will be Ashura or the 10th of Moharram, the heart-rending martyrdom anniversary of his illustrious ancestor, Imam Husain. Others say the date will be the 25th of the month of Zil-Qa’dah and may coincide with the Spring Equinox or Nowrooz as the Iranians call. A saying attributed to the Prophet’s 6th infallible heir, Imam Ja’far Sadeq (PBUH) says the Mahdi will appear on the Spring Equinox and God will make him defeat Dajjal the Impostor or the anti-Christ as the Christians say, who will be hanged near the dump of Kufa.”
Before the Islamic messiah appears to the world, IRIB reports, “a pious person...a venerable God-fearing individual from Iran” meets with the mahdi. This individual will pledge allegiance to the mahdi as he “fights oppression and corruption and enters Iraq to lift the siege of Kufa and holy Najaf and to defeat the forces of [Islam’s enemies] in Iraq.” It is not clear whether the program is referring to President Ahmadinejad or someone to come.
Shiite Islamic scholars also say Jesus is coming back to Earth soon. He will not, however, come as the Son of God or even as a leader but will serve as a deputy to the mahdi to destroy the infidels, such scholars say. “We read in the book Tazkarat ol-Olia, ‘the Mahdi will come with Jesus son of Mary accompanying him,’” the series explains. “This indicates that these two great men are complement each other. Imam Mahdi will be the leader while Prophet Jesus will act as his lieutenant in the struggle against oppression and establishment of justice in the world.”
“The apocalypse is a deep belief among humans regarding the end of the world,” notes the Iranian documentary.
- ne of the characteristics of the West in the current era is obsession with the end of time. Experts say discussions about the savior and the “end of time,” have not been so prevalent before as they are now in the west....They believe the Messiah [is Jesus and that He] will reappear and will establish his global rule with its center in [Jerusalem], with the help of born again Christians. This sect’s religious leaders in the 1990’s strongly propagated their beliefs in the US and European societies. In the past two years dozens of books have been published in this field....These extremist Christians believe that certain events must be carried out by the Protestants in the world so as to prepare the grounds for the Messiah’s reappearance. The followers of this school believe they have a religious duty to accelerate these events, for example planting the illegal Zionist state of Israel for the Jews of the world, in Palestine.[/i]
Too many Western analysts are missing the central importance of Shiite eschatology in Iranian foreign policy. They mistakenly believe that Iran’s current leadership can be somehow cajoled into making peace with the West. Nothing could be further from the truth. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his cadre of loyal mullahs are not being driven by the same goals and aspirations as are the diplomats in Washington, Brussels, or at the United Nations. The president of Iran and his team fervently believe the Islamic messiah is coming soon. They are convinced that their divine mission is to create the conditions for the mahdi’s return. As a result, they are committed to instigating more anti-American violence in Iraq, not less. They are determined to obtain nuclear weapons at all costs, not negotiate away their atomic research and development program. What’s more, they are deeply committed to building political and military alliances with anti-Western powers, not finding accommodation with the West.
Bottom line: The leaders of Iran are preparing for an apocalyptic war with the U.S. and Israel. It’s not a question of “if” but “when.” The sooner the White House and our new congressional leaders realize this and take decisive action to stop this nuclear nightmare, the better.
— Joel C. Rosenberg is the New York Times best-selling author of The Last Jihad, The Ezekiel Option, and other political thrillers. His latest book, Epicenter: Why The Current Rumblings In The Middle East Will Change Your Future, is nonfiction.
National Review Online - http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Nzc1YTNjZDlmZjU3MzBjMTNhMjFhNDNmYjNmNjU0NTI=
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Stratfor.com
01.05.2007
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Geopolitical Diary: A Leadership Change In Tehran?
Rumors are circulating that Iran's 67-year-old supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is entering the final stage in his fight against cancer. Though there is an incentive among Western intelligence agencies and Iranian opposition groups to promulgate these rumors -- to give the impression that all is not well in the Islamic Republic -- there appears to be some truth to the reports. Sources inside Hezbollah indicate that the supreme leader's death is not imminent, but there is a real possibility that he could become incapacitated within the year. The online political blog Pajamas Media reported on Thursday that Khamenei already has died, though the reliability of this information remains uncertain at the time of this writing.
The possibility of Khamenei no longer running the show in Tehran seriously complicates the future of the Iranian regime, particularly as the country is navigating an extraordinarily critical passage in its history. Years of careful strategizing have placed the Iranians in a prime position, where the country is well on its way to establishing itself as the regional kingmaker. Not only is Iran within arm's reach of a full-fledged nuclear program, it has seized the opportunity to work toward bringing Iraq's government and oil assets under its domain and to use Iraq as a launchpad to augment Shiite influence in the region. Meanwhile, the United States is in a quandary over how to bring some sense of stability to Iraq. Its most attractive option, a surge of U.S. troops, is unlikely to be successful and will meet stiff opposition in U.S. defense and political circles.
Though the pieces have largely fallen into place for Iran, the coming year could bring some unpleasant developments that could end up destabilizing the mullahs' foreign policy agenda. Khamenei succeeded the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini, when he died in 1989. Khamenei has since been highly revered across the Shiite world and has played a key role in moderating between hard-liners and pragmatists in the Iranian government. His death will have a shattering effect on the Iranian public, who idolize their leader and would largely view his loss as a catastrophe.
To make things even more interesting, sources in Beirut, Lebanon, report that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's days in power could also be numbered -- he could depart the political scene within the year. After his radical conservative faction suffered a bruising defeat in the December 2006 municipal and Assembly of Experts elections, the boisterous president's spotlight has waned. His original purpose, to exhibit a radical and unpredictable face for the Iranian regime, has largely been achieved in the 18 months he has been in office.
The man expected to restore order in Tehran, should these two monumental developments take place in 2007, is none other than former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who recently became the chairman of the 85-member Assembly of Experts. Rafsanjani, known for his pragmatic leanings and his track record in corrupt business practices, was Ahmadinejad's main opponent in the June 2005 presidential election. It is unclear at this point whether Ahmadinejad or Khamenei would be the first to go, but the president's fate will likely be determined by the health of Khamenei. The removal of Ahmadinejad, which could take the form of a forced resignation, expulsion by the supreme leader or a deadly accident, is not expected to take place before June. Should Khamenei survive through the summer of 2007, it is quite possible that Rafsanjani would replace Ahmadinejad as president. It might be no coincidence that Rafsanjani, in a recent talk with journalists, described a new highway currently under construction in Tehran, as the "highway of Shahid (martyr) Ahmadinejad."
The restoration of Rafsanjani to the presidency would be welcomed by officials in Washington, who see the former Iranian leader as someone whom they can engage in serious negotiations. If Khamenei's time is running out, he will want to ensure that an able figure like Rafsanjani is well positioned to ease Iran out of any potential crisis while maintaining the core foreign policy objectives of consolidating Iranian influence in the region and crossing the nuclear finish line without suffering regime-threatening consequences.
With such changes up in the air, U.S. President George W. Bush will have to play his cards carefully in adjusting his Iraq policy. Iran is anxiously awaiting Bush's next move in Iraq, but the United States will likely hold off on any major moves toward negotiating with Iran until it gets a better idea of how the Iranian leadership will shape up in the coming year.
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"Word that Adm. William Fallon will move laterally from our Pacific Command to take charge of Central Command -- responsible for the Middle East -- while two ground wars rage in the region baffled the media. Why put a swabbie in charge of grunt operations? There's a one-word answer: Iran. Assigning a Navy aviator and combat veteran to oversee our military operations in the Persian Gulf makes perfect sense when seen as a preparatory step for striking Iran's nuclear-weapons facilities -- if that becomes necessary" -- former Lt. Col. Ralph Peters, writing in the New York Post.
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IRAN: Iran could block oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for imposition of international sanctions, Basij commander Gen. Majid Mir Ahmadi said. Ahmadi said the move would be specifically directed against U.S. allies in the region, adding that Iran's strategy for the Persian Gulf is "security for everyone or for nobody."
www.stratfor.com
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RUSSIA/IRAN: Russia has completed transfers of the Tor-M1 anti-aircraft missile system to Iran, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said. The Tor-M1 is a high-accuracy missile designed to intercept cruise missiles as well as both manned and unmanned aircraft. Despite U.N. sanctions on Iran, Russia insists that the contract was in line with international law and that the system is for defensive purposes only.
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AP Exclusive: Military gear bound for Iran, China traced to Pentagon surplus sales
The Associated Press
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
The U.S. military has sold forbidden equipment at least a half-dozen times to middlemen for countries — including Iran and China — who exploited security flaws in the Defense Department's surplus auctions. The sales include fighter jet parts and missile components.
In one case, federal investigators said, the contraband made it to Iran, a country President George W. Bush branded part of an "axis of evil."
In that instance, a Pakistani arms broker convicted of exporting U.S. missile parts to Iran resumed business after his release from prison. He purchased Chinook helicopter engine parts for Iran from a U.S. company that had bought them in a Pentagon surplus sale. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, speaking on condition of anonymity, say those parts made it to Iran.
The surplus sales can operate like a supermarket for arms dealers.
"Right Item, Right Time, Right Place, Right Price, Every Time. Best Value Solutions for America's Warfighters," the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service says on its Web site, calling itself "the place to obtain original U.S. Government surplus property."
Federal investigators are increasingly anxious that Iran is within easy reach of a top priority on its shopping list: parts for the precious fleet of F-14 "Tomcat" fighter jets the United States let Iran buy in the 1970s when it was an ally.
In one case, convicted middlemen for Iran bought Tomcat parts from the Defense Department's surplus division. Customs agents confiscated them and returned them to the Pentagon, which sold them again — customs evidence tags still attached — to another buyer, a suspected broker for Iran.
That incident appalled even an expert on weaknesses in Pentagon surplus security controls.
"That would be evidence of a significant breakdown, in my view, in controls and processes," said Greg Kutz, the Government Accountability Office's head of special investigations. "It shouldn't happen the first time, let alone the second time."
A Defense Department official, Fred Baillie, said his agency followed procedures.
"The fact that those individuals chose to violate the law and the fact that the customs people caught them really indicates that the process is working," said Baillie, the Defense Logistics Agency's executive director of distribution. "Customs is supposed to check all exports to make sure that all the appropriate certifications and licenses had been granted."
The Pentagon recently retired its Tomcats and is shipping tens of thousands of spare parts to its surplus office — the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service — where they could be sold in public auctions. Iran is the only other country flying F-14s.
"It stands to reason Iran will be even more aggressive in seeking F-14 parts," said Stephen Bogni, head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement's arms export investigations. Iran can only produce about 15 percent of the parts itself, he said.
Sensitive military surplus items are supposed to be demilitarized or "de-milled" — rendered useless for military purposes — or, if auctioned, sold only to buyers who promise to obey U.S. arms embargoes, export controls and other laws.
The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, found it alarmingly easy to acquire sensitive surplus. Last year, its agents bought $1.1 million (€850,000) worth — including rocket launchers, body armor and surveillance antennas — by driving onto a base and posing as defense contractors.
"They helped us load our van," Kutz said. Investigators used a fake identity to access a surplus Web site operated by a Pentagon contractor and bought still more, including a dozen microcircuits used on F-14 fighters.
The undercover buyers received phone calls from the Defense Department asking why they had no Social Security number or credit history, but they deflected the questions by presenting a phony utility bill and claiming to be an identity theft victim.
The Pentagon's public surplus sales took in $57 million (€44 million) in fiscal 2005. The agency also moves extra supplies around within the government and gives surplus military gear such as weapons, armored personnel carriers and aircraft to state and local law enforcement.
Investigators have found the Pentagon's inventory and sales controls rife with errors. They say the sales are closely watched by friends and foes of the United States.
Among cases in which U.S. military technology made its way from surplus auctions to brokers for Iran, China and others:
_Items seized in December 2000 at a Bakersfield, California, warehouse that belonged to Multicore, described by U.S. prosecutors as a front company for Iran. Among the weaponry it acquired were fighter jet and missile components, including F-14 parts from Pentagon surplus sales, customs agents said. The surplus purchases were returned after two Multicore officers were sentenced to prison for weapons export violations. London-based Multicore is now out of business, but customs continues to investigate whether U.S. companies sold military equipment to it illegally.
In 2005, customs agents came upon the same surplus F-14 parts with the evidence labels still attached while investigating a different company suspected of serving as an Iranian front. They seized the items again. They declined to provide details because the investigation is ongoing.
_Arif Ali Durrani, a Pakistani, was convicted last year in California in the illegal export of weapons components to the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia and Belgium in 2004 and 2005 and sentenced to just over 12 years in prison. Customs investigators say the items included Chinook helicopter engine parts for Iran that he bought from a U.S. company that acquired them from a Pentagon surplus sale, and that those parts made it to Iran via Malaysia. Durrani is appealing his conviction.
An accomplice, former Naval intelligence officer George Budenz, pleaded guilty and was sentenced in July to a year in prison. Durrani's prison term is his second; he was convicted in 1987 of illegally exporting U.S. missile parts to Iran.
_State Metal Industries, a Camden, New Jersey, company convicted in June of violating export laws over a shipment of AIM-7 Sparrow missile guidance parts it bought from Pentagon surplus in 2003 and sold to an entity partly owned by the Chinese government. The company pleaded guilty to an export violation, was fined $250,000 (€193,185) and placed on probation for three years. Customs and Border Protection inspectors seized the parts — nearly 200 pieces of the guidance system for the Sparrow missile system — while inspecting cargo at a New Jersey port.
"Our mistake was selling it for export," said William Robertson, State Metal's attorney. He said the company knew the material was going to China but didn't know the Chinese government partially owned the buyer.
_In October, Ronald Wiseman, a longtime Pentagon surplus employee in the Middle East, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 18 months in prison for stealing surplus military Humvees and selling them to a customer in Saudi Arabia from 1999 to 2002. An accomplice, fellow surplus employee Gayden Woodson, will be sentenced this month.
The Humvees were equipped for combat zones and some were not recovered, Assistant U.S. Attorney Laura Ingersoll said.
_A California company, All Ports, shipped hundreds of containers of U.S. military technology to China between 1994 and 1999, much of it acquired in Pentagon surplus sales, court documents show. Customs agents discovered the sales in May 1999 when All Ports tried to ship to China components for guided missiles, bombs, the B-1 bomber and underwater mines. The company and its owners were convicted in 2000; an appeals court upheld the conviction in 2002.
Rep. Christopher Shays called the cases "a huge breakdown, an absolute, huge breakdown."
"The military should not sell or give away any sensitive military equipment. If we no longer need it, it needs to be destroyed — totally destroyed," said Shays, until this month the chairman of a House panel on national security. "The Department of Defense should not be supplying sensitive military equipment to our adversaries, our enemies, terrorists."
It is no secret to defense experts that valuable technology can be found amid surplus scrap.
On a visit to a Defense Department surplus site about five years ago, defense consultant Randall Sweeney literally stumbled upon some that clearly should not have been up for sale.
"I was walking through a pile of supposedly de-milled electrical items and found a heat-seeking missile warhead intact," Sweeney said, declining to identify the surplus location for security reasons. "I carried it over and showed them. I said, 'This shouldn't be in here.'"
Sweeney, president of Defense and Aerospace International in West Palm Beach, Florida, sees human error as a big problem. Surplus items are numbered, and an error of a single digit can make sensitive technology improperly available, he said. Knowledgeable buyers could easily spot a valuable item, he added: "I'm not the only sophisticated eye in the world."
Baillie said the Pentagon is working to tighten security. Steps include setting up property centers to better identify surplus parts and employing people skilled at spotting sensitive items. If there is uncertainty about whether an item is safe, he said, it is destroyed.
Of the 76,000 parts for the F-14, 60 percent are "general hardware" such as nuts and bolts and can be sold to the public without restriction, Baillie said. About 10,000 are unique to Tomcats and will be destroyed, he said.
An additional 23,000 parts are valuable for military and commercial use and are being studied to see whether it's safe to sell them, Baillie said.
Asked why the Pentagon would sell any F-14 parts, given their value to Iran, Baillie said: "Our first priority truly is national security, and we take that very seriously. However, we have to balance that with our other requirement to be good stewards of the taxpayers' money."
Kutz, the government investigator, said surplus F-14 parts shouldn't be sold. He believes Iran already has Tomcat parts from Pentagon surplus sales: "The key now is, going forward, to shut that down and not let it happen again."
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http://formerspook.blogspot.com/
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
What the AP Didn't Tell You
The AP has published a long, investigative piece on flaws in the Defense Department's system for selling surplus hardware and components. According to the wire service, these flaws have resulted in the sale of forbidden equipment to middlemen representing nations like Iran and China. In some cases, U.S. customs inspectors intervened and blocked the shipments. But in one instance, banned items actually made their way to Iran, through a Pakistani middleman.
Obviously, the sale of sensitive military components to potential foes is a cause for concern. But there's a lot the AP doesn't report in its story, or simply buries inside the article. For example, those illegal items that wound up in Iran? Parts for a Chinook transport helicopter, built more than 30 years ago. Not exactly state-of-the-art technology. And, the illegal transfer won't tip the balance of power in the Middle East--it will just allow some aging choppers to fly a little bit longer, carry a few more troops, or transport more cargo.
The AP also expresses concern that Iran might obtain parts for its fleet of U.S.-built, F-14 Tomcat fighters. Our Navy recently retired the 70s-era fighter, meaning that thousands of Tomcat components are now up for resale by the government. According to AP reporter Sharon Theimer, F-14 components have almost been sold--twice--to Iranian middlemen, and Tehran's efforts to acquire those parts are expected to intensify.
But once again, the AP dodges the obvious question: what would Iran gain (in terms of military capabilities) from limited numbers of F-14 parts? Not very much. Recent estimates indicate that no more than 6-8 of Iran's 60 original Tomcats are still flyable, and many of those lack functioning radars and other sub-systems needed for combat. Refurbishing Iran's F-14s would probably take our entire stock of surplus Tomcat components, and even then, it's doubtful that Tehran could achieve a satisfactory mission-capability rate (say, 80% of their jets flyable on a daily basis). The effects of time have also eroded Iran's ability to fix their F-14s, particularly at the depot level, where more complex overhauls are conducted. Without skilled mechanics, parts are largely worthless.
The same holds true for flying skills, and there has been a similar erosion in the tactical proficiency of Iran's F-14 crews over the past decade. As the cadre of U.S.-taught pilots and RIOs retired (or were purged), they were replaced by less-skilled crewmen, trained in country. The ability of these crews to prosecute a successful intercept against a U.S. or Israeli adversary is marginal, at best.
And, as far as the actual technology, there's not much the Chinese or Iranians could glean from F-14 components that they don't already know. After the Iranian Revolution, there were reports of a Tomcat (and Phoenix long-range air-to-air missile) making its way to the former Soviet Union, where it became the foundation for the MiG-31 Foxhound, equipped with the Flashdance radar and the AA-9 AAM. If the Iranians were trying to steal AMRAAM parts (or the black boxes for a more advanced radar), I'd be more concerned.
Clearly, we need to tighten our export and resale procedures for military surplus. But is this the crisis the AP makes it out to be? Hardly.
And one more thing: could someone tell me if the Associated Press was similarly outraged when the Clinton Administration approved the sale of satellite and ballistic missile technology to China in the mid-1990s? That little deal, engineered by Hughes and Loral, helped the PRC gain MIRV technology for its ICBMs. Now that was a scandal. And, more importantly, the next generation of Chinese road-mobile ballistic missiles--which benefitted from that transfer--are a far greater threat to our national security that a few Chinooks and F-14s in Iran.
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from the January 19, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0119/p09s02-coop.html
Iranians' love affair with America
The US mustn't squander the vast majority of Iranian hearts and minds that it has already won.
By Ali G. Scotten
TEHRAN, IRAN
'What do Americans think about us?" asked an old lady on the bus. That was the question most often asked of me during my three-month stay in Iran last year. Messages to the American people were also common. "Tell the Americans that we're not crazy, scary people," she continued. Her comment came after she and others had been dancing in the aisle (with curtains drawn so the police wouldn't see) while the rest of us – along with the driver – clapped as we raced down the highway. So maybe they are crazy. But in a good way.
Many Westerners are afraid to come to the Middle East nowadays, and understandably so. But it's at times like these when face-to-face contact is most crucial. As I traveled alone through the Iranian countryside conducting anthropological research, I took note of local opinions about US-Iran relations. I was heartened by what I heard.
While I'd often visited Iran as a child, the current political situation in the region made me apprehensive about taking the trip. Tensions were rising – as they still are today – over Iran's pursuit of nuclear enrichment, and there were reports in the American media of possible military action against Iranian targets.
Beyond mere hospitality, authentic affection for America
However, I was soon put at ease. After speaking with numerous Iranians from all walks of life – lower and upper class, religious and secular, Westernized and traditional, government- affiliated and civilian – I became convinced that this vilified member of the "Axis of Evil" is actually one of the most welcoming places for Americans to travel in the Middle East. Indeed, all Iranians with whom I spoke shared a positive opinion of Ameri- cans.
Iranians don't hate America. On the contrary, many of them envy Americans to an unrealistic degree and think of the US as a paradise, a land where no problems exist.
One encounters this sentiment in even the most unexpected places. For instance, when I ran into problems renewing my visa, an austere senior official at the immigration ministry offered to help. "Because you're American, I'll do this for you," he said. This was not unusual. Generally friendly to foreigners, Iranians were especially friendly to me once they discovered I was American. It was as if they were trying to prove a point. "Go home and tell the Americans we like them," the official continued. "You know, I have family in Chicago. Can you help me go see them?" On the way out, a soldier in the lobby was excited to see my passport, handling it as one would a priceless object. "How can I come study in America?" he wanted to know.
Paralleling Iranians' favorable opinions of Americans as a people, however, is their unified opposition to any US government intervention in their country. This directly contradicts what Vice President Cheney and others believe – that if the US were to attack, the population would rise up to help the Americans fight the Iranian regime. Judging from my experience, this couldn't be further from the truth. In fact, US intervention seems to be the only issue that will unite most Iranians with the Islamic regime.
We can blame the Bush administration's poor grasp of daily realities in Iran on an almost three-decade-long freeze of contact between the American and Iranian governments. As a result of this isolation, so-called experts who have never been to Iran (or at least not since the Islamic Revolution of 1979) advise US government officials on the opinions of the Iranian populace. The comment by one influential US scholar comparing Iran to a concentration camp in which people would rather be bombed than live another day under such conditions, is a glaring example of misinformation.
At a private party in a trendy suburb of Tehran, I sat down with a group of young professionals as they relaxed after a busy workweek. Iran is not like a concentration camp, they assured me. Yes, they're repressed by government restrictions, but they find ways to get around them. And the situation is certainly not to the point of rising up against the regime.
In fact, politics was the last thing on their minds – that is, until I brought up the possibility of US intervention. "As much as I despise this regime, I love my country more," said Reza, a 20-something. "If America were to attack Iran, I would be the first to lay down my life. Ask anyone and you'll hear the same."
Moderates today, insurgents tomorrow?
And indeed I did. Whether they were the village teenagers in southern Iran who took me to eat chicken kabob and drink smuggled Turkish beer in the forest, or Hamid, the opium smuggler in Bam who moonlighted as a taxi driver, the reactions were the same: Though unhappy with the Iranian regime, they would join forces with the mullahs to deter an outside attack. Listening to them speak, I couldn't help but think that these young moderates could well become the future insurgents in an expanded regional conflict.
This may be avoided if we actually listen to the voices coming out of Iran. Iranians are overwhelmingly in favor of normalizing relations with the US, but oppose any intervention in their nation's internal affairs. Forces seem to be aligning in favor of direct dialogue between the two estranged governments.
Pragmatic voices are wresting control from both neoconservatives in the US and their fundamentalist counterparts in Iran. Let's hope they win out. Opening up relations with Iran is not appeasement; it's necessary because it allows home-grown demo cratic forces to work on their own terms.
Counterintuitive as it may seem, overt US calls for regime change and direct support of dissidents and NGOs have a negative effect on Iranian civil society because they result in government crackdowns and increase popular anger aimed at the American government.
Build relations upon shared ideals
In the dispute over nuclear enrichment, the stakes are growing higher each day. If Iraq is the beginning of the end for security and goodwill toward America, then an attack on Iran would be the nail in the coffin. The tragic cost of American misjudgment regarding the Middle East was made painfully clear in Iraq, when US soldiers were greeted with roadside bombs instead of flowers. Let's not repeat that mistake.
We should take Iranian nationalism seriously when even Shirin Ebadi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, vows, "We will defend our country to the last drop of our blood. We will not let an alien soldier set foot on the land of Iran."
We cannot afford to squander the vast majority of Iranian hearts and minds that we have already won. We must instead convince the Iranian people – through displaying the courage to open dialogue with the ruling regime – that we are committed to furthering our shared ideals of universal life, liberty, and justice.
• Ali G. Scotten is a PhD student in anthropology at the University of Chicago and a former Fulbright scholar.
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Iran: Israel, US will soon die
Ahmadinejad: Be assured that the US and Israel will soon end lives
Yaakov Lappin
Israel and the United States will soon be destroyed, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday during a meeting with Syria's foreign minister, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) website said in a report.
"Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad… assured that the United States and the Zionist regime of Israel will soon come to the end of their lives," the Iranian president was quoted as saying.
"Sparking discord among Muslims, especially between the Shiites and Sunnis, is a plot hatched by the Zionists and the US for dominating regional nations and looting their resources," Ahmadinejad added, according to the report.
The Iranian president also directly tied events in Lebanon to a wider plan aimed at Israel's destruction. He called on "regional countries" to "support the Islamic resistance of the Lebanese people and strive to enhance solidarity and unity among the different Palestinian groups in a bid to pave the ground for the undermining of the Zionist regime whose demise is, of course, imminent."
Ahmadinejad has threatened the State of Israel with annihilation several times in recent months, and has recently added the US and Britain to the list of countries he says will be destroyed.
Syria's Foreign Minister, Wailed Mualem, accused the US of attempting to carry out a "massacre of Muslims" and of sowing "discord among Islamic faiths in the region."
Mualem called on "regional states to pave the ground for the establishment of peace and tranquillity… while preventing further genocide of the Muslims," the IRIB website said.
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(Romney is running for the Republican nomination for President and Gingrich, as head of the House of Representatives, was third in line for the President in the mid 1990s-- although these people are right of center, they are not considered extremists by most people--Marc)
The Israeli people are facing the threat of a nuclear Holocaust, former US Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich warned the Herzliya Conference held by the Institute for Policy and Strategy at IDC Herzliya on Tuesday afternoon. Meanwhile, he said, the United States could lose a few million people or a number of cities to a terrorist attack with weapons of mass destruction.
Gingrich, who addressed the conference via satellite from the United States, said he thought Israel's existence was under threat again for the first time in 40 years.
"Israel is in the greatest danger it has been in since 1967. Prior to '67, many wondered if Israel would survive. After '67, Israel seemed military dominant, despite the '73 war. I would say we are (now) back to question of survival," Gingrich said.
He added that the United States could "lose two or three cities to nuclear weapons, or more than a million to biological weapons."
Gingrich added that in such a scenario, "freedom as we know it will disappear, and we will become a much grimmer, much more militarized, dictatorial society."
"Three nuclear weapons are a second Holocaust," Gingrich declared, adding: "People are greatly underestimating how dangerous the world is becoming. I'll repeat it, three nuclear weapons are a second Holocaust. Our enemies are quite explicit in their desire to destroy us. They say it publicly? We are sleepwalking through this process as though it's only a problem of communication," Gingrich said.
The former House speaker expressed concern that the Israeli and American political establishments were not fully equipped to take stock of the current threat level.
"Our enemies are fully as determined as Nazi Germany, and more determined that the Soviets. Our enemies will kill us the first chance they get. There is no rational ability to deny that fact. It's very clear that the problems are larger and more immediate than the political systems in Israel or the US are currently capable of dealing with," said Gingrich.
'Time to come to grips with threat'
"We don't have right language, goals, structure, or operating speed, to defeat our enemies. My hope is that being this candid and direct, I could open a dialogue that will force people to come to grips with how serious this is, how real it is, how much we are threatened. If that fails, at least we will be intellectually prepared for the correct results once we have lost one or more cities," Gingrich added.
He also said "citizens who do not wake up every morning and think about the possible catastrophic civilian casualties are deluding themselves."
"If we knew that tomorrow morning we would lose Haifa, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem, what we would to stop it? If we knew we would tomorrow lose Boston, San Francisco, or Atlanta, what would we do? Today, those threats are probably one, two, five years away? Although you can't be certain when our enemies will break out," he warned.
Earlier, Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, said that Islamic jihadism was "the nightmare of this century."
"The war in Lebanon demonstrated that Israel is facing a jihadist threat that runs through Tehran, to Damascus, to Gaza. Hizbullah are not fighting for the coming into being of a Palestinian state, but for the going out of being of the Israeli state," he said.
Romney emphasized that Iran could not be compared to the former Soviet threat, because the Islamic Republic was following a suicidal path. "For all of the Soviets' deep flaws, they were never suicidal. Soviet commitment to national survival was never in question. That assumption cannot be made to an irrational regime (Iran) that celebrates martyrdom," he said.
The former governor called for the utilization of the widespread opposition held by the Iranian people to their own regime, in order to facilitate regime change, while also adding that "the military option remains on the table."
"Iran must be stopped. Iran can be stopped," Romney declared, receiving applause.
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Newt Gingrich is the only one saying, "we have to ask ourselves can we live with a nuclear Iran or not?" If we agree that we can't we have no option other than military.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070126/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iran_nuclear_3
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Europe Resists U.S. Push to Curb Iran Ties
NY Times
Published: January 30, 2007
WASHINGTON, Jan. 29 — European governments are resisting Bush administration demands that they curtail support for exports to Iran and that they block transactions and freeze assets of some Iranian companies, officials on both sides say. The resistance threatens to open a new rift between Europe and the United States over Iran.
Administration officials say a new American drive to reduce exports to Iran and cut off its financial transactions is intended to further isolate Iran commercially amid the first signs that global pressure has hurt Iran’s oil production and its economy. There are also reports of rising political dissent in Iran.
In December, Iran’s refusal to give up its nuclear program led the United Nations Security Council to impose economic sanctions. Iran’s rebuff is based on its contention that its nuclear program is civilian in nature, while the United States and other countries believe Iran plans to make weapons.
At issue now is how the resolution is to be carried out, with Europeans resisting American appeals for quick action, citing technical and political problems related to the heavy European economic ties to Iran and its oil industry.
“We are telling the Europeans that they need to go way beyond what they’ve done to maximize pressure on Iran,” said a senior administration official. “The European response on the economic side has been pretty weak.” The American demands and European responses were provided by 10 different officials, including both supporters and critics of the American approach.
One irony of the latest pressure, European and American officials say, is that on their own, many European banks have begun to cut back their transactions with Iran, partly because of a Treasury Department ban on using dollars in deals involving two leading Iranian banks.
American pressure on European governments, as opposed to banks, has been less successful, administration and European officials say.
The main targets are Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Austria, the Netherlands, Sweden and Britain, all with extensive business dealings with Iran, particularly in energy. Administration officials say, however, that Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, the current head of the European Union, has been responsive.
Europe has more commercial and economic ties with Iran than does the United States, which severed relations with Iran after the revolution and seizure of hostages in 1979.
The administration says that European governments provided $18 billion in government loan guarantees for Iran in 2005. The numbers have gone down in the last year, but not by much, American and European officials say.
American officials say that European governments may have facilitated illicit business and that European governments must do more to stop such transactions. Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. has said the United States has shared with Europeans the names of at least 30 front companies involved in terrorism or weapons programs.
“They’ve told us they don’t have the tools,” said a senior American official. “Our answer is: get them.”
“We want to squeeze the Iranians,” said a European official. “But there are varying degrees of political will in Europe about turning the thumbscrews. It’s not straightforward for the European Union to do what the United States wants.”
Another European official said: “We are going to be very cautious about what the Treasury Department wants us to do. We can see that banks are slowing their business with Iran. But because there are huge European business interests involved, we have to be very careful.”
European officials argue that beyond the political and business interests in Europe are legal problems, because European governments lack the tools used by the Treasury Department under various American statutes to freeze assets or block transactions based on secret intelligence information.
A week ago, on Jan. 22, European foreign ministers met in Brussels and adopted a measure that might lead to laws similar to the economic sanctions, laws and presidential directives used in the United States, various officials say. But it is not clear how far those laws will reach once they are adopted.
The American effort to press Iran economically is of a piece with its other forms of pressure on Iran, including the arrest of Iranian operatives in Iraq and sending American naval vessels to the Persian Gulf.
American officials refuse to rule out military action. On Monday, President Bush said in an interview with National Public Radio that the United States would “respond firmly” if Iran engages in violence in Iraq, but that he did not mean “that we’re going to invade Iran.”
Several European officials said in interviews that they believe that the United States and Saudi Arabia have an unwritten deal to keep oil production up, and prices down, to further squeeze Iran, which is dependent on oil for its economic solvency. No official has confirmed that such a deal exists.
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The Bush administration has called on Europe to do more economically as part of a two-year-old trans-Atlantic agreement in which the United States agreed to support European efforts to negotiate a resolution of the crisis over Iran’s nuclear program.
Typically, American officials say, European companies that do business with Iran get loans from European banks and then get European government guarantees for the loans on the ground that such transactions are risky in nature.
According to a document used in the discussions between Europe and the United States, which cites the International Union of Credit and Investment Insurers, the largest providers of such credits in Europe in 2005 were Italy, at $6.2 billion; Germany, at $5.4 billion; France, at $1.4 billion; and Spain and Austria, at $1 billion each.
In addition to buying oil from Iran, European countries export machinery, industrial equipment and commodities, which they say have no military application. Europeans also say that courts have overturned past efforts to stop business dealings based on secret information.
At least five Iranian banks have branches in Europe that have engaged in transactions with European banks, American and European officials say.
The five include Bank Saderat, cited last year by the United States as being involved in financing terrorism by Hezbollah and others, and Bank Sepah, cited this month as involved in ballistic missile programs.
A directory of the American Bankers Association lists Bank Sepah as having $10 billion in assets and equity of $1 billion in 2004. It has branches in Frankfurt, Paris, London and Rome. The United States Embassy in Rome has called it the preferred bank of Iran’s ballistic missile program, with a record of transactions involving Italian and other banks.
Bank Saderat had assets of $18 billion and equity of $1 billion in 2004, according to the American Bankers directory. Three other Iranian banks — Bank Mellat, Bank Melli and Bank Tejarat — have not been cited as involved in any illicit activities, but many European officials say they expect the Treasury Department to move against them eventually.
European officials say that the European Commission will meet in mid-February and approve a measure paving the way for freezing assets and blocking bank transactions for the 10 Iranian companies and 12 individuals cited in an appendix of Security Council Resolution 1737, adopted in December.
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First my comment on the above (Europe balking on Iran sanctions): If these are our best allies, why would they expect anything other than go-it-alone strategies from America - on anything???
I don't know enough to have a complete opinion, but I visualize a timely strike on Iran's nuclear facilities (and North Korea for that matter) comparable to Israel's attack on Iraq's Ozirak facility in June, 1981. Like the Iraq war, I haven't done thorough analysis or planning for the aftermath.
Victor Davis Hanson wrote a couple of columns on Iran last month, one in particular arguing against military intervention, at least for now. "Neither immediate military intervention nor dialogue with Iran is the answer."
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/12/irans_ahmadinejad_far_weaker_t.html
December 28, 2006
Iran's Ahmadinejad Far Weaker Than He Lets On
By Victor Davis Hanson
The Iraq Study Group, prominent U.S. Senators and realist diplomats all want America to hold formal talks with the government of Iran. They think Tehran might help the United States disengage from Iraq and the general Middle East mess with dignity. That would be a grave error for a variety of reasons - the most important being that Iran is far shakier than we are.
The world of publicity-hungry Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not expanding, but shrinking. Despite his supposedly populist credentials, his support at home and abroad will only further weaken as long as the United States continues its steady, calm and quiet pressure on him.
In Iran's city council elections last week, moderate conservative and reformist candidates defeated Ahmadinejad's vehemently anti-American slate of allies. At a recent public meeting, angry Iranian students - tired of theocratic lunacy and repression - shouted down their president.
By supporting terrorists in Iraq and Lebanon, enriching uranium and insanely threatening to destroy a nuclear Israel, Ahmadinejad is only alienating Iranians, who wonder where their once vast oil revenues went and how they can possibly pay for all these wild adventures.
Meanwhile, Ahmadinejad has invested little in the source of his wealth - the oil infrastructure of Iran. Soon, even the country's once-sure oil revenues will start to decline. And that could be sooner than he thinks if the United Nations were to expand its recent economic sanctions in response to Ahmadinejad's flagrant violation of nuclear non-proliferation accords.
So, as Iranians worry that their nation is becoming an international pariah and perhaps heading down the path of bankruptcy in the process, now is not the time for America to give in by offering direct talks with Ahmadinejad. That propaganda victory would only help him reclaim the legitimacy and stature that he is losing with his own people at home.
Better models to follow instead are our past long-term policies toward Muammar el-Qaddafi's Libya and the Soviet Union of the 1980s. As long as Libya sponsored terrorism and attacked Westerners, we kept clear, and boycotted the regime. Only in 2003, when the Libyans unilaterally gave up a substantial program of weapons of mass destruction, agreed not to violate nuclear proliferation accords and renounced terrorism did we agree to normalize relations.
In other words, "talking with" or "engaging" Libya did not bring about this remarkable change in attitude within the Libyan government. In contrast, tough American principles, economic coercion, ostracism and patience finally did.
The United States always maintained open channels with the Soviet Union. After all - unlike with Iran or Libya - we had little choice when thousands of nukes were pointed at us and Red Army troops were massed on the West German border.
But Ronald Reagan nevertheless embraced a radical shift in U.S. policy by actively appealing to Russian dissidents. He used the bully pulpit to expose the barbarity of the "evil empire" in the world court of ideas. All the while, Reagan further enhanced America's military advantage over the Soviets to speed the regime's collapse.
After the fall, courageous Russian dissidents from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn to Natan Sharansky did not applaud Jimmy Carter, who had smugly pronounced the end of his own "inordinate fear" of such a murderous ideology. Instead, they preferred Reagan, who had challenged Soviet Premier Michael Gorbachev "to tear down" the Berlin Wall. America came out ahead when we were on the side of people yearning for change rather than coddling the regime trying to stop it.
The larger Middle East that surrounds Iran is in the throes of a messy, violent three-stage transition: from dictatorship to radicalism and chaos to constitutional government. Thugs and terrorists like Ahmadinejad ("We did not have a revolution in order to have democracy") want it to stop and return to the old world before Sept. 11.
In similar fashion, there are also terrible aftershocks in Afghanistan and Iraq, but the old authoritarian rules of Saddam and the Taliban are over. So perhaps is the Syrian colonization of Lebanon. Yasser Arafat is gone in the Middle East, and his successors are fighting each other more than they are Israel.
In all this chaos - which will take years to settle - the United States needs to stick to its principles. Neither immediate military intervention nor dialogue with Iran is the answer. Instead, we must just keep up the pressure on the trash-talking Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is far weaker than he lets on.
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Hi Doug,
***In all this chaos - which will take years to settle - the United States needs to stick to its principles. Neither immediate military intervention nor dialogue with Iran is the answer. Instead, we must just keep up the pressure on the trash-talking Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is far weaker than he lets on***
The only problem with this is that Iran's leadership is moving ahead with nuclear weapons. They didn't build neafly nucler explosion proof bunkers for any other reason.
I am not so sure that recent criticsims of Ahmadenjad was that procuring nuclear weapons is crazy but only that telegraphing their intent to the world along with pubically announcing his supreme desire to destroy the Jews of Israel is crazy. the wiseer policy would have been to quietly go about your intentions.
I still see absolutely no option other than the military one. Once Iran's leadership gets the nucs the game is completely changed and even more dangerous in my arm chair, middle class opinion. Exactly why do any of these people think waiting till Iran has the military capability to cause a second holocaust (3 nucs will suffice - as Gingrich points out - look at the map of Israel and one can easily see this) is *less* dangerous than taking action before to prevent precisely this?
Yes I know we risk losing Pakistan, and Sunni Arab countries but we are talking existential threat to Israel. I still think Israel will either have to go it alone or before Hillary replaces Bush. Once the Dems win the Whitehouse forget about it. It will be Jimmy Carter all over again - unless it is a Dem like Joe Leiberman - one of the bravest most decent politicians I can think of. I would vote for him in heartbeat if he ran.
They have already secured anitaircraft missles from Russia who along with China are probably delighted at our being bogged down with the radical Muslims. I wonder what was behind the Israelis' letting it go public that they are conducting practice military exercises with Jet pilots to bomb Iran's nuc facilities with the idea they could soften the bunkers with one kiloton nuclear devices before unleashing a second wave of conventioinal bombs. Was it simply a leak of secret info. by a political dissident or bribes official.
Was this release of information supposed to be some sort of threat that it means business. Or was it really a measure designed to camoflouge the real military options such as the use of cruise missles, not jets. I can't believe the Israeli military would be that stupid to telegraph their means.
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Hi Doug,
***In all this chaos - which will take years to settle - the United States needs to stick to its principles. Neither immediate military intervention nor dialogue with Iran is the answer. Instead, we must just keep up the pressure on the trash-talking Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is far weaker than he lets on***
The only problem with this is that Iran's leadership is moving ahead with nuclear weapons. They didn't build neafly nucler explosion proof bunkers for any other reason.
I am not so sure that recent criticsims of Ahmadenjad was that procuring nuclear weapons is crazy but only that telegraphing their intent to the world along with pubically announcing his supreme desire to destroy the Jews of Israel is crazy. the wiseer policy would have been to quietly go about your intentions.
I still see absolutely no option other than the military one. Once Iran's leadership gets the nucs the game is completely changed and even more dangerous in my arm chair, middle class opinion. Exactly why do any of these people think waiting till Iran has the military capability to cause a second holocaust (3 nucs will suffice - as Gingrich points out - look at the map of Israel and one can easily see this) is *less* dangerous than taking action before to prevent precisely this?
Yes I know we risk losing Pakistan, and Sunni Arab countries but we are talking existential threat to Israel. I still think Israel will either have to go it alone or before Hillary replaces Bush. Once the Dems win the Whitehouse forget about it. It will be Jimmy Carter all over again - unless it is a Dem like Joe Leiberman - one of the bravest most decent politicians I can think of. I would vote for him in heartbeat if he ran.
They have already secured anitaircraft missles from Russia who along with China are probably delighted at our being bogged down with the radical Muslims. I wonder what was behind the Israelis' letting it go public that they are conducting practice military exercises with Jet pilots to bomb Iran's nuc facilities with the idea they could soften the bunkers with one kiloton nuclear devices before unleashing a second wave of conventioinal bombs. Was it simply a leak of secret info. by a political dissident or bribes official.
Was this release of information supposed to be some sort of threat that it means business. Or was it really a measure designed to camoflouge the real military options such as the use of cruise missles, not jets. I can't believe the Israeli military would be that stupid to telegraph their means.
-
Hi Doug,
***In all this chaos - which will take years to settle - the United States needs to stick to its principles. Neither immediate military intervention nor dialogue with Iran is the answer. Instead, we must just keep up the pressure on the trash-talking Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is far weaker than he lets on***
The only problem with this is that Iran's leadership is moving ahead with nuclear weapons. They didn't build neafly nucler explosion proof bunkers for any other reason.
I am not so sure that recent criticsims of Ahmadenjad was that procuring nuclear weapons is crazy but only that telegraphing their intent to the world along with pubically announcing his supreme desire to destroy the Jews of Israel is crazy. the wiseer policy would have been to quietly go about your intentions.
I still see absolutely no option other than the military one. Once Iran's leadership gets the nucs the game is completely changed and even more dangerous in my arm chair, middle class opinion. Exactly why do any of these people think waiting till Iran has the military capability to cause a second holocaust (3 nucs will suffice - as Gingrich points out - look at the map of Israel and one can easily see this) is *less* dangerous than taking action before to prevent precisely this?
Yes I know we risk losing Pakistan, and Sunni Arab countries but we are talking existential threat to Israel. I still think Israel will either have to go it alone or before Hillary replaces Bush. Once the Dems win the Whitehouse forget about it. It will be Jimmy Carter all over again - unless it is a Dem like Joe Leiberman - one of the bravest most decent politicians I can think of. I would vote for him in heartbeat if he ran.
They have already secured anitaircraft missles from Russia who along with China are probably delighted at our being bogged down with the radical Muslims. I wonder what was behind the Israelis' letting it go public that they are conducting practice military exercises with Jet pilots to bomb Iran's nuc facilities with the idea they could soften the bunkers with one kiloton nuclear devices before unleashing a second wave of conventioinal bombs. Was it simply a leak of secret info. by a political dissident or bribes official.
Was this release of information supposed to be some sort of threat that it means business. Or was it really a measure designed to camoflouge the real military options such as the use of cruise missles, not jets. I can't believe the Israeli military would be that stupid to telegraph their means.
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Well, at this moment it's OK with me that I'm not the President. These are murky and dangerous waters indeed!
With the freedom of contemplation available only to those whose thoughts are of no consequence, I wonder sometimes about a notion I read that the real problem was that Iran had the money to proceed because of oil and that therefore we should take the militarily simple step of destroying their oil refineries.
China, a major/the main buyer from Iran, would not be happy and that needs careful thought. Something to offset perhaps?
Anyway, picture the pressures within Iran in the absence of oil money-- and how the absence of money might bring the nuke program to a halt.
Just a thought , , ,
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About ElBaradei co-winner of a Nobel Peace prize and head of the IAEA whose officials suggest Iran's goal may not be to develop the nuclear weapons just have all the components and the capability to be able to do so in weeks or months - what the heck is that logic? Sounds a lot like they are denying the obvious for reasons of which I cannot be clear from this armchair.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohamed_ElBaradei
***picture the pressures within Iran in the absence of oil money-- and how the absence of money might bring the nuke program to a halt***
It seems like one short term option - but has not worked till now.
The head of US intelligence thinks Iran is 4 to ten yrs away. Others say less. And who knows how much is speculation, how much is political, etc. So far it seems Iran will continue to have alternate sources of money like China and Russia who seem quite happy to keep the US bogged down with this. Some (at least) in the military consider China, not Al Qaeda, no longer Russia our biggest military threat. While Clinton was cruising the world stage with handshakes, photo ops, exporting peace and love we were (probably still are) having military/space secrets stolen by Chinese, allowing Muslim radicals groups to grow, and expecting that if we just chat nice with the world they will love us.
Only time will tell.
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This WSJ piece from a couple of weeks ago is about the greater Middle East, but I thought I would attach it here as it applies to the Iran question. I don't get the idea that the author is fond of Bush, the surge or the war, but argues that we have accidently stumbled into an outcome where the struggles each side faces causes them to require alliance and cooperation of the US. I offer his view FWIW.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110009521
Two Alliances
President Bush has managed to divide and conquer the Middle East.
BY EDWARD N. LUTTWAK
Sunday, January 14, 2007 12:01 a.m. EST
It was the hugely ambitious project of the Bush administration to transform the entire Middle East by remaking Iraq into an irresistible model of prosperous democracy. Having failed in that worthy purpose, another, more prosaic result has inadvertently been achieved: divide and rule, the classic formula for imperial power on the cheap. The ancient antipathy between Sunni and Shiite has become a dynamic conflict, not just within Iraq but across the Middle East, and key protagonists on each side seek the support of American power. Once the Bush administration realizes what it has wrought, it will cease to scramble for more troops that can be sent to Iraq, because it has become pointless to patrol and outpost a civil war, while a mere quarter or less of the troops already there are quite enough to control the outcome. And that is just the start of what can now be achieved across the region with very little force, and some competent diplomacy.
On Dec. 4, 2006, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, head of Iraq's largest political party, went to the White House to plead his case with President Bush. The son of an ayatollah, and himself a lifelong militant cleric, Mr. Hakim is hardly a natural partner for the U.S.--while living in Iran for 23 years he must have declaimed "death to America" on many an occasion. But as the chief leader of Iraq's Arab Shiite population, he has no choice. Each day brings deadly Sunni attacks, and just as the Sunnis are strengthened by volunteers and money from outside Iraq, the Shiites, too, need all the help they can get, especially American military training for the Shiite-dominated army and police. For President Bush, the visiting Mr. Hakim brought welcome promises of cooperation against his aggressive Shiite rival Moqtada al-Sadr as well as the Sunni insurgents. It no longer even seems strange that the best ally of the U.S. in Iraq is Mr. Hakim's party, the Sciri: the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, whose very title evokes the Iranian model of radically anti-Western theocracy.
Just as the Sunni threat to majority rule in Iraq is forcing Sciri to cooperate with the U.S., the prospect of a Shiite-dominated Iraq is forcing Sunni Arab states, especially Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and Jordan, to seek American help against the rising power of the Shiites. Some Sunnis viewed Iran with suspicion even when it was still under the conservative rule of the shah, in part because its very existence as the only Shiite state could inspire unrest among the oppressed Shiite populations of Arabia. More recently, the nearby Sunni Arab states have been increasingly worried by the military alliance between Iran, Syria and the Hezbollah of Lebanon. But now that a Shiite-ruled Iraq could add territorial contiguity to the alliance, forming a "Shiite crescent" extending all the way from Pakistan to the Mediterranean, it is not only the Sunnis of nearby Arabia that feel very seriously threatened. The entire order of Muslim orthodoxy is challenged by the expansion of heterodox Shiite rule.
Although it was the U.S. that was responsible for ending Sunni supremacy in Iraq along with Saddam Hussein's dictatorship, it remains the only possible patron for the Sunni Arab states resisting the Shiite alliance. Americans have no interest in the secular-sectarian quarrel, but there is a very real convergence of interests with the Sunni Arab states because Iran is the main enemy for both.
At this moment, it is in Lebanon that the new Sunni-U.S. alliance has become active. With continuing mass demonstrations and threatening speeches, the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is trying to force the government of Prime Minister Fuad Siniora to give way to a new coalition which he can dominate. Syria and Iran are supporting Mr. Nasrallah, while the U.S. is backing Mr. Siniora. He has the support of the Druze and of most Christians as well, but it is also very much as a Sunni leader that Mr. Siniora is firmly resisting so far. That has gained him the financial backing of Saudi Arabia, which is funding Sunni counterdemonstrations and has even tried to co-opt Hezbollah, among other things. It was in their Arab identity that Hezbollah claimed heroic status because they were not routed by the Israelis in the recent fighting, but evidently many Sunni Arabs in and out of Lebanon view them instead as Shiite sectarians, far too obedient to non-Arab Iran. That suits the U.S., for Iran and Hezbollah are its enemies, too.
The Sunni-U.S. alignment in Lebanon, which interestingly coexists with the U.S.-Shiite alliance in Iraq, may yet achieve results of strategic importance if Syria is successfully detached from its alliance with Iran. Originally it was a necessary alliance for both countries because Saddam's Iraq was waging war on Iran, and periodically tried to overthrow the Assad regime of Syria. Now that Iraq is no longer a threat to either country, Iran still needs Syria as a bridge to Hezbollah, but for Syria the alliance is strategically obsolete, as well as inconsistent with the country's Arab identity. True, Syria is ruled primarily by members of the Alawite sect that is usually classified as a Shiite offshoot. But that extremely heterodox faith (it has Christmas and the transmigration of souls) is far different from the Shiism of Iraq, Lebanon or Iran--where it would be persecuted; and besides, at least 70% of Syrians are Sunnis. That may explain why the Syrian regime has not used its full influence to overthrow Mr. Siniora: His stand against the Shiite Hezbollah resonates with his fellow Sunnis of Syria. But another reason may be the promise of substantial aid and investment from Saudi Arabia and the Emirates for Syria's needy economy, if the regime diminishes its alliance with Iran and Hezbollah, or better, ends it altogether. The U.S., for its part, is no longer actively driving Syria into the arms of the Iranians by threatening a march on Damascus, while even the unofficial suggestions of negotiations by the Iraq Study Group made an impression, judging by some conciliatory Syrian statements.
The U.S.-Sunni alliance, which is a plain fact in Lebanon, is still only tentative over Syria; but it would be greatly energized if Iran were successfully deprived of its only Arab ally. At the same time, the U.S.-Shiite alliance in Iraq has been strengthened in the wake of Mr. Hakim's visit. The Sunni insurgency is undiminished, but at least other Shiite groups are jointly weakening the only actively anti-American Shiite faction headed by Mr. Sadr.
When the Bush administration came into office, only Egypt and Jordan were functioning allies of the U.S. Iran and Iraq were already declared enemies, Syria was hostile, and even its supposed friends in the Arabian peninsula were so disinclined to help that none did anything to oppose al Qaeda. Some actively helped it, while others knowingly allowed private funds to reach the terrorists whose declared aim was to kill Americans.
The Iraq war has indeed brought into existence a New Middle East, in which Arab Sunnis can no longer gleefully disregard American interests because they need help against the looming threat of Shiite supremacy, while in Iraq at the core of the Arab world, the Shia are allied with the U.S. What past imperial statesmen strove to achieve with much cunning and cynicism, the Bush administration has brought about accidentally. But the result is exactly the same.
Mr. Luttwak, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is the author of "Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace" (Belknap, 2002).
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Iran, U.S.: Working Toward a Solution?
Summary
An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said Jan. 28 that Tehran had received messages from U.S. officials aimed at resolving the ongoing crisis between Washington and Tehran. Though Washington has kept quiet on the issue, the Iranians are likely following a strategy to lock the United States down in back-channel negotiations over Iraq.
Analysis
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Seyed Mohammad Ali Hosseini said at a weekly press conference in Tehran on Jan. 28 that Iran is pondering a message received from certain U.S. officials and politicians. Hosseini was intentionally vague on the details of the letter, only saying that the contents "will be divulged in due time," and that the names of the U.S. officials who had sent the message could not yet be revealed. The United States has not officially commented on the issue, although a spokesman from the U.S. National Security Council told Stratfor that the White House has nothing that would confirm that U.S. officials have sent a message to Iran.
Stratfor has discussed at length the logic behind U.S. President George W. Bush's troop surge strategy for Iraq. The United States is moving forward with a plan to bolster its negotiating position in relation to Iran. This plan involves reversing the expectations that the United States is left with no option but to admit defeat and withdraw its forces, and keeping the Iranians second-guessing about any U.S. and Israeli plans to take military action against Iran.
In the public sphere, the Bush administration will maintain a hard-line stance against Iran and make clear that U.S. forces will counter the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Qods Force's operations in Iraq by conducting raids and arresting Iranian officials involved in aggravating the Iraq insurgency. The troop surge has already been effective to some extent in bringing rebel Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr to the negotiating table. In spite of considerable restraint from Russia and China, the United States will also make a push in the U.N. Security Council to enforce sanctions against Iran for its insistence on pressing forward with uranium enrichment.
Behind the scenes, however, the United States is likely revitalizing back-channel talks with Tehran to work toward a diplomatic resolution on Iraq. The Bush administration typically communicates with Iran via unofficial channels to maintain plausible deniability and to check Iranian moves to exploit Washington's call for talks. With Iran facing potential troubles of its own should Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei pass away, Washington is hoping this two-pronged approach will hasten negotiations and allow Bush to claim progress in Iraq by November.
By publicizing the alleged letter from U.S. officials, Iran is ensuring that Washington follows through with any commitments it makes in back-channel talks on Iraq. U.S. diplomatic agencies have been quiet on the issue thus far, raising the slight possibility that Hosseini's statement is part of an Iranian disinformation campaign. While the United States is in the midst of trying to strengthen its hand in Iraq by taking a tougher stance against Tehran, the Iranian government can inject distrust and uncertainty among the Sunni Arab states that fear Tehran and Washington could strike a deal on Iraq that would leave the Shia in a prime position to project influence into the heart of the Sunni Arab world.
stratfor.com
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Second post of the morning:
The Washington Times
www.washingtontimes.com
'Global war curriculum' seen in Iran's schools
By Gareth Harding
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published January 30, 2007
1:20 p.m.
BRUSSELS -- The Iranian education system is preparing its students for a global war against the West in the name of Islam, according to an independent study of 115 textbooks and teachers guides released today.
With Tehran accused of seeking to develop a nuclear weapons arsenal and the United States dispatching a second aircraft carrier to the Gulf, the report by the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace highlights the uphill task Washington faces trying to persuade Iranian youth to distance themselves from the hard-line Islamist regime.
The study, which claims to be the first of its kind, catalogs how pupils as young as 9 are conditioned to take part in a global jihad against such "infidel oppressors" as Israel and the United States.
"Hate indoctrination is a professed goal of Iranian textbooks," said the report's author, Arnon Groiss, a Princeton- and Harvard-educated journalist who also has written critical studies of the Israeli, Palestinian, Syrian, Saudi and Egyptian education systems.
According to Mr. Groiss, Iranian pupils learn from an early age that the Islamic republic is in mortal combat with Western powers bent on its destruction.
One 11th-grade textbook, quoting former spiritual leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, refers to the United States and its allies as "the World Devourers" and says that if they "wish to stand against our religion, we will stand against their whole world and will not cease until the annihilation of all of them."
Students are drilled for battle from age 12, when they are obliged to take defense-readiness classes, according to the study by the Israel-based nongovernmental organization. Some also are drafted into the Revolutionary Guard and other elite combat units, where they are taught how to handle shoulder-propelled rocket launchers, the study says.
Through stories, poems, wills and exercises, martyrdom is glorified as a means of defending the Islamic republic and attaining eternal happiness, the report says. A Grade 10 textbook on "defense readiness" boasts that during the eight-year war with Iraq in the 1980s, half a million students were sent to the front and "36,000 martyrs ... were offered to the Islamic Revolution."
Describing Iran's school system as a "global war curriculum," Mr. Groiss said the emphasis on military training from such a young age instilled a "siege mentality" among many students.
"It is a form of child abuse to install such notions in children's minds," he told journalists at a briefing in the European Parliament in Brussels.
Israel, which Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad repeatedly has said should be "wiped off the map," is not recognized in atlases and is portrayed as a danger to Islamic states.
"Another problem [faced by Muslim countries] is the regime that occupies Jerusalem, which has been created in this area ... for America and other aggressive powers, with the aim of taking over the Muslim lands," says a geography textbook for Grade 11 students that is quoted in the study.
Anti-Semitism is also rife, according to the report, which analyzed textbooks published before Mr. Ahmadinejad came to power in 2005. In one cartoon for third-graders, the inhabitants of a clean and tidy town discover a trail of garbage left by a ghoulish creature with the Star of David on his right arm. The contaminator is chased out of town and the mess cleaned up after him.
The United States, which is commonly referred to as the "Great Satan" and the "Arch-Oppressor Worldwide," fares little better.
"America is known as an imperialist country, which embarks on military intervention wherever it sees that its interests are in danger," says a sociology textbook for Grade 11 students, according to the study.
"It does not refrain from massacring people, from burying alive the soldiers of the opposite side and from using mass destruction weapons."
Speaking at the release of the report today, the vice chairman of the European Parliament's foreign affairs committee, Geoffrey Van Orden, said: "Young people are being indoctrinated in hatred and intolerance to other religions and cultures. This is not only very disturbing in terms of the education and upbringing of those young people, but in terms of international stability."
The Iranian Embassy in Brussels was asked to respond to the claims in the report but failed to comment.
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Between State and Revolution
By AMIR TAHERI
February 2, 2007; Page A19
WSJ
"Mizanan, ya na?" (Will they hit or not?) In Tehran these days, this question is the talk of the town. The "they" is seldom spelled out. Yet everyone knows that it refers to the United States.
The question is wreaking havoc on Iran's fragile economy by fomenting an atmosphere of uncertainty even before the sanctions imposed by the U.N. Security Council start to bite. Many in Tehran expect the Security Council to decree even tougher sanctions in March when the ultimatum for the Islamic Republic to halt its uranium enrichment program will end.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
The Khomeinist leadership is divided over the reality of the threat, and over ways of dealing with it. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claims that the U.S. is in no position to do much damage, and counts on the new Democratic majority in Washington -- he calls them "the wise people" -- to restrain George W. Bush.
The bulk of the Khomeinist leadership, including the "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenei, however, take the threat seriously and are preparing public opinion for a climb-down by the Islamic Republic. The American naval build-up in the Persian Gulf, the new U.S. offensive against Iran's agents and armed clients in Iraq, Tehran's failure to seize power in Beirut through its Hezbollah proxy, and plummeting oil prices are all cited by Ayatollah Khamenei's entourage as reasons why a climb-down might be necessary.
Sometime in the next few weeks, Iran is likely to offer a "compromise formula" under which it would suspend its enrichment program, as demanded by the Security Council, in exchange for a suspension of sanctions. This will be accompanied by noises from Tehran about readiness to help the U.S. in Iraq, plus possible concessions in Lebanon and over the Palestine-Israel issue.
The expected climb-down is sure to bring back the Baker-Hamilton "realists" with fresh calls for offering the mullahs a seat at the high table. It would also prompt the guilt-ridden "idealists," who blame the U.S. for whatever goes wrong in the world, to urge "Bush the warmonger" to engage the Islamic Republic in a constructive dialogue, whatever that might mean. The French and the Russians would applaud the mullahs and urge the Americans to be "reasonable."
So, what should the Bush administration do when, and if, the mullahs unveil their compromise formula? First is to see the mullahs' move as deja vu all over again. Each time the mullahs are in trouble they become the essence of sweet reasonableness. They deploy their traditional tactics of taqiyah (obfuscation), kitman (dissimulation) and ehtiat (caution) to confuse the "infidels" and divide their ranks. The Iranian leadership did this in the early days of the Khomeinist revolution in 1979 by persuading the clueless Jimmy Carter that the ayatollah was the only force capable of preventing Iran from falling into communist hands. In 1984 and '85, they seduced the Reagan administration with an offer of releasing the American hostages in Beirut in exchange for the secret U.S. arms deliveries Iran needed to stop the Iraqi advance. In 1987 they stopped their attacks on Kuwaiti oil tankers in the Persian Gulf after an American task force sunk the Revolutionary Guard's navy in a 10-hour battle.
In 1988, fear of an even bigger U.S. military attack persuaded Ayatollah Khomeini to "drink the cup of poison" by agreeing to end his eight-year war with Iraq. In 1998, the mullahs offered a "grand bargain" to the Clinton administration as a means of averting U.S. retaliation for the Iranian-sponsored killing of 19 American soldiers in an attack in Khobar, Saudi Arabia.
The second point to bear in mind is that a suspension of uranium enrichment will cost the Islamic Republic nothing. Iran does not have any nuclear power plants, and thus does not need enriched uranium anyway. Even if the country does not have secret parallel nuclear facilities, it could always resume weapons-making activities once it is no longer under pressure.
Successive U.S. administrations have assumed that the problem with the Khomeinist regime lies in its behavior, which they hoped to modify through traditional carrot-and-stick diplomacy. The problem with the regime, however, is its nature, its totalitarian ambitions and messianic claims. Being an enemy of the U.S., indeed of all democracies, is in its political DNA. A scorpion stings because it is programmed by nature to do so. A regime that is the enemy of its own people cannot be a friend of others.
The threat that Khomeinism poses to stability in the Middle East and, beyond it, to international peace, will not be removed until Iran once again becomes a normal nation-state with the interests and ambitions of normal nation-states.
For more than a quarter of a century, Iran has suffered from an affliction faced by most countries that experience revolution. The conflict between state and revolution makes the development and practice of moderate domestic and foreign policies difficult, if not impossible. Leading a revolution is like riding a bicycle: One keeps going for as long as one continues to pedal, regardless of the destination. To stop pedaling means to fall.
As a nation-state, Iran may be a rival and competitor for other nations. But it would not be an existential threat. As a revolution, however, Iran can, indeed must, be such a threat not only to its neighbors but also to a world that it regards as "the handiwork of Jews and Crusaders."
The Khomeinist revolution has not succeeded in destroying the plurimillennial idea of Iran as a nation-state. But each time the Khomeinist revolution found itself on the defensive, the Western powers, including the U.S., helped it restore its legitimacy and regain its breath. The same illusions that produced the détente, which arguably prolonged the life of the Soviet Union, have also helped the Khomeinist revolution survive long after its sell-by date.
Today, Iran is once again facing the schizophrenia imposed on it through the conflict between state and revolution. A majority of Iranians, including many in the ruling elite, wish Iran to re-emerge as a nation-state.
The U.S. has no interest in helping the Khomeinist revolution escape the consequences of its misdeeds. This does not mean that there should be no diplomatic contact with Tehran or that pressure should be exerted for the sake of it. Nor does it mean that military action, "to hit or not to hit," is the only question worth pondering with regard to the Islamic Republic.
No one should be duped by a tactical retreat in Tehran or a temporary modification of the regime's behavior. What is needed is a change in the nature of the regime. The chances of setting such change in motion have never been as good, and the current showdown should be used to communicate a clear message: As a nation-state, Iran can and will be a friend. As a revolution, it would always remain a foe.
Mr. Taheri is author of "L'Irak: Le Dessous Des Cartes" (Editions Complexe, 2002).
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Second post of the morning:
Looks like Iran is seeking to counter Israel via the Hamas/Palestinians as well as Hezbollah in Lebanon.
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stratfor.com
PALESTINIAN NATIONAL AUTHORITY: Fatah security forces apprehended seven Iranian weapons experts at the Islamic University in Gaza City. This is the first report of Iranians aiding Palestinians inside the Palestinian territories. An eighth Iranian committed suicide during the raid. The captured Iranians are said to be intelligence and chemical specialists, and one is a senior military officer, sources close to Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said.
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1248 GMT -- EUROPEAN UNION, IRAN -- EU foreign ministers approved Feb. 12 the implementation of U.N. sanctions against Iran for its refusal to halt uranium enrichment. In accordance with the agreement, all 27 EU member states will ban the sales of materials and technology that could be used in Iran's nuclear and missile program. In addition, the European Union will freeze the assets of 10 Iranian companies and individuals. The U.N. Security Council agreed in December to impose the sanctions and gave Iran two months to return to the negotiating table.
stratfor.com
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WSJ
Iran's Provocations
Helping to kill GIs with impunity.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007 12:01 a.m. EST
U.S. military officials finally laid out detailed evidence on Sunday that Iranian-supplied weapons are killing American soldiers in Iraq. The issue now is the lesson the Bush Administration and the American political establishment draw about dealing with Iran.
Our guess is that a large part of Washington will pretend the evidence doesn't exist, or suggest the intelligence isn't proven, or claim that it's all the Bush Administration's fault for "bullying" Iran. This was the impulse behind the Baker-Hamilton Commission's recommendation late last year that the U.S. "engage" Tehran to help us find some honorable diplomatic or political solution in Iraq.
But the evidence about Iranian-style munitions shows how wishful such thinking is. The Iranians don't want a political solution that would allow a U.S.-backed moderate Shiite government to rule in Baghdad. Their goal is to make us bleed in order to drive us home and so allow their radical Shiite allies to hold sway and Iran to become the dominant regional power. They also figure that the bloodier the defeat they can impose, the less likely the U.S. will be to ever consider promoting regime change in Tehran or Damascus.
Pentagon sources have been saying for several years that Iranian-style munitions have been appearing in Iraq, and arms smugglers have been caught coming across the Iranian border. What's new is that the Iranian-marked weapons have actually been put on display and an estimate of their toll made public: more than 170 Americans killed in action and more than 600 wounded.
The main culprit is a specially made roadside bomb the Army calls an EFP, or "explosively formed penetrator." Unlike the jerry-rigged Iraqi shells that Sunni extremists have used to inflict the vast majority of casualties against U.S. forces, the EFP is shaped to penetrate armor and hence effective against harder targets than Humvees. The U.S. Stryker brigade now in Baghdad has been finding them in the city with increasing regularity. In the past this type of roadside bomb has been used against Israeli tanks by Iranian-backed Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon.
According to the Defense Department, Iranian officials detained recently by U.S. forces in Iraq possessed documents suggesting they might have been involved in this arms trade. One of them was Moshin Chizari, a very senior Revolutionary Guards commander arrested but later released because of his "diplomatic" status in December. "Iran is a significant contributor to attacks on coalition forces, and also supports violence against the Iraqi security forces and the Iraqi people," said a Defense official in Baghdad.
"Significant" is an important word here. Sunni extremists affiliated with al Qaeda and Saddam's Baath Party remain by far the largest threat to American forces in Iraq. And we don't believe that the news about Iran should cause anyone to lose sight of the primary U.S. mission in the coming months: securing Baghdad against Sunni terror, so that Iraqi Shiites won't turn to militias for protection.
Still, it would be nice if the Bush Administration and Members of Congress would send Tehran the message that it will not be allowed to kill Americans with impunity. President Bush has been speaking out about this of late, but the main concern on Capitol Hill seems to be deterring Mr. Bush rather than telling Iran to stop killing GIs. Won't any of the Democratic Presidential candidates speak out and say that, no matter what they think of Iraq, Iranian help for killing Americans is a hostile act?
Hitting Revolutionary Guards targets, or Iranian weapons factories if they can be located, also shouldn't be out of the question when the lives of American soldiers are at stake. If General David Petraeus, the new and hardly reckless Iraq theater commander, thinks such pressure on Iran is crucial to securing his Baghdad mission, he deserves to get the go-ahead.
The larger lesson here concerns the nature of the Iranian regime and its nuclear ambitions. Iran's provocations in Iraq have been deadly enough, but they might be far more aggressive if the mullahs no longer fear the ability of the U.S. to hit back. As a nuclear power, they may well become even more reckless in attacking the interests of the U.S. and its regional allies. Then we'll see what a real bully looks like.
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stratfor.com
IRAN/EU: An internal EU document says Iran has the ability to create material for nuclear weapons, and there is little that can be done to stop it. The document says the nuclear program has been delayed by technical limitations, not diplomatic pressure, and that economic sanctions alone will not resolve the situation.
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Iran: A Second Attack in Zahedan
February 16, 2007 22 09 GMT
A strong explosion occurred during the evening of Feb. 16 in the southeastern Iranian city of Zahedan, in Sistan-Balochistan province. According to the Iranian Baztab News agency, the explosion was caused by a noise bomb that was placed in front of a police car. Iranian security forces reportedly are engaged in a shootout with several militants.
From the initial details of the blast, this appears to be a planned ambush of Iranian security forces. By placing the noise bomb in front of the police car, the perpetrators were able to draw the police to the area of the attack, where they could then fire on the officers. There are no details as of yet on the number of attackers or security forces involved.
This is the second attack in Zahedan in the past two days. On Feb. 14, a Baloch militant group called Jundallah claimed responsibility for a bus bombing that killed 11 elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps members and wounded 31 others. In response to that attack, Iranian police detained 65 suspects and aired the confession of one of them during a two-minute broadcast on Iran's state-run Hamoun television. The suspect, Nasrollah Shamsi Zehi, said he escaped to Pakistan after robbing a bank in Zahedan. He was then trained by Jundallah for two months and told he would receive $1,200 for each mission. According to a Baztab report citing an unnamed Iranian security source, the detainees have no connections inside Iran. Instead, they were trained by intelligence agencies and were tasked with assassinating regional Sunni leaders in order to foment a provincial or national crisis.
The Zahedan attacks fall in line with U.S. efforts to supply and train Iran's ethnic minorities to destabilize the Iranian regime.
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1247 GMT -- IRAN -- Deliveries of uranium fuel for Iran's Russian-built Bushehr nuclear plant could be delayed because of late payments, which could derail the launch schedule, a Russian Federal Nuclear Power Agency spokesman said Feb. 19. Russia had agreed to begin shipping fuel by March for a September launch, with electricity generation to start by November. The Iranians reportedly have cited technical reasons for the payment delays.
stratfor.com
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REVIEW & OUTLOOK
Europe and the Mullahs
How the EU subsidizes trade with Iran.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007 12:01 a.m. EST
On the record, Europe claims to be as concerned as America about a nuclear-armed Iran. The record also shows, however, that Europe's biggest countries do a booming business with the Islamic Republic. And so far for the Continentals, manna trumps security.
The European Union--led by Germany, France and Italy--has long been Iran's largest trading partner. Its share of Iran's total imports is about 35%. Even more notable: Its trade with Tehran has expanded since Iran's secret nuclear program was exposed. Between 2003 and 2005, Europe's exports rose 29% to €12.9 billion; machinery, transport equipment and chemicals make up the bulk of the sales. Imports from Iran, predominantly oil, increased 62% to €11.4 billion in that period.
In the absence of an official embargo against Tehran, private EU companies have sought commercial opportunities in Iran. But the real story here is that these businesses are subsidized by European taxpayers. Government-backed export guarantees have fueled the expansion in trade. That, in turn, has boosted Iran's economy and--indirectly by filling government coffers with revenues--its nuclear program. The German record stands out. In its 2004 annual report on export guarantees, Berlin's Economics Ministry dedicated a special section to Iran that captures its giddy excitement about business with Tehran.
"Federal Government export credit guarantees played a crucial role for German exports to Iran; the volume of coverage of Iranian buyers rose by a factor of almost 3.5 to some €2.3 billion compared to the previous year," the report said. "The Federal Government thus insured something like 65% of total German exports to the country. Iran lies second in the league of countries with the highest coverage in 2004, hot on the heels of China."
Iran tops Germany's list of countries with the largest outstanding export guarantees, totaling €5.5 billion. France's export guarantees to Iran amount to about €1 billion. Italy's come to €4.5 billion, accounting for 20% of Rome's overall guarantee portfolio. Little Austria had, at the end of 2005, €800 million of its exports to Iran covered by guarantees.
The Europeans aren't simply facilitating business between private companies. The vast majority of Iranian industry is state-controlled, while even private companies have been known to act as fronts for the country's nuclear program. EU taxpayers underwrite trade and investment that would otherwise be deterred by the risks of doing business with a rogue regime.
It's also hard not to see a connection between Europe's commercial interests and its lenient diplomacy. The U.N.'s December sanctions resolution orders countries to freeze the assets of only 10 specific companies and 12 individuals with ties to Iran's nuclear program. Europe's governments continue to resist U.S. calls for financial sanctions, and the German Chamber of Commerce recently estimated that tougher economic sanctions would cost 10,000 German jobs.
As if on cue, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier last week detected in Tehran a "new ambition" to resume talks. The last time the Europeans promoted such diplomatic negotiations, Iran won two more years to get closer to its goal of becoming a nuclear power. In 2004, according to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung daily, then-Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer told Iranians to consider Europe a "protective shield" against U.S. pressure. The EU continues to provide a shield for its business interests in Iran, and thus a lifeline to a regime that is unpopular at home and sponsors terror abroad.
WSJ
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What to do about Iran's nuke program is a vexing question. This op-ed piece from today's NY Times by a seemingly qualified academic addresses that question. I've inserted some questions and comments into the pice.
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What Scares Iran’s Mullahs?
By ABBAS MILANI
Published: February 23, 2007
Stanford, Calif.
IRAN has once again defied the United Nations by proceeding with enrichment activities, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported yesterday. And yet, simultaneously, Iranian officials have been sending a very different message — one that has gone largely unremarked but merits close attention.
MD: Why does the piece not mention that not only has Iran "proceeded", but has actually accelerated the process?
After a meeting with the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the leader’s chief foreign policy adviser, Ali Akbar Velayati, declared last week that suspending uranium enrichment is not a red line for the regime — in other words, the mullahs might be ready to agree to some kind of a suspension. Another powerful insider, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, said much the same thing in a different setting, while a third high-ranking official acknowledged that the Islamic Republic is seriously considering a proposal by President Vladimir Putin of Russia to suspend enrichment at least long enough to start serious negotiations with the United Nations.
MD: One hopes that this is the case, but we must also realize that the past several years are littered with analogous hints-- which turned out to be stalls for Iran's continuation and now acceleration of its nuke program.
There have also been indications that the Iranians are willing to accept a compromise plan presented by Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency. That plan calls for the suspension of all major enrichment activities but allows the regime to save face by keeping a handful of centrifuges in operation.
MD: "Indications"? Again, we've seen this before, many times.
The mullahs are keen on damage control on another front as well. After his meeting with Ayatollah Khamenei, Mr. Velayati announced that the Holocaust is a fact of history and chastised those who question its reality. Ali Larijani, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, also declared the Holocaust a “historical matter” to be discussed by scholars (and not, he implied, by ignorant politicians). In short, there is a new willingness among the Iranian political elite to avoid the rhetoric of confrontation and to negotiate.
MD: Yet they are accelerating their nuclear program.
There are three ways to analyze this turn. Advocates of an American invasion of Iran say that last month’s strengthening of the American armada in the Persian Gulf has frightened the Iranian regime. What diplomacy could not do for years, a few destroyers did in less than a month. These advocates encourage more of the same, hoping either that the mullahs will accept defeat in the face of an imminent attack, or that a Gulf of Tonkin incident will lead to a full attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
MD: One might also add that President Bush's surge shows a President willing to buck the tide of the current panic "stampede of the weak horses" in the US Congress. Also, it is not a few destroyers, if I have it correctly it is an additional aircraft carrier group and the elevation of an Admiral to head the US military for the region. One might expect an academic of the credentials of the author of this piece to know, and mention these things.
A second camp attacks the build-up of the armada as dangerous saber-rattling at best, and at worst as camouflage for already settled plans to attack Iran’s nuclear sites. Such an attack, they say, might provide a much-needed feather for President Bush’s empty cap at a time when his Middle East policy has manifestly failed. According to this camp, what changed the minds of Iranian officials was only the United Nations resolution threatening economic sanctions, and the possibility of other resolutions and more serious sanctions.
Both camps are partly right and yet dangerously wrong. There is a third way of looking at the facts.
The mullahs have historically shown an unfailing ability to smell out and, when pragmatic, succumb to credible power in their foes. Indeed, the presence of the American ships has helped encourage them to negotiate. But no less clear is the fact that the mullahs’ attitude change began in late December, when the United Nations Security Council finally passed a resolution against the regime in Tehran.
MD: Here the author elevates the "indications" and hints of the Iranian government to the "fact" :roll: of a "attitude change". Again, the fact reported yesterday is that Iran has accelerated its program.
The passage of the resolution hastened the demise of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s confrontational approach to the West. And the falling price of oil, leading to declining revenues for the regime, magnified the resolution’s economic impact. Top leaders of the Islamic Republic, from Ayatollah Khamenei to Mr. Rafsanjani, have made it clear that they consider sanctions a serious threat — more serious, according to Mr. Rafsanjani, than the possibility of an invasion.
MD: This may well be.
In other words, what the unilateral and increasingly quixotic American embargo could not do in more than a decade, a limited United Nations resolution has accomplished in less than a month. And the resolution succeeded because few things frighten the mullahs more than the prospect of confronting a united front made up of the European Union, Russia, China and the United States. The resolution was a manifestation of just such a united front.
MD What an *sshole. Quixotic? :x Maybe only the US had the testicles to take a principles stand and not allow those more interested in doing business with Iran than stopping apocalyptic religious nuts from getting nukes. Maybe jack diddly would have been done but for the sustained insistence of the US/Bush Administration that the world/UN take its head out of its collective *ss and do something about this. Look at how hard the US had to work to get the EU, Russia (especially Russia who just sold Iran an anti-aircraft missile system on top of its continuin nuclear plant support ! :x ) and China (who gets a lot of oil from Iran) to back even the half-hearted economic embargo that was passed. And notice that the author softens the workd "embargo" into a "resolution".
While the combination of credible force, reduced oil prices and a United Nations resolution has worked to create the most favorable conditions yet for a negotiated solution to the nuclear crisis, any unilateral American attack on Iran is sure to backfire. It will break the international coalition against the Islamic Republic’s nuclear adventurism; it will allow China, Russia and even some countries in Europe to legitimately side with the mullahs; it will lead to higher oil prices and an increase in Iranian government revenues; and finally, it will help revive the waning power of the warmongers in Tehran.
MD: Only if it fails-- which well it might. The Bush Administration has not inspired confidence in its ability to pull such an attack.
Those convinced that only the combination of credible might and diplomatic pressure will work worry rightly that the Bush administration, frustrated by its failures in Iraq and goaded by hawks in Washington, will do to Iran what it did to Iraq. In confronting Saddam Hussein and the threat of his weapons of mass destruction, the Bush administration insisted that amassing an armada in the Persian Gulf was necessary to frighten Mr. Hussein into submission. But once the armada was in place, they used it to carry out a long-ago planned invasion of Iraq.
MD: WTF? Hillary, Edwards, Kerry et al voted to enable the President to go to war hoping that this would suffice to make SH back down but he didn't. Apparently encouraged by the French and the Russians telling him that they would tie us up in the UN, he decided to pretend that he had WMD because of his fear of Iran and because of the regional prestige that the belief he had them brought. The whole point is that SH was not frightened into coughing up weapons that he had previously admitted possessing-- and, at that point WHAT DO YOU DO?
Today, many worry that the plans for an invasion of Iran, too, were made long ago, and that the armada is there to make possible either another Gulf of Tonkin resolution or an Iranian act of provocation against American forces, which could then serve as an excuse for an attack on Iran.
MD: Well, to be precise the plans were made-- as they should have been-- but what the author means is that the DECISION has been made. Again, one cannot bluff about these things. One does need to go in knowing what one will do if the saber wrattling does not work.
War and peace with Iran are both possible today. With prudence, backed by power but guided by the wisdom to recognize the new signals coming from Tehran, the United States can today achieve a principled solution to the nuclear crisis. Congress, vigilant American citizens and a resolute policy from America’s European allies can ensure that this principled peace is given a chance.
MD: I agree that both war and peace are possible. I hope that this time the "indications" coming from some players on the Iranian side are not yet another smokescreen. I agree that attacking Iran is very difficult and that if not well done by a tired and overstretched military (and yes, President Bush deserves firm criticism for his failures in this regard) that things will get worse-- but this author does not confront the key question. Without the perceived will to use the power, the US will not be able to get Iran to back off its long and determined plan to acquire nuclear bombs, build missiles that can carry them to Europe and someday the US. Indeed, with his "Gulf of Tonkin" rhetoric the author adds to our domestic clamor that persuades the Iranian government of exactly the contrary.
Abbas Milani is the director of Iranian studies at Stanford and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution.
MD: Good thing he's not responsible for making real decisions.
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US funds terror groups to sow chaos in Iran
By William Lowther in Washington DC and Colin Freeman, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 12:30am GMT 25/02/2007
America is secretly funding militant ethnic separatist groups in Iran in an attempt to pile pressure on the Islamic regime to give up its nuclear programme.
In a move that reflects Washington's growing concern with the failure of diplomatic initiatives, CIA officials are understood to be helping opposition militias among the numerous ethnic minority groups clustered in Iran's border regions.
The operations are controversial because they involve dealing with movements that resort to terrorist methods in pursuit of their grievances against the Iranian regime.
In the past year there has been a wave of unrest in ethnic minority border areas of Iran, with bombing and assassination campaigns against soldiers and government officials.
Such incidents have been carried out by the Kurds in the west, the Azeris in the north-west, the Ahwazi Arabs in the south-west, and the Baluchis in the south-east. Non-Persians make up nearly 40 per cent of Iran's 69 million population, with around 16 million Azeris, seven million Kurds, five million Ahwazis and one million Baluchis. Most Baluchis live over the border in Pakistan.
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Funding for their separatist causes comes directly from the CIA's classified budget but is now "no great secret", according to one former high-ranking CIA official in Washington who spoke anonymously to The Sunday Telegraph.
His claims were backed by Fred Burton, a former US state department counter-terrorism agent, who said: "The latest attacks inside Iran fall in line with US efforts to supply and train Iran's ethnic minorities to destabilise the Iranian regime."
Although Washington officially denies involvement in such activity, Teheran has long claimed to detect the hand of both America and Britain in attacks by guerrilla groups on its internal security forces. Last Monday, Iran publicly hanged a man, Nasrollah Shanbe Zehi, for his involvement in a bomb attack that killed 11 Revolutionary Guards in the city of Zahedan in Sistan-Baluchistan. An unnamed local official told the semi-official Fars news agency that weapons used in the attack were British and US-made.
Yesterday, Iranian forces also claimed to have killed 17 rebels described as "mercenary elements" in clashes near the Turkish border, which is a stronghold of the Pejak, a Kurdish militant party linked to Turkey's outlawed PKK Kurdistan Workers' Party.
John Pike, the head of the influential Global Security think tank in Washington, said: "The activities of the ethnic groups have hotted up over the last two years and it would be a scandal if that was not at least in part the result of CIA activity."
Such a policy is fraught with risk, however. Many of the groups share little common cause with Washington other than their opposition to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose regime they accuse of stepping up repression of minority rights and culture.
The Baluchistan-based Brigade of God group, which last year kidnapped and killed eight Iranian soldiers, is a volatile Sunni organisation that many fear could easily turn against Washington after taking its money.
A row has also broken out in Washington over whether to "unleash" the military wing of the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), an Iraq-based Iranian opposition group with a long and bloody history of armed opposition to the Iranian regime.
The group is currently listed by the US state department as terrorist organisation, but Mr Pike said: "A faction in the Defence Department wants to unleash them. They could never overthrow the current Iranian regime but they might cause a lot of damage."
At present, none of the opposition groups are much more than irritants to Teheran, but US analysts believe that they could become emboldened if the regime was attacked by America or Israel. Such a prospect began to look more likely last week, as the UN Security Council deadline passed for Iran to stop its uranium enrichment programme, and a second American aircraft carrier joined the build up of US naval power off Iran's southern coastal waters.
The US has also moved six heavy bombers from a British base on the Pacific island of Diego Garcia to the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, which could allow them to carry out strikes on Iran without seeking permission from Downing Street.
While Tony Blair reiterated last week that Britain still wanted a diplomatic solution to the crisis, US Vice-President Dick Cheney yesterday insisted that military force was a real possibility.
"It would be a serious mistake if a nation like Iran were to become a nuclear power," Mr Cheney warned during a visit to Australia. "All options are still on the table."
The five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany will meet in London tomorrow to discuss further punitive measures against Iran. Sanctions barring the transfer of nuclear technology and know-how were imposed in December. Additional penalties might include a travel ban on senior Iranian officials and restrictions on non-nuclear business.
Additional reporting by Gethin Chamberlain.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=U4M3S53A12BBHQFIQMGSFFOAVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2007/02/25/wiran25.xml
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March 01, 2007
Machiavelli and the Mullahs
By David J. Rusin
Machiavelli could offer President Bush what he needs most at this pivotal juncture: a philosophical blueprint for confronting the Iranian nuclear threat and successfully prosecuting the broader war against radical Islam.
A leading figure of the Renaissance, Niccolo Machiavelli served as a diplomat and militia commander for the short-lived Florentine Republic of the early sixteenth century. His seminal experiences in office, coupled with a remarkably deep reading of history, led Machiavelli to the pioneering political philosophy which he would outline in The Prince and elaborate upon in Discourses on Livy. Like all great books, The Prince transcends the time for which it was composed. Though intended as a manual to aid Lorenzo di Medici in navigating the tumult of Renaissance Italy, Machiavelli's masterpiece offers ageless advice to those charged with defending their societies during periods of heightened peril.
Machiavelli is regarded as a patriarch of realist political theory. His concern was not the moral perfectibility of man and his institutions, but rather their survival in an uncertain and often violent world.
He warned,
"The way men live is so far removed from the way they ought to live, that anyone who abandons what is for what should be pursues his downfall rather than his preservation."
Realism should certainly not be mistaken for fatalism - regardless of how the phony realists of the Baker-Hamilton commission might labor to conflate the two. Machiavelli argued that, through prudent actions, a leader can shape the outcome of events to his advantage and snuff out dangers before they metastasize.
Five hundred years later, America and its allies face a brutal enemy. Terrorist organizations and their homegrown affiliates, seamlessly melding political grievances with Koranic decrees, plot to bring death to the infidels of Dar al-Harb. The atrocities visited upon such disparate locales as Manhattan, Madrid, and Mumbai warn that the savagery of the terrorists is limited only by their ability to inflict mass casualties. These limitations on the global jihad may soon evaporate, however, as the march of technology threatens to enable terrorists and, more ominously, Islamist governments with the means to precipitate carnage on unspeakable scales.
At the confluence of radical Islam, terrorism, and weapons of mass destruction lies Tehran. The Islamic Republic is the first modern theocracy in the Muslim world, and its founding presaged an era of escalated conflict between Islam and the West. Iran also distinguishes itself as the most prolific state sponsor of terrorism, with Hezbollah and Hamas among its many acolytes. The mullahs are currently plying their terrorist trade in Iraq, where sectarian violence is being fueled by Iranian money and materiel. Shiite Iran has also provided support to the Sunni jihadists of Al Qaeda. Not only did a majority of the Saudi "muscle" hijackers pass through Iran prior to September 11, but the nation also welcomed prominent Al Qaeda figures fleeing Operation Enduring Freedom in 2001. Security chief Saif al-Adel and Osama Bin Laden's son Saad head the list of Al Qaeda luminaries believed to enjoy refuge there.
Now imagine this regime armed with nuclear weapons. In just a few short years, imagination may no longer be necessary. Unmoved by half-hearted Security Council resolutions and never-ending dialogue with Europe, Iran continues to plow ahead with its uranium enrichment program. Tehran naturally seeks to assure a credulous international community that its nuclear ambitions are peaceful in nature. However, such claims ring hollow in light of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's persistent boasts that Israel will soon be "wiped off the map."
While its centrifuges still have quite a bit of spinning left to do, Tehran already possesses the delivery systems it needs to carry out threats against the Jewish state and project power throughout the Middle East. Iran's Shahab 3 missile can strike both Israel and Saudi Arabia, while future upgrades will extend its range to all of Europe and perhaps even the eastern United States. Moreover, the Washington Times recently noted that Tehran has augmented its arsenal by purchasing 18 North Korean-made derivatives of an old Soviet submarine-launched missile - a missile which was specifically designed to carry nuclear warheads.
In short, Iran's key role in the rise of radical Islam, its decades-long support for terror, and the genocidal taunts of its millenarian president lead to an inescapable conclusion: the Islamic Republic must not get the bomb. A nuclear-armed Tehran would jeopardize American security, menace its neighbors, and present an existential threat to Israel. In his 2002 State of the Union address, President Bush vowed that
"The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons."
Likewise, Machiavelli urged leaders to act in advance to ward off gathering perils:
"If they wait until they are near at hand, the medicine will not be in time, for by then the malady will have become incurable."
The time to stamp out the Iranian nuclear malady is now.
President Bush's approach to Tehran must be guided by three Machiavellian principles:
1. Self-reliance;
2. The importance of being feared; and
3. The need to take the initiative once conflict is inevitable.
The first of these is the central tenet of The Prince: that a leader must act decisively in pursuit of his objectives, rather than relying on others to accomplish them.
"Only those methods of defense which depend upon one's own resourcefulness are good, certain, and enduring," Machiavelli wrote. In contrast,
"the arms of another will fall from your hand, will weigh you down, or restrain you."
Self-reliance is critical because those who do not share your objectives are unlikely to sacrifice on your behalf.
Machiavelli's admonition went unheeded in December 2001, when high-ranking Al Qaeda figures were holed up in Tora Bora. Rather than flooding the zone with U.S. troops, President Bush unwisely placed his faith in local Afghan fighters. "The arms of another" did indeed fall from the president's hand, as the capricious warlords allowed terrorist leaders - and perhaps bin Laden himself - to escape. The Tora Bora debacle may be contrasted with Ethiopia's successful American-backed campaign against Somalia's Islamic Courts Union in December 2006. Because Ethiopia rightly feared that the Somali Islamists would threaten its sovereignty, the nation could be trusted to carry out an important American objective in the Horn of Africa.
Outside of the apprehensive but weak Sunni Arab states, motivated allies are few and far between when it comes to staring down Iran. Relying on the United Nations or European Union will virtually guarantee that the Islamic Republic obtains nuclear weapons. Veto-wielding Security Council members China, France, and Russia are deeply invested in the mullahcracy based on trade and energy interests, and will likely block any serious countermeasures.
As for the Europeans, their fortitude is highlighted by Jacques Chirac, who recently mused to the New York Times that Iran's
"having one or perhaps a second bomb a little later, well, that's not very dangerous."
By now President Bush should understand that if the United States does not take the lead in defusing the Iranian nuclear threat, then nobody will.
Second, the president must recall Machiavelli's principle that there is "greater security in being feared than in being loved." Indeed, the fear of force can be just as persuasive as force itself. Did this fear not factor into Muammar Qaddafi's pledge to dismantle his weapons programs in the wake of Saddam Hussein's overthrow? Likewise, were Hussein and bin Laden not emboldened by the limp-wristed American response to terror during the 1990s? Love, in contrast, plays little role in international affairs. Alliances, after all, are founded not on affection, but on mutual interests and respect. And as far as the jihadists and their enablers are concerned, they will love us when we bow to Mecca five times a day - and not a moment sooner.
Islamists may or may not fear death, but they certainly fear the loss of power. States are vital to the Islamist enterprise because they provide resource bases which cannot be assembled through other means. It is for this reason that the Taliban will seek to reclaim Afghanistan for many years to come. There is also the ego factor, magnified by the Muslim preoccupation with shame and honor. Islamists are still fretting over their ejection from the Iberian Peninsula more than five centuries ago, and the collapse of the last caliphate following the First World War. How would they feel about losing Iran, the tactical and symbolic centerpiece of their modern project?
President Bush must therefore convince Tehran's more circumspect power brokers that continued intransigence on the part of Ahmadinejad and his backers will leave their regime in the cross hairs. This is one of those times when actions speak louder than words. Since the greatest threat to an autocracy originates from its own people, the U.S. should redouble efforts to mobilize and fund liberal opposition groups, while retooling Radio Farda into an effective voice for freedom. It is equally important that the U.S. signal renewed resolve in Iraq, as years of indecision have eroded American prestige. The pending troop surge and the recent arrests of Iranian operatives in Baghdad and Irbil are small steps in the right direction. Dismantling the Mahdi army, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Iran, would be a bigger one. Combined with an already promising campaign of financial pressure on the regime, such measures may yet convince the mullahs to reconsider their nuclear course.
Finally, the president should heed Machiavelli's observation that some conflicts are inevitable, and that a leader must seize the initiative once the tipping point has been reached. Machiavelli praised the Romans, who, upon
"foreseeing difficulties, always remedied them. And they never allowed them to persist in order to avoid a war, for they knew that wars cannot be avoided and can only be deferred to the advantage of others."
Machiavelli attributed this to their repudiation of
"the sort of advice that is always on the lips of our present-day wise men: that is, to enjoy the benefits of time. Instead, they were pleased to use their strength and prudence."
Apparently the beltway bien pensants counsel passivity and appeasement in every age.
Delaying war is immoral if doing so ensures greater suffering and peril down the line. History is replete with examples. Britain and France failed to confront Hitler's provocations when he was still building his forces, only to face a significantly strengthened Nazi war machine a few years later. In contrast, seeing that war was imminent in 1967, Israel launched a swift and decisive strike against Egypt. The current Israeli leadership is not so wise. Their reluctance to crush Hezbollah in the summer war of 2006 is merely a ticket to a future conflict which will bring additional death and destruction to both sides of the Blue Line. Finally, even considering the many difficulties encountered in Iraq over the past few years, the dangers posed by Saddam Hussein in a post-9/11 world more than justified his removal in 2003.
A nuclear-armed Iran would invigorate the most radical elements of the Shiite theocracy and set the stage for an inevitable clash with America and its allies. Therefore, if other options fail to thwart Tehran's nuclear ambitions, then the U.S. must be prepared to accomplish this by force. It should not be a difficult choice: tangle with Iran before it acquires nuclear weapons, or do so afterward. While a preemptive strike would come with a significant downside - it would likely rally Iranians to their much-despised government and trigger retaliatory attacks by its terror assets in the West - Machiavelli noted that a nation
"will always have to choose between risks. . . . Prudence lies in knowing how to distinguish between degrees of danger and in choosing the least danger as the best."
The day is fast approaching when the use of force against Tehran's nuclear infrastructure may be the lesser of two remaining evils.
President Bush's ability to mold the above precepts into a viable Iran policy will ultimately determine whether his successors must face a nuclear-armed and highly emboldened Islamic Republic. Recent tactical shifts by the White House are cause for optimism in this respect. Furthermore, as demonstrated by events from Tora Bora to Mogadishu, Machiavellian philosophy is equally pertinent to the wider struggle against radical Islam. In fact, a careful reading of Machiavelli offers trenchant insights regarding the occupation of foreign lands, the role of ancient institutions in fueling rebellion, and the dangers posed by enemies who do not fear death - issues of particular significance to present and future fronts in the Long War.
The Prince concludes with an exhortation to Lorenzo di Medici, encouraging him to rise to the challenges of his time and beat back the "barbarian insolence and cruelty" which threatened his state and his people. If Machiavelli were around in 2007, one suspects that he would summarize current circumstances in much the same way.
David J. Rusin holds a Ph.D. in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Pennsylvania. His interests include foreign affairs and security policy. He may be contacted at djrusin@gmail.com.
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http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/03/machiavelli_and_the_mullahs.html
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I wish this piece had addressed what the differences are, if any, when the Prince needs to get elected and needs to get authorized by Congress. Anyway, here is this surprising tidbit from Stratfor. We shall see if the French and the Russians et al live up to it.
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IRAN: Russia, France, the United Kingdom, China, Germany and the United States are "completely in agreement" on a new U.N. Security Council resolution regarding Iran's nuclear program, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said. The resolution is an extension of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1737, which imposed nuclear technology sanctions against Iran for not suspending its uranium enrichment program. Under the current framework, measures for the resolution's enforcement exclude military action.
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IRAN: Iran has equipped its oil fields in the southern Persian Gulf with air defense systems, the Tehran-based Baztab news agency reported. The action has prompted the militaries of Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to go on full alert. According to Baztab, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said energy flow in the region will be obstructed if the West launches an offensive again Iran.
stratfor.com
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IRAN: The board of the International Atomic Energy Agency voted to suspend 22 technical aid programs to Iran as part of the expansion of international sanctions on Tehran over its refusal to halt its uranium enrichment program. The widely expected decision, which stiffens the penalties placed on Iran by the U.N. Security Council on Dec. 23, 2006, was made by consensus.
stratfor.com
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The IAEA put Iran on double-secret probation. :roll:
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**Now THIS could be good.**
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...AR2007030702241.html
Former Iranian Defense Official Talks to Western Intelligence
By Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 8, 2007; Page A16
A former Iranian deputy defense minister who once commanded the Revolutionary Guard has left his country and is cooperating with Western intelligence agencies, providing information on Hezbollah and Iran's ties to the organization, according to a senior U.S. official.
Ali Rez Asgari disappeared last month during a visit to Turkey. Iranian officials suggested yesterday that he may have been kidnapped by Israel or the United States. The U.S. official said Asgari is willingly cooperating. He did not divulge Asgari's whereabouts or specify who is questioning him, but made clear that the information Asgari is offering is fully available to U.S. intelligence.
Asgari served in the Iranian government until early 2005 under then-President Mohammad Khatami. Asgari's background suggests that he would have deep knowledge of Iran's national security infrastructure, conventional weapons arsenal and ties to Hezbollah in south Lebanon. Iranian officials said he was not involved in the country's nuclear program, and the senior U.S. official said Asgari is not being questioned about it. Former officers with Israel's Mossad spy agency said yesterday that Asgari had been instrumental in the founding of Hezbollah in the 1980s, around the time of the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut.
Iran's official news agency, IRNA, quoted the country's top police chief, Brig. Gen. Esmaeil Ahmadi-Moqaddam, as saying that Asgari was probably kidnapped by agents working for Western intelligence agencies. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Asgari was in the United States. Another U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, denied that report and suggested that Asgari's disappearance was voluntary and orchestrated by the Israelis. A spokesman for President Bush's National Security Council did not return a call for comment.
The Israeli government denied any connection to Asgari. "To my knowledge, Israel is not involved in any way in this disappearance," said Mark Regev, the spokesman for Israel's foreign ministry.
An Iranian official, who agreed to discuss Asgari on the condition of anonymity, said that Iranian intelligence is unsure of Asgari's whereabouts but that he may have been offered money, probably by Israel, to leave the country. The Iranian official said Asgari was thought to be in Europe. "He has been out of the loop for four or five years now," the official said.
Israeli and Turkish newspapers reported yesterday that Asgari disappeared in Istanbul shortly after he arrived there on Feb. 7. Iran sent a delegation to Turkey to investigate his disappearance and requested help from Interpol in locating him.
Former Mossad director Danny Yatom, who is now a member of Israel's parliament, said he believes Asgari defected to the West. "He is very high-caliber," Yatom said. "He held a very, very senior position for many long years in Lebanon. He was in effect commander of the Revolutionary Guards" there.
Ram Igra, a former Mossad officer, said Asgari spent much of the 1980s and 1990s overseeing Iran's efforts to support, finance, arm and train Hezbollah. The State Department lists the Shiite Lebanese group as a terrorist organization.
"He lived in Lebanon and, in effect, was the man who built, promoted and founded Hezbollah in those years," Igra told Israeli state radio. "If he has something to give the West, it is in this context of terrorism and Hezbollah's network in Lebanon."
The organization, led by Hasan Nasrallah, is believed to have been behind several attacks against U.S., Jewish and Israeli interests worldwide, including the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 241 Americans, and the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that killed more than 80 people.
Israel fought a bloody, month-long war with Hezbollah last summer in south Lebanon after the group seized two Israeli soldiers. The soldiers have not been returned and their fate is unknown. Other Israeli soldiers have vanished in Lebanon during decades of conflict along the countries' shared border, most notably an Israeli airman named Ron Arad. Yatom said it is possible Asgari "knows quite a lot about Ron Arad."
In a January briefing to Congress, then-Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte described Hezbollah as a growing threat to U.S. interests. "As a result of last summer's hostilities, Hezbollah's self-confidence and hostility toward the United States as a supporter of Israel could cause the group to increase its contingency planning against United States interests," Negroponte said.
U.S. intelligence officials said they had no evidence that Hezbollah was actively planning attacks but noted that the organization has the capacity to do so if it feels threatened.
Correspondents Scott Wilson in Jerusalem and Anthony Shadid in Beirut and staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.
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Iran, Russia: Nuclear Reactors and Geopolitics
Summary
Russian President Vladimir Putin on March 12 jumped into the dispute over Russia's construction of a nuclear reactor in Iran, explicitly telling state press that all work will be suspended until the Iranians resume their payments. The message between the lines is clear: Russia will not complete the Bushehr reactor -- or at least not while Putin remains president.
Analysis
Russian President Vladimir Putin on March 12 personally ordered the suspension of any transfers of nuclear materials and technologies to Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant project, ostensibly because of Iran's unwillingness to meet its payment schedule for the project. The idea that Iran, currently flush with petrodollars and facing down the U.N. Security Council over its nuclear program, would choose this moment to stop paying its primary political backer, Russia, is an odd one.
The reality is that Putin has no intention of ever completing the Bushehr project.
The Bushehr project dates to 1995, when the Russians agreed to build it for Iran, and was supposed to be completed by 1999. In theory, aside from some simple -- if essential -- component installation, the facility has been ready since 2004. Now, pushing three years later, the project remains a white elephant, and the Russians are claiming the Iranians are not paying for their services.
The nuclear card has been among Iran's most reliable means of drawing Washington's attention and pushing the Americans to take Tehran's concerns over the future of Iraq seriously, so Putin's announcement has delivered the Iranians a strong blow. If a junior minister or representative of a state firm were to insist that a bogus payment problem existed, it easily could be written off as bureaucratic stubbornness or the payment getting lost in the mail. Not so when a president -- particularly one as sober, controlling and exacting as Putin -- puts his personal seal on the policy. Bushehr is not going to be finished.
This does not eliminate Iran's nuclear card. Tehran still has its uranium conversion program at Isfahan, its uranium enrichment program at Natanz, and a heavy-water reactor under construction at Arak, but these facilities are not under regular international inspections, and moreover have direct uses in a nuclear weapons program. (Though uranium power reactors such as Bushehr can be used in a weapons program, they require extensive additional support infrastructure first.) It is far more difficult to convince the West -- and especially the Europeans, who are less inclined to view Iranian plans as nefarious -- that these facilities are all for the peaceful development of nuclear energy when one's power plant is not getting off the ground.
Ultimately, it is all political. Russia uses Bushehr as a means of injecting its influence into the Middle East, positioning itself as an impossible-to-ignore go-between for the West and Iran. So long as the facility is under construction, Moscow has maximized its leverage with all parties.
Should the facility ever come on line, however, Moscow will lose hugely. First, the West would be furious with Russia for giving Iran functional nuclear technology, severely damaging Russian relations with the West. Second, with Bushehr operational, neither the West nor Iran would need to keep talking to Russia about the Iranian nuclear power program. Third, Iran is not a natural Russian ally. The two have fought in a number of wars and actively compete for influence in Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. A nuclear-armed Iran is actually more of a long-term threat to Russia than it is to the United States, which a strategist like Putin knows well.
Not even in the case of a breach in U.S.-Russian relations -- and those relations are not exactly in tip-top shape -- will Putin change this policy. There is only one conceivable policy evolution in Russia that would allow Iran access to Russian nuclear technology: regime change that saw the ejection of Putin and his inner circle of pragmatists in favor of Russia's siloviki.
The siloviki are a loosely aligned group of Russian nationalists and ultranationalists who dominate the country's military, intelligence and foreign policy apparatus and share the goal of resurrecting Russia as a great power. One of the siloviki's most glaring weaknesses is that they consider anything bad for the United States by definition good for Russia. Many siloviki have declared their support for proliferating nuclear technology far and wide in order to complicate U.S. efforts globally.
Under a siloviki government, therefore, Russia might actually give Iran what it needs to make Bushehr operational -- and perhaps even more -- but not until then.
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London, March 13, 2007
Europe Must Decide
by Matthias Küntzel
We stand at a historic crossroads. Disregarding Security Council decisions, Iran's rulers are stepping up their nuclear programme. Will Europe continue soft-soaping the Mullahs or will it show some resolve? Will it accept the fact that, by seeking nuclear weapons, the Iranian dictatorship is escalating its holy war at the gates of Europe? Or will it summon up the will to raise the economic price Iran must pay to a point where the regime – which is facing mounting popular discontent – has to give way?
If any power is still able to get the regime in Tehran to back off without the use of military force, then that power is the European Union. The USA can't do it because it has no trade with Iran . China, Japan and Russia can't do it either, because Iran can get along without them. But Iran needs Europe. Iran gets 40% of its imports from the EU, which in turn takes in 25% of Iranian exports.
While Japan and China are interested in Iran essentially as a source of energy supplies, Germany , Britain, Italy, the Netherlands and France provide the Iranian economy with vital investments. Trading partner number one was and is Germany; as the former President of the German-Iranian Chamber of Commerce in Tehran, Michael Tockuss, has explained, "some two thirds of Iranian industry relies on German engineering products. The Iranians are certainly dependent on German spare parts and suppliers."
Certainly dependent! The potential leverage of economic sanctions couldn't be clearer. Since then a study by the Iranian Parliament has stated the obvious: without European spare parts and industrial goods the Iranian economy would grind to a halt within a few months. If anyone is still in a position to use this lever before it is too late, then it is Germany and the EU.
Of course Europe should have done so back in 2003, when Tehran was forced to admit that it had been pursuing a secret nuclear programme for the past eighteen years. Nuclear weapons in the hands of the world's number one sponsor of terrorism? The public was alarmed. But what happened?
Instead of immediately cutting technology transfers to Iran , European exports to Iran rose 29 % to € 12.9 billion between 2003 and 2005.
Prior to 2003, government-backed export guarantees had fuelled the expansion in trade by countries such as Italy, France and Austria. After the exposure of Iran's secret nuclear programme, these export guarantees were not stopped by European governments but generously increased, as we can see here in the case of Germany and Britain .
In its 2004 annual report on export guarantees, Berlin's Economics Ministry dedicated a special section to Iran that captures its giddy exitement about business with Tehran: "Federal Government export credit guarantees played a crucial role for German exports to Iran; the volume of coverage of Iranian buyers rose by a factor of almost 3,5 to some € 2,3 billion compared the previous year," the report said. "The Federal Government thus insured something like 65% of total German exports to the country. Iran lies second in the league of countries with the highest coverage in 2004, hot on the heels of China."
British trade with Iran is relatively small in comparison to Germany. Between 2003 and 2005 Germany's export to Iran was about five times larger than exports from British firms. The governmental policies of both countries, however, are quite similar. In Britain , there is a separate government department, the "Export Credits Guarantee Department" or ECGD that reports to the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and derives its powers from the "Export and Investment Guarantees Act 1991". According to the ECGD's annual list of guarantees the British export credit guarantees for business with Iran rose by a factor of 2,6 - from 30 Million pounds in 2003 to an amazingly 77 Million pounds in 2004.
Is this boosting of business with Iran compatible with the ECGD's declared goal "to ensure its activities with other Government objectives including those on sustainable development, human rights, good governance and trade"? Not at all.
Instead this policy was and is a stab in the back for Iranian human rights groups, since there can be no question here of "change through trade". On the contrary. Three quarters of all Iranian industrial firms are in state hands. The export deals are not being struck with the private sector, but with the regime's "Revolutionary Foundations" such as the "Martyrs Foundations" run by Islamist hardliners. These "little kings", as they are known in Iran, are personally appointed by the revolutionary leadership and Parliament has no control over them. Most are or have been involved in terrorism or weapons of mass destruction programmes.
European export support bolsters the Mullahs' nuclear ambitions in three ways. Firstly, a proportion of any money lent to the regime is spent on nuclear research. Secondly, every export deal strengthens the internal position of the hardliners, who are invariably hardliners on the nuclear issue too. Thirdly, the country is getting state-of-the-art technology of a sort that can be used in the nuclear sphere. For example, in August 2003 Siemens – a firm with expertise in the field of nuclear power station construction – signed a contract for the delivery of 24 power stations. To make this deal, Siemens had to commit itself to "technology transfer with regard to small and medium-sized power stations".
2005 marked a further watershed. Now, a hardliner had become President. Ahmadinejad's tirades about Israel, the Holocaust and the Twelfth Iman shed a harsh new light on the special threat presented by Iran's nuclear programme. This was not only a good opportunity, but also a truly compelling reason for a change of export policy towards Iran. Indeed, the OECD raised Iran's rating of the risk regarding possible export guarantees. Exports became more expensive and the mood among exporters worsened. Nevertheless, in 2006 German exports to Iran fell only by 6%. Last year German exports worth € 4.1 billion, made its way to Iran. Austria and Germany – despite the Holocaust denial and threats to annihilate Israel –continued to promote exports as if nothing had happened. In 2006, some 20% of all German export credit guarantees were still being devoted to business with Iran. In Britain , the last ECGD annual report of 2006 shows that here the third largest liability was decided in favour of business with Iran.
The real pan-European support for Iran , however, including the UK, relates to the Nabucco project for a giant pipeline running directly from the Iranian gas fields to the city of Baumgarten in Lower Austria . The final decision on this project is to be made at the end of this year. If this pipeline is built, the relationship between Europe and the Mullahs would change. In this case Iran 's Islamist regime would become Europe's new strategic partner.
It was precisely in February 2006, as the Iranian president's tirades reached their height, that the European Investment Bank decided to put a billion dollars into this project. However, this Bank is an EU body. It gets its capital from the EU member states including the UK. As the EU's financial instrument, it is obliged to pursue the EU's political goals. Propping up the economy of a regime that publicly hangs young women and men for their sexual relationships can hardly count as one of the EU's political goals. Was there ever a public debate or a parliamentary debate in this country about the Nabucco and its long-term effects?
Today, in 2007, Iran is on the verge of being able to produce enriched uranium on an industrial scale. But Europe continues to oppose the establishment of an effective sanctions regime by a "coalition of the willing" going beyond the limits of the Security Council resolutions. On the contrary, three weeks ago, the German government declared, that also today it grants new Hermes export credit guarantees for trade with Iran. The British governmental organisation "UK Trade & Investment", undauntedly beats the drum for more trade with Iran as well: "Iran is one of the most exciting countries in the region for business development … The main opportunity for UK business is in providing capital and equipment to Irans's priority sectors: Oil, gas and petrochemicals, Mining [and] Power."
What do the turning points of 2003, 2005 and 2007 show us? They show the stubbornness with which business and political leaders constantly follow the same paradigm: Iran's nuclear ambitions are treated as a negligible quantity, with "business as usual" taking priority. They act as if it is a matter of secondary importance from the point of view of European interests whether Iran has nuclear weapons or not and are taking their distance from those advocating sanctions. They seem to have fallen prey to the illusion that a nuclear Iran would have no impact on Europe. But there could be no bigger mistake. An Iran with nuclear weapons would be a nightmare not only for Israel, but also for Europe itself.
If Iran were to develop nuclear weapons, the whole of the Middle East would go nuclear too – whether because the Iranian regime would fulfil its promise to pass the technology on to its friends or because the Arab regimes would seek their own nuclear capability in Iran's wake. The specific danger presented by the Iranian bomb, however, stems from the unique ideological atmosphere surrounding it - a mixture of death-wish and weapons-grade uranium, of Holocaust denial and High-Tec, of fantasies of world domination and missile research, of Shiite messianism and plutonium. There are other dictatorships in the world. But in Iran the fantasy-worlds of antisemitism and religious mission are linked with technological megalomania and the physics of mass destruction. For the first time we face a danger that first appeared on the horizon 70 years ago: a kind of "Adolf Hitler" with nuclear weapons.
Does anyone here really believe that Europe would be hardly affected by this? As Angela Merkel informed us recently, "We must take the Iranian President's rhetoric seriously". Quite right! Ahmadinejad is gleefully contemplating the end of liberal democracy as a whole: "Those with insights can already hear the sounds of the shattering and fall of the ideology and thoughts of the liberal democratic systems", as he wrote in a letter to President Bush, reiterating the shared view of the entire theocratic elite. He sees himself and his country as being in the midst of a "historical war that has been underway for hundreds of years" and drums into the heads of his followers that "we must make ourselves aware of the baseness of our enemy, such that our holy hatred will spread ever further like a wave." In order to win this war, the Shahab 5 medium-range missile, which can carry nuclear warheads and strike almost any target in Europe, is being built. In order to win this war, thousands of suicide bombers have been recruited and Hezbollah cells established throughout Europe – cells whose members are under the direct command of the Iranian secret services.
Europe will at once find itself in a new situation if Iran gets the bomb. Whether or not Iran formally declares itself to be a nuclear power is secondary. In the same way as the death sentence on British author Salman Rushdie succeeded in striking fear into thousands of hearts, so will Iran's nuclear option serve to torpedo any prospect of peace in the Middle East and keep Europe in line.
Something has to happen to prevent this scenario from becoming a reality. Which brings me back to the final remaining non-military resort in the conflict with Iran: tough sanctions.
Of course, even outside America there are firms that are behaving responsibly, firms about which it could be said that, even if they perhaps don't always engage in "fair trade", they are at least committed to "terror-free trade", firms that have either totally ceased involvement in Iran or reduced their activities to a minimum. Among them are the Swiss banks UBS and Credit Suisse, British Petroleum and the Allianz. They no longer want to get their hands dirty.
But then there is the far longer list of firms that want to do business with the jihadists in Tehran, albeit in increasing secrecy, since they wish to keep their partnership with the Iranian regime out of the public eye. Among them are giants like BASF, Henkel, Continental, Bahlsen, Krupp, Linde, Lurgi, Siemens, ZF Freidrichshafen, Mercedes, Volkswagen, Scania, Volvo, MAN, Shell, Total, Hansa Chemie, Hoechst, OMV, Renault and SAS as well as smaller firms such as Stahlbau Schauenberg , Schernier and Wolf Thermo-Module. From now on we should call such firms what they are: silent partners in terrorism.
Tehran is purposely driving on towards nuclear weapons. Time is at a premium. The security environment for the twenty-first century is being decided right now. Tomorrow, will we already be living in the shadow of the Iranian bomb? Or can the international community still stop Ahmadinejad and his regime?
If respect for the victims of the Holocaust still counts for anything in Europe today, then any firm that does business with the antisemitic regime – a regime that promotes suicide terrorism, finances Hezbollah and has explicitly stated its goal of destroying Israel - must be exposed and denounced. If continental Europe's civil societies wish to make good on their claim that they have learned the lessons of history, then pressure must be exerted on their Governments until they do what has to be done to prevent the Iranian bomb. If Great Britain and the EU fail to put prompt and massive pressure on Iran and confront it with the alternative of either changing course or suffering devastating economic blows, all that will remain will be the choice between a bad solution – the military option – and a dreadful one – the Iranian bomb.
Europe must cease to be the sleeping partners of terrorism. We must put a stop to the international competition to see who can make the dirtiest deal in Iran. We must break with an approach that is leading with businesslike efficiency towards catastrophe.
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Russia's shift on this is a most welcome development.
The matter of the anti-aircraft missiles that they have sent/will send? seems to have fallen off the radar screen. Does anyone know the current status of this matter?
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Russia Gives Iran Ultimatum on Enrichment
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
Published: March 20, 2007
PARIS, March 19 — Russia has informed Iran that it will withhold nuclear fuel for Iran’s nearly completed Bushehr power plant unless Iran suspends its uranium enrichment as demanded by the United Nations Security Council, European, American and Iranian officials say.
The ultimatum was delivered in Moscow last week by Igor S. Ivanov, the secretary of the Russian National Security Council, to Ali Hosseini Tash, Iran’s deputy chief nuclear negotiator, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because a confidential diplomatic exchange between two governments was involved.
For years, President Bush has been pressing President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to cut off help to Iran on the nuclear power plant that Russia is building at Bushehr, in southern Iran. But Mr. Putin has resisted. The project is Tehran’s first serious effort to produce nuclear energy and has been very profitable for Russia.
Recently, however, Moscow and Tehran have been engaged in a public argument about whether Iran has paid its bills, which may explain Russia’s apparent shift. But the ultimatum may also reflect an increasing displeasure and frustration on Moscow’s part with Iran over its refusal to stop enriching uranium at its vast facility at Natanz.
“We’re not sure what mix of commercial and political motives are at play here,” one senior Bush administration official said in Washington. “But clearly the Russians and the Iranians are getting on each other’s nerves — and that’s not all bad.”
A senior European official said: “We consider this a very important decision by the Russians. It shows that our disagreements with the Russians about the dangers of Iran’s nuclear program are tactical. Fundamentally, the Russians don’t want a nuclear Iran.”
At a time of growing tensions between Washington and Moscow, American officials are welcoming Russian support on the situation with Iran as a sign that there are still areas in which the two powers can cooperate.
Russia has been deeply reluctant to ratchet up sanctions against Iran in the Security Council, which is expected to vote on a new set of penalties against the country within the next week.
But American officials have been trying to create a commercial incentive for Russia to put pressure on Iran. One proposal the Bush administration has endorsed since late 2005 envisions having the Russians enrich Iran’s uranium in Russia. That creates the prospect of tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in business for Russia, and a way to ensure that Iran receives only uranium enriched for use in power reactors, instead of for use in weapons.
Iran has rejected those proposals, saying it has the right to enrich uranium on its own territory.
The Russian Atomic Energy Agency, or Rosatom, is eager to become a major player in the global nuclear energy market. As Security Council action against Iran has gained momentum and Iran’s isolation increases, involvement with the Bushehr project may detract from Rosatom’s reputation.
In a flurry of public comments in the past month, Russian officials acknowledged that Russia was delaying the delivery of fuel to the reactor in the Iranian port city of Bushehr. It blamed the decision on the failure of Iran to pay what it owes on the project, not on concerns about nuclear proliferation.
But last month, Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov informed some European officials that Russia had made a political decision not to deliver the fuel, adding that Russia would state publicly that the sole reason was financial, European officials said.
And then last week, a senior Iranian official confirmed in an interview that Mr. Ivanov had threatened Iran with an ultimatum: The fuel would be delivered only after Iran’s enrichment of uranium at Natanz was frozen.
Members of the Security Council are moving toward a vote this week on a draft resolution imposing further sanctions on Iran for its defiance of demands that it suspend enrichment activities and return to negotiations over its nuclear program.
The resolution focuses on the country’s arms exports, a leading Iranian bank and the elite Revolutionary Guards military force. It will reduce Iran’s access to foreign currency and isolate the bank, Bank Sepah, from international financing.
The United States State Department has granted visas to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran and a retinue of 38 aides and security staff so that he can address the Security Council meeting.
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Throughout the negotiations, the Russians tried to water down the resolution, a reflection of both their desire to avoid a backlash in Iran and their strong skepticism about the effectiveness of sanctions.
The pending resolution follows a similar one passed in December that required four months of negotiations, in large part because of Russia’s resistance. Russia’s support came only after an initial proposal, which would have imposed curbs on Bushehr, was dropped.
Russian officials have gone out of their way to not publicly link the Bushehr project and the crisis over Iran’s decision to forge ahead with producing enriched uranium, which, depending on the level of enrichment, can be used to produce electricity or make weapons.
In remarks on Sunday, for example, Mr. Ivanov said there should be no linkage between discussions on Iran’s nuclear program and the Bushehr plant. “It is a separate issue,” he told a conference of Russia’s Foreign and Defense Policies Council. He added, “All the work being done is under strict control of the International Atomic Energy Agency,” the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog agency based in Vienna.
He also cautioned against using possible nuclear sanctions for other purposes, saying, “We oppose attempts to use this issue as an instrument of pressure or interference in Iran’s internal affairs.”
But Mr. Ivanov also called on Iran to resolve outstanding questions with the agency about its nuclear program and to stop enriching uranium. The Russians have been pressing Iran to take some sort of pause in its uranium enrichment that might allow the Security Council sanction process to halt and bring Iran back to the negotiating table.
“The clock must be stopped; Iran must freeze uranium enrichment,” Mr. Ivanov said. “The U.N. Security Council will then take a break, too, and the parties would gather at the negotiating table.”
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, has also called for a “pause,” noting that even a brief suspension of enrichment would be enough to get the United States to the negotiating table with Iran under an offer that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made in May.
The Bushehr nuclear project has a long history. For more than a decade, Russia has been working under a $1 billion contract to complete the plant, which began with Germany during the time of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. After the 1979 revolution, the project was halted; then the site was bombed by Iraq during its eight-year war with Iran. When Iran decided to complete the facility after the war ended, Germany, under pressure from the United States, refused to finish it, or even provide Moscow with the original blueprints.
The project — already eight years behind schedule — is now almost complete. Last year, Russia agreed to ship low-enriched fuel to the plant by March 2007 and start it in September, with electricity generation to start by November.
But in mid-February, Russia said Iran had not made the last two $25 million monthly payments after insisting that it be allowed to pay in euros instead of dollars. Russian officials cited a delay in the delivery of safety equipment from an unspecified third country as another reason for the decision.
Iranian officials denied that payments had been delayed. “Iran has had no delay whatsoever in making payments for the Bushehr nuclear power plant,” Mohammad Saeedi, deputy head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, was quoted by Iran’s state-run news agency IRNA as saying after the Russian claim.
“We would be crazy at this late date to endanger the project by not paying,” the official said. “There is no financial problem. The Russians want to use this issue as a bargaining chip.”
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The capture of British Navy servicemen by Iranian forces is not simply an incident over sea sovereignty in the Persian Gulf. It is a calculated move on behalf of Teheran’s Jihadi chess players to provoke a “projected” counter move by London and its American allies. It is all happening in a regional context, carefully engineered by the Mullahs strategic planners. Here is how:
The Iranian regime’s master plan is to wait out the remainder of Tony Blair’s mandate (few more months) and the remaining “real time” of President Bush (till about the end of 2007). For the thinking process in Tehran, based on their Western consultants, believe that Washington and London have reached the end of the rope and will only have till 2008 to do something major to destabilize Ahmedinijad regime. As explained by a notorious propagandist on al Jazeera today the move is precisely to respond to the Anglo-American attempt to “stir trouble” inside Iran. Anis Naccash, a Lebanese intellectual supporter of the Ayatollahs regime, appearing from Tehran few hours ago on the Qatari-based satellite and “explained” that the “US and the UK must understand that Iran is as much at war with these two powers in as much as they support the rise of movements and security instability inside Iran.” He added that Khamenei is clear on the regime’s decision to strike: “we will be at war with you on all levels: secret, diplomatic, military and other.” Pro-Iranian propagandists in the region, via media and online rushed to warn that this movement is part of Iran’s counter-strike against any attempt to destabilize the regime. Two major tracks emerge from these statements, the Iranian military maneuvers and the capture of British Navy personnel.
1) Iran’s domestic front is putting pressure on the Ahmedinijad regime.
From internal reporting, dissidents and anti-Ahmedinijad forces from various social sectors are practically in slow motion eruption against the authorities. Students, women, workers and political activists have been demonstrating and sometimes clashing with the regime’s security apparatus. Western media didn’t report proportionally on these events over the past few weeks. In addition, ethnic minority areas have been witnessing several incidents, including violence against the “Revolutionary Guards,” including in the Arab and Baluch areas. And last but not least, the defection of a major intelligence-military figure early this month to the West was, according to internal sources, a “massive loss” to the regime and a possible first one in a series.
2) The regime “need” an external clash to crush the domestic challenge.
As in many comparable cases worldwide, when an authoritarian regime is faced with severe internal opposition it attempts to deflect the crisis onto the outside world. Hence, Teheran’s all out campaign against the US and its allies in Iraq, Lebanon and the region is in fact a repositioning of Iran’s shield against the expected rising opposition inside the country. Hence the Khomeinist Mullahs plan seem to be projected as follow:
a. Engage in the diplomatic realm, to project a realist approach worldwide, but refrain from offering real results
b. Continue, along with the Syrian regime, in supporting the “Jihadi” Terror operations (including sectarian ones) inside Iraq
c. Widen the propaganda campaign against the US and its allies via a number of PR companies within the West, to portray Iran as “a victim” of an “upcoming war provoked by the US.”
d. Engage in skirmishes in the Gulf (and possibly in other spots) with US and British elements claiming these action as “defensive,” while planned thoroughly ahead of time.
3) The regime plan is to drag its opponents into a trap
Teheran’s master planners intend to drag the “Coalition” into steps in engagement, at the timing of and in the field of control of Iran’s apparatus. Multiple options and scenarios are projected.
a. British military counter measure takes place, supported by the US. Iran’s regime believe that only “limited” action by the allies is possible, according to their analysis of the domestic constraints inside the two powerful democracies.
b. Tehran moves to a second wave of activities, at its own pace, hoping to draw a higher level of classical counter strikes by US and UK forces. The dosing by Iran’s leadership is expected to stretch the game in time, until the departure of Blair and of the Bush Administration by its political opponents inside the country’s institutions and public debate.
In a short conclusion the “War room” in Tehran has engaged itself in an alley of tactical moves it feels it can control. But the Iranian regime, with all its “political chess” expertise, may find itself in a precarious and risky situation. For while it feel that it can control the tactical battlefield in the region and fuel the propaganda pressure inside the West with its Petro-dollars, it may not be able to contain the internal forces in Iran, because of which it has decided to go on offense.
The Ahmedinijad regime wishes to crumble the international consensus to avoid the financial sanctions: that is true. But as important, if not more, it wants to be able to crush the revolt before it pounds the doors to the Mullahs palaces.
Dr Walid Phares is a Senior Fellow with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington. Author of the newly released The War of Ideas: Jihadism Against Democracy www.thewarofideas.net
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The article makes sense. Iran has now taken the Brits as hostages. The Brits mistake was allowing this vessel to be taken to start with.
Perhaps Iran has calculated that the timid US will spend the rest of Bush's and Blair's tenures negotiating the hostages release. AFter '08 they know the Dems will do nothing while they continue on with their nuclear goals. As far as I can tell only W. has the guts to stand up to them. But he doesn't have the political support. And with an election coming up he won't get it.
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Walid Phares is the man to listen to on Iran, IMHO.
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Today's NY Times:
UNITED NATIONS, March 24 — The United Nations Security Council unanimously agreed Saturday to impose new, more stringent sanctions to press Iran to suspend uranium enrichment and rejoin negotiations over its nuclear program.
All 15 members of the Security Council adopted the sanctions, Resolution 1747, which focus on constraining Iranian arms exports, the state-owned Bank Sepah — already under Treasury Department sanctions — and the Revolutionary Guard Corps, an elite military organization separate from the nation’s conventional armed forces.
No surprises were in the resolution, which modestly strengthens largely financial sanctions adopted in December in a first, limited resolution. Senior American officials hailed the new resolution as a significant international rebuke to Iran, and they predicted that the new resolution’s prohibitions on dealings with 15 individuals and 13 organizations would leave Tehran more isolated.
The Iranian representative to the session denounced the action as unlawful and unjustifiable — and vowed it would have no impact on what Tehran describes as a peaceful nuclear energy program.
The Council acted after months of increasing tensions between the United States and Iran, not only over its nuclear program, concerns that many Western and Middle Eastern countries share. The United States in recent weeks has publicly accused Iran of supplying new and powerful explosives to insurgents in Iraq.
And the Council voted one day after naval forces under the command of Revolutionary Guards seized eight British sailors and seven British marines in waters off the coast of Iraq.
In order to assure a unanimous vote that would symbolize united world opinion against Iran’s nuclear ambitions, lengthy negotiations continued through Friday on a series of amendments from three of the Security Council’s nonpermanent members, South Africa, Indonesia and Qatar. Their votes were seen as particularly important, because South Africa is a leader of the nonaligned movement, Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim nation and Qatar is a Gulf neighbor of Iran.
The Security Council representatives of those three nations each expressed deep concerns about the final language of the sanctions resolution, but eventually cast yes votes.
The sanctions package approved Saturday, American officials said, was devised to do more than simply punish Iran for its nuclear program, as was the more limited goal of the sanctions vote in December. The new language was written to rein in what they see as Tehran’s ambitions to become the dominant military power in the Persian Gulf and across the broader Middle East.
“We are trying to force a change in the actions and behavior of the Iranian government,” said R. Nicholas Burns, under secretary of state for political affairs. “And so the sanctions are immediately focused on the nuclear weapons research program, but we also are trying to limit the ability of Iran to be a disruptive and violent factor in Middle East politics.”
The resolution calls for freezing the overseas assets of the 15 Iranian citizens and 13 organizations, some involved in the nation’s nuclear programs and missile development efforts and some associated with the Revolutionary Guard.
That corps and a subordinate military unit, the Quds Force, are not directly involved in Iran’s nuclear program. But the United States and Israel say they have supplied small arms and rockets to Hezbollah and Hamas, labeled by the State Department as terrorist organizations.
American intelligence officers also say they have indications that the guard is linked to new and more powerful improvised explosives planted by insurgent groups in Iraq against American and coalition forces there. “If we can begin to limit the Quds Force, which has been supplying enhanced explosive technology to Iraq that has been used to kill our soldiers, that is a significant step for us,” Mr. Burns said in a telephone interview after the vote.
The new resolution prohibits the sale or transfer of Iranian weapons to any nation or organization, and calls on the nations of the world to “exercise vigilance and restraint” in exporting weapons to Iran. The measure invokes Chapter 7, Article 41, of the United Nations charter, rendering most of the provisions mandatory, but excluding military action to enforce them.
The sanction on Iran’s fourth-largest bank was written to halt its use as a conduit for money supporting Iran’s nuclear program.
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One decidedly weaker sanctions category in the new resolution calls on, but does not require, nations and international organizations not to enter into new commitments for export credits, grants or loans to Iran except in the case of humanitarian or development projects.
The measure asks the International Atomic Energy Agency to report back within 60 days on whether Iran has suspended its efforts at enriching uranium. If it says Iran has not, further sanctions may be considered. If the agency says Iran has complied, sanctions will be suspended.
The Iranian seat at the horseshoe-shaped table was filled by Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki. The seat had been reserved for Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but on Friday Iranian officials ignited an exchange of recriminations, saying that the president’s trip had been scuttled by tardy action from the United States government in issuing the visas.
In reply, a State Department spokesman, Tom Casey, said the United States Embassy in Bern, Switzerland, which handles visas for Iranians, had issued all of the required documents by early Friday and in ample time for the visit. It was not possible to independently verify either position.
After the vote, the Iranian foreign minister made a long and defiant rebuttal to the Security Council, dismissing the sanctions as “unlawful, unnecessary and unjustifiable” and said they would have no effect.
“Iran does not seek confrontation nor does it want anything beyond its inalienable rights,” Mr. Mottaki said. “I can assure you that pressure and intimidation will not change Iranian policy.”
He said that suspension of the Iranian nuclear program “is neither an option nor a solution,” and that it was “a gross violation” of the United Nations charter to use sanctions in an effort to halt what he contended was a peaceful nuclear energy program.
The resolution included amended language that stressed the importance of a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East — without reference to Israel, a close American ally widely believed to have nuclear weapons — and emphasized the importance of the role played by the International Atomic Energy Agency in nonproliferation efforts and safeguarding nuclear materials.
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Geopolitical Diary: Another Step in the U.S.-Iranian Covert War
The diplomatic row over the Iranian seizure of 15 British servicemen and marines entered its fourth day Monday, with Iran saying the Britons are "fit and well" and being held at a secret location until the Iranians can determine through interrogation whether their alleged entry into Iranian waters was intentional.
The U.S. and British governments say the British personnel were intercepted by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' (IRGC) naval forces March 23 after completing a search of a civilian vessel on the Iraqi side of the 120-mile Shatt al-Arab waterway leading to the Persian Gulf. The Iranian government, however, says the British servicemen admitted to illegally entering Iranian territory, and that it has the satellite tracking images to prove the "blatant aggression into Iranian territorial waters."
Iran has a track record of stirring up diplomatic spats in the oil-rich Persian Gulf in order to reassert its political and military relevance, as it did in June 2004 when it seized three British patrol boats in the Shatt al-Arab. At that time, the Iranian nuclear controversy was gaining steam as Washington attempted to transfer the issue to the U.N. Security Council while building a new government in Baghdad without consulting Iran.
This latest incident occurred a day ahead of the widely expected unanimous U.N. Security Council vote to tighten sanctions against Iran. Included in the resolution is a clause freezing the assets of 28 people and organizations ostensibly involved in Iran's nuclear and missile programs. Many of them belong to the elite IRGC and Quds Force (a paramilitary arm of the IRGC), which have been heavily involved in fueling the Iraq insurgency. The IRGC is evidently displeased with the financial hit, as well as the January seizure of five Iranians -- including IRGC and Quds Force members -- in a U.S. raid in Arbil. IRGC weekly newspaper Subhi Sadek expressed this outrage, saying the IRGC has "the ability to capture a bunch of blue-eyed, blond-haired officers and feed them to our fighting cocks."
There are a number of reasons behind the IRGC's recent seizure of the British servicemen, but there could be more to this diplomatic row than is apparent.
While Iran and the United States have kept the media busy with diplomatic maneuverings over Iraq and threats linked to the Iranian nuclear program, Iran has been entangled in an intense covert intelligence war with the West. As part of this fight, the assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist by Israel's Mossad was met a few weeks later -- as expected -- with a retaliatory strike in Paris against David Dahan, head of the Israeli Defense Ministry Mission to Europe. Though Dahan's death was treated as a suicide, intelligence suggests Dahan was singled out by the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) in a tit-for-tat strike.
Several weeks ago, Ali Reza Asghari, a former Iranian deputy defense minister and Pasdaran commander defected while traveling in Turkey and was turned over to the U.S. government. Asghari is undoubtedly a valuable asset for Western intelligence agencies, who likely hope to use him to dissect the Iranian defense establishment -- representing a significant threat to Iran's national security. In the course of Asghari's debriefing, he undoubtedly was grilled on his knowledge of any suspected U.S. agents operating in Iran in order to determine if any agents have been or are close to being exposed by Iranian security agencies.
With this in mind, there have been recent indications from U.S. and Israeli intelligence sources that the British MI6 was engaged in an operation to extract one of its agents from Iran, but a leak tipped MOIS off to the plan. According to an unconfirmed source, the IRGC nabbed the British personnel, as well as the agent, to use as a bargaining chip in order to secure the release of the five detained Iranians. If these negotiations go poorly for Iran, the Britons could very well be tried for espionage.
The motive behind the seizure of the British servicemen is still unclear, but the operation likely was planned well in advance by key figures within the IRGC. At this point, the Iranians are watching their backs closely, and are willing to take the political risk of flaring up another diplomatic dispute in order to plug further intelligence leaks.
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REVIEW & OUTLOOK
Total Recall
A French oil giant's deals with a rogue regime--this time in Iran.
Thursday, March 29, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
Don't stop us if you've heard this one: French oil giant Total SA is being investigated for illicit dealings with a rogue regime in the Middle East. This time it's Iran, but maybe you recall its experience with another dictator and something called Oil for Food.
A French judge is investigating bribes that Total executives allegedly paid Iranian officials to secure business in the Islamic Republic. Last week, the judge issued preliminary charges of abuse of company funds and corruption of foreign agents against Chief Executive Christophe de Margerie. The company and Mr. de Margerie deny any wrongdoing, but the Total experience is all too typical of the way European firms cut deals with dictators while their own governments provide political cover.
Meanwhile, the same French prosecutor continues to investigate Total for alleged kickbacks paid to Saddam Hussein in return for Iraqi oil. In his report on Oil for Food corruption, former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker found that Total, through intermediaries, had purchased some of the 11 million barrels of oil that former Iraqi officials claim was allocated to French Senator Charles Pasqua in thanks for his support of Saddam's Iraq. Total and Mr. Pasqua also deny any wrongdoing.
However the probes play out, Total's business with Tehran is probably a violation of the U.S. 1996 Iran-Libya Sanctions Act. The Clinton Administration thought so as far back as early 1998, when crude oil futures were selling for a quarter of the current price, and Tehran was desperate for cash to finance Hezbollah and, as we later learned, its nuclear program.
"We believe that transactions that substantially enhance Iran's ability to acquire the revenues necessary to acquire missile technology and weapons of mass destruction should not be in any way made easier," Defense Secretary William Cohen argued at the time. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was even more blunt: "As far as the French are concerned, I must say it passes my understanding why there is no realization that pumping money into the system of Iran is not helpful to the rest of us."
But after French carping and trade threats by the European Union, President Clinton waived sanctions on Total, Russia's Gazprom and Malaysia's Petronas for the $2 billion natural-gas deal they had inked with the mullahs in 1997. That waiver set an informal precedent, as both the Clinton and Bush Administrations have stayed silent as companies from Italy, Canada, the Netherlands, Britain, Norway, Sweden, South Korea and Japan have signed energy deals with Iran worth some $11.5 billion, as the nearby table shows.
That patience may be ending now that Iran is kidnapping British sailors, supplying bombs that kill Americans in Iraq, and defying U.N. orders to stop enriching uranium. The Bush Administration is pressing financial sanctions against Iran especially hard, but pressure is building on Capitol Hill for firmer action. Democratic Senator Frank Lautenberg is talking about more severe penalties for U.S. firms that do business with states that sponsor terrorism, and stricter sanctions on the U.S. interests of foreign companies could be in the cards as well.
We've always thought sanctions are a blunt instrument, and they can backfire when used on the wrong target. It's also true that U.S. sanctions wouldn't hurt Total in the short term; the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act is limited to penalties for companies' U.S. businesses, and the bulk of Total's activities are in Europe and Latin America. But against a regime such as Iran's--which is now the biggest threat to world security--sanctions are also a form of diplomatic pressure short of the military action that European governments claim to want to avoid at all costs. Total executives and European politicians are fooling themselves if they think U.S. pressure for action against Iran will stop once the Bush Administration leaves power.
There's some debate in France about why prosecutors are suddenly showing so much interest in what is by now a 10-year-old case. Perhaps allies of Jacques Chirac have less political cover as his presidency winds down, or maybe big companies are no longer seen as untouchable on the Continent after a series of corporate scandals. Or it could be that investigative judge Philippe Courroye is anxious to close out his current docket before his scheduled transfer to another court. Whatever the reason, it's good to see someone in Paris take corrupt dealings with dictators seriously.
In Iraq 10 years ago, Total and its political protectors canoodled with Saddam and propped him up until the U.S. decided it had no choice but to act against him. Europe shouldn't make the same mistake in Iran.
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From today's WSJ, one AF General's ideas on how we could attack Iran
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Iran Escalates
By THOMAS G. MCINERNEY
March 30, 2007; Page A15
President Reagan once famously quipped that his strategy in confronting the Soviet Union was "We win, they lose." Today, we need a similarly clear strategy to confront Iran, if we are to successfully counter its aim to drive the U.S. from the Middle East and -- as we see with the 15 British sailors the Iranians have taken hostage -- attempts to intimidate Western powers into inaction.
That strategy begins not with the Kabuki dance now underway at the United Nations. Turtle Bay is usually, and seems destined to be again in this case, a diplomatic sideshow meant more to distract us than to disarm a rogue regime.
While we dither the Iranians will acquire nuclear weapons, give support to our enemies in Iraq and undermine our credibility with our European allies. We need to demonstrate now that there are viable military options in dealing with a rogue regime in Tehran and that not all of those options will leave us embroiled in a shooting war with yet another large, sprawling nation in the Middle East.
I believe that our options for dealing with Iran are more numerous and could be more productive than many Washington policy makers have heretofore argued. Let us remember that Iran is a very diverse nation whose population is only 51% Persian. The rest is Azari (24%), Kurdish (10%) and a mix of other ethnic minorities including Turkman, Arab and others. This is a rich environment for unrest and one reason why there were an estimated 4,300 protest demonstrations in 2005 alone. In recent weeks, we may have benefited from another form of protest. Former Iranian deputy defense minister Ali Reza Asgari appears to have used a trip to Turkey to defect with his family. If he is now talking to Western intelligence officials, we'll soon know a lot more about the inner workings of the Iranian regime.
And the Middle East itself is no monolithic bloc of support for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Israel, of course, is a natural ally in gaining intelligence and lining up support against the Iranian regime. But Iran is bent on destabilizing and dominating the Arabian Peninsula from Lebanon through Gaza into Iraq with a stopover in Bahrain. That makes Saudi Arabia as well as Jordan potentially strong -- if not overt -- allies in countering Iranian influence. The situation has gotten so serious that King Abdullah of Jordan called it a Shia crescent sweeping across the Arabian Peninsula and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia summoned Vice President Cheney to Riyadh last fall.
If we demonstrate that we are sufficiently serious in countering Iran, we could form a coalition of the willing with Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, the Gulf States, Turkey, Australia and those European allies with the courage to consider what their future will look like with a nuclear-armed Iran within missile range. No more denial or hoping Iran will negotiate their nuclear weapons development away. The criteria for joining this coalition would be to join in making the following demands of Iran: Stop developing fissile material, submit to unambiguous International Atomic Energy Agency inspections, turn over all al Qaeda operatives within your borders and stop supporting Hezbollah.
The hard part, of course, of forming any meaningful coalition is the consequences of noncompliance. And this case is no different. The obvious punishment for a defiant Iran could be an air strike that aims to destroy its nuclear development facilities and overt support for Iranians working to overthrow their government. This is where the discussion of taking stringent actions against Iran usually breaks down. Few people believe Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern nations would join a coalition that carried out a military strike and there is little reason to believe many European nations would either.
This is where President Reagan in confronting the Soviets is instructive. The Gipper was elected in 1980 at a time when it appeared inevitable that the Soviet Union would dominate world affairs and just as inevitably that the U.S. was unable to do anything about it short of waging a bloody, military campaign that would have few allies in fighting and not every chance of success. In the end, as they say, Reagan won the Cold War without firing a shot.
We have similar options now. One of which is to enact drastic economic sanctions that, oddly, would involve forcing a gasoline crisis in Iran. Tehran is kept afloat on oil revenues, but it has done so at the expense of its oil industry. While it exports large quantities of crude oil, Iran imports 40% of its domestically consumed gasoline, and each gallon at the pump is heavily subsidized. Shutting off or even restricting the supply of gasoline flowing into the country would put the regime in a crunch and drive up public discontent without creating a corresponding humanitarian crisis.
We could also apply minimal military pressure without straining our relations with our allies. To date Iran is responsible for killing more than 200 American soldiers and wounding over 635 through the introduction of what the U.S. military calls Explosively Formed Penetrators. These EFPs are shaped charges specifically designed to pierce the hulls of our armored vehicles and are much deadlier than what al Qaeda and run-of-the-mill insurgents could have come up with on their own in Iraq. Enough is enough. We could develop a tit-for-tat strategy for each EFP that is detonated in Iraq that could target nuclear support facilities or Iranian leadership or other targets calculated to put heat on the regime without endangering civilians. Many of these responses may be written off as mere happenstance or accidents in a dangerous part of the world. But even as Iran becomes the unluckiest country in the world, our allies in the region could hardly blame us for a calculated response.
The U.S. can also assemble a large-scale force capable of an air offensive. This would serve a similar role to Reagan's military buildup, forcing the Soviets into an arms race that they ultimately couldn't maintain. The immediate strike force could be composed of some 75 stealth attack aircraft -- B2s, F117s and the F22s -- and some 250 nonstealth F15s, F16s, B52s, B1s and three carrier battle groups. These carrier battle groups are composed of over 120 F18s and cruise missiles galore. We also have over 750 UAVs for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance in Iraq today. There is more than enough to support a campaign aimed at demonstrating to the Iranian regime that with 48 hours we could hit its nuclear development facilities, command and control facilities, integrated air defenses, Air Force and Navy units and the Shahab 3 missiles using over 2,500 aim points.
Back in Washington, Congress also needs to exercise its responsibility and fund missile defenses, bunker busters and other technologies specifically designed to counter the Iranian regime. Tehran has the world scrambling to respond as it sets about assembling a nuclear weapon that may be more advanced than Fat Man and Little Boy, but which is still far less technologically advanced than the weapons systems we trust 20-somethings to operate every day in our military. Forcing Iran to expend its resources to keep pace with our technological advances is central to any strategy of defeating them.
We don't need to drop leaflets from the air spelling it out for the regime in Tehran that, if we were to carry out an air campaign, it would probably unleash a new Iranian revolution. But the leadership in Iran has to first come to understand that we neither fear a Hezbollah uprising over such a strike -- as Hezbollah is already carrying out terrorist attacks, we'd welcome an open fight on our terms -- nor would we need the main-line coalition ground forces we used in Iraq. Instead, we could simply use the Afghan model of precision airpower supporting covert and indigenous forces.
We're the United States of America. We don't threaten any nation. What Iran must come to realize -- and we must now decide for ourselves -- is that we are in this confrontation to win it.
Lt. Gen. McInerny is retired assistant vice chief of staff of the Air Force and Fox News military analyst.
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stratfor.com : Iranian Nukes Not For Sale
The Islamic Republic of Iran celebrated its first national "Nuclear Technology Day" on Monday. The celebration began at 9 a.m. local time, when school bells across the country rang in unison, congratulatory text messages from the government were sent out to millions of mobile phone users, U.S. and Israeli flags went up in flames and a massive cake colored to resemble yellowcake was devoured. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad led the festivities at the country's enrichment facility at Natanz, where he boldly announced that Iran "has joined the nuclear club of nations and can produce nuclear fuel on an industrial scale.''
Let us not forget that Ahmadinejad also announced a year ago that Iran had joined the nuclear club by running two cascades of 164 centrifuges. So, what's the news in this latest statement?
Producing nuclear fuel on an industrial scale that would place Iran well on its way to a uranium-based weapons program would involve something on the order of 3,000 defect-free centrifuges enriching to around 90 percent of the fissile isotope of uranium, up from the 3.5 percent that Iran is likely capable of in small amounts today. When asked if Iran had started injecting gas into 3,000 centrifuges being set up at the Natanz facility, National Security Chief Ali Larijani vaguely said, "Yes we have injected gas." The deputy chief of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, Mohammad Saidi, offered a bit more clarification when he denied they had reached the 3,000-centrifuge stage and said, "We have so far been dealing with the completion of two cascades of 164 centrifuges as a pilot stage and passing this phase means industrialization of uranium enrichment." Claiming industrialization is still quite a stretch when one factors in the crude quality of Iran's centrifuges and the approximately 3,000 functional centrifuges needed for a rudimentary industrial capacity -- at the very least.
The Iranians tend to promote their nuclear program one step ahead of what they have actually achieved. That is, the nuclear announcement a year ago was likely indicative of what the Iranian scientists had achieved in a test run, and Monday's announcement is the culmination of experiments conducted over the past year that have brought Iran to a stage at which its perfected enrichment is around 3 percent to 5 percent with two cascades of 164 centrifuges -- still well below the needed threshold for a solid weapons program, much less a power program that would take dozens of times more.
Putting the techno-babble aside, it is important to examine the purpose of Iran's nuclear program in the context of the ongoing negotiations between Washington and Tehran over Iraq. Though Ahmadinejad has been talking about a big announcement since early February, it appears that the declaration of Nuclear Technology Day came at a politically convenient time for the Iranians when viewed in the context of the Iraq negotiations.
Iran and the United States are both aggressively moving to try to gain the upper hand in these talks. The Iranians played their most recent hand, the British detainee incident, quite skillfully. In what was seen as a risky maneuver, Iran in one swoop called the U.S. and British bluff that military force is a viable option against Iran, humiliated the British government through the public confessions from the detainees and, finally, demonstrated that it can effectively negotiate and deliver -- just as it could in a potential Iraq deal. Though the British detainee incident helped strengthen Iran's bargaining position, it provided Iran with only a minor advance. The United States did not waste time in making its next move with a new military offensive called Operation Black Eagle against Iran's Shiite militant allies in the town of Ad Diwaniyeh south of Baghdad, Iraq.
This is why Iran relies heavily on the nuclear card in these negotiations. When Iranian dissidents leaked details of Iran's covert nuclear program in 2002, Iran's chances of achieving full nuclear capability without facing a direct threat from Israel or the United States were severely crippled. When Washington made clear that it did not feel the need to negotiate with Iran over the future of Iraq in the spring of 2003 -- when the war was still in its early stages and the United States was still denying a Sunni insurgency existed -- Iran made the strategic decision to ratchet up the nuclear threat and utilize its militant assets throughout the region to bring Washington back to the negotiating table on Iran's terms.
Though this process is still ongoing, the United States and Iran have now reached a level in the Iraq standoff in which both sides realize they need to deal with each other to avoid their worst-case scenarios in Iraq. This mutual dependence also has given Iran the confidence that its nuclear program need not be viewed solely as a bargaining chip by the United States, and instead must become part of any deal Washington wants on Iraq. In other words, Iran is gambling that a final deal over Iraq will not require an Iranian capitulation on its nukes. Even if Iran agrees to inspections of its nuclear facilities or a cap on a certain level of enrichment, the clerical regime is likely calculating that these guarantees can be manipulated down the road for Iran to reactivate its program without much trouble.
This could be why Larijani announced on Sunday that Iran is now ready to "begin real negotiations" over its nuclear program, signaling that the Islamic Republic has reached a technological level that is advanced enough to put it on the path toward a weapons program, but not threatening enough to require pre-emptive military action -- a nice, cushy spot for negotiations.
The United States, on the other hand, is unlikely feeling pressured enough to grant the Iranians their nuclear wish. Already Washington has made an effort to separate the nuclear and Iraq issue in order to deprive Iran of one of its key bargaining tools. Washington also is not about to go against the interests of Israel, Russia and other invested parties in the dispute that do not wish to see the emergence of a nuclear-capable Iran.
Even so, Iran is making one thing very clear in this stage of the Iraq negotiations: Iranian nukes are not for sale.
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1137 GMT -- RUSSIA, IRAN -- Iranian military exercises near its Bushehr nuclear power plant April 6 have raised tensions around the project, Interfax reported April 11, citing a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman. Russia has expressed its surprise over the air defense practice and has asked Tehran to inform Russia in advance about plans to hold military exercises in the future.
stratfor.com
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A HISTORY LESSON STILL UNLEARNED
by Amir Taheri
Gulf News
April 18, 2007
With war drums beating louder, senior military commanders in Tehran miss few opportunities to warn the government against plunging the country into an unequal fight with the United States and its allies.
One such warning came last month from the Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard (IRCG) General Rahim Safavi.
In an unusually frank assessment of the situation, he told an audience of guardsmen that the country lacked the necessary means to defend its extensive land and sea borders. He insisted that everything be done to avoid an "unhappy episode".
In Tehran's military circles, the phrase "unhappy episode" is a codeword for the only direct military clash that has so far taken place between the Islamic Republic and the United States.
The clash came on April 18, 1988, exactly 19 years ago today.
At the time, the Islamic Republic censored all news of the event so that most Iranians do not even know that it happened at all. For their part, the Americans also "managed" the flow of information about the clash to prevent its strategic importance from becoming apparent at the time.
Nevertheless, the clash between the navy of the Islamic Republic and a US naval task force led by the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, was subsequently classed as one of the five naval battles of historic importance that established American sup-remacy at sea.
Clash
The background to the clash was rather complicated.
At the time, the Islamic Republic was at war against Iraq under Saddam Hussain, rejecting United Nations pleas for a ceasefire.
Towards the end of 1987, the Islamic Republic started firing on Kuwaiti oil tankers passing through the Gulf on the grounds that Arab oil money fuelled Saddam's war machine. Weeks of efforts by the UN, the Arab League, the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), and the nonaligned bloc to persuade Tehran to stop attacking Kuwaiti tankers produced no results.
It was then that President Ronald Reagan decided to put the Kuwaiti tankers under the US flag and escort them through the waterway.
The Islamic Republic retaliated by mining some of the shipping lanes in the waterway. On April 14, 1988, the USS Samuel B. Roberts struck a mine and was seriously damaged. It was towed to Dubai where it arrived two days later.
The following day experts established that the mine had been made in Iran and placed by the IRCG.
Within hours, President Ronald Reagan ordered the US task force to retaliate. The IRCG responded by firing missiles at US vessels without inflicting any harm.
The US task force seized the opportunity to unleash its superior firepower to virtually break the Iranian navy.
The Americans lost two men, the crew of a helicopter that came down in an accident far from the battle.
The IRCG lost 87 men and over 300 wounded. Later, the Islamic Republic filed a suit against the US at the International Court at The Hague claiming losses amounting to several billion dollars. (The court rejected Tehran's suit in November 2003.)
The battle's effect in Tehran was immediate.
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then the leader of the Islamic Republic, was initially inclined to retaliate by ordering Hezbollah to carry out suicide attacks against American and other Western interests.
However, he was persuaded by Hashemi Rafsanjani, then the ayatollah's closest aide, to take a deep breath and maintain a low profile. There was to be no retaliation. The remaining vessels of the Iranian navy were ordered to clear their movements with the US task force in advance to avoid any misunderstanding.
The battle
The battle, nicknamed by the US "Operation Praying Mantis", was followed in July by a tragic accident when the USS Vincennes shot down an Iran Air jetliner by mistake, killing all 290 passengers and crew.
Khomeini interpreted the accident as a deliberate escalation by the US and feared that his regime was in danger. Rafsanjani and other advisers used that fear to persuade the ayatollah to end the war with Iraq, something he had adamantly refused for eight years.
A broken Khomeini appeared on TV to announce that he was "drinking the chalice of poison" by accepting a UN-ordered ceasefire. He was no longer going to Karbala on his way to Jerusalem.
In his memoirs, Rafsanjani makes it clear that without the disastrous naval battle and the downing of the Iran Air jet, Khomeini would not have agreed to end a war that had already claimed a million Iranian and Iraqi lives.
The reason was that Khomeini was leader of a regime that lacked adequate mechanisms for self-restraint. He was the driver of a vehicle with no clutch or reverse-gear, let alone a brake, and thus was doomed to speed ahead until it hit something hard.
Interestingly, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad used a similar image recently when he committed the regime to a no-compromise position on the nuclear issue. "This train has no reverse-gear and no brakes," he said.
Khomeini could have ended the war with Iraq years earlier, obtaining decent terms for Iran. He did not because the extremist nature of his regime made it impossible to even contemplate the fact that realism, prudence and compromise are key elements of good leadership.
Khomeini could not have ended the war. He needed Reagan to do it for him. If the Islamic Republic is a train without a reverse-gear and brakes, it does not need a conductor. It could race ahead until it hits something hard on its way.
Amir Taheri is an Iranian writer based in Europe
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I wonder what lies underneath this cryptic paragraph?
IRAN: Former Iranian nuclear negotiator Hossein Mousavian is being detained on charges of espionage, Fars News Agency reported. Earlier reports did not indicate what charges had been brought against him. Mousavian was reportedly taken from his home April 30.
stratfor.com
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stratfor.com
IRAN: Iranian Arabs in the southwestern province of Khuzestan have expressed a desire to separate from Iran, Al Jazeera reported. National Liberation Movement of Ahwaz head Tahir Aal Sayyed Nima said a lack of schools in villages and a ban on Arabic in schools and government institutions is an attempt "to assassinate our Arab identity" and has led to separatist goals.
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NY Times
Iran is in the throes of one of its most ferocious crackdowns on dissent in years, with the government focusing on labor leaders, universities, the press, women’s rights advocates, a former nuclear negotiator and Iranian-Americans, three of whom have been in prison for more than six weeks.
The shift is occurring against the backdrop of an economy so stressed that although Iran is the world’s second-largest oil exporter, it is on the verge of rationing gasoline. At the same time, the nuclear standoff with the West threatens to bring new sanctions.
The hard-line administration of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, analysts say, faces rising pressure for failing to deliver on promises of greater prosperity from soaring oil revenue. It has been using American support for a change in government as well as a possible military attack as a pretext to hound his opposition and its sympathizers.
Some analysts describe it as a “cultural revolution,” an attempt to roll back the clock to the time of the 1979 revolution, when the newly formed Islamic Republic combined religious zeal and anti-imperialist rhetoric to try to assert itself as a regional leader.
Equally noteworthy is how little has been permitted to be discussed in the Iranian news media. Instead, attention has been strategically focused on Mr. Ahmadinejad’s political enemies, like the former president, Mohammad Khatami, and the controversy over whether he violated Islamic morals by deliberately shaking hands with an unfamiliar woman after he gave a speech in Rome.
Mr. Khatami, the lost hope of Iran’s reform movement, felt compelled to rebut the accusation because such a handshake is religiously suspect, but contended that the crowd seeking to congratulate him for his speech was so tumultuous that he could not distinguish between the hands of men and women. Naturally a video clip emerged, showing the cleric in his typical gregarious style bounding over to the first woman who addressed him on the orderly sidewalk, shaking her hand and chatting amicably.
The dispute over the handshake occurred during a particularly fierce round of the factional fighting that has hamstrung the country since the 1979 revolution. Far more harsh examples abound.
Young men wearing T-shirts deemed too tight or haircuts seen as too Western have been paraded bleeding through Tehran’s streets by uniformed police officers who force them to suck on plastic jerrycans, a toilet item Iranians use to wash their bottoms. In case anyone misses the point, it is the official news agency Fars distributing the pictures of what it calls “riffraff.” Far bloodier photographs are circulating on blogs and on the Internet.
The country’s police chief boasted that 150,000 people — a number far larger than usual — were detained in the annual spring sweep against any clothing considered not Islamic. More than 30 women’s rights advocates were arrested in one day in March, according to Human Rights Watch, five of whom have since been sentenced to prison terms of up to four years. They were charged with endangering national security for organizing an Internet campaign to collect more than a million signatures supporting the removal of all laws that discriminate against women.
Eight student leaders at Tehran’s Amir Kabir University, the site of one of the few public protests against Mr. Ahmadinejad, disappeared into Evin Prison starting in early May. Student newspapers had published articles suggesting that no humans were infallible, including the Prophet Muhammad and Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The National Security Council sent a stern three-page warning to all the country’s newspaper editors detailing banned topics, including the rise in gasoline prices or other economic woes like possible new international sanctions, negotiations with the United States over the future of Iraq, civil society movements and the Iranian-American arrests.
The entire campaign is “a strong message by Ahmadinejad’s government, security and intelligence forces that they are in control of the domestic situation,” said Hadi Ghaemi, an Iran analyst for Human Rights Watch. “But it’s really a sign of weakness and insecurity.”
At least three prominent nongovernment organizations that pushed for broader legal rights or civil society have been shuttered outright, while hundreds more have been forced underground. A recent article on the Baztab Web site said that about 8,000 nongovernment organizations were in jeopardy, forced to prove their innocence, basically because the government suspects all of them of being potential conduits for some $75 million the United States has earmarked to promote a change in government.
Professors have been warned against attending overseas conferences or having any contact with foreign governments, lest they be recruited as spies. The Iranian-Americans are all being detained basically on the grounds that they were either recruiting or somehow abetting an American attempt to achieve a “velvet revolution” in Iran.
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Analysts trace the broadening crackdown to a March speech by Ayatollah Khamenei, whose pronouncements carry the weight of law. He warned that no one should damage national unity when the West was waging psychological war on Iran. The country has been under fire, particularly from the United States, which accuses it of trying to develop nuclear weapons and fomenting violence in Iraq.
President Ahmadinejad and other senior officials have dismissed all the criticism as carping. The president blames the previous administration for inflation or calls it media exaggeration, while Tehran’s chief prosecutor, Said Mortazavi, said Iranians who oppose the Islamic Republic look for an excuse to criticize it.
After a meeting of senior police and judiciary officials in Tehran on June 19 to review what was described as “the public security drive,” the Iranian Labor News Agency quoted Mr. Mortazavi as saying that if the state did not protect public security, then “louts” and criminals “would be safe in society.
The three Iranian-Americans are being held in the notorious Section 209 of Evin Prison, the wing controlled by the Intelligence Ministry, and have been denied visits by their lawyers or relatives. Iran recognizes only their Iranian nationality and has dismissed any diplomatic efforts to intervene. A rally to demand their release is set for Wednesday outside the United Nations.
The three are Haleh Esfandiari, the director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; Kian Tajbakhsh, an urban planning consultant with the Open Society Institute; and Ali Shakeri, of the Center for Citizen Peacebuilding at the University of California, Irvine. A fourth, Parnaz Azima, a journalist who works for Radio Farda, an American-financed station based in Europe, has been barred from leaving the country.
“People don’t want to come to conferences, they don’t even want to talk on the phone,” said Abbas Milani, the director of the Iranian studies program at Stanford University. “The regime has created an atmosphere of absolute terror.”
To the political crackdown, Mr. Ahmadinejad adds a messianic fervor, Mr. Milani noted, telling students in Qom this month that the Muslim savior would soon return.
The appeal of such a message may be limited, however. Iran’s sophisticated middle class wants to be connected to the world, and grumbles that the country’s only friends are Syria, Belarus, Venezuela and Cuba. But it might play well with Mr. Ahmadinejad’s main constituency.
“They are the poor, the rural,” said Vali Nasr of the Council on Foreign Relations. “They don’t travel abroad, they don’t go to conferences. He is trying to undermine the social and political position of his rivals in order to consolidate his own people.”
Most ascribe Mr. Ahmadinejad’s motives to blocking what could become a formidable alliance between the camps of Mr. Khatami and Hashemi Rafsanjani, both former presidents. Parliamentary elections are scheduled for early next year, and the next presidential vote in 2009.
“Having to face a single pragmatic conservative and reform block is extremely threatening,” Mr. Nasr said, hence the intimidation of all possible supporters.
Not that everyone has been intimidated. More than 50 leading economists published a harshly worded, open letter to the president saying his policies were bringing economic ruin. High unemployment persists, there has been little foreign investment and inflation is galloping, with gasoline alone jumping 25 percent this spring.
Gasoline rationing is expected within a month, with consumers so anxious about it, reported the Web site Ruz, financed by the Dutch government, that skirmishes broke out in long lines at some pumps on June 17.
Iran can prove a difficult country to separate into black and white. Amid all the recent oppression, for example, last week the public stoning of a couple — the punishment for adultery — was called off. Women’s rights advocates had been agitating against it.
Also, two recent movies touched off controversy as too racy. One depicted an extramarital affair, and the hero of the second was an abortion doctor who drank and gambled, and yet was so beloved of the patients he had seduced that they sent him bouquets on his wedding night.
In an attempt to deflect criticism that its standards had grown loose, the Ministry of Islamic Guidance, which vets all books, movies and gallery exhibits, issued a statement noting that both scripts had been approved under the former administration of Mr. Khatami.
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http://michellemalkin.com/2007/06/25/the-human-rights-outrage-in-iranand-a-challenge-to-rosie-odonnell-and-her-ilk/
Where are the protests? Where are the outraged leftists? Where is the mainstream media coverage?
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http://www.breitbart.com/print.php?id=070625232254.etwt6z5u&show_article=1
Iranian forces crossed Iraqi border: report
Jun 25 07:23 PM US/Eastern
Iranian Revolutionary Guard forces have been spotted by British troops crossing the border into southern Iraq, The Sun tabloid reported on Tuesday.
Britain's defence ministry would not confirm or deny the report, with a spokesman declining to comment on "intelligence matters".
An unidentified intelligence source told the tabloid: "It is an extremely alarming development and raises the stakes considerably. In effect, it means we are in a full on war with Iran -- but nobody has officially declared it."
"We have hard proof that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps have crossed the border to attack us. It is very hard for us to strike back. All we can do is try to defend ourselves. We are badly on the back foot."
The Sun said that radar sightings of Iranian helicopters crossing into the Iraqi desert were confirmed to it by very senior military sources.
In response to the report, a British defence ministry spokesman said: "There is evidence that explosive devices used against our troops in southern Iraq originated in Iran."
"Any Iranian link to armed militias in Iraq either through weapons supply, training or funding are unacceptable."
Britain has about 7,100 soldiers in Iraq, most of whom are based in the southern city of Basra and surrounding areas, though the government has pledged to reduce that to between 5,000 and 5,500 this year.
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Iran: Is Fuel Rationing a Spark in a Powder Keg?
Summary
Iranians reportedly rioted June 27 over the government's move to engage in fuel rationing. Given Iran's lack of refining capabilities, Tehran is trying to control public gasoline consumption. The move, which at this stage is being implemented in a controlled fashion, is highly risky since it could lead to greater social and political unrest.
Analysis
As many as 50 gasoline stations were reportedly torched early June 27 in Iran as angry citizens protested fuel rationing measures. There are additional unconfirmed reports that gasoline stations in several other cities across the country were also burned. Elsewhere, protesters reportedly blocked the main highway in Tehran, and clashes were said to have led to at least three deaths.
This unrest came in the 24 hours after the government -- in an effort to curb the public's gasoline consumption -- imposed a system of fuel rationing that allows consumers 26.4 gallons per month (15.8 gallons if they use compressed natural gas). A long and intense back-and-forth has been taking place between Iran's parliament, which wanted to raise prices, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's administration, which favored rationing for fear of increasing inflation, already at 17 percent. In the end, the government did a bit of both. On May 22, a 25 percent hike was introduced, setting the new price at roughly 42 cents per gallon, followed by rationing, which is being instituted via a smart card system.
The reasons for the price hike and rations are rooted in Iran's chronic lack of refining facilities. Though Iran is a major crude oil exporter, it must import 7.9 million gallons of gasoline per day to meet demand. In 2006, Iran spent some $5 billion on gasoline imports from some 16 countries, with most coming from the United Arab Emirates. The current budget has an allocation of $2.5 billion. The difference in the figures from last year and this year has led to a situation in which, according to National Iranian Oil Co. International Affairs Director Hojjatollah Ghanimifard, Tehran can afford gasoline supplies until roughly the middle of August, while the current fiscal year ends in March 2008.
The government will be forced to revise its rationing and import policies based on the results of the current rationing system, which is more or less a pilot program, because Tehran wants to cut down on its multibillion-dollar annual fuel import expenditures. The idea is to allocate money away from subsidized fuel and toward infrastructure projects.
Tehran is also trying to counter the rising demand for fuel, which has been growing at 10 percent annually. Moreover, the decision also factors in the uncertainty surrounding Iran's international position; additional sanctions over Tehran's nuclear program could put the clerical regime in even more of a crunch. The rationing also allows Iran's pragmatic conservatives, led by Expediency Council head Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, to weaken the ultraconservatives, led by Ahmadinejad, by fueling public dissatisfaction with the president, in hopes that it could eventually lead to his exit from the political scene. The maverick leader is increasingly viewed as a liability in terms of domestic politics, and especially on the foreign policy front.
Actual rationale notwithstanding, the move is very risky because there is no such thing as managed chaos. The unrest generated by the fuel rationing could spiral out of control and threaten the entire system -- not just the ultraconservative administration. It is true that the Islamic republic has proven to be resilient since it was founded more than 28 years ago, and the clerical regime has managed to contain opposition forces so that none poses a challenge to the state. But tampering with public need for fuel could create the kind of unrest capable of seriously wounding the regime, especially at a time when it is playing a high-stakes game with the United States over Iraq and pursuing a controversial nuclear program.
Considering that Iran is in the middle of negotiations with Washington, this rationing policy could reveal Iranian vulnerability, which Washington might use as leverage against Tehran. Iran would not be engaging in such a move unless it was really financially pressed into doing so.
Ultimately, the regime hopes the negotiations over Iraq and its nuclear program will allow it to come out from underneath international sanctions, which will allow Tehran to acquire refining capabilities and reap other economic benefits. But until that happens, the Iranians are walking on thin ice.
stratfor.com
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A bit of a different take on the situation in Iran from an investment newsletter:
by John Mauldin
June 29, 2007
In this issue:
Iran Out of Gas
When an Enemy Is Self-Destructing, Stand Aside
, , ,
Iran Out of Gas
But before we touch on the credit world, I want to briefly look at a development in the oil markets which I find intriguing. Dr. Woody Brock, in a recent paper on oil prices, wrote a rather interesting sentence, to wit, that Iran would not have net oil to export in 2014. I found that rather remarkable. Woody is very serious and sober-minded even for an economist, not given to rash analysis, but this was certainly a new idea to me. I knew they were importing most of their gasoline, as they do not have a great deal of refining capacity. As it turns out, there is much more to the story.
I have said for years that I expect Iran to be the new friend of the US sometime next decade, as the regime is not popular and the country is growing younger. (Think China, once an implacable enemy.) I thought that the impetus would be the lack of freedom and knowledge of how the world is better off coming from the internet, but it turns out that it may be a desire for more freedom combined with economic problems which help bring about regime change, much as in Russia last century.
How could a country with the third (or second, depending on which source you quote) largest oil reserves in the world not be churning out ever more black gold? The answer, as it almost always is for such problems, turns out to be governmental and not economic in nature. Let's start out with a few facts.
Oil provides more than 70% of the revenues of the government of Iran. The rise in oil prices has been a bonanza for the regime, allowing them to subsidize all sorts of welfare programs at home and mischief abroad. And one of the chief subsidies is gasoline prices.
Gasoline costs about $.34 cents a gallon in Iran, or 9 cents a liter. You can fill up your Honda Civic for $4.49. In the US it costs almost $40 (The price has risen since the chart below was made). In neighboring Turkey it costs almost $95. Look at the two charts below from the recent Foreign Policy Magazine. Notice that Iran is spending 38% of its national budget (almost 15% of GDP!) on gasoline subsidies!
Chart two:
And this situation is likely to get worse. Let's look at a rather remarkable peer-reviewed study done for the National Academy of Sciences by Roger Stern of Johns Hopkins University late last year. Stern's analysis is somewhat political, in that he is critical of current US Iranian policy, but this is just one of several studies which show the same thing (http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/0603903104v1):
"A more probable scenario is that, absent some change in Irani policy ... [we will see] exports declining to zero by 2014-2015. Energy subsidies, hostility to foreign investment, and inefficiencies of its state-planned economy underlie Iran's problem, which has no relation to 'peak oil.' "
Iran earns about $50 billion a year in oil exports. The decline is estimated at 10-12% annually. In less than five years, exports could be halved and then disappear by 2015, predicted Stern.
Of course, you can go to a dozen web sites, mostly Iranian, which demonstrate that Iranian production will be double (or pick a number) by that time. The problem is, they all assume rather large sums of investment in the Iranian oil fields. Two projects which are "counted on" to be producing oil in 2008 have yet to be funded or started, as negotiations have broken down. Iran seems incapable of getting a deal actually done with a willing partner.
Part of this is a caused by the Iranian constitution, which does not allow for foreign ownership of oil reserves or fields. Instead, they try to negotiate to pay for investing in oil production. Called a buyback, any investment in an oil field is turned into sovereign Iranian government debt with a return of 15-17%. This is a very unpopular program at home, coming under much criticism from local government officials. Any deal that gets close to getting done comes under attack from lawmakers as being too good for foreign investors, so nothing is getting done.
Why not just fund the development themselves? They could, but the mullahs have elected to spend the money now rather than make investments which will not produce revenues for 4-6 years or more. They are investing around half the money needed just to maintain production, around $3 billion a year.
Let's look at a quote from Mohammed Hadi Nejad-Hosseinian, Iran's deputy oil minister for international affairs: "If the government does not control the consumption of oil products in Iran ... and at the same time, if the projects for increasing the capacity of the oil and protection of the oil wells will not happen, within 10 years, there will not be any oil for export." That's from their guy, not a Western academic.
When an Enemy is Self-Destructing, Stand Aside
Iran produced over 6 billion barrels of oil before the revolution in 1979. They now produce around 4 billion barrels a year. They are currently producing about 5% below their quota, which shows they are at their limits under current capacity. And production at their old fields is waning. The world recovery rate is about 35% from oil fields. Iran's is an abnormally low 24-27%. Normally, you pump natural gas back into an aging field (called reinjection) in order to get higher yields. Iran has enormous reserves of natural gas. Seems like there should be a solution.
However, if the National Iranian Oil Company (NOIC) sells it natural gas outside of Iran, it turns a profit. If it sells it in the country, then it can only get the lower, dramatically subsidized price. Guess which it chooses. Even so, internal natural gas demand is growing by 9% a year.
Not surprisingly, at 34 cents a gallon gasoline demand is rising 10% a year. This week, the government moved to ration supplies to about 22 gallons a month, which does not go far in the large cars preferred by younger Iranians. There have been riots, with people chanting "Death to Ahmadinejad." They take their right to plenty of cheap gas seriously. There is also widespread smuggling. Ten barrels of gasoline (easily hauled in a pickup) taken into Turkey yields about $3,000 in profit in a country with about that much GDP per person. Let's end with this section from Stern:
"Our survey suggests that Iran's petroleum sector is unlikely to attract investment sufficient to maintain oil exports. Maintaining exports would require foreign investment to increase when it appears to be declining. Other factors contributing to export decline are also intensifying. Demand growth for subsidized petroleum compounds from an ever-larger base. Growth rates for gasoline (11-12%), gas (9%), and electric power (7-8%) are especially problematic. Oil recovery rates have declined, and, with no remedy in sight for the gas reinjection shortage, this decline may accelerate.
"Depletion rates have increased, and, if investment does not increase, depletion will accelerate. If the regime actually proceeds with LNG exports, oil export decline will accelerate for lack of reinjection gas. In summary, the regime has been incapable of maximizing profit, minimizing cost, or constraining explosive demand for subsidized petroleum products. These failures have very substantial economic consequences.
"Despite mismanagement, the Islamic Republic's real oil revenues are nearly their highest ever as rising price compensates for stagnant energy production and declining oil exports. Despite high price, however, population growth has resulted in a 44% decline of real oil revenue per capita since the 1980 price peak. Moreover, virtually all revenue growth has been applied to pet projects, loss-making industries, etc. If price were to decline, political power sustained by the quadrupling of government spending since 1999 may not be sustainable. Yet we found no evidence that Iran plans fiscal retrenchment or any scheme to sustain oil investment.
"Rather, the government promises 'to put oil revenues on every table,' as if monopoly rents were not already the entree. Backing this promise is a welfare state built on the Soviet model widely understood as a formula for long-run economic suicide. This includes the 5-year plans, misallocation of resources, loss-making state enterprises, subsidized consumption, corruption, and oil export dependence that doomed the Soviet experiment. Therefore, the regime's ability to contend with the export decline we project seems limited."
Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of mullahs. If gasoline subsidies are 40% of the national budget now, what will they be in 7 years at a growth of 10% a year? Can rationing work? No, but it can slow the economy.
Stern concludes that Iran may need nuclear power as their energy supply is dwindling. I find this conclusion rather preposterous, since if they wanted more energy, all they would have to do is allow foreign investment or invest more of their own money in their own fields. If the developed world will simply apply firm sanctions, Iran will have to reconsider its nuclear program, as their ability to finance mischief will erode as the mullahs divert their resources to domestic needs in order to maintain their dwindling popularity.
The cost of their current policies cannot be lost on the youth and educated people of the country. There is almost 14% unemployment among college graduates. Iran looks to me like Russia did in 1988. They were in the process of self-destruction, although few recognized it at the time. Iran is a matter of time.
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Today's WSJ:
Making Iran Feel the Pain
By MATTHEW LEVITT
July 2, 2007
The international community, led by the U.S. and the U.K., is now developing and debating new economic sanctions against Iran. This third round will be pivotal -- either by significantly increasing the cost to Iran of continuing to engage in illicit and dangerous activities, or by showing the regime that it can outlast whatever symbolic measures are levied against it without fear of being bled financially.
The first two rounds of targeted and graduated sanctions have failed to change Iran's nuclear calculus. Iran's chief nuclear negotiator continues to meet with senior EU officials, most likely to buy time, while Tehran refuses to accede to demands that it freeze its uranium enrichment program.
U.N. Security Council Resolutions 1737 and 1747, passed last December and March respectively, signaled seriousness about using financial measures against Iran. The first declared an international consensus to sanction Iran, and the second to target banks. In particular, Russian and Chinese support for these resolutions shocked Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Iran saw first-hand the weak U.N. pressure on Saddam Hussein and expected no worse treatment. Mr. Ahmadinejad reportedly predicted that neither Moscow nor Beijing would sign off on these resolutions. Their passage made the country's professional classes, which are proud of Iran's integration in the international system, feel the sting of diplomatic and economic isolation.
The most effective U.N. sanction was against Bank Sepah. Iran's fourth-largest and one of the most important financial institutions was shut out of the international financial system. But the package of measures was noteworthy less for the list of specific individuals and entities sanctioned than for starting a graduated process intended to force the regime to stop its illicit conduct.
For graduated sanctions to be effective, however, each deadline that passes without a change in Iran's behavior must be followed by another, more severe round of sanctions. To date, sanctions have had a primarily psychological impact, producing discontent within the powerful merchant (bazaari) classes and civil servants. Now the teeth must come out. Failure to follow up with tougher sanctions would undermine whatever progress sanctions have had to date.
* * *
So this third round is the moment of truth. The danger is that today's diplomacy produces only more symbolic measures, watered down by multilateral negotiations whose goal is international consensus.
To avoid such failure, this round should fill the gaps left open by the first two U.N. resolutions. Specifically, it can target additional Iranian banks, and focus on companies controlled by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, especially those involved in the oil and gas sectors.
The next resolution must also close loopholes like the lack of a mandatory travel ban on designated Iranian officials. It should include a two-way arms embargo banning not only the export of arms from Iran but also the importation of arms to Iran. And it should create a U.N. monitoring team, preferably based in Dubai, to ensure member states comply with the U.N. sanctions regime. It should also add to the U.N. list the 23 Iranian persons and entities subjected to asset forfeiture abroad by the EU but not the U.N. Another useful tool would be to require strict inspections of all Iranian ships and aircraft to prevent violations of the arms ban or the import of banned or dual-use goods intended for Iran's nuclear program.
U.N. sanctions freezing the overseas assets of Bank Sepah were the first significant step toward isolating Iran from the international financial system. Sepah had facilitated the Iranian-North Korean missile procurement business and tried to conceal its role in these transactions.
Several additional Iranian banks are likely candidates to have their funds frozen overseas and slapped with a ban on doing business with them:
• Bank Melli was implicated in the December 2005 U.S. government fine of Dutch bank ABN Amro for violating the Iran/Libya Sanctions Act. Investigators found that Bank Melli used ABN Amro's Dubai office to conceal its role in illegal (under U.S. law) bank transfers to Iran.
• Bank Saderat was shut out of the U.S. financial system last September for its role in financing terrorism, including the transfer of tens of millions of dollars through branches in Europe to Lebanon's Hezbollah and EU-designated Palestinian terrorist groups like Hamas.
• U.S. Treasury officials have also cited the Central Bank of Iran as one of the state-owned banks that ask financial institutions to conceal their involvement in facilitating missile procurement, nuclear programs and terror financing.
Beyond banks, the next sanctions resolution must target the massive military-industrial complex controlled by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, an elite paramilitary force. Considered the foundation of President Ahmadinejad's political powerbase, the Guards are also deeply involved in the country's proliferation activities. It also maintains a special branch -- the Qods Force -- responsible for arming, training and supporting terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas and insurgents attacking Coalition and Iraqi forces in Iraq.
The Revolutionary Guards are primarily self-funded, with annual revenues from its businesses empire estimated at $1 billion and expected to rise to $1.5-$2 billion with new projects awarded since Mr. Ahmadinejad came to power. According to the U.S. State Department, the Guards are "taking on an increasingly influential role in Iran's economy, with IRGC-affiliated companies winning important government contracts." Freezing the assets of industries controlled by them, like the behemoth engineering firm Khatam ol-Anbia, would resonate with the merchant class that is already critical of the Guards' exclusive access to no-bid contracts.
Moreover, while the prospect of directly sanctioning Iran's oil industry makes the crude markets jittery, the reality is that international economic sanctions will ultimately only be successful if they impact Iran's lucrative oil and gas industries. Going after Khatam ol-Anbia, which was recently awarded a $2.09 billion contract by the Iranian government to develop parts of the South Pars natural gas field and a $1.3 billion contract to build parts of a pipeline, would be a strong shot across the bow of the Iranian oil industry. Such contracts would be put in jeopardy by U.N. sanctions, since no international company could legally do business with a company like Khatam ol-Anbia.
Referring to the unanimously passed sanctions resolutions, President Ahmadinejad recently warned the international community "not to play with the lion's tail." But Iran, unlike North Korea, is well integrated into the world economy and vulnerable to economic sanctions that shut the regime out of the international financial system. Iran can survive a pesky, symbolic sanctions regime like a lion swatting flies with its tail. The regime couldn't easily ignore sanctions with real teeth.
Mr. Levitt, a senior fellow and director of the Stein Program on Terrorism, Intelligence and Policy at the Washington Institute, is former deputy assistant secretary for intelligence and analysis at the U.S. Treasury Department. He is author of "Hamas: Politics, Charity and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad" (Yale University Press, 2006).
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Mullahs Gone Wild
John Mauldin, Millennium Wave Advisors 07.05.07, 12:44 PM ET
I want to briefly look at a development in the oil markets, which I find intriguing. Dr. Woody Brock, in a recent paper on oil prices, wrote a rather interesting sentence, to wit, that Iran would not have net oil to export in 2014.
I found that rather remarkable. Woody is very serious and sober-minded even for an economist, not given to rash analysis, but this was certainly a new idea to me. I knew they were importing most of their gasoline, as they do not have a great deal of refining capacity. As it turns out, there is much more to the story.
I have said for years that I expect Iran to be the new friend of the U.S. sometime next decade, as the regime is not popular and the country is growing younger. (Think China, once an implacable enemy.) I thought that the impetus would be the lack of freedom and knowledge of how the world is better off coming from the Internet, but it turns out that it may be a desire for more freedom combined with economic problems, which help bring about regime change, much as in Russia last century.
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How could a country with the third (or second, depending on which source you quote) largest oil reserves in the world not be churning out ever more black gold? The answer, as it almost always is for such problems, turns out to be governmental and not economic in nature. Let's start out with a few facts.
Oil provides more than 70% of the revenues of the government of Iran. The rise in oil prices has been a bonanza for the regime, allowing them to subsidize all sorts of welfare programs at home and mischief abroad. And one of the chief subsidies is gasoline prices.
Gasoline costs about $.34 cents a gallon in Iran, or 9 cents a liter. You can fill up your Honda Civic for $4.49. In the U.S. it costs almost $40. In neighboring Turkey it costs almost $95. Iran is spending 38% of its national budget (almost 15% of gross domestic product) on gasoline subsidies!
And this situation is likely to get worse. Let's look at a rather remarkable peer-reviewed study done for the National Academy of Sciences by Roger Stern of Johns Hopkins University late last year. Stern's analysis is somewhat political, in that he is critical of current U.S. Iranian policy, but this is just one of several studies that show the same thing:
"A more probable scenario is that, absent some change in Irani policy ... [we will see] exports declining to zero by 2014 to 2015. Energy subsidies, hostility to foreign investment and inefficiencies of its state-planned economy underlie Iran's problem, which has no relation to 'peak oil.' "
Iran earns about $50 billion a year in oil exports. The decline is estimated at 10% to 12% annually. In less than five years, exports could be halved and then disappear by 2015, predicted Stern.
Of course, you can go to a dozen Web sites, mostly Iranian, which demonstrate that Iranian production will be double (or pick a number) by that time. The problem is, they all assume rather large sums of investment in the Iranian oil fields. Two projects which are "counted on" to be producing oil in 2008 have yet to be funded or started, as negotiations have broken down. Iran seems incapable of getting a deal actually done with a willing partner.
Part of this is caused by the Iranian constitution, which does not allow for foreign ownership of oil reserves or fields. Instead, they try to negotiate to pay for investing in oil production. Called a buyback, any investment in an oil field is turned into sovereign Iranian government debt with a return of 15% to 17%. This is a very unpopular program at home, coming under much criticism from local government officials. Any deal that gets close to getting done comes under attack from lawmakers as being too good for foreign investors, so nothing is getting done.
Why not just fund the development themselves? They could, but the mullahs have elected to spend the money now rather than make investments that will not produce revenues for four to six years or more. They are investing around half the money needed just to maintain production, around $3 billion a year.
Let's look at a quote from Mohammed Hadi Nejad-Hosseinian, Iran's deputy oil minister for international affairs: "If the government does not control the consumption of oil products in Iran ... and at the same time, if the projects for increasing the capacity of the oil and protection of the oil wells will not happen, within 10 years, there will not be any oil for export." That's from their guy, not a Western academic.
When An Enemy Is Self-Destructing, Stand Aside
Iran produced over 6 billion barrels of oil before the revolution in 1979. They now produce around 4 billion barrels a year. They are currently producing about 5% below their quota, which shows they are at their limits under current capacity. And production at their old fields is waning. The world recovery rate is about 35% from oil fields.
Iran's is an abnormally low 24% to 27%. Normally, you pump natural gas back into an aging field (called reinjection) in order to get higher yields. Iran has enormous reserves of natural gas. Seems like there should be a solution.
However, if the National Iranian Oil Company (NOIC) sells it natural gas outside of Iran, it turns a profit. If it sells it in the country, then it can only get the lower, dramatically subsidized price. Guess which it chooses. Even so, internal natural gas demand is growing by 9% a year.
Not surprisingly, at 34 cents a gallon, gasoline demand is rising 10% a year. This week, the government moved to ration supplies to about 22 gallons a month, which does not go far in the large cars preferred by younger Iranians. There have been riots, with people chanting "Death to Ahmadinejad." They take their right to plenty of cheap gas seriously.
There is also widespread smuggling. Ten barrels of gasoline (easily hauled in a pickup) taken into Turkey yields about $3,000 in profit in a country with about that much GDP per person. Let's end with this section from Stern:
"Our survey suggests that Iran's petroleum sector is unlikely to attract investment sufficient to maintain oil exports. Maintaining exports would require foreign investment to increase when it appears to be declining. Other factors contributing to export decline are also intensifying. Demand growth for subsidized petroleum compounds from an ever-larger base. Growth rates for gasoline (11% to 12%), gas (9%) and electric power (7% to 8%) are especially problematic. Oil recovery rates have declined, and, with no remedy in sight for the gas reinjection shortage, this decline may accelerate.
"Depletion rates have increased, and, if investment does not increase, depletion will accelerate. If the regime actually proceeds with LNG exports, oil export decline will accelerate for lack of reinjection gas. In summary, the regime has been incapable of maximizing profit, minimizing cost or constraining explosive demand for subsidized petroleum products. These failures have very substantial economic consequences.
"Despite mismanagement, the Islamic Republic's real oil revenues are nearly their highest ever as rising price compensates for stagnant energy production and declining oil exports. Despite high price, however, population growth has resulted in a 44% decline of real oil revenue per capita since the 1980 price peak. Moreover, virtually all revenue growth has been applied to pet projects, loss-making industries, etc.
If price were to decline, political power sustained by the quadrupling of government spending since 1999 may not be sustainable. Yet we found no evidence that Iran plans fiscal retrenchment or any scheme to sustain oil investment.
"Rather, the government promises 'to put oil revenues on every table,' as if monopoly rents were not already the entree. Backing this promise is a welfare state built on the Soviet model widely understood as a formula for long-run economic suicide.
This includes the five-year plans, misallocation of resources, loss-making state enterprises, subsidized consumption, corruption and oil export dependence that doomed the Soviet experiment. Therefore, the regime's ability to contend with the export decline we project seems limited."
Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of mullahs. If gasoline subsidies are 40% of the national budget now, what will they be in seven years at a growth of 10% a year? Can rationing work? No, but it can slow the economy.
Stern concludes that Iran may need nuclear power as their energy supply is dwindling. I find this conclusion rather preposterous, since if they wanted more energy, all they would have to do is allow foreign investment or invest more of their own money in their own fields. If the developed world will simply apply firm sanctions, Iran will have to reconsider its nuclear program, as their ability to finance mischief will erode as the mullahs divert their resources to domestic needs in order to maintain their dwindling popularity.
The cost of their current policies cannot be lost on the youth and educated people of the country. There is almost 14% unemployment among college graduates. Iran looks to me like Russia did in 1988. They were in the process of self-destruction, although few recognized it at the time. Iran is a matter of time.
John Mauldin is president of investment advisory firm Millennium Wave Advisors, LLC. He may be reached by e-mail: John@FrontLineThoughts.com.
http://www.forbes.com/2007/07/05/iran-gasoline-rationing-pf-guru-ii-in_jm_0705soapbox_inl.html?partner=alerts
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http://www.ft.com/cms/s/9cc4d5f4-2be3-11dc-b498-000b5df10621.html
Al-Qaeda linked to operations from Iran
By Stephen Fidler in London
Published: July 6 2007 22:04 | Last updated: July 6 2007 22:04
Evidence that Iranian territory is being used as a base by al-Qaeda to help in terrorist operations in Iraq and elsewhere is growing, say western officials.
It is not clear how much the al-Qaeda operation, described by one official as a money and communications hub, is being tolerated or encouraged by the Iranian government, they said.
The group’s operatives, who link the al-Qaeda leadership in Pakistan with their disciples in Iraq, the Levant and North Africa, move with relative freedom in the country, they said.
The officials said the creation of some kind of al-Qaeda hub in Iran appears to be separate from the group of seven senior al-Qaeda figures, including Saad bin Laden, son of the group’s figurehead, that Iran is said to have detained since 2002.
A senior US official said the information had produced different assessments. “The most conservative, cautious intelligence assessment is that [the Iranian authorities] are turning a blind eye. But there are a lot of doubts about that,” he said.
“They are benefiting from the mayhem that AQ is carrying out. They don’t have to deal with al-Qaeda to benefit.”
Yet while Tehran might be content with the pressure al-Qaeda is placing on the US occupation in Iraq, Iran, as a state based on Shia Islam surrounded by mainly Sunni countries, has long been wary of al-Qaeda’s fierce brand of Sunni Islam.
A former Iranian official said Iran feared al-Qaeda and did not want to distract it from Iraq, dismissing any idea that Iran was supplying it with weapons. “Our relationship with al-Qaeda, at an intelligence level, can be said to be successful as long as they are at a distance,” he said.
Analysts say several Sunni extremist groups, some presumed linked to al-Qaeda and from various ethnic groups including Kurds, are in Iran. US-led military action in Iraq has led some to seek refuge over the border.
In the past, Tehran has also been a target of al-Qaeda attacks. A militant Sunni group based in Pakistan and possibly linked to al-Qaeda was suspected of the 1994 bombing of the shrine of the seventh Shia Imam, Reza, in Mashhad, killing 26 people.
Iran has also shown growing concern over Jundullah, a radical Sunni group from the restive south-east area of Balucestan that has carried out violent attacks in recent years.
Three years ago, Pakistani officials said members of al-Qaeda had begun leaving Pakistan’s border region close to Afghanistan and heading for Iraq. Of the routes used, going overland via Iran was the easiest. That traffic might have increased as links between al-Qaeda and its Iraq offshoot intensify.
Additional reporting by Gareth Smyth in Tehran and Farhan Bokhari in Islamabad
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/core/Content/displayPrintable.jhtml;jsessionid=CY5XJD01L5C0FQFIQMGCFGGAVCBQUIV0?xml=/news/2007/07/08/wiran108.xml&site=5&page=0
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad silences his critics
By Colin Freeman in Teheran, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 12:03am BST 08/07/2007
Ali Nikoo Nesbati glances carefully at the couple who have just sat down at the table next to him. Aged in their 20s and dressed in fashionable Western clothes, they seem like the kind of people who'd be natural supporters of the pro-democracy movement that he leads. Yet their decision to sit right next to him, when the rest of the café in the secluded Teheran alley is empty, is enough to make him suspicious.
"They were probably just ordinary customers," he whispered, as he ushered The Sunday Telegraph back on to the streets to continue the interview elsewhere. "But you never know. We were sat in that café for 45 minutes, which is long enough for the intelligence services to find out where we are."
Silenced: Abdullah Momeni, a prominent critic of the regime
A paranoia about who might be listening is an occupational hazard for activists like Mr Nesbati, whose campaigns for reform of Iran's theocratic government have led to constant run-ins with the secret police since the late Nineties.
But that sense of paranoia is now greater than ever, as a long-feared crackdown by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the country's puritanical leader, finally appears to be coming into force.
In what activists claim is a "cultural revolution" reminiscent of the Islamic Republic's turbulent birth in 1979, the regime has turned on its critics in all walks of life, harassing pro-democracy activists, shutting down dissident publications and dismissing independent-minded government officials and academics.
The onslaught has confounded early impressions that Mr Ahmadinejad, despite his religious zealotry, threats against Israel and defiance over Iran's nuclear programme, was not proving as aggressive as feared when it came to dealing with his internal opposition.
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When members of Mr Nesbati's pro-democracy group staged a demonstration at Teheran's Amir Kabir University last December, in which they held photos of the president upside-down and denounced him as a "fascist", Mr Ahmadinejad surprised the world by requesting that they should not be arrested. He later cited his move as proof of the "absolute, total freedom" Iranians enjoyed.
The presidential pardon appears to have been short-lived. Eight of those protesters have since been jailed, the victims of what Mr Nesbati claims was a state-sponsored plot.
"Ahmadinejad said nobody would touch them, but the intelligence agencies smeared them by printing a blasphemous publication which they blamed on the students," he said. "We believe that was Ahmadinejad's revenge. We don't know if he ordered it himself, but we are convinced it was his supporters."
The students, one of whom has now spent more than two months in jail, are among 70 to have been arrested since Mr Ahmadinejad came to power; nearly half of these were seized in the last four months. More than 500 others have been suspended or expelled from university because of political activities, while about 130 student publications and 40 student organisations have been closed.
The accusations levelled against them typically include "endangering national security", spreading "rumours and lies" and "having relations with foreign intelligence agencies", all charges that Mr Nesbati has faced in his years as an activist, during which he has been arrested three times.
"They're not really charges as such, they just assume you are guilty and then ask why you did it," he said. "It's stressful the first time you're arrested but after that it's not so bad, although it depends what they do to you.
"Sometimes people get put in a room where they're made to stand facing a wall for 48 hours at a time. If you fall asleep, they hit you."
Campaigners say the crackdown began in March, when Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's Supreme Spiritual Leader and a man of similar hardline views to Mr Ahmadinejad, made a speech warning Iranians against the West's "psychological warfare". This was taken to be a reference to Washington's funding of opposition groups, pro-democracy movements and anti-regime satellite broadcasts.
The president, who is regarded by many as little more than a mouthpiece for Mr Khamenei, is thought to have taken this as a cue to move against any groups critical of the regime.
Women's rights groups and trade union leaders have reported being harassed, scholars have been put under pressure for refusing to sign anti-Israeli statements, and Iran's press has claimed to have received lists of banned topics, such as the effect of threatened United Nations sanctions. University professors have also been warned against attending conferences abroad, and several visiting Iranian-American academics remain in custody after being charged with espionage.
One Western diplomat in Iran said the situation was "uneasy". He said: "The crackdown has been more gradual than people expected, but over the last few months we have been getting a lot of stories of people being hassled."
Similar clampdowns took place under President Mohammad Khatami, Mr Ahmadinejad's reformist-minded predecessor, whose campaign to introduce a liberal regime was not always heeded by hardline elements in the security forces.
However, activists say that now there is no longer a voice in government to speak for them. "Back then people would get arrested, but then Khatami would use his influence to get them released," said Abdullah Momeni, the leader of Tahkim Vahdat, Iran's largest student organisation and a prominent critic of the regime. "Now those who are arrested are not even getting released."
The attacks on reformists come as they struggle to recover from the splits and apathy that led to them losing the 2005 elections to Mr Ahmadinejad. The movement is divided between more conservative elements, who prefer gradual change within the existing clerical system of government, and those who wish to replace the Islamic republic altogether with a Western-style, secular democracy.
Both sides have talked of forming an alliance to defeat Mr Ahmadinejad in the next presidential elections, but no mutually credible figure has emerged to head it.
The fact that many reformists were still at large to criticise the regime, meanwhile, was not grounds for optimism, said Mr Momeni. "Now the judiciary and parliament and president feel so powerful that they don't really see us as a threat any more. It shows that in a sense, we have lost our status and position in society."
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ON THE FRONT
WSJ
Iran's Proxy War
Tehran is on the offensive against us throughout the Middle East. Will Congress respond?
BY JOSEPH LIEBERMAN
Friday, July 6, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
Earlier this week, the U.S. military made public new and disturbing information about the proxy war that Iran is waging against American soldiers and our allies in Iraq.
According to Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner, the U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, the Iranian government has been using the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah to train and organize Iraqi extremists, who are responsible in turn for the murder of American service members.
Gen. Bergner also revealed that the Quds Force--a special unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps whose mission is to finance, arm and equip foreign Islamist terrorist movements--has taken groups of up to 60 Iraqi insurgents at a time and brought them to three camps near Tehran, where they have received instruction in the use of mortars, rockets, improvised explosive devices and other deadly tools of guerrilla warfare that they use against our troops. Iran has also funded its Iraqi proxies generously, to the tune of $3 million a month.
Based on the interrogation of captured extremist leaders--including a 24-year veteran of Hezbollah, apparently dispatched to Iraq by his patrons in Tehran--Gen. Bergner also reported on Monday that the U.S. military has concluded that "the senior leadership" in Iran is aware of these terrorist activities. He said it is "hard to imagine" Ayatollah Ali Khamenei--Iran's supreme leader--does not know of them.
These latest revelations should be a painful wakeup call to the American people, and to the U.S. Congress. They also expand on a steady stream of public statements over the past six months by David Petraeus, the commanding general of our coalition in Iraq, as well as other senior American military and civilian officials about Iran's hostile and violent role in Iraq. In February, for instance, the U.S. military stated that forensic evidence has implicated Iran in the death of at least 170 U.S. soldiers.
Iran's actions in Iraq fit a larger pattern of expansionist, extremist behavior across the Middle East today. In addition to sponsoring insurgents in Iraq, Tehran is training, funding and equipping radical Islamist groups in Lebanon, Palestine and Afghanistan--where the Taliban now appear to be receiving Iranian help in their war against the government of President Hamid Karzai and its NATO defenders.
While some will no doubt claim that Iran is only attacking U.S. soldiers in Iraq because they are deployed there--and that the solution, therefore, is to withdraw them--Iran's parallel proxy attacks against moderate Palestinians, Afghans and Lebanese directly rebut such claims.
Iran is acting aggressively and consistently to undermine moderate regimes in the Middle East, establish itself as the dominant regional power and reshape the region in its own ideological image. The involvement of Hezbollah in Iraq, just revealed by Gen. Bergner, illustrates precisely how interconnected are the different threats and challenges we face in the region. The fanatical government of Iran is the common denominator that links them together.
No responsible leader in Washington desires conflict with Iran. But every leader has a responsibility to acknowledge the evidence that the U.S. military has now put before us: The Iranian government, by its actions, has all but declared war on us and our allies in the Middle East.
America now has a solemn responsibility to utilize the instruments of our national power to convince Tehran to change its behavior, including the immediate cessation of its training and equipping extremists who are killing our troops.
Most of this work must be done by our diplomats, military and intelligence operatives in the field. But Iran's increasingly brazen behavior also presents a test of our political leadership here at home. When Congress reconvenes next week, all of us who are privileged to serve there should set aside whatever partisan or ideological differences divide us to send a clear, strong and unified message to Tehran that it must stop everything it is doing to bring about the death of American service members in Iraq.
It is of course everyone's hope that diplomacy alone can achieve this goal. Iran's activities inside Iraq were the central issue raised by the U.S. ambassador to Iraq in his historic meeting with Iranian representatives in Baghdad this May. However, as Gen. Bergner said on Monday, "There does not seem to be any follow-through on the commitments that Iran has made to work with Iraq in addressing the destabilizing security issues here." The fact is, any diplomacy with Iran is more likely to be effective if it is backed by a credible threat of force--credible in the dual sense that we mean it, and the Iranians believe it.
Our objective here is deterrence. The fanatical regime in Tehran has concluded that it can use proxies to strike at us and our friends in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Palestine without fear of retaliation. It is time to restore that fear, and to inject greater doubt into the decision-making of Iranian leaders about the risks they are now running.
I hope the new revelations about Iran's behavior will also temper the enthusiasm of some of those in Congress who are advocating the immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. Iran's purpose in sponsoring attacks on American soldiers, after all, is clear: It hopes to push the U.S. out of Iraq and Afghanistan, so that its proxies can then dominate these states. Tehran knows that an American retreat under fire would send an unmistakable message throughout the region that Iran is on the rise and America is on the run. That would be a disaster for the region and the U.S.
The threat posed by Iran to our soldiers' lives, our security as a nation and our allies in the Middle East is a truth that cannot be wished or waved away. It must be confronted head-on. The regime in Iran is betting that our political disunity in Washington will constrain us in responding to its attacks. For the sake of our nation's security, we must unite and prove them wrong.
Mr. Lieberman is an Independent Democratic senator from Connecticut.
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I guess 11 years in prison was not enough :-P............
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,288793,00.html
Convicted Adulterer Stoned to Death in Iran
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
E-MAIL STORY PRINTER FRIENDLY VERSION
TEHRAN, Iran — In a rare confirmation, Iran on Tuesday said a man convicted of adultery was stoned to death last week in a village in the northern part of the country, Iran's judiciary spokesman said.
Jafar Kiani was stoned to death in Aghchekand village, 124 miles west of the capital, Tehran, on Thursday, Ali Reza Jamshidi told reporters. It was the first time in years that Iran has confirmed such an execution.
"This verdict was carried out Thursday," Jamshidi told reporters.
Death sentences are carried out in Iran after they are upheld by the Supreme Court. Under Iran's Islamic law, adultery is punishable by stoning.
Jamshidi didn't elaborate on how the stoning was carried out, but under Islamic rulings, a male convict is usually buried up to his waist while a female criminal is buried up to her neck with her hands also buried.
Those carrying out the verdict start throwing stones and rocks at the convict until he or she dies
International human rights groups have long condemned stoning in Iran as a "cruel and barbaric" punishment.
Earlier Tuesday before Iran confirmed the stoning, U.N. human rights chief Louise Arbour condemned the execution, her spokesman said.
"The execution has apparently gone ahead despite Iran's moratorium on execution by stoning, a moratorium that had been in effect since 2002," said Jose Diaz of U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.
"Stoning is in clear violation of international law," Diaz said Tuesday in Geneva. He said Arbour considered stoning to be a form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment that is prohibited under an international treaty which Iran has signed.
Also Tuesday in Norway, the Foreign Ministry said Iran's ambassador was summoned by Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere to protest the stoning.
Gahr Stoere was "deeply upset" that the death penalty had been carried out and called stoning an "inhumane and barbaric method of punishment," Foreign Ministry spokesman Frode Andersen said in Oslo.
The reported execution comes two weeks after international pressure, including protests from Norway, caused Iranian officials to delay carrying out the sentence against Kiani and his female companion, Mokarrameh Ebrahimi, who also was sentenced to death by stoning. It was not known if a date had been set for her execution.
The couple had reportedly been imprisoned for 11 years.
Stoning was widely imposed in the early years after the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the pro-Western Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and brought hard-line clerics to power. But in recent years, it has rarely been applied, though the government rarely confirms when it carries out stoning sentences.
There is no official report of the last time Iran stoned someone to death, but there were unconfirmed media reports that a couple was stoned in 2006 in Mashhad, located in northeastern Iran.
A group of women's rights activists headed by feminist lawyer Shadi Sadr have been campaigning to have the sentence removed from Iran's statute books.
In the past years, Iran's reformist legislators demanded an end to death by stoning as a punishment for adultery, but opposition from hard-line clerics sidelined their efforts.
Capital offenses in Iran include murder, rape, armed robbery, apostasy, blasphemy, serious drug trafficking, adultery or prostitution, treason and espionage.
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What Iranians Really Think
By KEN BALLEN
July 11, 2007; Page A14
WSJ
Keen observers of Iran have insisted for years that the Iranian people are pro-Western, indeed pro-American, while opposed to the largely unelected clerical regime that rules them. For the first time, Terror Free Tomorrow's unprecedented nationwide poll of Iran offers indisputable empirical proof that these commentators are dead-on in their assessment of the "Iranian street."
Discontent with the current system of government, the economy and isolation from the West is widespread throughout Iran. In this context, nuclear weapons are the lowest priority for the Iranian people. The overwhelming popular will to live in a country open to the West and the U.S., with greater economic opportunity, is a powerful plea from every region and segment of society. Iranians also speak with one voice in rejecting the current autocratic rule of their supreme leader and in courageously asking for democracy instead.
Iranian students: A new survey shows their fellow citizens want democracy too.
These are among the significant findings of the first uncensored public opinion survey of Iran since President Ahmadinejad took office. The survey was conducted in Farsi by telephone from June 5 to June 18, 2007, with 1,000 interviews covering all 30 provinces of Iran (and a margin of error of 3.1%). The last poll to ask similar controversial questions was conducted in September 2003 by Abbas Abdi inside Iran. He was imprisoned as a result.
Developing nuclear weapons was seen as a very important priority by only 29% of Iranians. By contrast, 88% of Iranians considered improving the Iranian economy a very important priority. 80% of Iranians favor Iran offering full international nuclear inspections and a guarantee not to develop or possess nuclear weapons in return for outside aid.
Moreover, close to 70% of Iranians also favor normal relations and trade with the U.S. Indeed, in exchange for normal relations, a majority of Iranians even favor recognizing Israel and Palestine as independent states, ending Iranian support for any armed groups inside Iraq, and giving full transparency by Iran to the U.S. to ensure there are no Iranian endeavors to develop nuclear weapons.
Yet the most significant finding of our survey for the future of Iran's present rulers is the opposition to their current system of government. Some 61% of Iranians were willing to tell our pollsters -- over the phone no less -- that they oppose the current Iranian system of government, in which the supreme leader rules according to religious principles and cannot be chosen or replaced by direct vote of the people. More telling, over 79% of Iranians support a democratic system instead, in which the supreme leader, along with all leaders, can be chosen and replaced by a free and direct vote of the people. Only 11% of Iranians said they would strongly oppose having a political system in which all of their leaders, including the supreme leader, are chosen by popular election.
Iranians across all demographic groups oppose the unelected rule of the supreme leader in favor of electing all their leaders. While these views run stronger in Tehran, they are also held across all provinces of Iran, and in both urban and rural areas.
Terror Free Tomorrow's path-breaking survey of Iran demonstrates that the Iranian people are the best ally of the U.S. and the West against the government in Tehran. The considerable challenge is how to support the Iranian people while also achieving important U.S. goals, such as preventing the Iranian government from developing a nuclear arsenal.
There are no easy answers. The U.S., with France, Germany, Britain and the international community, however, should not spurn the clear will of Iranians. The implicit bet Iranians seem to want the world to make is to engage Iran now, and place the burden squarely on Iran's rulers to reject an offer that would clearly improve the life of the Iranian people themselves.
This does not mean that the U.S., Europe and the international community should abandon current sanctions or indeed fail to strengthen future sanctions against the regime. Yet since military options for responding to Iran entail even greater unknowable risks, and sanctions alone so far have proved inadequate, a strategy that also recognizes the consensus of the people of Iran themselves may realistically offer the best hope for all.
Mr. Ballen is president of Terror Free Tomorrow.
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www.stratfor.com
BAHRAIN/IRAN: Bahraini Foreign Minister Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmad al-Khalifa summoned Iran's charge d'affaires to answer questions about Tehran's official position on an editorial written by Hussain Shariatmadari, managing editor of Iranian daily newspaper Kayhan, in which Shariatmadari calls Bahrain an Iranian province, The Media Line reported. Shariatmadari, who is also an adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, wrote that Bahrain was separated from Iran under an illegal agreement between the United States, the United Kingdom and the Shah of Iran.
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The Bush Doctrine Lives
The president isn't selling out Israel or relaxing his call for Palestinian democracy.
BY MICHAEL B. OREN
Wednesday, July 18, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
JERUSALEM--Newspapers in Israel yesterday were full of stories about President Bush's call on Monday for the creation of a Palestinian state and an international peace conference. While Israeli officials were quoted expressing satisfaction with the fact that "there were no changes in Bush's policies," commentators questioned whether the Saudis would participate in such a gathering and whether Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, with his single-digit approval ratings, could uproot Israeli settlers from the West Bank.
But all the focus on the conference misses the point. Mr. Bush has not backtracked an inch from his revolutionary Middle East policy. Never before has any American president placed the onus of demonstrating a commitment to peace so emphatically on Palestinian shoulders. Though Mr. Bush insisted that Israel refrain from further settlement expansion and remove unauthorized outposts, the bulk of his demands were directed at the Palestinians.
"The Palestinian people must decide that they want a future of decency and hope," he said, "not a future of terror and death. They must match their words denouncing terror with action to combat terror."
According to Mr. Bush, the Palestinians can only achieve statehood by first stopping all attacks against Israel, freeing captured Israeli Cpl. Gilad Shalit, and ridding the Palestinian Authority of corruption. They must also detach themselves from the invidious influence of Syria and Iran: "Nothing less is acceptable."
In addition to the prerequisites stipulated for the Palestinians, Mr. Bush set unprecedented conditions for Arab participation in peace efforts. He exhorted Arab leaders to emulate "peacemakers like Anwar Sadat and King Hussein of Jordan" by ending anti-Semitic incitement in their media and dropping the fiction of Israel's non-existence. More dramatically, Mr. Bush called on those Arab governments that have yet to establish relations with Israel to recognize its right to exist and to authorize ministerial missions to the Jewish state.
Accordingly, Saudi Arabia, which has offered such recognition but only in return for a full withdrawal to the 1967 borders, will have to accept Israel prior to any territorial concessions. Mr. Bush also urged Arab states to wage an uncompromising battle against Islamic extremism and, in the case of Egypt and Jordan, to open their borders to Palestinian trade.
If the Israeli media largely overlooked the diplomatic innovations of Mr. Bush's speech, they completely missed its dynamic territorial and demographic dimensions. The president pledged to create a "contiguous" Palestinian state--code for assuring unbroken Palestinian sovereignty over most of the West Bank and possibly designating a West Bank-Gaza corridor. On the other hand, the president committed to seek a peace agreement based on "mutually agreed borders" and "current realities," which is a euphemism for Israel's retention of West Bank settlement blocks and no return to the 1967 lines.
Most momentous, however, was Mr. Bush's affirmation that "the United States will never abandon . . . the security of Israel as a Jewish state and homeland for the Jewish people." This means nothing less than the rejection of the Palestinians' immutable demand for the resettlement of millions of refugees and their descendents in Israel. America is now officially dedicated to upholding Israel's Jewish majority and preventing its transformation into a de facto Palestinian state.
Beyond these elements, the centerpiece of Mr. Bush's vision was the international conference. The Israeli press hastened to interpret this as a framework for expediting the advent of Palestinian statehood, yet it is clear that the conference is not intended to produce a state but rather to monitor the Palestinians' progress in building viable civic and democratic institutions. The goal, Mr. Bush said, will be to "help the Palestinians establish . . . a strong and lasting society" with "effective governing structures, a sound financial system, and the rule of law."
Specifically, the conference will assist in reforming the Palestinian Authority, strengthening its security forces, and encouraging young Palestinians to participate in politics. Ultimate responsibility for laying these sovereign foundations, however, rests not with the international community but solely with the Palestinians themselves: "By following this path, Palestinians can reclaim their dignity and their future . . . [and] answer their people's desire to live in peace."
Unfortunately, many of these pioneering components in Mr. Bush's speech were either implicitly or obliquely stated, and one might have wished for a more unequivocal message, such as that conveyed in his June 2002 speech on the Middle East. Still, there can be no underrating the sea change in America's policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict brought about by this administration. If, under U.N. Resolution 242, Israelis were expected to relinquish territory and only then receive peace, now the Arabs will have to cede many aspects of peace--non-belligerency and recognition--well in advance of receiving territory.
Similarly, Mr. Bush's commitment to maintain Israel's Jewish majority signals the total rescinding of American support for Resolution 194, which provided for refugee return. Moreover, by insisting that the Palestinians first construct durable and transparent institutions before attaining independence, Mr. Bush effectively reversed the process, set out in the 1993 Oslo Accords, whereby the Palestinians would obtain statehood immediately and only later engage in institution building. Peace-for-land, preserving the demographic status quo, and building a civil society prior to achieving statehood--these are the pillars of Mr. Bush's doctrine on peace.
But will it work? Given the Palestinians' historical inability to sustain sovereign structures and their repeated (1938, 1947, 1979, 2000) rejection of offers of a state, the chances hardly seem sanguine.
Much of the administration's hope for a breakthrough rests on the Palestinians' newly appointed prime minister, Salaam Fayyad, who is purportedly incorruptible. Nevertheless, one righteous man is unlikely to succeed in purging the Palestinian Authority of embezzlement and graft and uniting its multiple militias.
The Saudis will probably balk at the notion of recognizing Israel before it exits the West Bank and Jerusalem, and Palestinian refugees throughout the region will certainly resist any attempt to prevent them from regaining their former homes. Iran and Syria and their Hamas proxies can be counted on to undermine the process at every stage, often with violence.
Yet, despite the scant likelihood of success, Mr. Bush is to be credited for delineating clear and equitable criteria for pursuing Palestinian independence and for drafting a principled blueprint for peace. This alone represents a bold response to Hamas and its backers in Damascus and Tehran. The Palestinians have been given their diplomatic horizon and the choice between "chaos, suffering, and the endless perpetuation of grievance," and "security and a better life."
So, too, the president is to be commended for not taking the easy route of railroading the Palestinians to self-governance under a regime that would almost certainly implode. Now his paramount task is to stand by the benchmarks his administration has established, and to hold both Palestinians and Israelis accountable for any failure to meet them.
Mr. Oren is a fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem and the author of "Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present" (Norton, 2007).
WSJ
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An interesting take on recent arm sales announcements and leaks.
Bush's Gulf Gambit
By containing Iran, the U.S. remains in Iraq.
Michael Young | August 2, 2007
The United States plans to sell Gulf countries at least $20 billion worth of military hardware in the coming years, and will sign 10-year military aid packages with Egypt and Israel, valued together at $43 billion. According to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Washington is "working with these states to give a chance to the forces of moderation and reform."
Oddly, on Friday the New York Times published a story roundly criticizing the Saudis for their "counterproductive" attitude in Iraq. Senior U.S. officials were quoted as saying that the kingdom had tried to discredit Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki by handing American officials forged documents depicting Maliki as an agent of Iran and an ally of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The Times revealed that "the Saudis have offered financial support to Sunni groups in Iraq. Of an estimated 60 to 80 foreign fighters who enter Iraq each month, American military and intelligence officials say that nearly half are coming from Saudi Arabia and that the Saudis have not done enough to stem the flow." U.S. officials also noted that "the majority of suicide bombers in Iraq are from Saudi Arabia and that about 40 percent of all foreign fighters are Saudi."
Why this story came out just before the announcement of the arms deals was unclear, though one could guess. By criticizing Riyadh publicly for the first time, and in such a blunt way, the Bush administration preempted, and therefore effectively neutralized, Saudi Arabia's critics in Washington who might seek to block the military transactions. But the Times article was also a warning to the Saudis that the U.S. was losing patience with the kingdom's behavior in Iraq, though the impact must have been dulled by revelations a day later that the Gulf states were central to the U.S. strategy of containing expanding Iranian power.
But perhaps most significantly, the leaks were designed to remind the Saudis that the Bush administration's failure in Iraq would only harm the kingdom itself, which might then find itself caught up in a regional sectarian conflagration devouring everyone. The subdued Saudi reaction to the American censure—the fact, too, that Riyadh knew the announcement of the arms deal was imminent—very likely meant the Saudis were expecting the administration's broadside beforehand.
The U.S. has dusted off an old template in the Persian Gulf, but with two twists. We're back to the days when the Gulf kingdoms and emirates were avid consumers of high-tech American weaponry, in the context of a broader quid pro quo where the U.S. took on the burden of security in the Gulf region in exchange for Saudi intervention to stabilize the oil markets. The two twists are that stable oil prices today can only really come by way of thwarting Iranian hegemony in the Gulf; and second, doing so means that the U.S. must replace Iraq as a regional counterweight to Iran.
Reverting to this policy is more astute than it looks. The U.S. approach to the Gulf throughout the Cold War years and up until 9/11 enjoyed bipartisan support. The large weapons contracts pleased members of Congress representing constituencies with defense-related industries; stable and low oil prices were good for everyone; and the American presence in the Persian Gulf was always an acceptable way of projecting U.S. power, without usually having to worry about casualties.
In reviving that general framework, one justified today through the containment of a threatening Iran, the administration is defining its military deployment in Iraq very differently. The priority is no longer promoting Iraqi and Middle Eastern democracy; it is ensuring that U.S. interests in the Middle East are preserved. We're back to the basics of foreign policy "realism." As Condoleezza Rice declared on Monday: "There isn't a doubt, I think, that Iran constitutes the single most important, single-country challenge to U.S. interests in the Middle East and to the kind of Middle East that we want to see."
If Iran is accepted as the arch enemy, then withdrawing from Iraq suddenly looks like a bad idea, particularly when influential critics of the conduct of the Iraq war like Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack are writing that the U.S. is "finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms." By anchoring Iraq policy in a consensus that previously existed vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, buttressing this with lucrative defense contracts, and gaining Israeli acquiescence for the sales, the administration has made it more difficult for Congress impose its will on President George W. Bush when it comes to the Iraqi conflict.
For the moment Congress is playing coy. Sen. Joseph Biden and Rep. Tom Lantos, who head the congressional committees that will consider the arms deals, are waiting for September to commit themselves. September also happens to be when Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker submit their report on the progress of the U.S. military "surge" in Iraq. Biden and Lantos may use debate over the weapons contracts as a bargaining chip with the administration to define future Iraq policy, depending on what Petraeus and Crocker conclude.
But you have to wonder if Bush has not already won that round. Congress has been unable to impose an alternative Iraq strategy, and now the administration is trying to take advantage of that void. If we are to believe the administration in its new approach, the U.S. military in Iraq is now part of a regional security architecture. By approving the defense packages, Congress would be endorsing this Bush vision for the region. Maybe the president is not quite as dead as his detractors think.
Michael Young is opinion editor of the Daily Star newspaper in Lebanon and a contributing editor to reason.
http://reason.com/news/printer/121695.html
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Buz:
I suspect this piece is not too far off the mark in several respects.
Marc
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The Arsenal of the Iraq Insurgency
It's made in China.
by John J. Tkacik Jr.
08/13/2007, Volume 012, Issue 45
This year, many truckloads of small arms and explosives direct from Chinese government-owned factories to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards have been transshipped to Iraq and Afghanistan, where they are used against American soldiers and Marines and NATO forces. Since April, according to a knowledgeable Bush administration official, "vast amounts" of Chinese-made large caliber sniper rifles, "millions of rounds" of ammunition, rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), and "IED [improvised explosive device] components" have been convoyed from Iran into Iraq and to the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates insists there is "no evidence as yet" that Tehran government officials are involved in shipping weapons to Iraq for use against U.S. forces, a judgment that seems to hinge on the view that the Revolutionary Guards are not part of the "government." But the administration source cautioned, "these are Revolutionary Guards trucks, and although we can't see the mullahs at the wheel, you can bet this is [Tehran] government-sanctioned."
In addition, in early June the Washington Times reported from Kabul that the Pentagon had evidence of new shipments of Chinese shoulder-fired HN-5 antiaircraft missiles reaching Taliban units in Afghanistan's Kandahar province. This shouldn't be surprising. The Pentagon has known since last August that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards had supplied Chinese-made C-802 antiship missiles with advanced antijamming countermeasures to Hezbollah in Lebanon. One slammed into the Israeli destroyer Hanit killing four sailors on July 14, 2006, during the Lebanon war.
The amount of raw intelligence on these Chinese arms shipments to Iran is growing, according to the official, who has seen it. Some items show Iran has made "urgent" requests for "vast amounts" of Chinese-made sniper rifles, apparently exact copies of the Austrian-made Steyr-Mannlicher HS50 which the Vienna government approved for sale to Iran's National Iranian Police Organization in 2004 (ostensibly to help customs officers police Iran's long and sparsely populated mountainous borders). At the time, the United States and Great Britain glowered at the Austrian government and slapped a two-year sales ban on Steyr-Mannlicher. Then in February, as if to confirm the worst suspicions, U.S. troops in Iraq uncovered caches of about 100 of the sniper weapons that looked like the Austrian rifles, the Daily Telegraph reported.
U.S. officials in Baghdad told reporters that at least 170 U.S. and British soldiers had been killed by well-trained and heavily armed snipers. On June 22, for example, an Army specialist was struck by a sniper as he climbed out of his Abrams tank during Operation Bull Run in Al Duraiya. Earlier that morning, the same sniper shot out the tank's thermal sights. He was "probably the most skilled sniper we've seen down here," the soldier's platoon leader told National Public Radio.
But were the Iraqi snipers indeed using Austrian-made armor-piercing .50 caliber weapons?
Perhaps not. There was little official American reaction to the discovery of the sniper rifle cache in February. In March, Steyr-Mannlicher claimed that U.S. authorities had yet to ask it for help in tracing the weapons, a simple matter of checking serial numbers, or even letting Austrian technicians examine the rifles. The Americans never approached the Austrian firearms firm. On March 29, Vienna's Wiener Zeitung quoted U.S. Central Command spokesman Scott Miller as admitting, "No Austrian weapons have been found in Iraq."
Upon hearing this, Steyr-Mannlicher owner Franz Holzschuh noted that the patents on the HS .50 expired "years ago," and they were being counterfeited all over the world. A quick Google search for "sniper rifles" confirms that China South Industries' AMR-2 12.7mm antimateriel rifle is a good replica of the HS .50.
In fact, Iran's Revolutionary Guards had placed large orders for Chinese sniper rifles, among other things. According to the administration official, U.S. intelligence picked up urgent messages from Iranian customers to Chinese arms factories pleading that the shipments were needed "quickly" and specifying that the "serial numbers are to be removed." The Chinese vendors, according to the intelligence, were only too happy to comply. The Chinese also suggested helpfully that the shipments be made directly from China to Iran by cargo aircraft "to minimize the possibility that the shipments will be interdicted."
According to sources who have seen the intel reports, the evidence of China-Iran arms deliveries is overwhelming. This is not a case of ambiguous intelligence. The intelligence points to Chinese government complicity in the Iranian shipments of Chinese small arms to Iraqi insurgents.
Yet top State Department and National Security Council officials prefer to believe that the relationship between Chinese government-owned and operated arms exporters and Iranian terrorists is "unofficial." Therefore, they ought not make too much out of it, lest the Chinese government be unhelpful with the North Koreans. This is the "China exception" at work; it pervades both the intelligence and national security bureaucracies. Moreover, there is a belief in some circles in the administration and on Capitol Hill that Iran's government can be "negotiated" with and therefore the activities of Tehran's Revolutionary Guards must not be seen as reflecting Iranian government policy.
Of course, it is inconceivable that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards send convoys of newly minted Chinese weapons into Iraq and Afghanistan without the clear intention of killing U.S. troops there. And it is equally inconceivable that the Chinese People's Liberation Army facilitates these shipments from its own factories and via its own air bases without the same outcome in mind. If, however, the shipments are occurring against the wishes of Beijing--if the Chinese central government cannot control the behavior of its own army--then the situation is dire indeed: How can anyone expect Beijing to restrain shipments of even more destructive weapons (missiles, submarines, torpedoes, nuclear weapons components) to rogue states? It is a prospect that U.S. officials simply cannot handle.
After leaks of this alarming intelligence surfaced in Bill Gertz's "Inside the Ring" column in the Washington Times, top Pentagon officials began to acknowledge the troubling truth behind them. On July 22, Agence France-Presse quoted the top U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, Rear Admiral Mark I. Fox, as acknowledging: "There are missiles that are actually manufactured in China that we assess come through Iran" in order to arm groups fighting U.S.-led forces.
Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Richard Lawless told the Financial Times on July 7 that the United States has "become increasingly alarmed that Chinese armor-piercing ammunition has been used by the Taliban in Afghanistan and insurgents in Iraq." The FT quoted one unnamed U.S. official as saying that the United States would like China to "do a better job of policing these sales," as if China actually wanted to "police" its arms exports.
Lawless, revered in the Pentagon as a steely-eyed China skeptic, evinced less agnosticism to the FT, explaining that the country of origin was less important than who was facilitating the transfer. One might wonder why Beijing, as a matter of policy, would sell weapons to Iran for the clear purpose of killing American soldiers. "There is a great shortfall in our understanding of China's intentions," said Lawless of China's overall military policies, and "when you don't know why they are doing it, it is pretty damn threatening. . . . They leave us no choice but to assume the worst."
Why China is "doing it" need not be a mystery. In 2004, Beijing's top America analyst, Wang Jisi, noted, "The facts have proven that it is beneficial for our international environment to have the United States militarily and diplomatically deeply sunk in the Mideast to the extent that it can hardly extricate itself." It is sobering to consider that China's small-arms proliferation behavior since then suggests that this principle is indeed guiding Chinese foreign policy.
Beijing's strategists learned much from their collaboration with Washington during the 1980s, when the two powers prosecuted a successful decade-long campaign to drive the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan. The trick is to avoid a head-to-head confrontation with your adversary while getting insurgents to keep him tied down and taking advantage of his distraction to pursue your interests elsewhere. The cynical difference is that in the Afghan war of the 1980s, the U.S.-supported mujahedeen killed tens of thousands of Soviet troops, while in the early 21st century, Iranian (and Chinese)-supported insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq are mostly killing Afghans and Iraqis.
The "China exception" notwithstanding, the ease with which Chinese state-owned munitions industries export vast quantities of small arms to violence-prone and war-ravaged areas--from Iraq and Afghanistan to Darfur--leaves no room to doubt that the Chinese government pursues this behavior as a matter of state policy. A regime with $1.3 trillion in foreign exchange reserves cannot claim that it "needs the money" and so turns a blind eye to dangerous exports by its own military. But until the scales fall from the eyes of Washington's diplomats and geopoliticians and they see China's cynical global strategy for what it is, few of the globe's current crises are likely to be resolved in America's--or democracy's--favor. In particular, U.S. soldiers and Iraqi and Afghan civilians will continue to be killed by Chinese weapons.
John J. Tkacik Jr., a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., served in Beijing, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and Taipei in the U.S. Foreign Service.
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Interesting point.
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Domestic Terror in Iran
Iran has just carried out the largest wave of executions since 1984.
BY AMIR TAHERI
Monday, August 6, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
It is early dawn as seven young men are led to the gallows amid shouts of "Allah Akbar" (Allah is the greatest) from a crowd of bearded men as a handful of women, all in hijab, ululate to a high pitch. A few minutes later, the seven are hanged as a mullah shouts: "Alhamd li-Allah" (Praise be to Allah).
The scene was Wednesday in Mashad, Iran's second most populous city, where a crackdown against "anti-Islam hooligans" has been under way for weeks.
The Mashad hangings, broadcast live on local television, are among a series of public executions ordered by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last month as part of a campaign to terrorize an increasingly restive population. Over the past six weeks, at least 118 people have been executed, including four who were stoned to death. According to Saeed Mortazavi, the chief Islamic prosecutor, at least 150 more people, including five women, are scheduled to be hanged or stoned to death in the coming weeks.
The latest wave of executions is the biggest Iran has suffered in the same time span since 1984, when thousands of opposition prisoners were shot on orders from Ayatollah Khomeini.
Not all executions take place in public. In the provinces of Kurdistan and Khuzestan, where ethnic Kurdish and Arab minorities are demanding greater rights, several activists have been put to death in secret, their families informed only days after the event.
The campaign of terror also includes targeted "disappearances" designed to neutralize trade union leaders, student activists, journalists and even mullahs opposed to the regime. According to the latest tally, more than 30 people have "disappeared" since the start of the new Iranian year on March 21. To intimidate the population, the authorities also have carried out mass arrests on spurious grounds.
According to Gen. Ismail Muqaddam, commander of the Islamic Police, a total of 430,000 men and women have been arrested on charges related to drug use since April. A further 4,209 men and women, mostly aged between 15 and 30, have been arrested for "hooliganism" in Tehran alone. The largest number of arrests, totaling almost a million men and women according to Mr. Muqaddam, were related to the enforcement of the new Islamic Dress Code, passed by the Islamic Majlis (parliament) in May 2006.
Most of those arrested, he says, spent a few hours, or at most a few days, in custody as "a warning." By last week, 40,000 were still in prison. Of these, 20,363 men and women are held on charges related to violating the Islamic Dress Code. According to the Deputy Chief of Police Gen. Hussein Zulfiqari, an additional 6,204 men and women are in prison on charges of "sexual proximity" without being married.
The wave of arrests has increased pressure on the nation's inadequate prison facilities. At a recent press conference in Tehran, the head of the National Prisons Service, Ali-Akbar Yassaqi, appealed for a moratorium on arrests. He said Iran's official prisons could not house more than 50,000 prisoners simultaneously while the actual number of prisoners at any given time was above 150,000. Mr. Yassaqi also revealed that each year on average some 600,000 Iranians spend some time in one of the 130 official prisons.
Since Mr. Ahmadinejad ordered the crackdown, work on converting 41 official buildings to prisons has started, with contracts for 33 other prisons already signed. Nevertheless, Mr. Yassaqi believes that, with the annual prison population likely to top the million mark this year, even the new capacities created might prove insufficient.
There are, however, an unknown number of unofficial prisons as well, often controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or militias working for various powerful mullahs. Last week, human rights activists in Iran published details of a new prison in Souleh, northwest of Tehran, staffed by militants from the Lebanese branch of Hezbollah. According to the revelations, the Souleh prison is under the control of the "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenehi, and used for holding the regime's most "dangerous" political foes.
The regime especially fears the growing free trade union movement. In the past four months, free trade unionists have organized 12 major strikes and 47 demonstrations in various parts of the country. They showed their muscle on International Labor Day on May 1 when tens of thousands of workers marched in Tehran and 18 provincial capitals. The regime retaliated by arresting scores of trade unionists and expelling many others.
According to Rajab-Ali Shahsavari, leader of the Union of Contractual Workers, 25,795 unionists have been fired since April. He estimates that now over 1,000 workers are losing their jobs each day, as the regime intensifies its crackdown.
Worse still, the number of suspicious deaths among workers has risen to an all-time high. According to Deputy Labor Minister Ibrahim Nazari-Jalali, 1,047 workers have died in "work-related accidents" since April. Labor sources, however, point out that none of the accidents have been investigated and, in at least 13 cases, the workers who died may have been killed by goons hired by the regime.
The biggest purge of universities since Khomeini launched his "Islamic Cultural Revolution" in 1980 is also under way. Scores of student leaders have been arrested and more than 3,000 others expelled. Labeling the crackdown the "corrective movement," Mr. Ahmadinejad wants university textbooks rewritten to "cleanse them of Infidel trash," and to include "a rebuttal of Zionist-Crusader claims" about the Holocaust. Dozens of lecturers and faculty deans have been fired.
The nationwide crackdown is accompanied with efforts to cut Iranians off from sources of information outside the Islamic Republic. More than 4,000 Internet sites have been blocked, and more are added each day. The Ministry of Islamic Orientation has established a new blacklist of authors and book titles twice longer than what it was a year ago. Since April, some 30 newspapers and magazines have been shut and their offices raided. At least 17 journalists are in prison, two already sentenced to death by hanging.
The regime is trying to mobilize its shrinking base by claiming that the Islamic Republic is under threat from internal and external foes. It was in that context that the four Iranian-American hostages held in Tehran were forced to make televised "confessions" last month about alleged plots to foment a "velvet revolution."
Over 40 people have been arrested on charges of espionage since April, 20 in the southern city of Shiraz. Khomeinist paranoia reached a new peak last week when the authorities announced, through the Islamic Republic News Agency, the capture of four squirrels in the Western city of Kermanshah and claimed that the furry creatures had been fitted with "espionage devices" by the Americans in Iraq and smuggled into the Islamic Republic.
Mr. Ahmadinejad likes to pretend that he has no worries except "Infidel plots" related to the Islamic Republic's nuclear ambitions. The truth is that, faced with growing popular discontent, the Khomeinist clique is vulnerable and worried, extremely worried. The outside world would do well to carefully monitor and, whenever possible, support the Iranian people's fight against the fascist regime in Tehran.
Iran today is not only about atomic bombs and Iranian-American hostages. It is also about a growing popular movement that may help bring the nation out of the dangerous impasse created by the mullahs.
Mr. Taheri is author of "L'Irak: Le Dessous Des Cartes" (Editions Complexe, 2002).
WSJ
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Why Europe Has Leverage With Iran
By ROGER STERN
August 14, 2007; Page A17
European resistance to American triumphalism has its uses. But with respect to Iran, Europe's behavior is downright dangerous. Our welcome guest, French President Nicolas Sarkozy -- who just visited President Bush in Maine after vacationing in New Hampshire -- could change this.
Here's the problem: The U.S. stopped investing in Iran's energy industry in the 1990s thanks to sanctions imposed during Bill Clinton's presidency. Unfortunately, Europe stepped in to fill the void, with state-owned oil firms providing capital and energy technology. Today 80% of the Iranian government's revenue comes from oil exports and sales. Without Europe's support, the theocracy's fiscal lifeline would be a very thin thread.
That provides a little context to the lament common from the European Union that Iranian nuclear weapons are "inevitable," as if they were unrelated to energy investments from their member governments.
Europe has sacrificed regional stability for profit before. In 1983, as a global recession wracked France, then-President François Mitterrand pondered "the banker's dilemma" -- whether to extend credit to a troubled debtor in hope of rescuing prior loans. The debtor was Saddam Hussein, who had invaded Iran. Iraq had become France's best arms customer.
Mitterrand ultimately thought he had little choice. His treasury had become so dependent on Iraqi trade that, as a French businessman put it to Le Monde at the time, "Iraqi defeat would be a disaster for France." So France offered Saddam a spectacular new loan of five Super Entenard fighters (advanced warplanes).
But it wasn't enough and the Iran-Iraq war dragged on for nearly eight years, threatening to engulf other Gulf States, such as Saudi Arabia. As a result, the U.S. also supplied Iraq with weapons. Yet despite U.S. support for Saddam and many billions in new credit from EU states, Iran would not be defeated. Tragically, 750,000 soldiers would die on the battlefield following France's 1983 arms deal.
Today, EU credit underwrites what could become a greater disaster. One might think that Europe, ostensibly committed to a peaceful resolution of the Iranian crisis, would seize any opportunity to force conciliation upon Tehran. As in 1983, however, Europe has put short-term profit before long-term security.
European nations disguise this choice from themselves by looking to the United Nations Security Council to impose investment sanctions on Iran. This is a ruse, because Europeans always defer to whatever watered-down measures Russia or China agree to, only to watch as Iran rejects even these.
The exercise allows Europeans to believe they are behaving responsibly. In reality, as talks lead nowhere, credit and technology flow to Iran from the state-owned or -controlled oil firms of France (Total), Norway (Statoil), Italy (ENI) and Spain (Repsol). Clearly, standalone European sanctions could do a lot.
Unfortunately, Europe's oil firms are not merely investors in the terror state. France's Total has reached even lower. Hostage to its recent investments, Total has developed a foreign policy all its own: outright pro-Iranian advocacy. "The Iran Daily" reported recently that a Total executive "called on foreign entrepreneurs to avoid black propaganda and incorrect conceptions about the country."
Total seems to be complaining about verbatim repetition in the Western media of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's own utterances. The executive went on to boast of Total's investment leadership in Iran. While this astonishing behavior preceded Mr. Sarkozy's election, the president has neither rebuked the firm nor stood against further investment in Iran.
The good news is that Iran's regime is vulnerable economically. Government spending has outstripped revenue increases from rising oil prices, while oil exports are stagnant or declining. Gasoline rationing, once politically unthinkable, was implemented nationwide last month. Emblematic of its isolation is Iran's refusal to pay off a tiny debt owed to Russia for the Bushehr nuclear reactor. Iran's fear is that Russia will abandon it once the debt is retired. All of this, of course, makes it questionable whether Iranian nuclear weapons are really "inevitable."
However lamentable and confrontational President Bush's rhetoric may be, the U.S. has at least tried to constrain Iran peacefully using sanctions. Similar European pressure is desperately needed now. It's the one thing short of U.N. sanctions that might force Tehran to be conciliatory.
But that's up to Mr. Sarkozy. He could take the lead by pushing a prohibition on new French energy investment in Iran until that country verifiably rejects and abandons nuclear weapons development. He could also demand that fellow-EU leaders do the same. Oh, and Mr. Sarkozy, please come again.
Mr. Stern is a research associate in the department of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University.
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On the Brink
Washington is a wonder on Iran.
By Michael Ledeen
President Bush is annoyed that Afghan President Karzai and Iraqi President Maliki are both speaking about Iran in words reserved for an ally, rather than the main engine driving the terror wars in their countries. But if you look at the world through their eyes, it is easy enough to understand. They fear that the Americans will soon leave, and the Iranians will still be there. They know that Iran is a mortal threat, and they are now making a down payment on the insurance costs that are sure to come if the Democrats in Washington have their way. For extras, Maliki has certainly noticed that the United States is paying off the Middle Eastern Sunnis, hoping that the Saudis, Jordanians, and Gulf States will manage to contain Iran in the future. This cannot be good news in Baghdad, where the Shiites are struggling to put together a government capable of managing the country’s myriad crises.
All of this has been superbly summarized in Michael Yon’s latest ruminations on the course of the battle for Iraq:
Our military has increasing moral authority in Iraq, but the same cannot be said for our government at home. In fact, it’s in moral deficit because many Iraqis are increasingly frightened we will abandon them to genocide. The Iraqis I speak with couldn’t care less what is said from Washington but large numbers of them pay close attention to what some Marine Gunny says, or what American battalion commanders all over Iraq say. Some of our commanders could probably run for local offices in Iraq, and win.
There are many reasons for the respect of Iraqis for our fighters, starting with the fact that the military is currently the best institution in America, and our military men and women are several notches above the politicians, intellectuals and journalists in moral fiber and bravery. You can see that in the way the military deals with the Iranian intrusion in Iraq and Afghanistan. The politicians, diplomats, and spooks downplay the Iranian role, reshaping the facts to fit their desire for a “negotiated solution” they know in their heart of hearts will never be accomplished. But our military officers, whose troops are being blown up by Iranian explosives or Iranian-trained suicide bombers or gunned down by Iranian-trained snipers, are laying out the facts for anyone who cares to know what’s going on. Happily, at least some folks are listening (thank you, Senator Lieberman). Most Iraqis know the truth; it’s the Americans who need the education.
That the Iranians are at the heart of the region’s violence is proven most every day. So while Karzai was publicly kissing up to Tehran, Colonel Rahmatullah Safi, the head of the border police along the Iranian frontier, told the London Times “it is clear to everyone that Iran is supporting the enemy of Afghanistan, the Taliban,” and U.S. Army Colonel Thomas Kelly confirmed that the infamous EPFs, the new generation of explosive devices that can penetrate most American armor, are now coming into Afghanistan. Col. Kelly notes that these devices “really are not manufactured in any other place to our knowledge than Iran.”
The same holds true in Iraq, where these devices accounted for a third of American combat deaths in July (99 such attacks were directed against us — an all-time high). General Odierno blamed 73 percent of attacks on Iranian-supported Shiite terrorists. As Michael Gordon reports for the New York Times,
American intelligence says that its report of Iranian involvement is based on a technical analysis of exploded and captured devices, interrogations of Shi’ite militants, the interdiction of trucks near Iran’s border with Iraq and parallels between the use of the weapons in Iran and in southern Lebanon by Hezbollah.
Some might suspect that our military leaders are presenting the case against Iran because they want to expand the war, and march on Tehran, but nothing of the sort is taking place. They are simply performing the task that theoretically lies with the so-called intelligence community. Our leaders have to be told the truth, even if it makes them scream. I have no doubt that Secretary of State Rice does not want to hear these things, because they give the lie to her claim that we are making progress in our talks with the Iranians. In fact, Iran has stepped up its terrorist activity in Iraq since we started talking to them. The actual words of Ambassador Crocker — who says he’s been very tough, and I’m inclined to believe him — don’t really matter to the mullahs; they say lots of things, too, and don’t expect them to be taken at face value. It’s the fact that (as they see it) we were compelled to come to them that matters.
In reality — for what little it matters nowadays, either here or in the Middle East — we are winning the battle of Iraq. The percentage increase in Iranian activity, combined with a drop in the number of attacks, is another way of saying that al Qaeda is being destroyed for a second time, and the Iranians are scrambling to fill the void. But they are on the run, just as is al Qaeda, as you can tell by the back-and-forth shuttling of their factotum Moqtadah al Sadr, between Iran and Iraq. If their scheme was working in Iraq, he’d sit still. He’s scrambling because they’re in trouble.
They’re in trouble at home, too. Indeed, things are so bad that the government itself has open fissures, the latest caused by the resignation of the minister of industry and mines, and by the public testimony of the minister of welfare:
The welfare minister, Abdol-Reza Mesri, appeared at the Majlis social committee on Saturday and announced that about 9.2 million Iranians live below the absolute poverty line. About 10.5 percent of residents in urban and 11 percent of residents in rural areas live below the absolute poverty line. Nevertheless, Mr. Mesri insisted that indicators used in computing the poverty line must be changed. The minister’s persistent suggestion to abandon internationally recognized methods of computing the poverty line has been met with the reaction of experts and professionals.
In simple English, there is so much poverty in Iran that the minister wants to change the reporting requirements so that nobody can really know the full dimensions of the Iranian people’s misery. Even their current language (what is “the absolute poverty line” anyway?) is designed to mislead.
Iranians are not stupid people; they know they are ruled by tyrannical incompetents. Listen to the words of one Reza Zarabi, in the August 5 Jerusalem Post: “Iranians have become accustomed to dictators, yet an incompetent despot that bases his economic policies on the future benevolence of the coming Islamic Messiah is another thing altogether...It is quite remarkable for such economic damage and global ridicule to be heaped upon a nation in (so) short a time. Yet the policies of the current Iranian administration have left nothing for the imagination.”
I ask you, is this not a perfect description of a revolutionary situation? And you reply: So why aren’t we doing anything about it? Which, I think, is precisely the question our military leaders in Iraq, and the people of Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan, are aiming at Washington.
National Review Online - http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MDU5OTczMGU3NzRkZTJkNzFlMmFjNThkMDJiMDlhODE=
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On the Brink
Washington is a wonder on Iran.
By Michael Ledeen
President Bush is annoyed that Afghan President Karzai and Iraqi President Maliki are both speaking about Iran in words reserved for an ally, rather than the main engine driving the terror wars in their countries. But if you look at the world through their eyes, it is easy enough to understand. They fear that the Americans will soon leave, and the Iranians will still be there. They know that Iran is a mortal threat, and they are now making a down payment on the insurance costs that are sure to come if the Democrats in Washington have their way. For extras, Maliki has certainly noticed that the United States is paying off the Middle Eastern Sunnis, hoping that the Saudis, Jordanians, and Gulf States will manage to contain Iran in the future. This cannot be good news in Baghdad, where the Shiites are struggling to put together a government capable of managing the country’s myriad crises.
All of this has been superbly summarized in Michael Yon’s latest ruminations on the course of the battle for Iraq:
Our military has increasing moral authority in Iraq, but the same cannot be said for our government at home. In fact, it’s in moral deficit because many Iraqis are increasingly frightened we will abandon them to genocide. The Iraqis I speak with couldn’t care less what is said from Washington but large numbers of them pay close attention to what some Marine Gunny says, or what American battalion commanders all over Iraq say. Some of our commanders could probably run for local offices in Iraq, and win.
There are many reasons for the respect of Iraqis for our fighters, starting with the fact that the military is currently the best institution in America, and our military men and women are several notches above the politicians, intellectuals and journalists in moral fiber and bravery. You can see that in the way the military deals with the Iranian intrusion in Iraq and Afghanistan. The politicians, diplomats, and spooks downplay the Iranian role, reshaping the facts to fit their desire for a “negotiated solution” they know in their heart of hearts will never be accomplished. But our military officers, whose troops are being blown up by Iranian explosives or Iranian-trained suicide bombers or gunned down by Iranian-trained snipers, are laying out the facts for anyone who cares to know what’s going on. Happily, at least some folks are listening (thank you, Senator Lieberman). Most Iraqis know the truth; it’s the Americans who need the education.
That the Iranians are at the heart of the region’s violence is proven most every day. So while Karzai was publicly kissing up to Tehran, Colonel Rahmatullah Safi, the head of the border police along the Iranian frontier, told the London Times “it is clear to everyone that Iran is supporting the enemy of Afghanistan, the Taliban,” and U.S. Army Colonel Thomas Kelly confirmed that the infamous EPFs, the new generation of explosive devices that can penetrate most American armor, are now coming into Afghanistan. Col. Kelly notes that these devices “really are not manufactured in any other place to our knowledge than Iran.”
The same holds true in Iraq, where these devices accounted for a third of American combat deaths in July (99 such attacks were directed against us — an all-time high). General Odierno blamed 73 percent of attacks on Iranian-supported Shiite terrorists. As Michael Gordon reports for the New York Times,
American intelligence says that its report of Iranian involvement is based on a technical analysis of exploded and captured devices, interrogations of Shi’ite militants, the interdiction of trucks near Iran’s border with Iraq and parallels between the use of the weapons in Iran and in southern Lebanon by Hezbollah.
Some might suspect that our military leaders are presenting the case against Iran because they want to expand the war, and march on Tehran, but nothing of the sort is taking place. They are simply performing the task that theoretically lies with the so-called intelligence community. Our leaders have to be told the truth, even if it makes them scream. I have no doubt that Secretary of State Rice does not want to hear these things, because they give the lie to her claim that we are making progress in our talks with the Iranians. In fact, Iran has stepped up its terrorist activity in Iraq since we started talking to them. The actual words of Ambassador Crocker — who says he’s been very tough, and I’m inclined to believe him — don’t really matter to the mullahs; they say lots of things, too, and don’t expect them to be taken at face value. It’s the fact that (as they see it) we were compelled to come to them that matters.
In reality — for what little it matters nowadays, either here or in the Middle East — we are winning the battle of Iraq. The percentage increase in Iranian activity, combined with a drop in the number of attacks, is another way of saying that al Qaeda is being destroyed for a second time, and the Iranians are scrambling to fill the void. But they are on the run, just as is al Qaeda, as you can tell by the back-and-forth shuttling of their factotum Moqtadah al Sadr, between Iran and Iraq. If their scheme was working in Iraq, he’d sit still. He’s scrambling because they’re in trouble.
They’re in trouble at home, too. Indeed, things are so bad that the government itself has open fissures, the latest caused by the resignation of the minister of industry and mines, and by the public testimony of the minister of welfare:
The welfare minister, Abdol-Reza Mesri, appeared at the Majlis social committee on Saturday and announced that about 9.2 million Iranians live below the absolute poverty line. About 10.5 percent of residents in urban and 11 percent of residents in rural areas live below the absolute poverty line. Nevertheless, Mr. Mesri insisted that indicators used in computing the poverty line must be changed. The minister’s persistent suggestion to abandon internationally recognized methods of computing the poverty line has been met with the reaction of experts and professionals.
In simple English, there is so much poverty in Iran that the minister wants to change the reporting requirements so that nobody can really know the full dimensions of the Iranian people’s misery. Even their current language (what is “the absolute poverty line” anyway?) is designed to mislead.
Iranians are not stupid people; they know they are ruled by tyrannical incompetents. Listen to the words of one Reza Zarabi, in the August 5 Jerusalem Post: “Iranians have become accustomed to dictators, yet an incompetent despot that bases his economic policies on the future benevolence of the coming Islamic Messiah is another thing altogether...It is quite remarkable for such economic damage and global ridicule to be heaped upon a nation in (so) short a time. Yet the policies of the current Iranian administration have left nothing for the imagination.”
I ask you, is this not a perfect description of a revolutionary situation? And you reply: So why aren’t we doing anything about it? Which, I think, is precisely the question our military leaders in Iraq, and the people of Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan, are aiming at Washington.
National Review Online - http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MDU5OTczMGU3NzRkZTJkNzFlMmFjNThkMDJiMDlhODE=
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Iranian Unit to Be Labeled 'Terrorist'
U.S. Moving Against Revolutionary Guard
By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 15, 2007; A01
The United States has decided to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, the country's 125,000-strong elite military branch, as a "specially designated global terrorist," according to U.S. officials, a move that allows Washington to target the group's business operations and finances.
The Bush administration has chosen to move against the Revolutionary Guard Corps because of what U.S. officials have described as its growing involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as its support for extremists throughout the Middle East, the sources said. The decision follows congressional pressure on the administration to toughen its stance against Tehran, as well as U.S. frustration with the ineffectiveness of U.N. resolutions against Iran's nuclear program, officials said.
The designation of the Revolutionary Guard will be made under Executive Order 13224, which President Bush signed two weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to obstruct terrorist funding. It authorizes the United States to identify individuals, businesses, charities and extremist groups engaged in terrorist activities. The Revolutionary Guard would be the first national military branch included on the list, U.S. officials said -- a highly unusual move because it is part of a government, rather than a typical non-state terrorist organization.
The order allows the United States to block the assets of terrorists and to disrupt operations by foreign businesses that "provide support, services or assistance to, or otherwise associate with, terrorists."
The move reflects escalating tensions between Washington and Tehran over issues including Iraq and Iran's nuclear ambitions. Iran has been on the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism since 1984, but in May the two countries began their first formal one-on-one dialogue in 28 years with a meeting of diplomats in Baghdad.
The main goal of the new designation is to clamp down on the Revolutionary Guard's vast business network, as well as on foreign companies conducting business linked to the military unit and its personnel. The administration plans to list many of the Revolutionary Guard's financial operations.
"Anyone doing business with these people will have to reevaluate their actions immediately," said a U.S. official familiar with the plan who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the decision has not been announced. "It increases the risks of people who have until now ignored the growing list of sanctions against the Iranians. It makes clear to everyone who the IRGC and their related businesses really are. It removes the excuses for doing business with these people."
For weeks, the Bush administration has been debating whether to target the Revolutionary Guard Corps in full, or only its Quds Force wing, which U.S. officials have linked to the growing flow of explosives, roadside bombs, rockets and other arms to Shiite militias in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Quds Force also lends support to Shiite allies such as Lebanon's Hezbollah and to Sunni movements such as Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Although administration discussions continue, the initial decision is to target the entire Guard Corps, U.S. officials said. The administration has not yet decided when to announce the new measure, but officials said they would prefer to do so before the meeting of the U.N. General Assembly next month, when the United States intends to increase international pressure against Iran.
Formed in 1979 and originally tasked with protecting the world's only modern theocracy, the Revolutionary Guard took the lead in battling Iraq during the bloody Iran-Iraq war waged from 1980 to 1988. The Guard, also known as the Pasdaran, has since become a powerful political and economic force in Iran. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rose through the ranks of the Revolutionary Guard and came to power with support from its network of veterans. Its leaders are linked to many mainstream businesses in Iran.
"They are heavily involved in everything from pharmaceuticals to telecommunications and pipelines -- even the new Imam Khomeini Airport and a great deal of smuggling," said Ray Takeyh of the Council on Foreign Relations. "Many of the front companies engaged in procuring nuclear technology are owned and run by the Revolutionary Guards. They're developing along the lines of the Chinese military, which is involved in many business enterprises. It's a huge business conglomeration."
The Revolutionary Guard Corps -- with its own navy, air force, ground forces and special forces units -- is a rival to Iran's conventional troops. Its naval forces abducted 15 British sailors and marines this spring, sparking an international crisis, and its special forces armed Lebanon's Hezbollah with missiles used against Israel in the 2006 war. The corps also plays a key role in Iran's military industries, including the attempted acquisition of nuclear weapons and surface-to-surface missiles, according to Anthony H. Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The United States took punitive action against Iran after the November 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, including the breaking of diplomatic ties and the freezing of Iranian assets in the United States. More recently, dozens of international banks and financial institutions reduced or eliminated their business with Iran after a quiet campaign by the Treasury Department and State Department aimed at limiting Tehran's access to the international financial system. Over the past year, two U.N. resolutions have targeted the assets and movements of 28 people -- including some Revolutionary Guard members -- linked to Iran's nuclear program.
The key obstacle to stronger international pressure against Tehran has been China, Iran's largest trading partner. After the Iranian government refused to comply with two U.N. Security Council resolutions dealing with its nuclear program, Beijing balked at a U.S. proposal for a resolution that would have sanctioned the Revolutionary Guard, U.S. officials said.
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U.S.: Upping the Ante with Iran
August 15, 2007 14 08 GMT
Summary
The United States has just significantly upped the ante in negotiations with Iran over Iraq by threatening to designate Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization. The thought of designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization has been floating in the U.S. Congress for some time now, but Washington has a clear purpose in sending strong hints to Iran that the decision is imminent at this stage of the Iraq negotiations.
Analysis
The United States has just significantly upped the ante in negotiations with Iran over Iraq by threatening to designate Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization. The threat, leaked by anonymous U.S. officials to The Washington Post, is an intentional message to Iran.
The message is this: We are not content with your negotiating position, and if you think you are the only side that can ratchet up the level of pain in this situation, you are wrong.
Stratfor has long contended that the negotiations between Washington and Tehran are the key to any possible settlement on the Iraq issue, and that if a deal is to be reached, things will look like they are descending into chaos immediately prior. This is standard bargaining. Each side has to appear as though it is willing to walk away from the table, to the detriment of the other side.
The flip side to this gambit is that if a deal is not reached, Washington has just added much more fuel to the fire.
Sanctions are at best an imprecise tool, but Washington's heavy leaning on Europe has made them much more effective of late. The thought of designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization has been floating in the U.S. Congress for some time now, but Washington has a clear purpose in sending strong hints to Iran that the decision is imminent at this stage of the Iraq negotiations.
There are two implications to this designation. The first and most important right now is money. The United States has long grappled with the challenge of pressuring the international community -- which includes many of Tehran's major energy clients -- to enforce harmful sanctions against Iran. Instead of going through the formal U.N. Security Council sanctions process, Washington has focused instead on a financial strangulation policy that basically involves targeting a number of financial institutions worldwide. The message to these foreign businesses and banks is plain: Continue doing business with Iran and risk losing your business in the United States. Without major international banks' willingness to facilitate Iran's transactions, Tehran will have fewer and fewer options for making purchases without using actual cash. It simply is not possible to operate millions of dollars in transactions daily with suitcases full of cash.
Iran is genuinely suffering from the financial sanctions, which are generating significant domestic pressure on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. By designating the IRGC a terrorist organization, the United States has many more tools at its disposal to cut off funding to an international network that not only fights for Iran, but also finances its fighting through a number of business ventures, ranging from pipeline construction to pharmaceuticals. The current sanctions regime has been increasingly effective, and this new set of tools could put Iran's finances in lockdown. Labeling the IRGC as a terrorist entity, rather than an official state security apparatus, also could significantly hamper Iran's defense deals. By homing in on the wealthiest and most senior IRGC commanders, the United States is threatening the stability of the Islamic Republic and Ahmadinejad's support network.
There also is the symbolic aspect of further isolating Iran and making it appear as less of a legitimate player in the international community. Iran wants to be recognized as a legitimate regional power -- and it cannot be that when its Revolutionary Guard Corps is considered a terrorist organization.
The ball is in Iran's court now.
stratfor.com
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Don’t Bomb, Bomb Iran
For now, we should avoid a smoking Tehran.
By Victor Davis Hanson
There’s been ever more talk on Iran. President Bush — worried about both Americans being killed by Iranian mines in Iraq, and Tehran’s progress toward uranium enrichment — is ratcheting up the rhetoric.
But so mirabile dictu is French president Nicolas Sarkozy. He suddenly, in the eleventh hour of the crisis, reminds the world that bombing Iran is still very possible (and he doesn’t specify by whom):
An Iran with nuclear arms is, to me, unacceptable, and I am weighing my words…And I underline France's full determination to support the alliance's current policy of increasing sanctions, but also to remain open if Iran makes the choice to fulfill its obligations. This policy is the only one that will allow us to escape an alternative, which I consider to be catastrophic. Which alternative? An Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran.
Note especially the French president’s reference to “us” and the logic of his syllogism: Iran can’t and won’t have the bomb; one catastrophic remedy is bombing; therefore someone must increase sanctions or someone will bomb Iran, as the least bad of two awful alternatives. He can say all that — without the global hatred that George Bush would incur had he said half that.
Mohamed Ahmadinejad is still ranting, but with more a sense of false braggadocio than ever: Iran will inherit the mantel of Middle East hegemony; America is running from Iraq; our policies have already failed in Iraq — blah, blah, blah.
So what exactly is the status of the crisis?
Recall the current U.S. policy — which, I think, so far remains bipartisan except for a few unhinged calls for full diplomatic engagement with this murderous regime:
Show the world that Americans tried the European route with the EU3 (Britain, France, German) negotiations that have so far failed; let the U.N. jawbone (so what?); help Iranian dissidents and democratic reformers; keep trying to stabilize Iran’s reforming neighbors in Afghanistan and Iraq; persuade Russia, China, and India to cooperate in ostracizing Iran; galvanize global financial institutions to isolate the Iranian economy; apprise the world that an Iranian nuclear device is unacceptable — and hope all that pressure works before the theocrats have enough enriched uranium to get a bomb and, as Persian nationalists, win back public approval inside Iran.
The degree to which Iran has neared completion of bomb-making will determine to what degree all of the above has hurt, helped, or had no effect.
But there are subtle indications that U.S. policy is slowly working, and that a strike now on Iran would be a grave mistake, in every strategic and political sense — not to mention the humanitarian one of harming a populace that may well soon prove to be the most pro-Western in the region.
It is surreal, after all, that a French president would confess that Iran getting the bomb is “unacceptable.” Sarkozy seems to recognize that a nuclear Iran won’t be happy with bullying neighboring oil producers and carving up Iraq, but will be soon blackmailing Europe on issues from trade to war.
So finally a French leader seems to allow that if the Europeans would just cease all financial relations with Teheran, freeze their assets, and stop sending them everything from sniper rifles to machine tools, then the crippled regime would start to stagger even more. And because France has been the most obstructionist in the past to U.S. efforts in the Middle East, its mere rhetoric is nearly beyond belief.
We have no leverage with China and Russia, of course. Their general foreign policy is reactive, based on the principle that anything that disturbs the United States and diverts its attention is de facto a positive development — excepting perhaps having another nuclear nut in Asia to go alongside North Korea and Pakistan.
Still, the recent humiliating disclosures about China’s 19th-century “Jungle”-type industry, and the growing anger at what Mr. Sarkozy called Russia’s “brutality,” show that neither country has earned much respect, and that either could pull in its horns a bit concerning Iran, with deft Western diplomacy.
There are other symptoms of progress. The Sadr brigades have purportedly announced a cessation of military operations — no doubt, because they are losing the sectarian kill-fest. But it may also be because Shiite animosity against them is growing. Perhaps too they are learning that Iran’s interest in Iraq is not always theirs, but simply fomenting violence of any kind that persuades the U.S. military to leave, including arming their enemies, both Sunni and Shiite.
Every Shiite gangster should note that Iran’s envisioned future is not one of coequal mafias, but rather a mere concession in the south that takes orders from the real bosses in the north. The jury is still out on whether it is true that Arab Shiites are Shiites first, and Arabs second or third. But at some point someone will start to figure out that Iran also gave arms and aid to al Qaeda to kill Iraqi Shiites.
No one knows quite what is going on in Iraq. Yet news that the surge is working and that violence is declining is also bad news for Tehran. Its worst nightmare is that Sunni tribes are no longer aping al Qaeda, but helping Americans. That will only turn attention back to Iranian-back killers. Meanwhile Sunni masters in the region — arming themselves to the teeth — are reminding their kindred Iraqi tribesmen that Iran, not America, is the real enemy of the Arab world.
And what is our stance? The United States calmly continues to arrest and “detain” Iranian agents inside Iraq — acts, of course, that enrage a kidnapping Iran. Apparently the only thing galling to an Iranian hostage-taker is the very idea that someone else would try such a thing openly and publicly and within the bounds of the rules of war. And by labeling the Revolutionary Guards Corps a terrorist organization, the United States is finally institutionalizing what the world already knows: Iran is a criminal state whose government and terrorists are one and the same.
There is also the ever-present, ever-unreliable news out of Iran itself of gas rationing, strikes, and a deteriorating economy. If all that good for us/bad for them news is true — with oil prices still sky-high, and sanctions as yet weak and porous — then it suggests that should financial ostracism be stepped up and become really punitive, and oil recede in price by even a few dollars, the regime would face widespread disobedience.
It would help things if Western elites started seeing Iran as Darfur. Teheran has butchered thousands of its own, kills the innocent in Iraq, and has stated that it would like to see the equivalent of a second Holocaust — all surely some grounds for at least a dig from Bono or a frown from Brad Pitt.
It doesn’t help Ahmadinejad that his supposedly successful, rocket-propelled proxy war against Israel a year ago, not only was not followed up by a round-two jihad this season, but seems on careful autopsy to have been a costly blunder that nearly destroyed the infrastructure of his southern Lebanese allies. No Iranian in gas line wants to learn that his scrimping went to pay for rebuilding the atomized apartment buildings of Arabs in Lebanon.
The oddest development of all is Iranian outrage at the U.N. — a sentiment almost impossible to entertain for any such corrupt, anti-American regime. But Iran’s chief delegate to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Ali-Ashgar Soltanieh, keeps screaming about international monitoring. He threatens this and that, which can only mean Iran fears the global humiliation of having inspectors expose the fact that puritanical, live-by-Koran clerics are serial liars.
Of course, there is no reason yet to believe that Iran’s megalomaniac plans are stalled. There is much less reason to think that the world is galvanizing fast or furiously enough against the loony Ahmadinejad. But there are some positive signs that Iran is not nearly as strong as it thinks, and the general winds of the world are blowing against it, ever so slowly — and thanks in large part to careful U.S. policy and the innately self-destructive tendencies of Iranian theocracy.
Note that the loud Democratic 2008 candidates have ceased calling for direct talks with Iran (the inexperienced Obama, the exception proving the rule). They can offer no policy other than the present one. For all the dangers, the spectacle of Ahmadinejad has been a great gift to the Western world — loudly embodying, in its raw, pure form, the evil which Iranian theocracy inevitably produces.
So we should continue with the present path — and not bomb or have surrogates bomb Iran. That option is still down the road. For as long as it is possible, the best-case scenario is not a smoking Iran, but a humiliated theocracy that slowly implodes before the world, displaying in their disgrace what the mullahs did to themselves — and perhaps a small reminder of those helpful shoves from us.
— Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
National Review Online - http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Y2I4ODZlYTdkNDhiZTkxMDVhMmQzNDA2NDNjM2RjNjg=
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070916/..._france_war_dc
By Francois Murphy 1 hour, 32 minutes ago
PARIS (Reuters) - French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said on Sunday his country must prepare for the possibility of war against Iran over its nuclear program, but he did not believe any such action was imminent.
Seeking to ratchet up the pressure on Iran, Kouchner also told RTL radio and LCI television that the world's major powers should use further sanctions to show they were serious about stopping Tehran getting atom bombs, and said France had asked French firms not to bid for tenders in the Islamic Republic.
"We must prepare for the worst," Kouchner said in an interview, adding: "The worst, sir, is war."
Asked about the preparations, he said it was normal to prepare for various eventualities.
"We are preparing ourselves by trying to put together plans that are the chiefs of staff's prerogative (but) that is not about to happen tomorrow," he added.
Tehran insists it only wants to master nuclear technology to produce electricity, but it has yet to comply with repeated U.N. demands that it suspend uranium enrichment and other sensitive work that could potentially be used in producing weapons.
Kouchner's comments follow a similarly hawkish statement by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who said last month in his first major foreign policy speech since taking office that a diplomatic push by the world's powers was the only alternative to "an Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran."
Asked if France was involved in any planning towards war, he said: "The French army is not at the moment associated with anything at all, nor with any maneuver at all."
"PEACE IS IN YOUR INTEREST"
France has said repeatedly it wants the U.N. Security Council to pass tougher sanctions against Iran over its failure to dispel fears that it is secretly pursuing nuclear weapons.
"We do not want to signal anything other than 'peace is in your interest, and in ours too,"' Kouchner said, adding that the door should be left open to negotiations with Tehran, but Paris has made a suspension of nuclear work a condition for talks.
The United States, Germany, France and Britain have led a diplomatic drive to punish Iran for refusing to halt its uranium enrichment program. They succeeded in persuading reluctant Russia and China to back two U.N. sanctions resolutions.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tehran would not give up its nuclear program.
"Of course we will not abandon our right to nuclear technology," he told state television. "They (the West) talks about imposing sanctions on Iran, but they can not do it."
Washington says the time has to expand the penalties and has called a September 21 meeting of the six powers to discuss a third sanctions resolution to submit to the U.N. Security Council.
Kouchner said France had asked its biggest companies, including oil giant Total and gas firm Gaz de France, not to bid for projects in Iran.
"We have already asked a certain number of our large companies to not respond to tenders, and it is a way of signaling that we are serious," Kouchner said.
"We are not banning French companies from submitting. We have advised them not to. These are private companies. But I think that it has been heard and we are not the only ones to have done this."
In addition, Paris and Berlin were preparing possible European Union economic sanctions against Tehran, Kouchner said.
"We have decided to ... prepare ourselves for possible sanctions outside the U.N. sanctions and which would be European sanctions. Our German friends proposed it. We discussed it a few days ago," Kouchner said.
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Stratfor.com
1139 GMT -- IRAN, UNITED STATES -- The Iranian military has the capacity to strike U.S. interests in the Middle East within a 1,250-mile range, Gen. Mohammad Hassan Koussechi, a top official in Iran's elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said Sept. 17. The U.S. Army has encircled Iran, but if it strikes on any of the 2,000 Iranian targets it has identified, it will be attacked, Koussechi said. Separately, Iran's official media has launched a campaign accusing French President Nicolas Sarkozy of being driven by U.S. interests. The campaign was triggered by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner's comments about a possible war with Iran.
1112 GMT -- IRAN -- Iran will reconsider its $15 billion liquefied natural gas (LNG) deal with French oil firm Total because of differences over the price paid to Tehran, Iranian Oil Minister Gholam-Hossein Nozari said Sept. 16. Iran, which believes Total's price to market the agreed 5.5 million tons of LNG is too high, asked Total to submit a new quote earlier this year. "We think this amount should be supplied to the market and not to Total," Nozari said.
0145 GMT -- FRANCE, IRAN -- French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner warned Sept. 16 that the world must prepare for the possibility of war with Iran over its nuclear development program. He said the possibility is unlikely, but that the world "must prepare for the worst."
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Iran Warns German Banks: If You Leave, Don’t Come Back
August 23, 2007 | From theTrumpet.com
Financial broadsides between Berlin and Tehran could presage more dangerous exchanges in the future.
European financial institutions appear to be bowing to U.S. pressure to pull out of Iran. The Islamic Republic has responded by threatening to bar these entities from ever doing business in Iran again. The episode reveals mounting tensions between Iran and Europe that could grow much worse with time.
Breitbart.com reported the Financial Times Deutschland as saying “that European financial institutions feared losing out on lucrative business with the United States if they remained active in Iran, after U.S. officials threatened the banks’ boards with consequences.”
msnbc said the U.S. Treasury had conducted a “vigorous lobbying campaign” with banks worldwide to restrict their business with Iran.
Several European financial institutions have begun paring down their activities with Iranian customers as a result. On July 30, Germany’s largest bank, Deutsche Bank, said it will conclude its business in Iran this September.
Though the bank cited a lack of financial return on its investments there, observers noted that it made its decision shortly after receiving a visit from the U.S. Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.
Now Iran has fired its first shot back. Tehran says any bank that withdraws from Iran won’t be welcome back.
“We’re not happy with [Deutsche Bank’s] decision,” said the vice governor of Iran’s central bank to Financial Times Deutschland. “There is no guarantee that one can return when the good times are here again.” He said competitors throughout the region and in Asia and Russia would fill the void left by Germany.
The German banks dismissively say they lose virtually nothing by pulling away from Iran.
Worth noting is that although Germany is heavily dependent upon oil imports, it appears to have weaned itself off Iranian oil this year.
Link:http://www.thetrumpet.com/index.php?q=4159.2347.0.0
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After Talk of War, Cooler Words in France on Iran
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By KATRIN BENNHOLD and ELAINE SCIOLINO
Published: September 18, 2007
MOSCOW, Sept. 17 — France’s foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, sought Monday to tone down remarks he made in a radio and television interview the day before that the world had to prepare for possible war against Iran.
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Stephane Ruet, via Associated Press
Bernard Kouchner said Sunday that it was “necessary to prepare” for war with Iran.
Attacked verbally by Iran and quietly criticized within his own government, Mr. Kouchner shifted the focus away from the threat of war and back to a call for hard negotiations as the way to force Iran to abandon key nuclear activities.
“The worst situation would be war,” Mr. Kouchner told journalists en route to Moscow. “And to avoid the worst, the French position is very clear: negotiate, negotiate, negotiate, and work with our European friends on credible sanctions.”
On Sunday, Mr. Kouchner, a Socialist known for his blunt talk, said in an interview broadcast on RTL radio and LCI television: “We will negotiate until the end. And at the same time we must prepare ourselves.”
Asked what he meant in referring to preparation, he replied, “It is necessary to prepare for the worst,” adding, “The worst, it’s war, sir.”
Asked again to explain himself, Mr. Kouchner announced that France was doing military contingency planning for an eventual war, saying, “We are preparing by trying first of all to put together plans that are the unique prerogative of the chiefs of staff, but that — it’s not for tomorrow.”
Lost in the off-the-cuff and freewheeling remarks about war planning was his other, less alarmist message: that France is committed to using diplomacy to resolve the nuclear crisis with Iran, that no military action is planned and that he did not believe there would be an American military intervention while President Bush was in office.
But his remarks fueled speculation that France was moving closer to the Bush administration position that all options — including war — are on the table.
On Monday, Prime Minister François Fillon, a former labor and education minister, appeared to support Mr. Kouchner, adding to the sense that France’s stance had hardened.
Asked during a visit to an army base at Angoulême about Mr. Kouchner’s mention of war against Iran, Mr. Fillon replied, “The foreign affairs minister is right because everybody can see that the situation in the Near East is extremely tense and that it’s getting worse.”
Like Mr. Kouchner, he stressed that all steps must be taken to avoid war.
Adding to the confusion, the Foreign Ministry seemed to distance itself somewhat from Mr. Kouchner’s remarks. A deputy spokesman, Denis Simonneau, referred journalists on Monday to a speech President Nicolas Sarkozy made last month in which he also said Iran could be attacked militarily if it did not curb its nuclear program, but that such an outcome would be a disaster. He gave no indication that France would ever participate in military action against Iran or even tacitly support such an approach.
The Foreign Ministry instructed its diplomatic missions around the world to use the same, more cautious, formulation, ministry officials said.
Mr. Kouchner’s reference to war on Sunday infuriated Iran, which accused France of moving closer to Washington.
“The use of such words creates tensions and is contrary to the cultural history and civilization of France,” said Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Muhammad Ali Hosseini, in a statement on Monday.
An editorial in the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency on Monday said, “The new occupants of the Élysée want to copy the White House.”
In Vienna, Mohamed ElBaradei, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, called for calm. “I would not talk about any use of force,” he said.
Stressing that only the Security Council could authorize the use of force, he urged the world to remember the lesson of Iraq before considering military action against Iran. “We need to be cool,” he said.
Certainly, France under President Sarkozy has toughened its policy toward Iran. Mindful that a third round of sanctions in the United Nations Security Council is unlikely for at least several months, France has begun to push an initiative for separate European sanctions against Iran.
Mr. Sarkozy’s predecessor, Jacques Chirac, also took a hard line against Iran’s nuclear program but was much less inclined to use sanctions, because, as he often said, he did not believe they were effective.
France’s foreign intelligence service has a shorter timeline for Iran’s prospects for producing a nuclear weapon than that of American intelligence, according to senior French officials. American intelligence analysts put that date between 2010 and 2015.
In Paris before heading to Moscow for bilateral talks on Iran and other issues, Mr. Kouchner said European countries should prepare their own sanctions outside of the United Nations.
“These would be European sanctions that each country, individually, must put in place with its own banking, commercial and industrial system,” he said. “The English and the Germans are interested in talking about this.”
While some officials inside the French government felt that Mr. Kouchner had done no harm with his mention of war, others said he should have been more disciplined in his choice of words.
“In an ideal world he wouldn’t have answered the questions in the way he did,” said one French official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on diplomatic issues. “His words were not completely thought out and scripted. It doesn’t mean there is a change of policy.”
Katrin Bennhold reported from Moscow, and Elaine Sciolino from Paris. Nazila Fathi contributed reporting from Tehran, and Nicola Clark from Paris.
NYTimes
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Although the NY Times is always a source to be read with alertness for distortions, I found the following piece very interesting.
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TEHRAN — When Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was first elected president, he said Iran had more important issues to worry about than how women dress. He even called for allowing women into soccer games, a revolutionary idea for revolutionary Iran.
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Related
New York Grudgingly Opens the Door (September 24, 2007)
Times Topics:
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Iran
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Vahid Salemi/Associated Press
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, surrounded by Iranian officials, reading the Koran Sunday before leaving Tehran.
Today, Iran is experiencing the most severe crackdown on social behavior and dress in years, and women are often barred from smoking in public, let alone attending a stadium event.
Since his inauguration two years ago, Mr. Ahmadinejad has grabbed headlines around the world, and in Iran, for outrageous statements that often have no more likelihood of being put into practice than his plan for women to attend soccer games. He has generated controversy in New York in recent days by asking to visit ground zero — a request that was denied — and his scheduled appearance at Columbia University has drawn protests.
But it is because of his provocative remarks, like denying the Holocaust and calling for Israel to be wiped off the map, that the United States and Europe have never known quite how to handle him. In demonizing Mr. Ahmadinejad, the West has served him well, elevating his status at home and in the region at a time when he is increasingly isolated politically because of his go-it-alone style and ineffective economic policies, according to Iranian politicians, officials and political experts.
Political analysts here say they are surprised at the degree to which the West focuses on their president, saying that it reflects a general misunderstanding of their system.
Unlike in the United States, in Iran the president is not the head of state nor the commander in chief. That status is held by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, whose role combines civil and religious authority. At the moment, this president’s power comes from two sources, they say: the unqualified support of the supreme leader, and the international condemnation he manages to generate when he speaks up.
“The United States pays too much attention to Ahmadinejad,” said an Iranian political scientist who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. “He is not that consequential.”
That is not to say that Mr. Ahmadinejad is insignificant. He controls the mechanics of civil government, much the way a prime minister does in a state like Egypt, where the real power rests with the president. He manages the budget and has put like-minded people in positions around the country, from provincial governors to prosecutors. His base of support is the Basiji militia and elements of the Revolutionary Guards.
But Mr. Ahmadinejad has not shown the same political acumen at home as he has in riling the West. Two of his ministers have quit, criticizing his stewardship of the state. The head of the central bank resigned. The chief judge criticized him for his management of the government. His promise to root out corruption and redistribute oil wealth has run up against entrenched interests.
Even a small bloc of members of Parliament that once aligned with Mr. Ahmadinejad has largely given up, officials said. “Maybe it comes as a surprise to you that I voted for him,” said Emad Afrough, a conservative member of Parliament. “I liked the slogans demanding justice.”
But he added: “You cannot govern the country on a personal basis. You have to use public knowledge and consultation.”
Rather than focusing so much attention on the president, the West needs to learn that in Iran, what matters is ideology — Islamic revolutionary ideology, according to politicians and political analysts here. Nearly 30 years after the shah fell in a popular revolt, Iran’s supreme leader also holds title of guardian of the revolution.
Mr. Ahmadinejad’s power stems not from his office per se, but from the refusal of his patron, Ayatollah Khamenei, and some hard-line leaders, to move beyond Iran’s revolutionary identity, which makes full relations with the West impossible. There are plenty of conservatives and hard-liners who take a more pragmatic view, wanting to retain “revolutionary values” while integrating Iran with the world, at least economically. But they are not driving the agenda these days, and while that could change, it will not be the president who makes that call.
“Iran has never been interested in reaching an accommodation with the United States,” the Iranian political scientist said. “It cannot reach an accommodation as long as it retains the current structure.”
Another important factor restricts Mr. Ahmadinejad’s hand: while ideology defines the state, the revolution has allowed a particular class to grow wealthy and powerful.
When Mr. Ahmadinejad was first elected, it appeared that Iran’s hard-liners had a monopoly on all the levers of power. But today it is clear that Mr. Ahmadinejad is not a hard-liner in the traditional sense. His talk of economic justice and a redistribution of wealth, for example, ran into a wall of existing vested interests, including powerful clergy members and military leaders.
“Ahmadinejad is a phenomenon,” said Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a former vice president under the more moderate administration of Mohammad Khatami. “On a religious level he is much more of a hard-liner than the traditional hard-liners. But on a political level, he does not have the support of the hard-liners.”
In the long run, political analysts here say, a desire to preserve those vested interests will drive Iran’s agenda. That means that the allegiance of the political elite is to the system, not a particular president. If this president were ever perceived as outlasting his usefulness, he would probably take his place in history beside other presidents who failed to change the orientation of the system.
Iranians will go to the polls in less than two years to select a president. There are so many pressures on the electoral system here, few people expect an honest race. The Guardian Council, for example, controlled by hard-liners, must approve all candidates.
But whether Mr. Ahmadinejad wins or loses, there is no sense here in Iran that the outcome will have any impact on the fundamentals of Iran’s relations with the world or the government’s relation to its own society.
“The situation will get worse and worse,” said Saeed Leylaz, an economist and former government official. “We are moving to a point where no internal force can change things.”
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/11/weekinreview/11bronne...rtner=rssnyt&emc=rss
quote:
Just How Far Did They Go, Those Words Against Israel?
By ETHAN BRONNER
Published: June 11, 2006
EVER since he spoke at an anti-Zionism conference in Tehran last October, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran has been known for one statement above all. As translated by news agencies at the time, it was that Israel "should be wiped off the map." Iran's nuclear program and sponsorship of militant Muslim groups are rarely mentioned without reference to the infamous map remark.
Here, for example, is R. Nicholas Burns, the under secretary of state for political affairs, recently: "Given the radical nature of Iran under Ahmadinejad and its stated wish to wipe Israel off the map of the world, it is entirely unconvincing that we could or should live with a nuclear Iran."
But is that what Mr. Ahmadinejad said? And if so, was it a threat of war? For months, a debate among Iran specialists over both questions has been intensifying. It starts as a dispute over translating Persian but quickly turns on whether the United States (with help from Israel) is doing to Iran what some believe it did to Iraq — building a case for military action predicated on a faulty premise.
"Ahmadinejad did not say he was going to wipe Israel off the map because no such idiom exists in Persian," remarked Juan Cole, a Middle East specialist at the University of Michigan and critic of American policy who has argued that the Iranian president was misquoted. "He did say he hoped its regime, i.e., a Jewish-Zionist state occupying Jerusalem, would collapse." Since Iran has not "attacked another country aggressively for over a century," he said in an e-mail exchange, "I smell the whiff of war propaganda."
Jonathan Steele, a columnist for the left-leaning Guardian newspaper in London, recently laid out the case this way: "The Iranian president was quoting an ancient statement by Iran's first Islamist leader, the late Ayatollah Khomeini, that 'this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time,' just as the Shah's regime in Iran had vanished. He was not making a military threat. He was calling for an end to the occupation of Jerusalem at some point in the future. The 'page of time' phrase suggests he did not expect it to happen soon."
Mr. Steele added that neither Khomeini nor Mr. Ahmadinejad suggested that Israel's "vanishing" was imminent or that Iran would be involved in bringing it about. "But the propaganda damage was done," he wrote, "and Western hawks bracket the Iranian president with Hitler as though he wants to exterminate Jews."
If Mr. Steele and Mr. Cole are right, not one word of the quotation — Israel should be wiped off the map — is accurate.
But translators in Tehran who work for the president's office and the foreign ministry disagree with them. All official translations of Mr. Ahmadinejad's statement, including a description of it on his Web site (www.president.ir/eng/), refer to wiping Israel away. Sohrab Mahdavi, one of Iran's most prominent translators, and Siamak Namazi, managing director of a Tehran consulting firm, who is bilingual, both say "wipe off" or "wipe away" is more accurate than "vanish" because the Persian verb is active and transitive.
The second translation issue concerns the word "map." Khomeini's words were abstract: "Sahneh roozgar." Sahneh means scene or stage, and roozgar means time. The phrase was widely interpreted as "map," and for years, no one objected. In October, when Mr. Ahmadinejad quoted Khomeini, he actually misquoted him, saying not "Sahneh roozgar" but "Safheh roozgar," meaning pages of time or history. No one noticed the change, and news agencies used the word "map" again.
Ahmad Zeidabadi, a professor of political science in Tehran whose specialty is Iran-Israel relations, explained: "It seems that in the early days of the revolution the word 'map' was used because it appeared to be the best meaningful translation for what he said. The words 'sahneh roozgar' are metaphorical and do not refer to anything specific. Maybe it was interpreted as 'book of countries,' and the closest thing to that was a map. Since then, we have often heard 'Israel bayad az naghshe jographya mahv gardad' — Israel must be wiped off the geographical map. Hard-liners have used it in their speeches."
The final translation issue is Mr. Ahmadinejad's use of "occupying regime of Jerusalem" rather than "Israel."
To some analysts, this means he is calling for regime change, not war, and therefore it need not be regarded as a call for military action. Professor Cole, for example, says: "I am entirely aware that Ahmadinejad is hostile to Israel. The question is whether his intentions and capabilities would lead to a military attack, and whether therefore pre-emptive warfare is prescribed. I am saying no, and the boring philology is part of the reason for the no."
But to others, "occupying regime" signals more than opposition to a certain government; the phrase indicates the depth of the Iranian president's rejection of a Jewish state in the Middle East because he refuses even to utter the name Israel. He has said that the Palestinian issue "does not lend itself to a partial territorial solution" and has called Israel "a stain" on Islam that must be erased. By contrast, Mr. Ahmadinejad's predecessor, Mohammad Khatami, said that if the Palestinians accepted Israel's existence, Iran would go along.
When combined with Iran's longstanding support for Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah of Lebanon, two groups that have killed numerous Israelis, and Mr. Ahmadinejad's refusal to acknowledge the Holocaust, it is hard to argue that, from Israel's point of view, Mr. Ahmadinejad poses no threat. Still, it is true that he has never specifically threatened war against Israel.
So did Iran's president call for Israel to be wiped off the map? It certainly seems so. Did that amount to a call for war? That remains an open question.
Nazila Fathi contributed reporting from Tehran for this article.
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And here's some more on the same subject:
http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=countries&Area=iran&ID=SP135706
Special Dispatch Series - No. 1357
November 15, 2006 No.1357
Qods (Jerusalem) Day in Iran: ‘The Nation of Muslims Must Prepare for the Great War So As to Completely Wipe Out the Zionist Regime and to Remove This Cancerous Growth’
On the occasion of Qods (Jerusalem) Day, which was observed this year in Iran on October 20, 2006, several conservative Iranian newspapers published editorials praising the resistance against Israel and urging Israel's destruction. [1]
The editorials, which appeared in the conservative dailies Resalat and Kayhan, reflected Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Qods Day speech, in which he said: "The existence of this regime [i.e. Israel] has been based on military threat, on military strength, and on its myth of invincibility. Today, by the grace of God, this myth has been shattered, with the help of the believers in Palestine, and thanks to the self-sacrifice and the belief of the Hizbullah commanders. Today, the Zionists do not feel safe, not even in their homes, [or] anywhere in the world."
TO VIEW THIS CLIP ON MEMRI TV, VISIT: http://switch3.castup.net/cunet/gm.asp?ai=214&ar=1301wmv&ak=null .
The articles in Resalat and Kayhan said thatthe recent Lebanon war was only the first battle on the way to the elimination of Israel, and expressed the hope that the war will serve as a catalyst for an extensive Islamic uprising against Israel.
The following are excerpts from the two articles:
Kayhan: "Hizbullah Destroyed at Least Half of Israel in The Lebanon War... Now Only Half the Path [To Its Destruction] Remains"
On October 19, 2006, the conservative daily Kayhan, which is close to Iran's Supreme Leader 'Ali Khamenei, published an article on the occasion of Qods (Jerusalem) Day: [2] "...This year was a decisive one for Palestine and the Islamic Middle East region. Those opposed to the liberation of Jerusalem, Palestine, and the Middle East linked arms and sought to publicly topple the free foundations of sacred Jerusalem. America, Europe, Russia, many of the heads of Arab regimes in the region, and the Zionists all collaborated in this process, assuming that by means of a series of operations they would dry up the heart of the freedom of Jerusalem, in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Iran, and that by means of a terrible blow against these four countries they would close this dossier forever.
"On this basis [U.S. Secretary of State] Condoleezza Rice came to the Middle East in the first days of the Lebanon war and said: 'The new Middle East is like a newborn, and therefore we must suffer its birth pangs.' Then she clearly declared [the need] to eradicate the Lebanese Hizbullah. [But] the axis of the West, the East, and the Zionists against Hizbullah ended in its defeat and in a reversal in the balance [of power].
"Hizbullah stood fast in Israel's 33-day war against Lebanon, and proved that the destruction of Israel was easier [work] than some of the Arab governments think - [namely,] that the destruction of Israel is impossible. The 33-day war proved that the intelligence-security capability of Israel is not so great as to be immeasurable and that it is possible to triumph over the Israeli Air Force - which had been considered the element that brought about the victory of the Israeli regime over the Arabs in the five previous wars - and this is said without disregarding its range of technological capabilities.
"When the air force of the Zionist Regime, together with its warships, besieged the shores of Lebanon - from the port of Tripoli in the north to the port of Tyre in the south - it retreated after Hizbullah's blow to the advanced Saar 5 warship at a distance of 12 miles from the coast of Beirut... thus it was proven that, by means of an offensive operation that need not be equal to Israel's moves, it is possible to neutralize the Zionist navy.
"With the downing of one of the Tel Aviv regime's advanced night-flight helicopters at the height of the war... it became clear to all that the Zionist regime's air force, despite 33 successive days of bombing, had not managed to deliver serious harm to the capability of Hizbullah's command and missiles. It was proven that it is possible to damage the Israeli Air Force from a distance...
"The 33-day war ended without any of the goals that had been declared by the Zionist government and the commanders of its military being attained - and this was the first time that Israel was forced to accept its complete downfall...
"In the 33-day war, the Lebanese Hizbullah destroyed at least 50% of Israel [and therefore] half the path to the liberation of Jerusalem equals 33 days. Now, only (at most) 50% of the path [to Israel's destruction] remains. This remaining 50% is easier than the 50% that was already accomplished. Now, in the face of the degree of fear and lack of confidence that has been deeply implanted in [all] parts of the Zionist regime, the Muslim peoples of the region, and particularly the four Arab countries neighboring Palestine [i.e. Israel] - Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon - are full of hope and confidence, and they have no doubt, that they will be able to very quickly overcome the Zionist regime...
"According to this description, just as in one 33-day war more than 50% of Israel was destroyed, and the hope of its supporters for the continued life of this regime was broken, it is likely that in the next battle, the second half will also collapse.
"On that day... Jordan will not be able to prevent the Jordanian Islamists from operating through the long Jordan-Palestine border, and the millions of Egyptian Islamists... will not let the Sinai-Israel border remain quiet, and the Syrian Golan Heights will not remain as a [mere] observer of the battle. That day is not so far off."
Resalat: "The Great War is Ahead of Us, [And Will Break Out] Perhaps Tomorrow, or in Another Few Days, or in a Few Months, or Even in a Few Years... Israel Must Collapse"
In an October 22, 2006 editorial titled "Preparations for the Great War," the conservative daily Resalat wrote: [3] "...The Qods Day marches in the month of Ramadan this year were held at a time when the takeover by the global arrogance [the U.S.] was shattered with Israel's defeat by the Lebanese Hizbullah.
"For the first time in the 60 years of its disgraceful life, the Zionist regime - the West's beloved in the Middle East - tasted the taste of defeat, and the citizens of this regime trembled at the menace of Hizbullah's missiles. There can be no doubt at all that the silence of the parents of this illegal creature [i.e. Israel] is temporary, and that they [i.e. the West] will not be willing to sit quietly before their wounded child and [just] worry at its misfortune.
"The Zionist regime and its supporters are, without doubt, preparing for the great war, in order to settle this conflict in one fell swoop. They will not be willing to relinquish the occupied lands of Ghajar and the Shab'a Farms - this in order to keep Lebanon's wound open. This regime's military movements in the north of occupied Palestine, the unconditional military and economic aid it receives from America, and [Israel's] effort to imitate Europe in the military arena [in] missile and satellite [technology] - all attest to this regime's preparedness for renewed war against Hizbullah.
"This sense of danger on the part of the supporters of the counterfeit Israeli regime is not limited to the Islamic resistance in Lebanon [i.e. Hizbullah]. On the contrary; the American plan of [U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza] Rice, which is titled 'Conditions for Neutralizing the Aspiration for Growth in the Islamic World and Coordination with the Arab Governments in the Region in Order to Contain the Shi'ites,' attests to the West's preparations for a wide confrontation with the Middle East's [Islamic] awakening movement in the third millennium. This is, of course, the first time in [the history of] America-Zionist relations that Washington has turned to the heads [of the Arab states] after an Israeli defeat, and asked them to unite and help it [i.e. Israel], in order to compensate for the losses in the war...
"In any event, we must be alert. Sights and rumors can tell us about the movements of this regime [i.e. Israel] in the coming months. Hizbullah was the undisputed victor of the 33-day war against Israel, but as the honorable Supreme Leader [Ali Khamenei] said at Friday prayers in Tehran: 'The defeated in this event are not, and will not remain, passive. The process is not over [yet]. They are busy with operations and efforts aimed at stopping the results of this disappointment and defeat [they suffered], because the blow that landed upon them was a hard one...'
"The Muslim peoples in the region must stop this conspiracy before it happens. The people's unprecedented participation in Qods [Jerusalem] Day this year attests to the continuation of the path of resistance against the Zionist regime... But on the first front of the resistance, that is, the Hizbullah [front], maintaining control over the 'Iron Triangle' [4] region and declaring it a closed military area can prevent the weakening of the forces of the Islamic resistance. In any event, America's effort is to turn UNIFIL's role into one of confrontation with and weakening of Hizbullah - but doubtless this deception will be neutralized by the alertness of [Hizbullah Secretary-General] Hassan Nasrallah.
"It must not be forgotten that the great war is ahead of us, [and it will break out] perhaps tomorrow, or in another few days, or in a few months, or even in a few years. The nation of Muslims must prepare for the great war, so as to completely wipe out the Zionist regime, and remove this cancerous growth. Like the Imam [Ayatollah] Khomeini said: 'Israel must collapse."
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[1] Qods (Jerusalem) Day is observed yearly in Iran on the last Friday of Ramadan, in accordance with the orders of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. It marks Iran's aspiration for the liberation of all Palestine.
[2] Kayhan (Iran), October 19, 2006.
[3] Resalat (Iran), October 22, 2006.
[4] The Iron Triangle is a term for the area around the city of Tyre in Lebanon that Hizbullah used as its main launching pad for Katyushas aimed at Israel during the July-August 2006 Lebanon war.
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Caveat lector: NY Times
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WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 — A year and a half after President Bush told top aides that he feared he might be forced someday to choose between acquiescing to Iran’s nuclear ambitions and ordering military action, the struggle to find an effective alternative — sanctions with real bite — is entering a new phase.
The speech at the United Nations on Tuesday by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran is already being used by American officials in an effort to convince European allies that Iran’s leadership will respond only to a sharp new wave of economic pressure, far greater than anything it has endured so far. Mr. Ahmadinejad, trying to make the case that no additional sanctions would derail Iran’s uranium enrichment program, declared that “the nuclear issue of Iran is now closed.”
Until now, Washington has relied on gradually escalating sanctions, including convincing a growing number of banks that it is risky to lend new funds to Iran for major oil projects. Yet in interviews, American diplomats, White House officials and military officers acknowledge that the strategy has been largely ineffective.
So have veiled threats of military action. While President Bush and his aides insist that “all options are on the table,” senior officials say there is little enthusiasm in the White House or the Pentagon for military attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities, though they acknowledge that such war plans are always being refined.
The officials say the Iranians fully understand that while the United States could destroy Iran’s major nuclear facilities, it would be far harder to manage the probable response, which could include heightened attacks on American forces in Iraq, possible retaliation on Israel or the destabilization of governments from Lebanon to Pakistan.
Administration officials say that the chances appear slim that the United States can enlist Russia and China behind really tough sanctions against Iran, and that it could take several months for such sanctions to emerge, if they do at all.
But for the first time, administration officials say, the European allies are talking about a far broader cutoff of bank lending and technology to Iran than any tried so far. The lead is being taken by the new government in France, whose president, Nicolas Sarkozy, issued a starker warning to the United Nations this week about a nuclear Iran than did Mr. Bush.
That has created a new initiative between Washington and Paris unlike any since they split over the invasion of Iraq. The effort, said Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, is intended to convince Iranians that the nuclear program is “taking us into the ditch,” and to make the pressure so great “that they finally have to make a strategic choice.”
In a meeting on Tuesday with editors and reporters for The New York Times, Mr. Hadley conceded that the United States was still struggling to understand how much pressure it would take to force Iran to make what he called a “strategic choice” and said that intelligence estimates “vary widely” about how much time remained before the Iranians could have a weapon.
One senior European official who is taking part in conversations in New York this week to design sanctions that the entire European Union might agree to said it was now “a race between how fast they can build centrifuges and we can turn up the pain.”
So the discussions now center on cutting off even more lending to the Iranians and — for the first time — supplies of technology and other goods. But that would require severing, one by one, deep ties between European and Iranian businesses, and necessitate what Mr. Hadley called a consensus for “aggressive action, even if that means compromising their commercial interests.”
A range of officials acknowledged the difficulty of designing a military strike option effective enough to set the Iranian program back for many years.
While many of the sites have long been known — especially the giant underground complex at Natanz, where just shy of 2,000 centrifuges have been installed — there is no certainty that military action could destroy the entire system of well-disguised factories and laboratories, some known and some hidden.
And the turmoil certain to follow such an attack may not be worth military action that simply delays nuclear development, officials say.
That probably explains why Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have both vowed to pursue the diplomatic track, saying that military action is a last resort. But those comments have not silenced the speculation here, in Europe and in the Middle East that America is planning for an attack.
“This constant drumbeat of war is not helpful, and it’s not useful,” said Adm. William J. Fallon, the senior American commander in the region.
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Page 2 of 2)
In a telephone interview this week as he visited various regional capitals, Admiral Fallon pledged that the United States would “maintain our capabilities in that region of the world in an attempt to make sure that if they opt for military activity there, that is not going to be very useful to them.”
At the same time, he said, “we will pursue avenues that might result in some kind of improvement in Iranian behavior.”
“I am not talking about a war strategy, but a strategy to demonstrate our resolve,” Admiral Fallon said. “We have a very, very robust capability in the region, especially in comparison to Iran. That is one of the things that people might want to keep in mind. Our intention is to make sure they understand that, but we are being prudent in our actions and certainly not trying to be provocative.”
In recent days others have begun to speak openly about what the United States would face if Iran successfully fielded nuclear weapons or manufactured enough uranium to make clear that it could produce weapons in short order. It is that second possibility — in which Iran would stay within the strict rules of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty — that worries many intelligence officials.
Gen. John P. Abizaid, who retired this year as senior American commander in the Middle East, said that while the United States must do all it can to prevent Iran from going nuclear, the world could live with a nuclear Iran and could contain it.
“I believe that the United States, with our great military power, can contain Iran, that the United States can deliver clear messages to the Iranians that makes it clear to them that while they may develop one or two nuclear weapons, they’ll never be able to compete with us in our true military might and power, and they should not underestimate either our resolve or our ability to deal with them in the event of war,” General Abizaid said in a speech last week at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington policy institute
He said the broad rules of deterrence that kept a nuclear peace between the United States and the Soviet Union during the cold war, and remain in effect with nuclear Russia and China today, would be effective against a nuclear Iran.
“I believe nuclear deterrence will work with the Iranians,” General Abizaid said.
Inside the administration, senior officials say they have also considered organizing a regional forum to confront Iran, using as a model the “six party” talks with North Korea, an effort to put pressure on that country from all its neighbors. But in the Middle East, officials say, the idea has hardly gotten off the ground.
“As we talk to the regional leaders, we have yet to hear a single good idea for ways to find common ground, or a forum or framework for dealing with Iran,” said one senior official involved in Iran policy. The problem, officials say, is that none of Iran’s neighbors are willing and able to play the decisive role alongside the United States.
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Second post of the day:
WSJ
Bush and Iran
Tehran has been told it will pay a price for killing Americans, but it never has.
Thursday, September 27, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
The traveling Mahmoud Ahmadinejad circus made for great political theater this week, but the comedy shouldn't detract from its brazen underlying message: The Iranian President believes that the world lacks the will to stop Iran from pursuing its nuclear program, and that the U.S. also can't stop his country from killing GIs in Iraq. The question is what President Bush intends to do about this in his remaining 16 months in office.
Over the last five years, Mr. Bush has issued multiple and sundry warnings to Iran. In early 2002, he cautioned Iran that "if they in any way, shape or form try to destabilize the [Afghan] government, the coalition will deal with them, in diplomatic ways initially." In mid-2003, following revelations about the extent of Iran's secret nuclear programs, he insisted the U.S. "will not tolerate the construction of a nuclear weapon."
In January of this year, as evidence mounted that Iran was supplying sophisticated, armor-penetrating munitions to Shiite militias in Iraq, Mr. Bush was tougher still: "We will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq."
In February, he added that "I can speak with certainty that the Qods Force, a part of the Iranian government, has provided these sophisticated IEDs that have harmed our troops." And as recently as this month's TV speech on Iraq, the President alerted Americans to the "destructive ambitions of Iran" and warned the mullahs that their efforts to "undermine [Iraq's] government must stop."
We belabor this rhetorical record because it so clearly contrasts with how little the Administration has done about it. As with Syria, the Bush Administration has repeatedly told Iran that it would have to pay a price for its hostile behavior while in the end demanding no such price. This undermines U.S. diplomacy, but in the case of GIs in Iraq it is worse: It means the Commander in Chief is letting an enemy kill Americans with impunity. And the Iranians have got the message: Mr. Ahmadinejad felt confident enough to declare this week at the U.N. that the issue of its nuclear program was "closed."
From 2003 to 2005, Mr. Bush outsourced his Iran policy to France, Germany and Britain, which wooed Tehran with trade concessions, security guarantees and promises of technical assistance. Iran rejected those offers, as it did a Russian proposal to enrich uranium on its own soil--but not without drawing out talks as long as possible.
The Administration finally succeeded in having Iran's Non-Proliferation Treaty violations referred to the U.N. Security Council in 2006, though by then Iran had mastered the technology of enriching uranium in a "cascade" of centrifuges. Many nuclear analysts consider this the point of no return toward a bomb. Intelligence reports also suggested that Iran had designs for casting uranium into hemispherical shapes--essential for making a bomb--and for marrying a nuclear warhead to a ballistic missile.
So far there have been two "binding" U.N. resolutions on Iran's nuclear project, both notable mainly for their weakness. When Resolution 1747 passed this March, U.S. officials said the Security Council would move quickly to the next round. Instead, it has done nothing, even as Iran has moved to install industrial-scale (3,000-plus centrifuge) enrichment facilities.
The U.S. has also exerted some financial pressure on Iran, in part by pressing European companies to scale back their investments. This is useful, but only on the margins. The U.S. is now talking with France and others on developing sanctions outside the U.N., to avoid a Russian or Chinese veto. But these sanctions will apparently not include an embargo on Iran's imports of refined gasoline, which account for 40% of its domestic consumption.
The failure to act is similar regarding Iran's support for terror in Iraq. As early as August 2003, Paul Bremer noted Iran's "irresponsible conduct" in Iraq's affairs. In 2005, even Time magazine was reporting "Inside Iran's Secret War for Iraq." It was not until last summer that the U.S. began taking any kind of action against Iranian operatives in Iraq, most of them working under diplomatic cover.
This month U.S. forces arrested Mahmudi Farhadi, whose job description, according to the Iranian government, is head of "cross-border commercial transactions" for the western Iranian province of Kermanshah. Translation: Mr. Farhadi smuggles IEDs into Iraq. Wire reports say Mr. Farhadi's arrest is only the third such action against Iranian nationals this year.
According to information from an Iranian opposition group with a record of being right, Iran's Qods (Jerusalem) Force operates under the aegis of the Al-Najaf Al-Ashraf Al-Saqafieh Establishment, based in Najaf and run by Iranian mullah Hamid Hosseini. Arms deliveries are organized by a group called the "Headquarters for Reconstruction of Iraq's Holy Sites." Iran orchestrates these efforts from the Fajr Base, in the Iranian city of Ahwaz.
Administration officials tell us that Iranian-backed militias using Iranian-supplied arms now account for 70% of U.S. casualties in Iraq. U.S. forces also recently intercepted a shipment of shaped explosive devices that Iran was smuggling to insurgents in Afghanistan. This is at least the third time such shipments have been seized by coalition forces. Dan McNeill, NATO's senior commander in Kabul, notes that "it would be hard for me to imagine that they come into Afghanistan without the knowledge of at least the military in Iran."
The Administration seemed prepared last month to name the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (which runs the Qods Force) as a terrorist organization, a designation that would be amply justified. But once again, the State Department is equivocating amid Russian, Chinese and European opposition.
Meanwhile, on the nuclear issue, Mr. Ahmadinejad declared this week that he'll no longer cooperate with the U.N. Security Council, but only with Mohamed ElBaradei, the accommodating Egyptian who runs the U.N. nuclear agency. Our readers will recall that former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton warned Mr. Bush about Mr. ElBaradei and tried to block his wish for a third term. But Mr. Bush sided with State Department officials who supported Mr. ElBaradei, and now the U.S. has to live with his pro-Iranian machinations.
The Bush Presidency is running out of time to act if it wants to stop Iran from gaining a bomb. With GIs fighting and dying in Iraq, Mr. Bush also owes it to them not to allow enemy sanctuaries or weapons pipelines from Iran. If the President believes half of what he and his Administration have said about Iran's behavior, he has an obligation to do whatever it takes to stop it.
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Persian Gulf
Insights into Iran can be gleaned from these masterly works.
BY MICHAEL LEDEEN
Saturday, October 6, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
1. "The Strangling of Persia" by W. Morgan Shuster (Century, 1912).
Iranians tend to believe that their destinies are shaped by powerful forces beyond their reach--and it's not just a collective fantasy. In the early 20th century, control over Persia was brutally exercised by Russia and Britain. Desperate Persian rulers of the time turned to the U.S. to find an expert who could sort out the kingdom's ransacked treasury. The man they chose, W. Morgan Shuster, fell in love with Iran and worked feverishly to introduce virtuous financial practices. He never had a chance; the Russians and Brits sent him packing. "The Strangling of Persia" is a remarkable account of life in a failed, corrupt state and a tale of heartbreak for an American who foolishly believes that he can prevail by force of will and hard work. Lessons for strategists abound.
2. "Know Thine Enemy" by Edward Shirley (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1997).
When Reuel Marc Gerecht worked for the CIA as a Middle Eastern specialist (1985-94), the agency would not allow him to venture into Iran. But when he left the CIA to become a scholar (he is a colleague of mine at the American Enterprise Institute), he decided to sneak into the country by hiring a driver and hiding in a padded box on the floor of a truck. In "Know Thine Enemy," written under the pen name Edward Shirley, Mr. Gerecht describes the trip and what he found. "An Iranian can scream 'Death to America!' one moment and ask you sincerely a minute later to help his sister get a visa to the States, a land they both adore," he writes. "Those feelings are not contradictory; they are sequential. Commitments come and go, then return." Given Iranians' similar love-hate feelings about the mullahs who rule them and the West's decadence, he asks: "How do you know when Iranians aren't lying to themselves?" Mr. Gerecht doesn't know. How could he? They themselves don't.
3. "The Adventures of Haji Baba of Ispahan" by James Morier (1824).
James Morier, a British diplomat in Persia in the early 19th century, published "The Adventures of Haji Baba of Ispahan" to great success in 1824. Morier's tale, about a barber's son who seeks his fortune, is a delightful series of encounters that cut to the heart of Iranian society. We see the Chief Executioner explaining to Haji: "Do not suppose that the salary which the Shah gives his servants is a matter of much consideration with them: no, the value of their places depends upon the range of extortion which circumstances may afford, and upon their ingenuity in taking advantage of it." The culture of corruption is little changed in contemporary Iran. And the religious fanaticism that Morier tweaked also echoes down the years: A character named Nadan who wants to become Tehran's religious leader, Morier writes, has no peer "either as a zealous practiser of the ordinances of his religion, or a persecutor of those who might be its enemies."
4. "The Persian Puzzle" by Kenneth M. Pollack (Random House, 2004).
Kenneth M. Pollack spent years at the CIA, then migrated to the National Security Council during Bill Clinton's presidency. Like every other government official who has tried to normalize relations between Iran and the U.S., he came to grief. And like most such failed dreamers, he continued to believe that there must be a way. His odyssey is the best account we have of recent Iranian history and U.S.-Iranian relations. "The Persian Puzzle" is remarkably candid about the illusions and failures of the men and women for whom Mr. Pollack worked--people he often admired.
5. "Prisoner of Tehran" by Marina Nemat (Free Press, 2007).
Marina Nemat was arrested at age 16 in 1982 and held in Tehran's infamous Evin Prison for more than two years, accused of antiregime activity. She was not an activist but a friend of leftists and a Christian. In prison, she was interrogated and tortured, then sentenced to death. But a guard named Ali had fallen in love with her and saved her from execution. She remained in prison, though, and Ali became her husband--as well as a new source of menace when he forced her to convert to Islam by threatening her family. In "Prisoner of Tehran," her gripping, elegantly written memoir, Ms. Nemat, who now lives in Canada, reminds us that it is through the details of daily life that the evils of a regime such as the Islamic Republic are best understood.
Mr. Ledeen is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. His latest book, "The Iranian Time Bomb" (St. Martin's), has just been published.
WSJ
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Geopolitical Diary: Iran's Intense Foreign Policy Debate
Iran is at a stage where friction in its policymaking is to be expected. Iran survives by having a very conservative foreign policy, but conservative does not mean quiet. During the past century all of Iran's meaningful regional rivals -- the Ottoman Empire, the British Empire, the Soviet Union, the Taliban and Iraq -- have collapsed. For the first time in centuries, Tehran has the opportunity to venture out of its redoubt in the Zagros Mountains and establish a buffer in Mesopotamia. Deciding the pace, tone and force to use in that task is the stuff of high policy, and Iran is understandably of many minds over which specific path to follow.
These debates are now coming to a boil within Iran. The confusion surrounding the surprise resignation of Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani, followed by false rumors of a resignation by Iran's foreign minister are all manifestations of an intense policy debate brewing in Tehran over the course Iran should take in pursuing its Iraq policy. The Iranians can either move toward a comprehensive agreement with the United States over Iraq that would come with security guarantees and involve a capitulation of sorts on its nuclear program; or it could choose to align with the Russians for some short-term, albeit shaky, security guarantees against a U.S. attack while it stays the course and tries to make things difficult enough in Iraq that the United States will change its mind and withdraw. In any case, the Iranians have clearly not made up their mind, and this debate is getting more intense by the day.
And the debate is not taking place in a vacuum. On Oct. 23 in Prague, Czech Republic, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates informed the Russians that the United States -- in order to reach an accommodation with the Russians over National Missile Defense (NMD) policy -- would not "activate" its planned Polish/Czech system until Iran's ballistic missile program was more clearly a threat. Russia feels that the system is the first step toward the United States nullifying the Russian nuclear deterrent. The United States insists it is about preparing for the day that Iran's missile program is ready for intercontinental prime time.
While subtle, Gates' offer is nonetheless a policy shift. Washington has moved from "we have to complete NMD because Iran is an immediate threat" to "we have to complete NMD, but we do not need to switch it on until Iran is close to having ICBMs." All Gates has really done is note that there is a little wiggle room in the construction schedule -- a move so subtle that Stratfor would brush off a single mention of it as unimportant. But Gates has persisted in offering and reoffering the deal, most recently in front of the Czechs. Place that repetition in the context of relations among the United States, Russia and Iran and it becomes of critical importance -- and the friction in Iran's inner circle is brought into sharp focus.
Russia is offering itself to Iran as a sort of informal security guarantor in order to gain influence with the Americans. The Iranians are seeking out Russian backing in order to gain influence with the Americans. Now the Americans are in essence telling the Russians that if they can keep Iran from developing intercontinental missiles, then the United States does not necessarily need to complete the NMD system that so concerns the Kremlin.
The Russian response came from Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who -- in the middle of an agonizingly long speech -- noted that Russia wanted "the joint work of Russian and American specialists to be more efficient." For those of you not fluent in Russian bureaucratese, that translates to, "Interesting. Let's talk details."
So we have the Russians and Americans groping toward some sort of talks on the NMD issue, something that by definition would involve the two powers actively putting limitations on Iranian weapons development. And we have a fierce debate in Tehran -- likely over how far it can trust the Russians, who are perfectly willing to sell Iran out if it means brokering a deal with the United States. To complete the picture all that is needed is a sudden change in the American-Iranian impasse over Iraq.
And that happened in an interview Gen. David Petraeus gave the British Broadcasting Corp.'s Baghdad bureau. Since testifying to the U.S. Congress in September, Petraeus has more or less spouted on about how evil the Iranians are for their anti-American efforts in Iraq. In the interview published on Wednesday he flatly called for a new round of talks with Iran on the topic of Iraqi security questions.
So the Russians and Iranians are baiting each other while the Americans are sounding out the Russians, and now the Iranians are entertaining an American offer to negotiate on Iraq. Where all this will develop is of course entirely up in the air. An American-Russian deal would isolate Iran just as easily as an American-Iranian deal would cut out Russia or a serious Russian-Iranian deal would hamstring Washington. But for the first time in several weeks there is a hint that Russia and Iran are not actually in lockstep and that there is room to maneuver on the American side. This could still all go straight to hell, but Washington is still in the game.
stratfor.com
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Some details exemplifying the preceding:
IRAN: Iran has commissioned Imad Mughniyye, Hezbollah official for foreign operations, to organize cells of Shiite operatives in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to operate against U.S. and pro-U.S. Arabs in the event of war against Iran, a Stratfor source in Lebanon said. Trainees from the Persian Gulf region reportedly have arrived in Lebanon and are conducting drills in the Bekaa Valley.
CZECH REPUBLIC, RUSSIA: The Czech Republic could allow Russia to inspect a site where the United States plans to construct a radar as part of a proposed missile shield in Europe, Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek said. Russian experts would not be allowed to maintain a permanent presence either during the radar's construction or after the base becomes operational, but they could be given specific dates for inspections, Topolanek said in an interview with Czech television.
U.S., IRAN: New U.S. sanctions aimed at punishing Iran for missile sales, nuclear activities and support of "terrorist organizations" will cut off Iranian entities from the U.S. financial system, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said. The sanctions target the Quds Force, Bank Melli and two other state-owned banks, and companies controlled by Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps. U.S. companies are prohibited from doing business with the designated groups, and any assets the groups have in the United States will be frozen.
CHINA: China denied reports that it had agreed to sell two squadrons of J-10 fighter planes to Iran. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman called the reports "irresponsible" and said no talks had taken place. Russia's RIA Novosti news agency reported the deal Oct. 24.
Stratfor
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FRANCE, IRAN: French Defense Minister Herve Morin dismissed earlier comments by International Atomic Energy Agency head Mohamed ElBaradei, who said there is no evidence Iran is building nuclear weapons. Morin said France has conflicting evidence that matches information gathered by other countries. However, he added, "The prospect of a war is a prospect which does not exist for France."
stratfor
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War Plans: United States and Iran
By George Friedman
A possible U.S. attack against Iran has been a hot topic in the news for many months now. In some quarters it has become an article of faith that the Bush administration intends to order such an attack before it leaves office. It remains a mystery whether the administration plans an actual attack or whether it is using the threat of attack to try to intimidate Iran -- and thus shape its behavior in Iraq and elsewhere. Unraveling the mystery lies, at least in part, in examining what a U.S. attack would look like, given U.S. goals and resources, as well as in considering the potential Iranian response. Before turning to intentions, it is important to discuss the desired outcomes and capabilities. Unfortunately, those discussions have taken a backseat to speculations about the sheer probability of war.
Let's begin with goals. What would the United States hope to achieve by attacking Iran? On the broadest strategic level, the answer is actually quite simple. After 9/11, the United States launched counterstrikes in the Islamic world. The goal was to disrupt the al Qaeda core in order to prevent further attacks against the United States. The counterstrikes also were aimed at preventing the emergence of a follow-on threat from the Islamic world that would replace the threat that had been posed by al Qaeda. The disruption of all Islamic centers of power that have the ability and intent to launch terrorist attacks against the United States is a general goal of U.S. strategy. With the decline of Sunni radicalism, Iran has emerged as an alternative Shiite threat. Hence, under this logic, Iran must be dealt with.
Obviously, the greater the disruption of radically anti-American elements in the Islamic world, the better it is for the United States. But there are three problems here. First, the United States has a far more complex relationship with Iran than it does with al Qaeda. Iran supported the U.S. attack against the Taliban in Afghanistan as well as the U.S. invasion of Iraq -- for its own reasons, of course. Second, the grand strategy of the United States might include annihilating Islamic radicalism, but at the end of the day, maintaining the balance of power between Sunnis and Shia and between Arab and non-Arab Muslims is a far more practical approach. Finally, the question of what to do about Iran depends on the military capabilities of the United States in the immediate future. The intentions are shaped by the capabilities.
What, therefore, would the U.S. goals be in an attack against Iran? They divide into three (not mutually exclusive) strategies:
1. Eliminating Iran's nuclear program.
2. Crippling Iran by hitting its internal infrastructure -- political, industrial and military -- ideally forcing regime change that would favor U.S. interests.
3. Using an attack -- or threatening an attack -- to change Iranian behavior in Iraq, Lebanon or other areas of the world.
It is important to note the option that is not on the table: invasion by U.S. ground forces, beyond the possible use of small numbers of Special Operations forces. Regardless of the state of Iranian conventional forces after a sustained air attack, the United States simply does not have the numbers of ground troops needed to invade and occupy Iran -- particularly given the geography and topography of the country. Therefore, any U.S. attack would rely on the forces available, namely air and naval forces.
The destruction of Iran's nuclear capabilities would be the easiest to achieve, assuming that U.S. intelligence has a clear picture of the infrastructure of that program and that the infrastructure has not been hardened to the point of being invulnerable to conventional attack. Iran, however, learned a great deal from Iraq's Osirak experience and has spread out and hardened its nuclear facilities. Also, given Iran's location and the proximity of U.S. forces and allies, we can assume the United States would not be interested in a massive nuclear attack with the resulting fallout. Moreover, we would argue that, in a world of proliferation, it would not be in the interest of the United States to set a precedent by being the first use to use nuclear weapons since World War II.
Therefore, the U.S. option is to carry out precision strikes against Iran's nuclear program using air- and sea-launched munitions. As a threat, this is in an interesting option. As an actual operation, it is less interesting. First, the available evidence is that Iran is years away from achieving a deliverable nuclear weapon. Second, Iran might be more interested in trading its nuclear program for other political benefits -- specifically in Iraq. An attack against the country's nuclear facilities would make Tehran less motivated than before to change its behavior. Furthermore, even if its facilities were destroyed, Iran would retain its capabilities in Iraq, Lebanon and elsewhere in the world. Therefore, unless the United States believed there was an imminent threat of the creation of a deliverable nuclear system, the destruction of a long-term program would eliminate the long-term threat, but leave Iran's short-term capabilities intact. Barring imminent deployment, a stand-alone attack against Iran's nuclear capabilities makes little sense.
That leaves the second option -- a much broader air and sea campaign against Iran. This would have four potential components:
1. Attacks against its economic infrastructure, particularly its refineries.
2. Attacks against its military infrastructure.
3. Attacks against its political infrastructure, particularly its leadership.
4. A blockade and sanctions.
Let's begin in reverse order. The United States has the ability to blockade Iran's ports, limiting the importation of oil and refined products, as well as food. It does not have the ability to impose a general land blockade against Iran, which has long land borders, including with Iraq. Because the United States lacks the military capability to seal those borders, goods from around Iran's periphery would continue to flow, including, we emphasize, from Iraq, where U.S. control of transportation systems, particularly in the Shiite south, is limited. In addition, it is unclear whether the United States would be willing to intercept, board and seize ships from third-party countries (Russia, China and a large number of small countries) that are not prepared to participate in sanctions or might not choose to respect an embargo. The United States is stretched thin, and everyone knows it. A blockade could invite deliberate challenges, while enforcement would justify other actions against U.S. interests elsewhere. Any blockade strategy assumes that Iran is internationally isolated, which it is not, that the United States can impose a military blockade on land, which it cannot, and that it can withstand the consequences elsewhere should a third party use U.S. actions to justify counteraction, which is questionable. A blockade could hurt Iran's energy economy, but Iran has been preparing for this for years and can mitigate the effect by extensive smuggling operations. Ultimately, Iran is not likely to crumble unless the United States can maintain and strengthen the blockade process over a matter of many months at the very least.
Another option is a decapitation strike against Iran's leadership -- though it is important to recall how this strategy failed in Iraq at the beginning of the 2003 invasion. Decapitation assumes superb intelligence on the location of the leadership at a given time -- and that level of intelligence is hard to come by. Iraq had a much smaller political elite than Iran has, and the United States couldn't nail down its whereabouts. It also is important to remember that Iran has a much deeper and more diverse leadership structure than Iraq had. Iraq's highly centralized system included few significant leaders. Iran is more decentralized and thus has a much larger and deeper leadership cadre. We doubt the United States has the real-time intelligence capability to carry out such a broad decapitation strike.
The second option is an assault against the Iranian military. Obviously, the United States has the ability to carry out a very effective assault against the military's technical infrastructure -- air defense, command and control, aircraft, armor and so on. But the Iranian military is primarily an infantry force, designed for internal control and operations in mountainous terrain -- the bulk of Iran's borders. Once combat operations began, the force would disperse and tend to become indistinguishable from the general population. A counterpersonnel operation would rapidly become a counterpopulation operation. Under any circumstances, an attack against a dispersed personnel pool numbering in the high hundreds of thousands would be sortie intensive, to say the least. An air campaign designed to impose high attrition on an infantry force, leaving aside civilian casualties, would require an extremely large number of sorties, in which the use of precision-guided munitions would be of minimal value and the use of area weapons would be at a premium. Given the fog of war and intelligence issues, the ability to evaluate the status of this campaign would be questionable.
In our view, the Iranians are prepared to lose their technical infrastructure and devolve command and control to regional and local levels. The collapse of the armed forces -- most of whose senior officers and noncoms fought in the Iran-Iraq war with very flexible command and control -- is unlikely. The force would continue to be able to control the frontiers as well as maintain internal security functions. The United States would rapidly establish command of the air, and destroy noninfantry forces. But even here there is a cautionary note. In Yugoslavia, the United States learned that relatively simple camouflage and deception techniques were quite effective in protecting tactical assets. The Iranians have studied both the Kosovo war and U.S. operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and have extensive tactical combat experience themselves. A forced collapse from the air of the Iranian infantry capability -- the backbone of Iran's military -- is unlikely.
This leaves a direct assault against the Iranian economic infrastructure. Although this is the most promising path, it must be remembered that counterinfrastructure and counterpopulation strategic air operations have been tried extensively. The assumption has been that the economic cost of resistance would drive a wedge between the population and the regime, but there is no precedent in the history of air campaigns for this assumption. Such operations have succeeded in only two instances: Japan and Kosovo. In Japan, counterpopulation operations of massive proportions involving conventional weapons were followed by two atomic strikes. Even in that case, there was no split between regime and population, but a decision by the regime to capitulate. The occupation in Kosovo was not so much because of military success as diplomatic isolation. That isolation is not likely to happen in Iran.
In all other cases -- Britain, Germany, Vietnam, Iraq -- air campaigns by themselves did not split the population from the regime or force the regime to change course. In Britain and Vietnam, the campaigns failed completely. In Germany and Iraq (and Kuwait), they succeeded because of follow-on attacks by overwhelming ground forces.
The United States could indeed inflict heavy economic hardship, but history suggests that this is more likely to tighten the people's identification with the government -- not the other way around. In most circumstances, air campaigns have solidified the regime's control over the population, allowing it to justify extreme security measures and generating a condition of intense psychological resistance. In no case has a campaign led to an uprising against the regime. Moreover, a meaningful campaign against economic infrastructure would take some 4 million barrels per day off of the global oil market at a time when oil prices already are closing in on $100 a barrel. Such a campaign is more likely to drive a wedge between the American people and the American government than between the Iranians and their government.
For an air campaign to work, the attacking power must be prepared to bring in an army on the ground to defeat the army that has been weakened by the air campaign -- a tactic Israel failed to apply last summer in Lebanon. Combined arms operations do work, repeatedly. But the condition of the U.S. Army and Marines does not permit the opening of a new theater of operations in Iran. Most important, even if conditions did permit the use of U.S. ground forces to engage and defeat the Iranian army -- a massive operation simply by the size of the country -- the United States does not have the ability to occupy Iran against a hostile population. The Japanese and German nations were crushed completely over many years before an overwhelming force occupied them. What was present there, but not in Iraq, was overwhelming force. That is not an option for Iran.
Finally, consider the Iranian response. Iran does not expect to defeat the U.S. Air Force or Navy, although the use of mine warfare and anti-ship cruise missiles against tankers in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz should not be dismissed. The Iranian solution would be classically asymmetrical. First, they would respond in Iraq, using their assets in the country to further complicate the occupation, as well as to impose as many casualties as possible on the United States. And they would use their forces to increase the difficulty of moving supplies from Kuwait to U.S. forces in central Iraq. They also would try to respond globally using their own forces (the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps), as well as Hezbollah and other trained Shiite militant assets, to carry out counterpopulation attacks against U.S. assets around the world, including in the United States.
If the goal is to eliminate Iran's nuclear program, we expect the United States would be able to carry out the mission. If, however, the goal is to compel a change in the Iranian regime or Iranian policy, we do not think the United States can succeed with air forces alone. It would need to be prepared for a follow-on invasion by U.S. forces, coming out of both Afghanistan and Iraq. Those forces are not available at this point and would require several years to develop. That the United States could defeat and occupy Iran is certain. Whether the United States has a national interest in devoting the time and the resources to Iran's occupation is unclear.
The United States could have defeated North Vietnam with a greater mobilization of forces. However, Washington determined that the defeat of North Vietnam and the defense of Indochina were not worth the level of effort required. Instead, it tried to achieve its ends with the resources it was prepared to devote to the mission. As a result, resources were squandered and the North Vietnamese flag flies over what was Saigon.
The danger of war is that politicians and generals, desiring a particular end, fantasize that they can achieve that end with insufficient resources. This lesson is applicable to Iran.
stratfor
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How Europe Can Pressure Iran
By PATRICK CLAWSON and MICHAEL JACOBSON
November 2, 2007
The U.S. ratcheted up the financial pressure against Tehran last week, unilaterally slapping sanctions on Iran's powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp, three state-owned banks, and a number of key officials for their involvement in the regime's terrorist financing and WMD-related activities. Realizing the leverage that American financial markets give Washington, senior U.S. Treasury officials have been telling global financial institutions in the last couple of years that doing business with Iran could do great harm to their reputation and complicate their access to the U.S. market. As a result, a number of global institutions -- including Switzerland's UBS and Credit Suisse and Germany's Commerzbank and Deutsche Bank -- have either terminated or dramatically reduced business with Iran.
There are limits to this unilateral strategy, though. Companies and financial institutions that do not operate in the U.S. may be willing to ignore Washington's warnings. But being cut off from New York and the world's other leading financial capital, London, is a risk not too many of these firms would be willing to take. Few could afford to relocate to a smaller financial hub and miss out on the opportunities only the City of London or New York could offer just to continue doing business with Iran.
It is therefore encouraging that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown immediately backed Washington, noting that "we endorse the U.S. administration's efforts to apply further pressure on the Iranian regime." But while public support from the U.S.'s closest ally will undoubtedly help bolster the impact of the unilateral actions, the U.K. could do far more.
If the British government were to send a similarly strong warning to banks, it could dramatically increase the financial pressure on Iran. More than 550 international banks and 170 global security houses have a presence in London. Between $50-100 billion of Middle Eastern money will enter London in the next few years, estimates Peter Weinberg, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs International. Coordinated visits by top U.S. and U.K. officials to major financial institutions could be a particularly effective way to get the message across that business with Iran is risky so long as Tehran ignores the U.N. Security Council orders about its nuclear program. A joint U.S.-U.K. effort might carry particular weight coming on the heels of the Financial Action Task Force's Oct. 11 statement on Iran. Founded by the G7, the 34-country body instructed financial institutions to use "enhanced due diligence" when dealing with Iran to avoid inadvertently contributing to terrorist financing and money laundering. As U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said after Washington's latest step against Tehran: "In dealing with Iran, it is nearly impossible to know one's customer and be assured that one is not unwittingly facilitating the regime's reckless conduct."
While the U.K. wields particularly powerful tools, there may also be other European countries now willing and ready to ramp up financial and economic pressure against Iran. Ideally, this would be done at the European Union level -- something that French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been pushing for. But in the absence of a third U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing additional sanctions, many EU countries, primarily Germany, Austria and Spain, appear reluctant. The French have thus suggested that those European countries willing to act need not wait for unanimity. In fact, France has already announced that it is pressing large French companies to refrain from investing in Iran.
A combined initiative by the U.S. and individual European countries to press Iran may strengthen the hand of those in Tehran arguing for accommodation. It would also be a good way to show China, Russia and laggard European governments that with or without them, action will be taken against Iran. If they are dissatisfied with this approach, they should first spell out a realistic alternative that could bring Iran to suspend its enrichment program.
Mr. Clawson is the Washington Institute's deputy director for research and author of several books on Iran. Mr. Jacobson, a senior fellow in the institute's Stein Program on Terrorism, Intelligence, and Policy, previously served as a senior advisor in the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.
WSJ
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Holocaust Denial and Tehran
By ROYA HAKAKIAN
November 3, 2007; Page A8
Dictatorships bear paradoxes. I came across a set of them 10 years ago, when I hosted a dinner for two female Iranian medical students who'd come to Yale Medical School on a rare academic exchange program. These impressive women had climbed to the top 10th percentile in a man's profession, in a man's country. But I was stunned to learn that -- despite 16 years of education at some of Iran's premiere schools -- neither had ever heard of the word "Holocaust," or thought of Hitler as anything but the German equivalent of Napoleon.
Tehran's Holocaust denial did not begin with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It began in 1979 with the Islamic Revolution and the subsequent miseducation of the entire post-revolutionary generation. The Holocaust did not exist in the textbooks of my two young guests, and there was hardly any literature about it in Persian.
Now, millions of Iranian youths are hearing about the Holocaust for the first time through the airing of a government-sponsored soap opera called "Zero Degree Turn." In it, the Islamic Republic's handpicked director, Hassan Fatthi, breaks the regime's taboos. Beautiful women appear without the Islamic dress code. Men and women also come together, hold hands, and even fall into a fleeting embrace.
In the end, however, the program offers little more than an aesthetically pleasing venue for the regime's usual diatribes. Its linchpin is a conspiracy theory: Two Israeli agents assassinate the chief rabbi of Tehran to frighten the Iranian Jewish community into leaving Iran for Israel. The noble chief of the Iranian embassy in France, Abdol Hossein Sardari, who facilitated the escape of hundreds of Iranian and French Jews by providing them with Iranian passports, is portrayed as a mere opportunist motivated by bribes.
The good news is that Iran is now home to a highly rebellious young generation that is deeply disenchanted with the status quo and suspicious of government propaganda in all its forms, including misinformation about Jews and Israel. Iranians actually possess a healthy curiosity toward Israel. In the 2006 war between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah, for example, young Iranians were reportedly not interested in supporting Hezbollah, and were vehemently against their government's investment in it.
Unfortunately, Mr. Ahmadinejad steals the spotlight. With his threats toward Israel and his dreams of a nuclear Iran he has engendered a fear, however legitimate, that too often blinds Western and Israeli leaders of the broader, more complex realities of the Iranian people. American, European and Israeli media are full of dire warnings about the threat of a nuclear Iran. There is little mention of the plight of the Iranians themselves, or the ripe opportunity presented by a nation disenchanted with 30 years of theocratic rule: A people that has historically been friendly to Jews, can, with some effort, be so once again.
Mr. Ahmadinejad, along with his coterie of fundamentalist radicals, is already a threat to Israel and the region. But they do not represent everyday Iranians. And as much as the regime in Tehran would like to deny it, a more accepting, rational view of Israel was once held by Iranian leaders.
In the early 1960s, several leading Iranian intellectuals traveled to Israel on the invitation of the Israeli foreign ministry and for the most part, the travelogues of their trips amounted to what may be the longest love letter to Israel ever to be penned in Persian. That sentiment, of course, would change dramatically. But for several years at least, it seemed that it would determine the attitude of an entire generation toward Israel.
Iran's Holocaust education could begin in Iran itself. Through the Port of Pahlavi in 1942, tens of thousands of Polish refugees, Jewish and non-Jewish, escaped the Nazis found a safe haven in Iran. Eventually, the majority of them relocated to other parts of the world. Yet, hundreds fell in love with "Persia" and stayed. Iranians could learn of their shared history with the Jewish people by visiting the hundreds of Polish graves in Tehran's Doulab cemetery alone.
Despite the regime's anti-Semitic rhetoric, the people have held fast to the values of their ancient civilization. They pride themselves on the idea that they have accepted members of other religions and ethnicities as equals, and as Iranians.
Ms. Hakakian is the author of "Journey from the Land of No: A Girlhood Caught in Revolutionary Iran" (Three Rivers Press, 2005), a memoir of growing up Jewish in Iran.
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Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called domestic critics of his nuclear policies "traitors" who spied for Iran's enemies, The Associated Press reported Nov. 12. Ahmadinejad also warned that he would expose the critics. "If internal elements do not stop pressures concerning the nuclear issue, they will be exposed to the Iranian nation," Ahmadinejad said in a speech to students at Tehran's Science and Industry University. "We have made promises to the people and believe anyone giving up over the nuclear issue is a traitor."
stratfor
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IRAN, CHINA: Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi arrived in Iran for talks with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki regarding Tehran's nuclear program, state news agency IRNA reported. Ahead of the visit, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman was quoted as saying, "We urge Iran to respond to the concerns of the international community and take a more flexible stance so as to promote a resolution on the issue."
U.K., IRAN: The United Kingdom plans to push to curb investments in Iran if the Iranian government fails to address the nuclear issue, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Nov. 12, according to media reports. Unless EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and the International Atomic Energy Agency provide positive reports on Iran's activities, Brown said his country "will lead in seeking tougher sanctions both at the United Nations and in the European Union, including on oil and gas investment and the financial sector."
stratfor
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This Asia Times article (below) makes an amazing observation on Iran demographics. The fertility rate in Iran has fallen to only 0.66 children per female, a third of the population replacement rate of 2.1. A generation ago, it stood at 6.5. One tenth of what it was.
First my own quick comments on the previous two posts in the Iran thread: 1) The Chinese visiting Iran is definitely interesting. We will know how it went when it comes time for China to vote on sanctions. But China's vote will tell more about the state of Chinese relations with the US than about Iran's nuclear program. 2) Iran President 'Nut-job' may call protesters "traitors", call for wiping Israel off the map, deny the holocaust, build explosive devices that kill Americans, pursue nuclear weapons, etc. but the mainstream here didn't take notice until he denied there are gays in Iran. Go figure.
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http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IK13Ak01.html
Why Iran is dying for a fight (excerpt)
Iran's demographic catastrophe in the making, I have long argued, impels Tehran to stake its claim for regional empire quickly, while it still has the manpower to do so. Now one of the world's most attentive students of the global South, Prof Philip Jenkins, has taken notice of Iran's population bust and come to a conclusion diametrically opposite to mine. Writing in the November 9 New Republic, he opines, "there's a good chance that [Iran's] declining fertility rates will usher in a new era of stability...".
It pains me to take Prof Jenkins to the woodshed - I gave his last book a glowing review [1] - but it does not seem to have occurred to him that things which make peace inevitable in the long run may propel countries into war in the short run. The textbook example (if we had a competent textbook) would be France in 1914, which sought a quick war because its falling birth rate ensured that it could not beat Germany unless it did so immediately.
Population decline eventually leads to stability, but not necessarily by a direct path.
Before Iran is buried, it will have occasion to command the undivided attention of the West. The rulers of the Persian pocket-empire know better than Jenkins that today's soldiers will become pensioners a generation hence, turning a belligerent and ambitious country into an impoverished, geriatric ruin. They believe that Iran has a last opportunity for greatness, on which they will stake their last dinar. I summarized the evidence in a series of essays in this space, including The demographics of radical Islam (Aug 23, 2005) and Demographics and Iran's imperial design (Sept 13, 2005).
As Jenkins reports, Iran's fertility rate has fallen to only 0.66 children per female, a third of the population replacement rate of 2.1. A generation ago, it stood at 6.5. In other words, Iran presently has a bulge of military-age men as cannon-fodder. In a generation it will not be able to fill the ranks.
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The birth rate numbers stated in the article are quite extraordinary-- working from memory here of my reading of Mark Steyn's "America Alone", Germany is a disaster at 1.3 and Spain is in a virtual spiral down the drain at 1.1 (2.1 is the level at which a population maintains), but .66?!? After 6.5?!? If I calculate correctly, at 6.5 rate means that there was a population growth rate of 4.4%!!! Still working from memory, when I studied Mexico in the seventies its pop growth rate was 3.6 or so (which was considered off the charts, and 4.4% is roughly 4/3 of that rate!!!) and that the numbers cranked out to half its population being 16 years of age or less.
I must say that I find both numbers highly unusual and would like to see some sort of confirmation elsewhere.
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Who Are Iran's Revolutionary Guards?
By AMIR TAHERI
November 15, 2007; Page A25
The scene is a board meeting of Bank Sepah, Iran's second-largest financial institution, in Tehran. The directors are waiting for the sardar (literally "head-owner") to arrive. But the sardar is in a changing room, shedding his uniform for a civilian suit. The man in question is Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, the new commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which owns and controls the bank.
Most Americans already know more about the IRGC than they'd like to. In September the Senate voted overwhelmingly in favor of a nonbinding resolution urging President Bush to label the IRGC a terrorist group. He did so a month later and has since implemented harsh new sanctions targeting the business interests of the IRGC. As Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson told the press recently, "It is increasingly likely that if you are doing business with Iran you are doing business with the IRGC."
Still, there is much about this organization that is misunderstood. The IRGC is a unique beast. It is an army answerable to no one but the "Supreme Leader" of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It is also a business conglomerate that controls over 500 companies active in a wide range of industries -- from nuclear power to banking, life insurance to holiday resorts and shopping centers. By most estimates, the IRGC is Iran's third-largest corporation -- after the National Iranian Oil Company and the Imam Reza Endowment in the "holy" city of Mashhad, northeast of Tehran.
The Islamic Republic established by the Ayatollah Khomeini after the ouster of the Shah in 1979, is often labeled a "mullahrchy" -- a theocracy dominated by the Shiite clergy. The truth, however, is that a majority of Shiite clerics never converted to Khomeinism and did not endorse the Islamic Republic. In the past few years, especially since the election of President Ahmadinejad in 2005, those mullahs who converted to Khomeinism have lost some of their power and privileges. Today, the IRGC is the dominant force within the ruling establishment in Tehran. It is not a monolith, and to label all of it a "terrorist" organization as the Bush administration has done, may make it difficult to strike deals with parts of it when, and if, the opportunity arises.
A thorough analysis of the IRGC must take into account a number of facts. First, the IRGC is not a revolutionary army in the sense that the ALN was in Algeria or the Vietcong in Vietnam. Those were born during revolutionary wars in which they became key players.
The IRGC was created after the Khomeinist revolution had succeeded. This fact is of crucial importance. Those who joined the IRGC came from all sorts of backgrounds. The majority were opportunists. By joining the IRGC, they could not only obtain revolutionary credentials, often on fictitious grounds, but would also secure well-paying jobs, at a time that economic collapse made jobs rare.
Joining the IRGC enabled many who had cooperated with the ancien regime to rewrite their CVs and obtain "revolutionary virginity." Membership of the IRGC ensured access to rare goods and services, from color TVs to more decent housing. As the years went by, IRGC membership provided a fast track to social, political and economic success. Today, half of President Ahmadinejad's cabinet ministers are members of the IRGC, as is the president himself. IRGC members hold nearly a third of seats in the Islamic Consultative Assembly (Majlis), the ersatz parliament created in 1979. Twenty of Iran's 30 provinces have governors from the IRGC. IRGC members have also started capturing key posts in the diplomatic service. Today, for the first time, the Islamic Republic's ambassadors in such important places as the United Nations in New York and embassies in a dozen Western capitals are members of the IRGC.
But it is as an economic power that the IRGC weighs so heavily on Iranian politics. In 2004, a Tehran University study estimated the annual turnover of IRGC businesses at $12 billion with total net profits of $1.9 billion. The privatization package prepared by President Ahmadinejad is likely to increase the IRGC's economic clout. Almost all of the public-sector companies marked for privatization -- at a total value of $18 billion -- are likely to end up in the hands of the IRGC and its individual commanders.
The crown jewel of the IRGC's business empire is the Islamic Republic's nuclear program, which has cost the nation over $10 billion so far. This is part of a broader scheme of arms purchases and manufacture, which in total accounts for almost 11% of the annual national budget.
The IRGC also controls the lucrative business of "exporting the revolution" estimated to be worth $1.2 billion a year. It finances branches of the Hezbollah movement in at least 20 countries, including some in Europe, and provides money, arms and training for radical groups with leftist backgrounds. In recent years, it has emerged as a major backer of the armed wing of the Palestinian Hamas and both Shiite and Sunni armed groups in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The vehicle through which the IRGC "exports" revolution is a special unit known as The Quds (Jerusalem) Force. This consists of 15,000 highly trained men and women specializing in "martyrdom operations," a code word for guerrilla war, armed insurgency and terrorism. The Islamic Republic has invested some $20 billion in Lebanon since 1983. In most cases, the Lebanese branch of the Hezbollah is nominally in control. However, a closer examination reveals that in most cases the Lebanese companies are fronts for Iranian concerns controlled by the IRGC.
The IRGC is divided into five commands, each of which has a direct line to the Ayatollah Khamenei. To minimize the risk of coup d'etat, IRGC's senior officers are not allowed to engage in "sustained communication" with one another on "sensitive subjects." Of the five commands in question, two could be regarded as "terrorist" according to the U.S. State Department's definition that, needless to say, is rejected by the Islamic Republic.
One command is in charge of the already mentioned Quds Corps, which is waging indirect war against U.S. and allied forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Apart from Hezbollah and Hamas, it also runs a number of radical groups across the globe.
The second command ensures internal repression. It operates through several auxiliary forces, including the notorious Karbala, Ashura and Al Zahra (an all female unit) brigades, which are charged with crushing popular revolt. Many Iranians see these as instruments of terror.
As a parallel to the regular army, the IRGC has its ground forces, navy and air force. It also controls the so-called Basij Mustadafin (mobilization of the dispossessed), a fanatical, semi-voluntary force of 90,000 full-time fighters that could be built up to 11 million according to its commander Brig. Gen. Mohammad Hejazi. The IRGC's own strength stands at 125,000 men. Its officers' corps, including those in retirement, numbers around 55,000 and is as divided on domestic and foreign policies as the rest of society.
Some IRGC former commanders who did not share the Islamic Republic's goals have already defected to the U.S. Hundreds of others have gone into low-profile exile, mostly as businessmen in the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia and Turkey. An unknown number were purged because they refused to kill anti-regime demonstrators in Iranian cities.
Many prominent IRGC commanders may be regarded as businessmen first and military leaders second. Usually, they have a brother or a cousin in Europe or Canada to look after their business interests and keep a channel open to small and big "satans" in case the regime falls.
A few IRGC commanders, including some at the top, do not relish a conflict with the U.S. that could destroy their business empires without offering Iran victory on the battlefield. Indeed, there is no guarantee that, in case of a major war, all parts of the IRGC would show the same degree of commitment to the system. IRGC commanders may be prepared to kill unarmed Iranians or hire Lebanese, Palestinian and Iraqi radicals to kill others. However, it is not certain they would be prepared to die for President Ahmadinejad's glory. These concerns persuaded Ayatollah Khamenei to announce a Defense Planning Commission last year, controlled by his office.
A blanket labeling of the IRGC as "terrorist," as opposed to targeting elements of it that terrorize the Iranian people and others in the region and beyond, could prove counterproductive. It may, in fact, unite a fractious force that could splinter into more manageable parts given the right incentives.
Inside Iran, the IRGC is known as pasdaran (vigilantes) and inspires a mixture of intense hatred and grudging admiration. While many Iranians see it as a monster protecting an evil regime, others believe that, when the crunch comes, it will side with the people against an increasingly repressive and unpopular regime.
Mr. Taheri is author of "L'Irak: Le Dessous Des Cartes" (Editions Complexe, 2002).
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Geopolitical Diary: Iranian Nuclear Questions
A lot of discussion is circulating about just how cooperative the Iranians are when it gets down to coming clean on their nuclear program. Earlier this week, it is significant to note that Iran decided to hand over a set of blueprints to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that detail how to shape weapons-grade uranium into a form usable in a nuclear warhead. After all, there has been a lot of talk about the Americans and the Iranians getting together for another round of negotiations over Iraq. And these Iraq negotiations are intrinsically linked to the Iranian nuclear program. If Tehran expects to negotiate effectively over Iraq, it makes sense to throw out such confidence-building measures in order to set the mood.
But this is still not enough for the IAEA, much less the European Union and United States. In fact, IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei -- under heavy pressure from the Europeans and Americans -- admitted on Thursday that Iran has only offered selective cooperation in providing access to its program. He said the agency's knowledge about Iran's current nuclear program is diminishing since it has not received the type of information that Iran had been providing since early 2006. Not coincidentally, the first part of 2006 was an extremely heated period of assassinations, defections and abductions in the ongoing covert intelligence war involving the United States, Israel and Iran.
So, was this latest concession from Iran to the IAEA simply a failed attempt to sweeten ElBaradei into putting out a report lauding Tehran for its cooperation (and thereby give Iran more bandwidth to skirt sanctions)? Or is Iran seriously trying to pursue talks with the United States over Iraq by putting the nuclear issue on the negotiating table? The two possibilities are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but it is important to see through the blustery rhetoric on all sides to make sense of what these nuclear negotiations are all about.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, according to a Reuter's source close to him, has instructed his Cabinet to draft proposals on how Israel will cope with a nuclear Iran. The prime minister's office denies the report. But it makes perfect sense for Israel to be drafting such contingency plans. Nonetheless, Israel does not want to give the impression that it sees a nuclear Iran as inevitable.
Quite to the contrary, the United States and Israel could even be ramping up efforts to sabotage the Iranian nuclear experiment. A report cropped up earlier this week on a "series of explosions" that took place in southern Iran at the Parchin military complex, about 19 miles southeast of Tehran, where Iran is suspected of housing a nuclear weapons research and development facility. Though Iran's semi-official Fars news agency is reporting in an almost defensive tone that the site where the explosion took place is a "nonmilitary area at a tire and wastes storage place," Iran's principal exiled opposition organization, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, is going to great lengths to suggest the incident was a covert attack that the Iranian regime and its media outlets are covering up. Though allegations from this organization can often be dubious, it would not be beyond the pale of certain intelligence organizations to shake up the Iranians in this fashion. The Israeli Mossad has been conducting a covert campaign to take out key Iranian nuclear scientists for some time, and these operations, according to our sources, are continuing.
That said, we do not yet have any evidence to back up this claim. And if the Iranians were actually being sincere about their cooperation on the nuclear issue, the United States and its allies would likely be taking some care to not rock the boat too much. In any case, the Fars report should not be taken for granted; this is one "accident" worth investigating.
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1245 GMT -- IRAN -- Iran has constructed a new missile with a range of 1,240 miles, Iranian Defense Minister Brig. Gen. Mostafa Mohammad Najjar said Nov. 27, media reported. The weapon, named "Ashura," has a long enough range to reach Israel as well as U.S. bases in the Middle East, according to the reports.
stratfor
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There are several very important posts on the NIE revision in the "Big Picture WW3" thread in the last few days, but now I begin posting on this subject in this thread, beginning with a very important timeline by Stratfor:
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Iran's Nuclear Gambit: A Timeline of Events
Summary
The release of a new U.S. National Intelligence Estimate that says Iran quit work on its nuclear weapons program four years ago marks a momentous shift in the dynamics of the Middle East, as well as in the relationships among the United States, Iran and Iraq. This timeline shows how events have played out in recent years.
Analysis
On Dec. 3, the United States released a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that says Iran halted work on its nuclear weapons program in 2003. This is an extremely significant development.
At first glance, it might appear that this report -- a compilation of information from all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies -- is an attempt by the intelligence community to undermine the Bush administration's dealings with and position on Iran. Its contents negate the rationale for any future U.S. military action against the country, and directly contradict many of the past assertions of the U.S. leadership, which has repeatedly said that Iran is a dangerous nation bent on building up its nuclear arsenal.
In reality, this document marks a momentous shift in the dynamics of the Middle East, as well as in the relationships among the United States, Iran and Iraq. As Stratfor has said many times, Iran's nuclear program primarily represents a bargaining chip to be used as leverage in Tehran's talks with the United States in order to gain it concessions in Iraq. The NIE indicates that Washington and Tehran have made significant progress in this back-channel back-and-forth, and that the positive signs coming out of Iraq lately have culminated in some sort of agreement.
The battle over Iran's nuclear plans and the future of Iraq has not been an easy one. Stratfor has carefully monitored its development, and we have explained the intrinsic link between Tehran's nuclear program and the U.S.-Iranian negotiations. Following is Stratfor's account of the events that have shaped this process since the lead-up in 2002 to the Iraq war:
October 2002: As U.S. military intervention in Iraq seems increasingly inevitable, Iranian-U.S. back-channel meetings accelerate while Iran looks to extract political concessions from the United States over Iraq in return for its cooperation. With the aid of Ahmed Chalabi, Iran coaxes the United States into Iraq with intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
January 2003: A top Iranian official says his country supports U.S. efforts to disarm Iraq. The announcement signals that Iran has implicitly approved a U.S. war, despite its concerns of U.S. military action spilling across its border. Stratfor believes such support will open the door to U.S.-Iranian cooperation.
March 2003: The United States invades Iraq, and swiftly topples the Iraqi regime. In return for cracking down on al Qaeda fugitives in Iran and guaranteeing Shiite cooperation during the invasion, Iran is expecting Washington to allow Baghdad to fall in Tehran's hands.
April 2003: Iran, fearing that the United States will renege on its end of the deal, sparks a major Shiite uprising to remind Washington of its ability to send Iraq up in flames. U.S.-Iranian relations are on the decline.
May 2003: With some nudging from the Russians, Iran feels out the United States for a deal, with strong indications that Tehran has agreed to hand over al Qaeda suspects to the United States or a third country. Iran follows up with a letter to the U.S. government calling for a comprehensive deal over Iraq in which it would cooperate on its nuclear program. Still confident in its ability to handle the insurgency and unwilling to be held hostage to Iran's geopolitical ambitions, the United States rebuffs the offer and concludes that the Iranians and Iraqi Shia are undependable allies, and that a deal with Iran is no longer necessary to bring order to Iraq.
June 2003: Angered by the U.S. double-cross, Iran creates a crisis with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) over its nuclear program and wavers back and forth in its nuclear negotiations with the Europeans.
July 2003: Still evaluating its next steps, the United States reconsiders the need to negotiate with Iran, and calls in the services of former Secretary of State James Baker in Iraq.
October 2003: Progress is again seen on the U.S-Iranian negotiating front as Iran opens the doors to the IAEA and British, French and German foreign ministers for talks on nuclear facility inspections. Arab governments, concerned about a possible U.S.-Iranian alliance in Iraq, look to establish a common policy to curb both Washington and Tehran.
Fall 2003: Iran halts its nuclear weapons program, according to the NIE released Dec. 3, 2007.
January 2004: In the wake of a massive December earthquake that destroyed the Iranian city of Bam, the United States offers to send a humanitarian delegation to Tehran led by Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C. Iran rejects the offer, saying the timing is not right. Tehran also says Washington must respect Iran before contacts between the countries can take place.
February 2004: After months of issuing paradoxical statements on its nuclear program, Iran emerges out of February parliamentary elections with a conservative-controlled parliament. With the ability to look beyond the domestic front, the Iranian government once again signals it is ready to do business with the United States.
May 2004: Iran demonstrates its cooperation by getting involved in negotiations between Washington and Shiite rebel leader Muqtada al-Sadr.
June 2004: The United States looks favorably upon Saudi Arabia's increased involvement in the Iraq war, much to Iran's chagrin. The Iranians seek added leverage in the negotiations and engage in several tit-for-tat diplomatic spats, including the seizure of three British patrol boats along the Iraq-Iran border. The ensuing months follow the same theme of increased tensions between Washington and Tehran.
November 2004: Iran agrees -- for the time being -- to comply with IAEA demands to halt enrichment activity in the interest of securing a Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad for the December and January legislative elections.
February-March 2005: After a Shiite-dominated government in Iraq is established, the Iranian nuclear issue flares up again as Iran works to keep the United States out of its nuclear talks with France, Germany and the United Kingdom in order to maintain its leverage. U.S. war rhetoric against Iran picks up steam in the coming month, prompting Iran to come clean on its nuclear program.
June-August 2005: Mysterious explosions occur in Tehran and the Arab-majority town of Ahwaz, sparking Iranian suspicions that Western intelligence agencies are riling up an anti-regime movement. Iranian presidential elections yield a surprise result, in which Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani admits defeat and black-horse candidate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rises to power.
September 2005: By now it is clear that Ahmadinejad's election was part of Iran's nuclear bargaining strategy to project a carefully honed image of irrationality to convince the Americans of the utility of dealing with Iran. Ahmadinejad's fiery anti-Israeli rhetoric leads to division within the ruling ranks in Tehran over how to deal with the United States. The United States also returns the Iranian snub over the Bam earthquake aid offer by rejecting an Iranian offer of 20 million barrels of oil in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The offer was made on the condition that Washington lift trade sanctions against Iran.
December 2005-January 2006: The United States attempts to re-create Iran's worst nightmare by throwing its support behind Iraq's Sunnis. Sources in Lebanon reveal major preparations by Hezbollah for a military conflict, suggesting Iran could soon play its Hezbollah card in the negotiations.
February 2006: After the IAEA passes a resolution to present the nuclear file to the U.N. Security Council, Iran returns to a belligerent stance on its nuclear program, threatening to resume industrial-scale enrichment and pull out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
March 2006: Just as things could not look any darker for the United States and Iran, the Iranian government offers to take bilateral back-channel negotiations over Iraq into the public sphere, and the United States accepts. Iran is not ready to sacrifice its nuclear leverage just yet, and reiterates that these talks will address Iraq only.
April 2006: U.S.-Iranian negotiations appear to have hit a snag. The United States proceeds with plans to strip Iran financially and Iran makes a major announcement regarding its nuclear program.
May 2006: Ahmadinejad makes another offer for talks with the United States by sending a peculiar letter to U.S. President George W. Bush proposing fresh ways to mend relations. At the same time, Iran continues its rhetorical blitzkrieg about its nuclear program.
June 2006: Iraq's Sunni camp makes an apparent down payment on a political settlement when al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is killed in a U.S. airstrike. The ball is now in Iran's court to get the Shia to reciprocate. Iraq has reached a break point.
July 2006: Realizing it could push for a better deal with Washington, Iran decides to pull out all stops and flip the negotiating table over by reactivating Hezbollah in Lebanon and drawing Israel into a costly war. Iran sends a clear message that it has assets throughout the region to help it achieve its demands in Iraq.
August-September 2006: Emboldened by its success in Lebanon, Iran strikes a conciliatory tone with the United States again.
October-November 2006: The perception is that the Bush administration is weak and disintegrating. With an aim to shape the November U.S. congressional elections to force a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, Iran activates its proxies to ensure November is the deadliest month to date for U.S. casualties since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
December 2006: The Iraq Study Group releases its report calling for a U.S. dialogue with Iran. Iran still assumes it has cornered the United States into implementing a withdrawal plan, leaving Tehran to pick up the pieces in Iraq.
January 2007: Bush throws off Iranian expectations with his announcement of a new strategy to surge troops into Iraq. The United States couples this strategy with an offer to the Iranians to talk. The Iranians return to the drawing board.
February 2007: The U.S.-Iranian covert intelligence war heats up, as both sides engage in saber-rattling to shore up their negotiating positions. Once again Iran makes a power play in the waters when it seizes a group of British marines and sailors in the Persian Gulf.
March 2007: Realizing their busted flushes in Iraq, U.S. and Iranian officials meet in Baghdad to discuss Iraq.
May 2007: Iran and the United States engage in publicly announced bilateral talks over Iraq in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. At the summit, Iran presents a groundbreaking proposal to stabilize Iraq. Iran is careful to keep the nuclear issue out of the negotiations. There are doubts, however, as to whether the regional players can deliver on their end of the deal.
June 2007: The United States considers meeting Iran's demand to unlink the nuclear and Iraq issues in order to move the negotiations forward.
August 2007: U.S. and Iranian diplomats meet in Baghdad to hammer out a security agreement on Iraq. Later in the month, the latest NIE makes it apparent that the U.S. surge strategy is not yet yielding sufficient results and that the strategy must begin to shift. Iran gets excited at the thought of a pending U.S. withdrawal, claiming it will fill the vacuum in Iraq. Bush, however, follows up with another surprise, saying the United States will maintain its surge strategy.
September 2007: Iran issues another feeler for talks with the United States and replaces its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps chief. Washington increases the heat concerning war and sanctions.
October 2007: Iran gets some added leverage when it looks to Russia for a sponsor in its negotiations with the United States over Iraq. For its own interests, Russia acts as Iran's backup and makes more promises to deliver nuclear fuel to Iran's Bushehr facility. An intra-Iranian debate over next steps in Iraq erupts with the resignation of Iranian national security chief Ali Larijani.
November 2007: With violence dropping in Iraq, the United States feels it is in a strong enough position to move forward in negotiations with Iran. Iran says it will participate in a fourth round of talks on Iraq with the United States. Iran makes a major conciliatory move on the nuclear front when it hands over a set of blueprints to the IAEA that details how to shape weapons-grade uranium into a form usable in a nuclear warhead. Though no date has been set, it looks as though the atmosphere is being set for a serious round of negotiations between the United States and Iran.
December 2007: In a massive reversal of U.S. policymaking, the U.S. intelligence community releases an NIE report that claims Iran had stopped work on a nuclear weapons program in the fall of 2003, though its intentions still remain unclear. With the rationale for U.S. military aggression against Iran gone, negotiations between Washington and Tehran are more serious than ever.
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Pissing the whole world off, one person at a time.
Posted December 06, 2007 12:00 PM Hide Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...007120502234_pf.html
The Flaws In the Iran Report
By John R. Bolton
Thursday, December 6, 2007; A29
Rarely has a document from the supposedly hidden world of intelligence had such an impact as the National Intelligence Estimate released this week. Rarely has an administration been so unprepared for such an event. And rarely have vehement critics of the "intelligence community" on issues such as Iraq's weapons of mass destruction reversed themselves so quickly.
All this shows that we not only have a problem interpreting what the mullahs in Tehran are up to, but also a more fundamental problem: Too much of the intelligence community is engaging in policy formulation rather than "intelligence" analysis, and too many in Congress and the media are happy about it. President Bush may not be able to repair his Iran policy (which was not rigorous enough to begin with) in his last year, but he would leave a lasting legacy by returning the intelligence world to its proper function.
Consider these flaws in the NIE's "key judgments," which were made public even though approximately 140 pages of analysis, and reams of underlying intelligence, remain classified.
First, the headline finding -- that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 -- is written in a way that guarantees the totality of the conclusions will be misread. In fact, there is little substantive difference between the conclusions of the 2005 NIE on Iran's nuclear capabilities and the 2007 NIE. Moreover, the distinction between "military" and "civilian" programs is highly artificial, since the enrichment of uranium, which all agree Iran is continuing, is critical to civilian and military uses. Indeed, it has always been Iran's "civilian" program that posed the main risk of a nuclear "breakout."
The real differences between the NIEs are not in the hard data but in the psychological assessment of the mullahs' motives and objectives. The current NIE freely admits to having only moderate confidence that the suspension continues and says that there are significant gaps in our intelligence and that our analysts dissent from their initial judgment on suspension. This alone should give us considerable pause.
Second, the NIE is internally contradictory and insufficiently supported. It implies that Iran is susceptible to diplomatic persuasion and pressure, yet the only event in 2003 that might have affected Iran was our invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, not exactly a diplomatic pas de deux. As undersecretary of state for arms control in 2003, I know we were nowhere near exerting any significant diplomatic pressure on Iran. Nowhere does the NIE explain its logic on this critical point. Moreover, the risks and returns of pursuing a diplomatic strategy are policy calculations, not intelligence judgments. The very public rollout in the NIE of a diplomatic strategy exposes the biases at work behind the Potemkin village of "intelligence."
Third, the risks of disinformation by Iran are real. We have lost many fruitful sources inside Iraq in recent years because of increased security and intelligence tradecraft by Iran. The sudden appearance of new sources should be taken with more than a little skepticism. In a background briefing, intelligence officials said they had concluded it was "possible" but not "likely" that the new information they were relying on was deception. These are hardly hard scientific conclusions. One contrary opinion came from -- of all places -- an unnamed International Atomic Energy Agency official, quoted in the New York Times, saying that "we are more skeptical. We don't buy the American analysis 100 percent. We are not that generous with Iran." When the IAEA is tougher than our analysts, you can bet the farm that someone is pursuing a policy agenda.
Fourth, the NIE suffers from a common problem in government: the overvaluation of the most recent piece of data. In the bureaucracy, where access to information is a source of rank and prestige, ramming home policy changes with the latest hot tidbit is commonplace, and very deleterious. It is a rare piece of intelligence that is so important it can conclusively or even significantly alter the body of already known information. Yet the bias toward the new appears to have exerted a disproportionate effect on intelligence analysis.
Fifth, many involved in drafting and approving the NIE were not intelligence professionals but refugees from the State Department, brought into the new central bureaucracy of the director of national intelligence. These officials had relatively benign views of Iran's nuclear intentions five and six years ago; now they are writing those views as if they were received wisdom from on high. In fact, these are precisely the policy biases they had before, recycled as "intelligence judgments."
That such a flawed product could emerge after a drawn-out bureaucratic struggle is extremely troubling. While the president and others argue that we need to maintain pressure on Iran, this "intelligence" torpedo has all but sunk those efforts, inadequate as they were. Ironically, the NIE opens the way for Iran to achieve its military nuclear ambitions in an essentially unmolested fashion, to the detriment of us all.
John R. Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, is the author of "Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad." He is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
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George Friedman of Stratfor:
We also think there was a political component to it (NIE) being announced. This was not the intelligence community sinking Bush’s plans to attack Iran. The U.S. doesn’t’ have the force to attack Iran, as we have argued in the past. Rather, it as Bush taking away their bargaining chip. If Iran has no nuclear program, the U.S. doesn’t have to make concessions to get rid of it. In an odd way, the NIE weakened the Iranian bargaining position.
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John Bolton's piece here explores the NIE flawed product possibility based on among other things the over-reliance on the most recent information and the pre-existence of bias in the writers. It's funny how quick people are to trust the conclusions now right as we learn they were wrong last time. Also wrong were intelligence conclusions in Iraq and they completely missed foretelling other events such as the Iranian revolution, Saddam invading Kuwait and the collapse of the Soviet empire.
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Speculation: Was there a motive here on the part of a certain faction of the CIA to pre-empt/prevent any risk that President Bush would pre-empt Iran?
I'm reading that not only the Israelis, but also the Brits are doubting the NIE's current conclusion , , ,
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'Was there a CIA motive to keep US from striking Iran?'
Yes. 1) CIA careerists disagree with preemption and any other policy if it originates from this administration, and 2) they don't want the humiliation of being wrong again. So they took a mixed report and picked the risk-gone headline. Same report could just as easily have been titled 'Iran shifted uranium enrichment to civilian facilities'.
The Stratfor statement that "The U.S. doesn’t have the force to attack Iran" is strange to me. Certainly we would not attempt a million troop ground force occupation in Iran, but more importantly we don't have the accurate and compelling intelligence combined with the necessary will to perform Osiraq-like target strikes on facilities in either Iran or North Korea before Bush's term expires. I doubt we lack the equipment.
In this case and with the missile defense concessions handed to Putin, I would like to think that we are not always on the losing end of the mind games played with tyrants. In order to move an adversary's position in difficult negotiations, it's necessary to hand them something for saving face or to change the stakes. My estimation of the current Iran strategy is that we contain them best by winning right now in Iraq.
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Geopolitical Diary: Iran Responds to the NIE
Iran's Fars news agency on Tuesday reported comments by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in response to the Dec. 3 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate. The statements were, to say the least, interesting. Ahmadinejad called the document "a positive step forward." He went on to say, "If one or two other steps are taken, the conditions will be ripe and will lose their complexities, and the way will be open for interactions between the two sides."
One of the things he wants is for the United States to acknowledge that Iran never had a nuclear program. However, it is clear from the context that he doesn't expect or actually care about this. He said, "We do not say that in the report there is no problem and there is no imprecision or error. We welcomed the report as a whole and as a step forward. A part of the report approved the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear activities. There was, of course, another part which made some references to the past, and if the U.S. intelligence body conducts a more precise study, it will confirm the views of Iran."
His second point was more fundamental. "One of the steps that need to be taken is a major change in [the U.S.] regional position. They need to respect the rights of the countries in the region. Regional nations have rights and want to fully use their rights. Respecting these rights is a serious change in strategy. This is the next step. If this happens, you will be able to see the results."
It seems to us that he was talking about Iraq, saying that this is the next set of changes Iran wants to see. But Ahmadinejad's summation was this: "The main body of the problem has been resolved. There are no ambiguities, and the ground has been set for cooperation on different issues."
Most interesting of all was Ahmadinejad's claim that Iran has been approached by the U.S. government for permission to send emissaries to Iran. He said, "Many requests reach us from American officials for dialogue and travel to Iran, and we are studying these requests." This is an interesting assertion, and there has been enough time for the White House or the State Department to deny it. Neither one has. It is altogether possible that these were simply requests from U.S. scholars or minor government employees for visas to travel to Iran, and that Ahmadinejad is trying to make them into something more. Or it might well be that the Bush administration is seeking more contacts with Iran, in addition to the two upcoming meetings that have been agreed upon by both sides.
Ahmadinejad is going to make everything he can of this. If diplomacy goes forward, he will want it to appear that the United States unilaterally initiated it -- hence the claim that the United States is asking to send officials. When asked what else the United States should do, Ahmadinejad said, "Let us not get into a hurry. Let [the Americans] follow and stabilize the step they have taken. Our addressee understands our words."
Obviously, Ahmadinejad is trying hard to spin this into a triumph. But the interesting parts of the Fars interview are that Ahmadinejad, for all his posturing, regards the shift in U.S. policy as significant; that he is considering further contacts with the Americans; and that there is something he wants Washington to do above all else, which we assume is remove sanctions. There is implied here an Iranian openness to something.
In any case, Iran has issued a response, and two meetings will be held. Certainly, this weird honeymoon could collapse overnight, but for the moment, there is clearly a diplomatic probing going on that has to be watched carefully.
Stratfor
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So much for that modesty campaign , , ,
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2007/12/mullahs-punked-on-streets-of-tehran.html
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stratfor
IRAN: Russia's first shipment of fuel to Iran's Bushehr nuclear plant gives Iran one more reason to suspend its uranium enrichment program, a White House spokesman said. He added that if Iran is getting fuel from Russia, it does not need its own program.
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Geopolitical Diary: The U.S.-Iranian Dance
stratfor
The Russians said on Monday they have delivered their first fuel shipment to the Iranian power plant at Bushehr. This fulfills a long-standing Russian agreement with Iran, which was reaffirmed at the meeting of Caspian Sea nations held in Tehran in October. The same day, U.S. President George W. Bush said at a press conference, without prompting, "If the Iranians accept that uranium for a civilian nuclear power plant, then there's no need for them to learn how to enrich." A White House spokesman later said, "There is no doubt that Russia and the rest of the world want to keep Iran from getting a nuclear weapon." Monday's announcement provides one more avenue for the Iranians to make a strategic choice to suspend enrichment.
The Iranians also have said they will continue to enrich their own uranium. The Israelis have pointed to the uranium enrichment program as proof that the Iranians are developing a nuclear weapon, saying enriched uranium constitutes the essence of a nuclear weapons program; Bush also focused on uranium enrichment.
If the intelligence community imposed the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Bush against his will, this would be the perfect time for him to reverse it. That the Iranians are continuing to enrich uranium in spite of Russia's decision could easily be construed as part of an Iranian weapons program. Bush so far has not done that. In fact, aside from assertions by others that the NIE blindsided him, there is no evidence whatever of it. Both Bush and U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney publicly endorsed the NIE and no steps have been taken to reverse it. If the president had wanted to reverse it, this was the time to do so. He has not, at least not yet.
Apart from everything else, there is the basic assumption that enriching uranium constitutes a weapons program. Enriched uranium is a necessary condition for building one sort of device, but it is far from being a sufficient condition. As we have said before, there are multiple, non-nuclear technologies needed to build a weapon that can be mounted on a missile, attached to an aircraft or stowed in the hull of a ship. First the weapon must be miniaturized, which is far from easy to do. It then must be ruggedized to withstand the extraordinary stresses of delivery. For example, a nuclear weapon must be small enough to fit on a missile but rugged enough to withstand the high Gs of launch, vibration, vacuum and extreme temperatures -- not to mention moisture. These are not trivial technologies. It is the difference between having a device that can be exploded under special conditions, and one that can take out a city.
But the technology is not the key -- it simply is the analytic justification for Bush to support the NIE as he has, and to be much calmer with the Russian action and Iranian response than he would have been a few months ago. The key is to be found in a scheduled Dec. 18 meeting the Iranians postponed. The Iranians and Americans were supposed to meet in Baghdad to discuss security in Iraq. The United States is looking for reciprocity from the Iranians. So far it has not gotten it; on the contrary, the Iranians have been publicly uncooperative and truculent.
Bush has certain room to run with this strategy. But the more truculent the Iranians, the more he will be under pressure to revert to his prior position, which is that Iran has a nuclear program and is a danger to the world. The same rationale that allows the NIE to state that there is no nuclear program in spite of an enrichment program allows a reversal of a finding. The definition of a nuclear program is more than a little complex, and, as the NIE proves, is subject to reinterpretations depending on political necessity. Bush went with the redefinition expecting reciprocity on other issues from Iran. If it does not happen, he can again change course.
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The Strait of Hormuz Incident and U.S. Strategy
By George Friedman
Iranian speedboats reportedly menaced U.S. warships in the Strait of Hormuz on Jan. 6. Since then, the United States has gone to great lengths to emphasize the threat posed by Iran to U.S. forces in the strait — and, by extension, to the transit of oil from the Persian Gulf region. The revelation of an Iranian threat in the Strait of Hormuz was very helpful to the United States, coming as it did just before U.S. President George W. Bush's trip to the region. Washington will use the incident to push for an anti-Iranian coalition among the Gulf Arabs, as well as to push Iran into publicly working with the United States on the Iraq problem.
According to U.S. reports and a released video, a substantial number of Iranian speedboats approached a three-ship U.S. naval convoy moving through the strait near Iranian territory Jan. 6. (Word of the incident first began emerging Jan. 7.) In addition, the United States reported receiving a threatening message from the boats.
Following the incident, the United States began to back away from the claim that the Iranians had issued threats, saying that the source of the transmission might have been hecklers who coincidentally transmitted threats as the Iranian boats maneuvered among the U.S. ships. Shore-based harassing transmissions are not uncommon in the region, or in other parts of the world for that matter, especially when internationally recognized bridge-to-bridge frequencies are used. And it is difficult if not impossible to distinguish the source of a transmission during a short, intense incident such as this. The combination of Iranian craft in close proximity to U.S. warships and the transmission, regardless of the source, undoubtedly increased the sense of danger.
Two things are interesting. First, the probability of a disciplined Iranian attack — and, by U.S. Navy accounts, the Iranian action was disciplined — being preceded by a warning is low. The Iranians were not about to give away the element of surprise, which would have been essential for an effective attack. While the commander on the scene does not have the luxury we have of dismissing the transmission out of hand — in fact, the commander must assume the worst — its existence decreases the likelihood of an attack. Attacking ships need every second they can get to execute their mission; had the Iranians been serious, they would have wanted to appear as nonthreatening as possible for as long as possible.
Second, the U.S. ships did not open fire. We do not know the classified rules of engagement issued to U.S. ship captains operating in the Strait of Hormuz, but the core guidance of those rules is that a captain must protect his ship and crew from attack at all times. Particularly given the example of the USS Cole, which was attacked by a speedboat in a Yemeni harbor, it is difficult for us to imagine a circumstance under which a ship captain in the U.S. Navy would not open fire if the Iranian boats already represented a significant threat.
Spokesmen for the 5th Fleet said Jan. 13 that the U.S. ships were going through the process of determining the threat and preparing to fire when the Iranians disengaged and disappeared. That would indicate that speed, distance and bearing were not yet at a point that required a response, and that therefore the threat level had not yet risen to the redline. Absent the transition to a threat, it is not clear that this incident would have risen above multiple encounters between U.S. warships and Iranian boats in the tight waters of Hormuz.
The New York Times carried a story Jan. 12, clearly leaked to it by the Pentagon, giving some context for U.S. concerns. According to the story, the United States had carried out war games attempting to assess the consequences of a swarming attack by large numbers of speedboats carrying explosives and suicide crews. The results of the war games were devastating. In a game carried out in 2002, the U.S. Navy lost 16 major warships, including an aircraft carrier, cruisers and amphibious ships — all in attacks lasting 5-10 minutes. Fleet defenses were overwhelmed by large numbers of small, agile speedboats, some armed with rockets and other weapons, but we assume most operated as manned torpedoes.
The decision to reveal the results of the war game clearly were intended to lend credibility to the Bush administration's public alarm at the swarming tactics. It raises the issue of why the U.S. warships didn't open fire, given that the war game must have resulted in some very aggressive rules of engagement against Iranian speedboats in the Strait of Hormuz. But more important, it reveals something about the administration's thinking in the context of Bush's trip to the region and the controversial National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran's nuclear program.
A huge controversy has emerged over the NIE, with many arguing that it was foisted on the administration against its will. Our readers know that this was not our view, and it is still not our view. Bush's statements on the NIE were consistent. First, he did not take issue with it. Second, he continues to regard Iran as a threat. In traveling to the Middle East, one of his purposes is to create a stronger anti-Iranian coalition among the Arab states on the Arabian Peninsula. The nuclear threat was not a sufficient glue to create this coalition. For a host of reasons ranging from U.S. intelligence failures in Iraq to the time frame of an Iranian nuclear threat, a nuclear program was simply not seen as a credible basis for fearing Iran's actions in the region. The states of the Arabian Peninsula were much more afraid of U.S. attacks against Iran than they were of Iranian nuke s in five or 10 years.
The Strait of Hormuz is another matter. Approximately 40 percent of the region's oil wealth flows through the strait. During the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, the tanker war, in which oil tankers moving through the Persian Gulf came under attack from aircraft, provided a sideshow. This not only threatened the flow of oil but also drove shipping insurance rates through the roof. The United States convoyed tankers, but the tanker war remains a frightening memory in the region.
The tanker war was trivial compared with the threat the United States rolled out last week. The Strait of Hormuz is the chokepoint through which Persian Gulf oil flows. Close the strait and it doesn't flow. With oil near $100 a barrel, closing the Strait of Hormuz would raise the price — an understatement of the highest order. We have no idea what the price of oil would be if the strait were closed. Worse, the countries shipping through the strait would not get any of that money. At $100 a barrel, closing the Strait of Hormuz would take an economic triumph and turn it into a disaster for the very countries the United States wants to weld into an effective anti-Iranian coalition.
The revelation of a naval threat from Iran in the Strait of Hormuz just before the president got on board Air Force One for his trip to the region was fortuitous, to say the least. The Iranians insisted that there was nothing unusual about the incident, and Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said that "Some political factions in the U.S. are pursuing adventurism to help Bush to spread Iran-phobia in the region. U.S. officials should apologize to Iran, regional countries and the American people." This probably won't happen, but he undoubtedly will be grateful that the Iranians said there was nothing out of the ordinary about the incident. If this incident was routine, and if the U.S. war games have any predictive ability, it means that the Iranians are staging routine incidents, any one of which could lead to a military confrontation in the strait. Bush undoubtedly will be distributing the Iranian statement at each of his stops.
Leaving aside the politics for a moment, the Iranian naval threat is a far more realistic, immediate and devastating threat to regional interests than the nuclear threat ever was. Building an atomic weapon was probably beyond Iran's capabilities, while just building a device — an unwieldy and delicate system that would explode under controlled circumstances — was years away. In contrast, the naval threat in the Strait of Hormuz is within Iran's reach right now. Success is far from a slam dunk considering the clear preponderance of power in favor of U.S. naval forces, but it is not a fantasy strategy by any means.
And its consequences are immediate and affect the Islamic states in ways that a nuclear strike against Israel doesn't. Getting the Saudis to stand against Iran over an attack against Israel is a reach, regardless of the threat. Getting the Saudis worked up over cash flow while oil prices are near all-time highs does not need a great deal of persuading. Whatever happened in the strait Jan. 6, Bush has arrived in the region with a theme of widespread regional interest: keeping the Strait of Hormuz open in the face of a real threat. We are not certain that a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier could be sunk using small swarming ships. But we are certain that the strait could be closed or made too dangerous for tankers for at least a short period. And we know that, as in land warfare, finding the bases that are launching ships as small as speedboats would be tough. This threat had substance.
By dropping the Iranian nuclear threat and shifting to the threat to the strait, Bush moves the Iran issue from being one involving the United States and Israel to being one that excludes Israel but involves every oil producer in the region. None of them wants this to happen, and all of them must take the threat seriously. If it can establish the threat, the United States goes from being an advocate against Iran to being the guarantor of very real Arab interests. And if the price Arabs must pay for the United States to keep the strait open is helping shut down the jihadist threat in Iraq, that is a small price indeed.
This puts Iran in a tough position. Prior to the issuance of the NIE, the Iranians had shifted some of their policies on Iraq. The decline in violence in Iraq is partly because of the surge, but it also is because Iran has cut back on some of the things it used to do, particularly supporting Shiite militias with weapons and money and urging them to attack Sunnis. It also is clear that the limits it had imposed on some of the Iraqi Shiite politicians in the latter's dealings with their Sunni counterparts have shifted. The new law allowing Baath Party members to return to public life could not possibly have been passed without Iranian acquiescence.
Clearly, Iran has changed its actions in Iraq as the United States has changed its stance on Iranian nuclear weapons. But Iran shied away from reaching an open accommodation with the United States over Iraq following the NIE. Factional splits in Iran are opening up as elections approach, and while the Iranians have shifted their behavior, they have not shifted their public position. The United States sees a shift of Iran's public position as crucial in order to convince Iraqi factions, particularly all of the Shiite parties, to move toward a political conclusion. Reining in militias is great, but Washington wants and needs the final step. The NIE shift, which took the nuclear issue off the table, was not enough to do it. By raising the level of tension over a real threat — and one that has undebatable regional consequences — the United States is hoping to shape the internal political discussion in Iran toward an open participation in reshaping Iraq.
Iran doesn't want to take this step for three good reasons. First, it wants to keep its options open. It does not trust the United States not to use a public accord over Iraq as a platform to increase U.S. influence in Iraq and increase the threat to Iran. Second, Tehran has a domestic political problem. In the same way that Bush saw an avalanche of protest from his supporters over the NIE, the Iranians will see resistance to open collaboration. Finally, the Iranians are not sure they need a public agreement. From their point of view, they have delivered on Iraq, the United States has delivered on the NIE and things are moving in a satisfactory direction. Why go public? The American desire to show the Iraqi Shia that Iran has publicly abandoned the quest for a Shiite Iraq doesn't do Iran a bit of good.
The Iranians have used the construction of what we might call a guerrilla navy as a lever with the United States and as a means to divide the United States from the Arabs. The Iranians' argument to the Arabs has been, "If the United States pushes us too far, we will close the strait. Therefore, keep the Americans from pushing us too far." The Americans have responded by saying that the Iranians now have the ability to close the Strait of Hormuz, potentially regardless of what the U.S. Navy does. Therefore, unless the Arabs want to be at the mercy of Iran, they must join the United States in an anti-Iranian coalition that brings Iran under control. In its wooing of the Arabs, Washington will emphasize just how out of control the Iranians are, pointing out that Tehran is admitting that the kind of harassment seen Jan. 6 is routine. One day — and the day will be chosen by Iran — this will all get really out of hand.
The Iranians have a great deal to gain from having the ability to close the strait, but very little from actually closing it. The United States is putting Iran in a position such that the Gulf Arabs will be asking Tehran for assurances that Iran will not take any action. The Iranians will give assurances, setting the stage for a regional demand that the Iranians disperse their speedboats, which are purely offensive weapons of little defensive purpose.
The United States, having simplified the situation for the Iranians with the NIE and not gotten the response it wanted, now is complicating the situation again with a completely new framework — a much more effective framework than the previous one it used.
In the end, this isn't about the Strait of Hormuz. Iran isn't going to take on the U.S. Navy, and the Navy isn't quite as vulnerable as it claims — and therefore, the United States obviously is not nearly as trigger-happy as it would like to project. Washington has played a strong card. The issue now is whether it can get Iran into a public resolution over Iraq.
The Iranians appear on board with the private solution. They don't seem eager for a public one. The anti-Iranian coalition might strengthen, but as clever as this U.S. maneuver is, it will not bring the Iranians public. For that, more concessions in Iraq are necessary. More to the point, for a public accommodation, the "Great Satan" and the charter member of the "Axis of Evil" need to make political adjustments in their public portrayal of one another — hard to do in two countries facing election years.
stratfor
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The political will here in the US for this would seem to be near zero, and if I read the tea leaves correctly, not a lot more than that in the US military , , , Still, what to do?
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Stopping Iran
Why the case for military action still stands.
By NORMAN PODHORETZ
January 23, 2008
Up until a fairly short time ago, scarcely anyone dissented from the assessment offered with "high confidence" by the National Intelligence Estimate of 2005 that Iran was "determined to develop nuclear weapons." Correlatively, no one believed the protestations of the mullahs ruling Iran that their nuclear program was designed strictly for peaceful uses.
The reason for this near-universal consensus was that Iran, with its vast reserves of oil and natural gas, had no need for nuclear energy, and that in any case, the very nature of its program contradicted the protestations.
Here is how Time magazine put it as early as March 2003--long before, be it noted, the radical Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had replaced the putatively moderate Mohamed Khatami as president:
On a visit last month to Tehran, International Atomic Energy Agency director Mohamed ElBaradei announced he had discovered that Iran was constructing a facility to enrich uranium--a key component of advanced nuclear weapons--near Natanz. But diplomatic sources tell Time the plant is much further along than previously revealed. The sources say work on the plant is "extremely advanced" and involves "hundreds" of gas centrifuges ready to produce enriched uranium and "the parts for a thousand others ready to be assembled."
So, too, the Federation of American Scientists about a year later:
It is generally believed that Iran's efforts are focused on uranium enrichment, though there are some indications of work on a parallel plutonium effort. Iran claims it is trying to establish a complete nuclear-fuel cycle to support a civilian energy program, but this same fuel cycle would be applicable to a nuclear-weapons development program. Iran appears to have spread their nuclear activities around a number of sites to reduce the risk of detection or attack.
And just as everyone agreed with the American intelligence community that Iran was "determined to develop nuclear weapons," everyone also agreed with President Bush that it must not be permitted to succeed. Here, the reasons were many and various.
To begin with, Iran was (as certified even by the doves of the State Department) the leading sponsor of terrorism in the world, and it was therefore reasonable to fear that it would transfer nuclear technology to terrorists who would be only too happy to use it against us. Moreover, since Iran evidently aspired to become the hegemon of the Middle East, its drive for a nuclear capability could result (as, according to the New York Times, no fewer than 21 governments in and around the region were warning) in "a grave and destructive nuclear-arms race." This meant a nightmarish increase in the chances of a nuclear war. An even greater increase in those chances would result from the power that nuclear weapons--and the missiles capable of delivering them, which Iran was also developing and/or buying--would give the mullahs to realize their evil dream of (in the words of Mr. Ahmadinejad) "wiping Israel off the map."
Nor, as almost everyone also agreed, were the dangers of a nuclear Iran confined to the Middle East. Dedicated as the mullahs clearly were to furthering the transformation of Europe into a continent where Muslim law and practice would more and more prevail, they were bound to use nuclear intimidation and blackmail in pursuit of this goal as well. Beyond that, nuclear weapons would even serve the purposes of a far more ambitious aim: the creation of what Mr. Ahmadinejad called "a world without America." Although, to be sure, no one imagined that Iran would acquire the capability to destroy the United States, it was easy to imagine that the United States would be deterred from standing in Iran's way by the fear of triggering a nuclear war.
Running alongside the near-universal consensus on Iran's nuclear intentions was a commensurately broad agreement that the regime could be stopped from realizing those intentions by a judicious combination of carrots and sticks. The carrots, offered through diplomacy, consisted of promises that if Iran were (in the words of the Security Council) to "suspend all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development, to be verified by the IAEA," it would find itself on the receiving end of many benefits. If, however, Iran remained obdurate in refusing to comply with these demands, sticks would come into play in the form of sanctions.
And indeed, in response to continued Iranian defiance, a round of sanctions was approved by the Security Council in December 2006. When these (watered down to buy the support of the Russians and the Chinese) predictably failed to bite, a tougher round was unanimously authorized three months later, in March 2007. When these in turn failed, the United States, realizing that the Russians and the Chinese would veto stronger medicine, unilaterally imposed a new series of economic sanctions--which fared no better than the multilateral measures that had preceded them.
* * *
What then to do? President Bush kept declaring that Iran must not be permitted to get the bomb, and he kept warning that the "military option"--by which he meant air strikes, not an invasion on the ground--was still on the table as a last resort. On this issue our Western European allies were divided. To the surprise of many who had ceased thinking of France as an ally because of Jacques Chirac's relentless opposition to the policies of the Bush administration, Nicholas Sarkozy, Mr. Chirac's successor as president, echoed Mr. Bush's warning in equally unequivocal terms. If, Mr. Sarkozy announced, the Iranians pressed on with their nuclear program, the world would be left with a choice between "an Iranian bomb and bombing Iran"--and he left no doubt as to where his own choice would fall. On the other hand, Gordon Brown, who had followed Tony Blair as prime minister of the U.K., seemed less willing than Mr. Sarkozy to contemplate military action against Iran's nuclear installations, even as a last resort. Like the new chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, Mr. Brown remained--or professed to remain--persuaded that more diplomacy and tougher sanctions would eventually work.
This left a great question hanging in the air: when, if ever, would Mr. Bush (and/or Mr. Sarkozy) conclude that the time had come to resort to the last resort?
Obviously the answer to that question depended on how long it would take for Iran itself to reach the point of no return. According to the NIE of 2005, it was "unlikely . . . that Iran would be able to make a nuclear weapon . . . before early-to-mid next decade"--that is, between 2010 and 2015. If that assessment, offered with "moderate confidence," was correct, Mr. Bush would be off the hook, since he would be out of office for two years at the very least by the time the decision on whether or not to order air strikes would have to be made. That being the case, for the remainder of his term he could continue along the carrot-and-stick path, while striving to ratchet up the pressure on Iran with stronger and stronger measures that he could hope against hope might finally do the trick. If he could get these through the Security Council, so much the better; if not, the United States could try to assemble a coalition outside the U.N. that would be willing to impose really tough sanctions.
Under these circumstances, there would also be enough time to add another arrow to this nonmilitary quiver: a serious program of covert aid to dissident Iranians who dreamed of overthrowing the mullocracy and replacing it with a democratic regime. Those who had been urging Mr. Bush to launch such a program, and who were confident that it would succeed, pointed to polls showing great dissatisfaction with the mullocracy among the Iranian young, and to the demonstrations against it that kept breaking out all over the country. They also contended that even if a new democratic regime were to be as intent as the old one on developing nuclear weapons, neither it nor they would pose anything like the same kind of threat.
All well and good. The trouble was this: only by relying on the accuracy of the 2005 NIE would Mr. Bush be able in all good conscience to pass on to his successor the decision of whether or when to bomb the Iranian nuclear facilities. But that estimate, as he could hardly help knowing from the CIA's not exactly brilliant track record, might easily be too optimistic.
To start with the most spectacular recent instance, the CIA had failed to anticipate 9/11. It then turned out to be wrong in 2002 about Saddam Hussein's possession of weapons of mass destruction, very likely because it was bending over backward to compensate for having been wrong in exactly the opposite direction in 1991, when at the end of the first Gulf war the IAEA discovered that the Iraqi nuclear program was far more advanced than the CIA had estimated. Regarding that by now notorious lapse, Jeffrey T. Richelson, a leading (and devoutly nonpartisan) authority on the American intelligence community, writes in "Spying on the Bomb":
The extent that the United States and its allies underestimated and misunderstood the Iraqi program [before 1991] constituted a "colossal international intelligence failure," according to one Israeli expert. [IAEA's chief weapons inspector] Hans Blix acknowledged "that there was suspicion certainly," but "to see the enormity of it is a shock."
And these were only the most recent cases. Gabriel Schoenfeld, a close student of the intelligence community, offers a partial list of earlier mistakes and failures:
The CIA was established in 1947 in large measure to avoid another surprise attack like the one the U.S. had suffered on December 7, 1941 at Pearl Harbor. But only three years after its founding, the fledgling agency missed the outbreak of the Korean war. It then failed to understand that the Chinese would come to the aid of the North Koreans if American forces crossed the Yalu river. It missed the outbreak of the Suez war in 1956. In September 1962, the CIA issued an NIE which stated that the "Soviets would not introduce offensive missiles in Cuba"; in short order, the USSR did precisely that. In 1968 it failed to foresee the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. . . . It did not inform Jimmy Carter that the Soviet Union would invade Afghanistan in 1979.
Mr. Richelson adds a few more examples of hotly debated issues during the cold war that were wrongly resolved, including "the existence of a missile gap, the capabilities of the Soviet SS-9 intercontinental ballistic missile, [and] Soviet compliance with the test-ban and antiballistic missile treaties." This is not to mention perhaps the most notorious case of all: the fiasco, known as the Bay of Pigs, produced by the CIA's wildly misplaced confidence that an invasion of Cuba by the army of exiles it had assembled and trained would set off a popular uprising against the Castro regime.
On Mr. Bush's part, then, deep skepticism was warranted concerning the CIA's estimate of how much time we had before Iran reached the point of no return. As we have seen, Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the IAEA, had "discovered" in 2003 that the Iranians were constructing facilities to enrich uranium. Still, as late as April 2007 the same Mr. ElBaradei was pooh-poohing the claims made by Mr. Ahmadinejad that Iran already had 3,000 centrifuges in operation. A month later, we learn from Mr. Richelson, Mr. ElBaradei changed his mind after a few spot inspections. "We believe," Mr. ElBaradei now said, that the Iranians "pretty much have the knowledge about how to enrich. From now on, it is simply a question of perfecting that knowledge."
We also learn from Mr. Richelson that another expert, Matthew Bunn of Harvard's Center for Science and International Affairs, interpreted the new information the IAEA came up with in April 2007 as meaning that "whether they're six months or a year away, one can debate. But it's not 10 years." This chilling estimate of how little time we had to prevent Iran from getting the bomb was similar to the conclusion reached by several Israeli experts (though the official Israeli estimate put the point of no return in 2009).
* * *
Then, in a trice, everything changed. Even as Mr. Bush must surely have been wrestling with the question of whether it would be on his watch that the decision on bombing the Iranian nuclear facilities would have to be made, the world was hit with a different kind of bomb. This took the form of an unclassified summary of a new NIE, published early last December. Entitled "Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities," this new document was obviously designed to blow up the near-universal consensus that had flowed from the conclusions reached by the intelligence community in its 2005 NIE. In brief, whereas the NIE of 2005 had assessed "with high confidence that Iran currently is determined to develop nuclear weapons," the new NIE of 2007 did "not know whether [Iran] currently intends to develop nuclear weapons."
This startling 180-degree turn was arrived at from new intelligence, offered by the new NIE with "high confidence": namely, that "in fall 2003 Tehran halted its nuclear-weapons program." The new NIE was also confident--though only moderately so--that "Tehran had not restarted its nuclear-weapons program as of mid-2007." And in the most sweeping of its new conclusions, it was even "moderately confident" that "the halt to those activities represents a halt to Iran's entire nuclear-weapons program."
Whatever else one might say about the new NIE, one point can be made with "high confidence": that by leading with the sensational news that Iran had suspended its nuclear-weapons program in 2003, its authors ensured that their entire document would be interpreted as meaning that there was no longer anything to worry about. Of course, being experienced bureaucrats, they took care to protect themselves from this very accusation. For example, after dropping their own bomb on the fear that Iran was hell-bent on getting the bomb, they immediately added "with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons." But as they must have expected, scarcely anyone paid attention to this caveat. And as they must also have expected, even less attention was paid to another self-protective caveat, which--making doubly sure it would pass unnoticed--they relegated to a footnote appended to the lead sentence about the halt:
For the purposes of this Estimate, by "nuclear-weapons program" we mean Iran's nuclear-weapon design and weaponization work and covert uranium conversion-related and uranium enrichment-related work; we do not mean Iran's declared civil work related to uranium conversion and enrichment.
Since only an expert could grasp the significance of this cunning little masterpiece of incomprehensible jargon, the damage had been done by the time its dishonesty was exposed.
The first such exposure came from John Bolton, who before becoming our ambassador to the U.N. had served as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, with a special responsibility for preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Donning this hat once again, Mr. Bolton charged that the dishonesty of the footnote lay most egregiously in the sharp distinction it drew between military and civilian programs. For, he said, "the enrichment of uranium, which all agree Iran is continuing, is critical to civilian and military uses. Indeed, it has always been Iran's 'civilian' program that posed the main risk of a nuclear 'breakout.' "
Two other experts, Valerie Lincy, the editor of Iranwatch.org, and Gary Milhollin, the director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, followed up with an explanation of why the halt of 2003 was much less significant than a layman would inevitably be led to think:
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Two other experts, Valerie Lincy, the editor of Iranwatch.org, and Gary Milhollin, the director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, followed up with an explanation of why the halt of 2003 was much less significant than a layman would inevitably be led to think:
The new report defines "nuclear-weapons program" in a ludicrously narrow way: it confines it to enriching uranium at secret sites or working on a nuclear-weapon design. But the halting of its secret enrichment and weapon-design efforts in 2003 proves only that Iran made a tactical move. It suspended work that, if discovered, would unambiguously reveal intent to build a weapon. It has continued other work, crucial to the ability to make a bomb, that it can pass off as having civilian applications.
Thus, as Ms. Lincy and Mr. Milhollin went on to write, the main point obfuscated by the footnote was that once Iran accumulated a stockpile of the kind of uranium fit for civilian use, it would "in a matter of months" be able "to convert that uranium . . . to weapons grade."
* * *
Yet, in spite of these efforts to demonstrate that the new NIE did not prove that Iran had given up its pursuit of nuclear weapons, just about everyone in the world immediately concluded otherwise, and further concluded that this meant the military option was off the table. George Bush may or may not have been planning to order air strikes before leaving office, but now that the justification for doing so had been discredited by his own intelligence agencies, it would be politically impossible for him to go on threatening military action, let alone to take it.
But what about sanctions? In the weeks and months before the new NIE was made public, Mr. Bush had been working very hard to get a third and tougher round of sanctions approved by the Security Council. In trying to persuade the Russians and the Chinese to sign on, Mr. Bush argued that the failure to enact such sanctions would leave war as the only alternative. Yet if war was now out of the question, and if in any case Iran had for all practical purposes given up its pursuit of nuclear weapons for the foreseeable future, what need was there of sanctions?
Anticipating that this objection would be raised, the White House desperately set out to interpret the new NIE as, precisely, offering "grounds for hope that the problem can be solved diplomatically--without the use of force." These words by Stephen Hadley, Mr. Bush's national security adviser, represented the very first comment on the new NIE to emanate from the White House, and some version of them would be endlessly repeated in the days to come.
Joining this campaign of damage control, Messrs. Sarkozy and Brown issued similar statements, and even Ms. Merkel (who had been very reluctant to go along with Mr. Bush's push for another round of sanctions) now declared that it was "dangerous and still grounds for great concern that Iran, in the face of the UN Security Council's resolutions, continues to refuse to suspend uranium enrichment. . . . The Iranian president's intolerable agitation against Israel also speaks volumes. . . . It remains a vital interest of the whole world community to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran. "
As it happened, Mr. Hadley was right about the new NIE, which executed another 180-degree turn--this one, away from the judgment of the 2005 NIE concerning the ineffectiveness of international pressure. Flatly contradicting its "high confidence" in 2005 that Iran was forging ahead "despite its international obligations and international pressure," the new NIE concluded that the nuclear-weapons program had been halted in 2003 "primarily in response to international pressure." This indicated that "Tehran's decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic, and military costs."
Never mind that no international pressure to speak of was being exerted on Iran in 2003, and that at that point the mullahs were more likely acting out of fear that the Americans, having just invaded Iraq, might come after them next. Never mind, too, that religious and/or ideological passions, which the new NIE pointedly neglected to mention, have over and over again throughout history proved themselves a more powerful driving force than any "cost-benefit approach." Blithely sweeping aside such considerations, the new NIE was confident that just as the carrot-and-stick approach had allegedly sufficed in the past, so it would suffice in the future to "prompt Tehran to extend the current halt to its nuclear-weapons program."
The worldview implicit here has been described by Mr. Richelson (mainly with North Korea in mind) as the idea that "moral suasion and sustained bargaining are the proven mechanisms of nuclear restraint." Such a worldview "may be ill-equipped," he observes delicately, "to accept the idea that certain regimes are incorrigible and negotiate only as a stalling tactic until they have attained a nuclear capability against the United States and other nations that might act against their nuclear programs."
True, the new NIE did at least acknowledge that it would not be easy to induce Iran to extend the halt, "given the linkage many within the leadership probably see between nuclear-weapons development and Iran's key national-security and foreign-policy objectives." But it still put its money on a "combination of threats of intensified international scrutiny and pressures, along with opportunities for Iran to achieve its security, prestige, and goals for regional influence in other ways."
It was this pronouncement, and a few others like it, that gave Stephen Hadley "grounds for hope that the problem can be solved diplomatically." But that it was a false hope was demonstrated by the NIE itself. For if Iran was pursuing nuclear weapons in order to achieve its "key national-security and foreign-policy objectives," and if those objectives explicitly included (for a start) hegemony in the Middle East and the destruction of the state of Israel, what possible "opportunities" could Tehran be offered to achieve them "in other ways"?
* * *
So much for the carrot. As for the stick, it was no longer big enough to matter, what with the threat of military action ruled out, and what with the case for a third round of sanctions undermined by the impression stemming from the NIE's main finding that there was nothing left to worry about. Why worry when it was four years since Iran had done any work toward developing the bomb, when the moratorium remained in effect, and when there was no reason to believe that the program would be resumed in the near future?
What is more, in continuing to insist that the Iranians must be stopped from developing the bomb and that this could be done by nonmilitary means, the Bush administration and its European allies were lagging behind a new consensus within the American foreign-policy establishment that had already been forming even before the publication of the new NIE. Whereas the old consensus was based on the proposition that (in Sen. John McCain's pungent formulation) "the only thing worse than bombing Iran was letting Iran get the bomb," the emerging new consensus held the opposite--that the only thing worse than letting Iran get the bomb was bombing Iran.
What led to this reversal was a gradual loss of faith in the carrot-and-stick approach. As one who had long since rejected this faith and who had been excoriated for my apostasy by more than one member of the foreign-policy elites, I never thought I would live to see the day when these very elites would come to admit that diplomacy and sanctions had been given a fair chance and that they had accomplished nothing but to buy Iran more time. The lesson drawn from this new revelation was, however, a different matter.
It was in the course of a public debate with one of the younger members of the foreign-policy establishment that I first chanced upon the change in view. Knowing that he never deviated by so much as an inch from the conventional wisdom of the moment within places like the Council on Foreign Relations and the Brookings Institution, I had expected him to defend the carrot-and-stick approach and to attack me as a warmonger for contending that bombing was the only way to stop the mullahs from getting the bomb. Instead, to my great surprise, he took the position that there was really no need to stop them in the first place, since even if they had the bomb they could be deterred from using it, just as effectively as the Soviets and the Chinese had been deterred during the cold war.
Without saying so in so many words, then, my opponent was acknowledging that diplomacy and sanctions had proved to be a failure, and that there was no point in pursuing them any further. But so as to avoid drawing the logical conclusion--namely, that military action had now become necessary--he simply abandoned the old establishment assumption that Iran must at all costs be prevented from developing nuclear weapons, adopting in its place the complacent idea that we could learn to live with an Iranian bomb.
In response, I argued that deterrence could not be relied upon with a regime ruled by Islamo-fascist revolutionaries who not only were ready to die for their beliefs but cared less about protecting their people than about the spread of their ideology and their power. If the mullahs got the bomb, I said, it was not they who would be deterred, but we.
So little did any of this shake my opponent that I came away from our debate with the grim realization that the president's continued insistence on the dangers posed by an Iranian bomb would more and more fall on deaf ears--ears that would soon be made even deafer by the new NIE's assurance that Iran was no longer hell-bent on acquiring nuclear weapons after all. There might be two different ideas competing here--one, that we could live with an Iranian bomb; the other, that there would be no Iranian bomb to live with--but the widespread acceptance of either would not only preclude the military option but would sooner or later put an end even to the effort to stop the mullahs by nonmilitary means.
* * *
And yet there remained something else, or rather someone else, to factor into the equation: the perennially "misunderestimated" George W. Bush, a man who knew evil when he saw it and who had the courage and the determination to do battle against it. This was also a man who, far more than most politicians, said what he meant and meant what he said. And what he had said at least twice before was that if we permitted Iran to build a nuclear arsenal, people 50 years from now would look back and wonder how we of this generation could have allowed such a thing to happen, and they would rightly judge us as harshly as we today judge the British and the French for what they did at Munich in 1938. It was because I had found it hard to understand why Mr. Bush would put himself so squarely in the dock of history on this issue if he were resigned to an Iran in possession of nuclear weapons, or even of the ability to build them, that I predicted in the pages of Commentary, and went on predicting elsewhere, that he would not retire from office before resorting to the military option.
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But I could not for the life of me believe that Mr. Bush intended to fly in the face of the solemn promise he had made in his 2002 State of the Union address:
We'll be deliberate, yet time is not on our side. I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons.
To which he had added shortly afterward in a speech at West Point: "If we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long."
How, I wondered, could Mr. Bush not know that in the case of Iran he was running a very great risk of waiting too long? And if he was truly ready to run that risk, why, in a press conference the day after the new NIE came out, did he put himself in the historical dock yet again by repeating what he had said several times before about the judgment that would be passed on this generation in the future if Iran were to acquire a nuclear weapon?
If Iran shows up with a nuclear weapon at some point in time, the world is going to say, what happened to them in 2007? How come they couldn't see the impending danger? What caused them not to understand that a country that once had a weapons program could reconstitute the weapons program? How come they couldn't see that the important first step in developing a weapon is the capacity to be able to enrich uranium? How come they didn't know that with that capacity, that knowledge could be passed on to a covert program? What blinded them to the realities of the world? And it's not going to happen on my watch.
* * *
"It's not going to happen on my watch." What else could this mean if not that Mr. Bush was preparing to meet "the impending danger" in what he must by now have concluded was the only way it could be averted?
The only alternative that seemed even remotely plausible to me was that he might be fixing to outsource the job to the Israelis. After all, even if, by now, it might have become politically impossible for us to take military action, the Israelis could not afford to sit by while a regime pledged to wipe them off the map was equipping itself with nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them. For unless Iran could be stopped before acquiring a nuclear capability, the Israelis would be faced with only two choices: either strike first, or pray that the fear of retaliation would deter the Iranians from beating them to the punch. Yet a former president of Iran, Hashemi Rafsanjani, had served notice that his country would not be deterred by the fear of retaliation:
If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in its possession, . . . application of an atomic bomb would not leave anything in Israel, but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world.
If this was the view of even a supposed moderate like Mr. Rafsanjani, how could the Israelis depend upon the mullahs to refrain from launching a first strike? The answer was that they could not. Bernard Lewis, the leading contemporary authority on the culture of the Islamic world, has explained why:
MAD, mutual assured destruction, [was effective] right through the cold war. Both sides had nuclear weapons. Neither side used them, because both sides knew the other would retaliate in kind. This will not work with a religious fanatic [like Mr. Ahmadinejad]. For him, mutual assured destruction is not a deterrent, it is an inducement. We know already that [the mullahs ruling Iran] do not give a damn about killing their own people in great numbers. We have seen it again and again. In the final scenario, and this applies all the more strongly if they kill large numbers of their own people, they are doing them a favor. They are giving them a quick free pass to heaven and all its delights.
Under the aegis of such an attitude, even in the less extreme variant that may have been held by some of Mr. Ahmadinejad's colleagues among the regime's rulers, mutual assured destruction would turn into a very weak reed. Understanding that, the Israelis would be presented with an irresistible incentive to preempt--and so, too, would the Iranians. Either way, a nuclear exchange would become inevitable.
What would happen then? In a recently released study, Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies argues that Mr. Rafsanjani had it wrong. In the grisly scenario Mr. Cordesman draws, tens of millions would indeed die, but Israel--despite the decimation of its civilian population and the destruction of its major cities--would survive, even if just barely, as a functioning society. Not so Iran, and not its "key Arab neighbors," particularly Egypt and Syria, which Mr. Cordesman thinks Israel would also have to target in order "to ensure that no other power can capitalize on an Iranian strike." Furthermore, Israel might be driven in desperation to go after the oil wells, refineries, and ports in the Gulf.
"Being contained within the region," writes Martin Walker of UPI in his summary of Mr. Cordesman's study, "such a nuclear exchange might not be Armageddon for the human race." To me it seems doubtful that it could be confined to the Middle East. But even if it were, the resulting horrors would still be far greater than even the direst consequences that might follow from bombing Iran before it reaches the point of no return.
In the worst case of this latter scenario, Iran would retaliate by increasing the trouble it is already making for us in Iraq and by attacking Israel with missiles armed with non-nuclear warheads but possibly containing biological and/or chemical weapons. There would also be a vast increase in the price of oil, with catastrophic consequences for every economy in the world, very much including our own. And there would be a deafening outcry from one end of the earth to the other against the inescapable civilian casualties. Yet, bad as all this would be, it does not begin to compare with the gruesome consequences of a nuclear exchange between Israel and Iran, even if those consequences were to be far less extensive than Mr. Cordesman anticipates.
Which is to say that, as between bombing Iran to prevent it from getting the bomb and letting Iran get the bomb, there is simply no contest.
* * *
But this still does not answer the question of who should do the bombing. Tempting as it must be for George Bush to sit back and let the Israelis do the job, there are considerations that should give him pause. One is that no matter what he would say, the whole world would regard the Israelis as a surrogate for the United States, and we would become as much the target of the ensuing recriminations both at home and abroad as we would if we had done the job ourselves.
To make matters worse, the indications are that it would be very hard for the Israeli air force, superb though it is, to pull the mission off. Thus, an analysis by two members of the Security Studies Program at MIT concluded that while "the Israeli air force now possesses the capability to destroy even well-hardened targets in Iran with some degree of confidence," the problem is that for the mission to succeed, all of the many contingencies involved would have to go right. Hence an Israeli attempt could end with the worst of all possible outcomes: retaliatory measures by the Iranians even as their nuclear program remained unscathed. We, on the other hand, would have a much bigger margin of error and a much better chance of setting their program back by a minimum of five or 10 years and at best wiping it out altogether.
The upshot is that if Iran is to be prevented from becoming a nuclear power, it is the United States that will have to do the preventing, to do it by means of a bombing campaign, and (because "if we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long") to do it soon.
When I first predicted a year or so ago that Mr. Bush would bomb Iran's nuclear facilities once he had played out the futile diplomatic string, the obstacles that stood in his way were great but they did not strike me as insurmountable. Now, thanks in large part to the new NIE, they have grown so formidable that I can only stick by my prediction with what the NIE itself would describe as "low-to-moderate confidence." For Mr. Bush is right about the resemblance between 2008 and 1938. In 1938, as Winston Churchill later said, Hitler could still have been stopped at a relatively low price and many millions of lives could have been saved if England and France had not deceived themselves about the realities of their situation. Mutatis mutandis, it is the same in 2008, when Iran can still be stopped from getting the bomb and even more millions of lives can be saved--but only provided that we summon up the courage to see what is staring us in the face and then act on what we see.
Unless we do, the forces that are blindly working to ensure that Iran will get the bomb are likely to prevail even against the clear-sighted determination of George W. Bush, just as the forces of appeasement did against Churchill in 1938. In which case, we had all better pray that there will be enough time for the next President to discharge the responsibility that Mr. Bush will have been forced to pass on, and that this successor will also have the clarity and the courage to discharge it. If not--God help us all--the stage will have been set for the outbreak of a nuclear war that will become as inescapable then as it is avoidable now.
Mr. Podhoretz is the editor-at-large of Commentary and author of "World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism" (Doubleday, 2007).
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NY Times: Caveat Lector
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MADRASA kojast?” Where is the religious school?
Leaving my hotel on the tree-shaded boulevard of Chahar Bagh Abbasi in Esfahan, Iran, I had ducked down a small lane just south of Takhti Junction, made a couple of turns, and gotten lost. I was trying to follow a seven-mile walking route recorded in my Lonely Planet guidebook — and nowhere else, it seemed, not on signs or on any local map — and wandered into a maze of alleys flanked by tawny walls.
A man repairing a motorcycle in a small garage smiled and gave me directions. “Madrasa,” he said, pointing to the right.
If you’re going to get lost, Esfahan (also spelled Isfahan), a city of 1.3 million about 200 miles south of Tehran in central Iran, is an extraordinary place to do it. There’s a centuries-old saying that Esfahan is “half the world,” meaning it contains fully half of the earth’s wonders.
Jean Chardin, a 17th-century French traveler, wrote that Esfahan “was expressly made for the delights of love”; in the 1930s, the British travel writer Robert Byron rated it “among those rarer places, like Athens or Rome, which are the common refreshment of humanity.”
I had arrived in Iran two weeks earlier, last May, considerably less venturesome and more anxious. “Excuse me, ma’am,” I sputtered in phrase book Farsi to the first person I met — a bearded soldier.
I knew only the news-report version of Iran: renegade developer of nuclear technology, member of the Axis of Evil, and mortal enemy of the Great Satan, the United States. I was hoping to learn what the country was actually like; I wanted to know how it would feel to be an American in Iran.
“Where are you from?” a German tourist asked on my first day in Tehran.
When I said, “The United States,” her eyes bulged. “Ssssh, I won’t tell,” she said.
Tehran didn’t dispel negative stereotypes, at least not at first. Braving streets jammed with pollution-spewing motorcycles and Paykan sedans, I walked under the watchful eye of my Iranian guide, who said that it would be dangerous for me to leave his sight. We passed a billboard showing the glaring visage of the Ayatollah Khomeini and reached the former United States Embassy. Site of C.I.A. plotting — including for the 1953 coup that installed the Shah — and of the 1979-81 hostage crisis, the compound is now a museum and historical site known as the Den of U.S. Espionage.
I walked past a painted slogan in rough English — “United States of America Ghods Occupier Regime Is the Most Hated State Before Our Nation”— and another that read “Down With USA.” A young man stood smiling in front of it. I snapped a photo; discreetly, or so I thought, but he ran down the sidewalk after me.
“I don’t hate America,” he said plaintively. “I love America.”
Nearly three decades after the Islamic Revolution, Iran is undergoing a quieter transformation, this one in tourism. Last July, a government official announced a worldwide campaign to boost tourism, with new tourist offices to be opened in 20 countries.
This closely followed the news that Iran would offer cash bonuses to travel agents who can attract certain categories of tourists, especially those from Europe and America. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, probably hoping to convey peaceful intentions, has even announced that foreign tourists will soon be able to visit the country’s controversial nuclear sites.
This charm offensive hasn’t translated yet to an easy process for Americans hoping to visit. Independent travel is all but impossible — you need a host, typically a commercial outfitter — and the wait for a visa often lasts several months. I traveled with the photographer Greg Von Doersten, and despite the fact that he made arrangements well in advance with a company called Iranian Mountain Guides, he was forced to travel to the Pakistan Embassy in Washington, which handles Iranian interests in America, on the morning of our flight to pick up our visas. He barely made it back to New York in time for our evening departure.
Iran has sprawling pre-Islamic ruins, mosques glittering with kaleidoscopic mosaics of tile, and cities that present both a stern theocratic face and a glitzier Western one set to a ring-tone soundtrack. Its deserts are vaster than those of the American Southwest, its mountains higher than the Rockies.
Our itinerary would take us from Tehran to the highest summit in the Middle East, 18,606-foot Mount Damavand, to Persepolis, the 2,500-year-old masterpiece of the Achaemenids, the first Persian Empire. The highlight of the entire trip, though, was the long walk I took in Esfahan.
After following the motorcycle mechanic’s directions, I stood before a set of hulking wooden doors with peeling paint and dangling chains. This was the entrance to the Madrasa-ye Nimurvand, a small school known for being friendly to foreign visitors.
Robed students with books under their arms crossed the leafy interior courtyard; there was a low murmuring of voices and pleasant chirping of birds. A mullah, his beard flecked with gray and his head wrapped in a white turban, walked by, and we wound up in an hourlong discussion through a translator.
The mullah, Abdullah Dehshan, didn’t shy away from asking meaty questions: Do you think Islam is violent? If you could have one wish for the world what would it be? Do you believe in God? Maybe, I said, but people often get in the way.
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Do we need priests, rabbis, mullahs? I asked him. Mullah Dehshan smiled at this theological softball. If you want to go to Shiraz, he said, you would need a car, a road and a map. It is difficult to reach a far-off destination without help. “And so it is with God,” he said.
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Leaving the madrasa, I followed an alley to the northeastern edge of the Grand Bazaar Bazaar, one of the country’s largest. Built primarily in the 16th century, with some parts dating back to A.D. 700, the covered passages extended for miles and presented a maze even more convoluted than the alleyways that had preceded it.
The ceiling was high and vaulted. Star-shaped portals admitted spears of sunlight that cut through dusty air. Vendors and their wares were crammed into tiny stalls, selling spices, jeans, toiletries, soft-serve ice cream and cheap plastic toys. The atmosphere was souk meets 99-cent store.
Many booths, however, sold the very sort of handmade crafts that one would hope to find: ornate Persian carpets, many woven by nomadic peoples like the Turkmen and Lors; finely painted miniatures depicting hunting trips and polo matches; lacquered vases and bowls; and copper, silver and gold platters.
The passage ahead grew brighter. I passed through the Qeysarieh Portal, a faded but still colorful fresco overhead showing Shah Abbas I battling the Uzbeks. Esfahan owes much of its greatness to Abbas, who, after driving the Ottoman Turks out of Persia in the 16th century, began an architectural campaign to glorify his new capital city. Abbas’s verdant gardens, glittering palaces, grand ceremonial square, arched bridges and resplendent mosques still stand and are easily connected on a walking tour — one from a guidebook or, even better, one of your own invention.
I emerged from the portal onto a grand plaza under brilliant sunshine. Measuring 1,680 feet long by 535 feet wide — over 20 acres —Iman Square is one of the largest plazas in the world, and holds what is possibly the most stunning assemblage of Islamic architecture. A procession of arched bays enclosed a grassy esplanade and long reflecting pool.
At the far south end, twin minarets guarded the towering alcove entryway to Imam Mosque, which was capped by onion-shaped domes. To the right was Ali Qapu Palace. Six stories high, it had thin wooden columns supporting a roof over the elevated terrace, the royal vantage point for watching the polo matches that were played below hundreds of years ago. To the left was the broad, colorful cupola of Sheik Lotfollah Mosque, dedicated to Abbas’s father-in-law.
Trotting horses towed carriages. Families picnicked on the grass. If a traveler had any lingering doubts about the hospitality of Iranians toward Americans, this was the place to dispel them. Making a new friend required no more effort than standing still for 30 seconds.
I was approached first by a trio of giggling girls in black chadors. Next came an older man who invited me to have tea with three of his friends. Everyone wanted to know why I had come to Iran, and wondered what people back home thought of this undertaking. They had a pretty good idea about the answer.
“People think that we are all religious extremists with nuclear weapons and beards down to our stomachs,” said a carpet vendor named Vahid Mousavifard. “But Iran is actually very safe for tourists.”
Many people wanted to talk politics, though this, I knew, was to be done with caution. Members of the secret police are known to circulate in crowds, I was told by a guide; visitors have been detained for saying the wrong thing.
The people I met, as one might expect, weren’t big fans of President Bush. “You have troops in Afghanistan and troops in Iraq,” one young man said. “How long before you invade Iran?”
But I also heard comments that could have been scripted by Karl Rove.
“In Iran we have no wine, no music, no dancing, no disco, no loving,” said a ranting middle-age neuroscientist. “We want your government. We want your freedom.”
The Imam Mosque is the larger of the two at Imam Square; Sheik Lotfollah is the more beautiful. Its tiled dome was covered by twirling black-and-white vines and turquoise flowers, a design with the precision more of fine china than of monumental architecture. A high, honeycombed arch known as an aivan, decorated with Koranic inscriptions and complex arabesques, capped the entryway.
Inside, a cool, dim passage led to a prayer sanctuary beneath the dome. Light filtered in through screened windows, revealing glass and tile mosaics even more colorful and elaborate than those outside.
Iranians are proud of these 17th-century monuments, as they are of much of Persia’s history over the millennia. In the course of my travels, people complained more frequently and vigorously about the American movie “300,” which was perceived to portray ancient Persia in an unflattering light, than about any contemporary political issue.
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In Shiraz, 225 miles south of Esfahan, I had met a young Iranian tour guide, Maziar Rahimi, who had just spent the day at Persepolis. “When I went there I saw how big we were back then and how small we are now,” he said.
He believed that there was great dissatisfaction with the current state of the country and that it was time to live up to the glories of the past.
“You see it everywhere,” he said. “The young women are wearing their scarves far back and more makeup. Change is coming.”
LATE one afternoon in Esfafahan, I strolled from Imam Square down to the Zayandeh River, which snakes through the heart of the city. Yet more of the legacy of Shah Abbas and his successors is on view there, a series of stunning old bridges spanning the broad, calm waterway. Following a path along the bank, I saw people spread out on blankets for picnic dinners, groups of laughing girls, even some couples boldly holding hands.
I reached the Si-o-Seh Bridge, the Bridge of 33 Arches. The sun was setting, and lights came on to fill each of the alcoves with a golden glow. Silhouetted figures gazed out from the portals.
Farther east, near the base of the Chubi Bridge, stood a small teahouse. The inside was packed with men sitting shoulder to shoulder smoking qalyans, or water pipes. Spotting the visitor, they squeezed even tighter to make room. A waiter brought tea, sugar and a qalyan. The smoke was sweet and rich; there was so much in the air that the people across the room were hazy.
The man on my right asked where I was from. “America,” I said.
The room got quieter. Everyone seemed to be looking my way. Then the man clapped my shoulder and smiled.
“Our governments are bad,” he said. “But the people are good.”
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The U.S.-Iranian Negotiations: Beyond the Rhetoric
February 12, 2008 | 1943 GMT
By George Friedman
Tehran has announced that Iran and the United States will hold a new round of talks on the future of Iraq at some point next week. The Iranians said that the “structure of the discussions have been finalized but the level of participation has not yet been agreed.” Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is expected to visit Iraq before March 20, the Iranian New Year. The United States has not denied either of these reports. There thus appears to be some public movement occurring in the U.S.-Iranian talks over Iraq.
These talks are not new. This would be the fourth in a series of meetings; the most recent meeting happened last August. These meetings have been scheduled and canceled before, and because who will attend this go-round remains unsettled, these talks may never get off the ground. More significant, no Iranian president has visited Iraq since the Khomeini revolution. If this visit took place, it would represent a substantial evolution. It also is not something that would happen unopposed if the United States did not want it to; by contrast, the Iraqi government lacks much of a say in the matter because it does not have that much room for maneuver. So we can say this much: Nothing has happened yet, but the Iranians have repositioned themselves as favoring some sort of diplomatic initiative from their side and the Americans so far have not done anything to discourage them.
U.S.-Iranian negotiations are always opaque because they are ideologically difficult to justify by both sides. For Iran, the United States is the Great Satan. For the United States, Iran is part of the Axis of Evil. It is difficult for Iran to talk to the devil or for the United States to negotiate with evil. Therefore, U.S.-Iranian discussions always take place in a strange way. The public rhetoric between the countries is always poisonous. If you simply looked at what each country says about the other, you would assume that no discussions are possible. But if you treat the public rhetoric as simply designed to manage domestic public opinion, and then note the shifts in policy outside of the rhetorical context, a more complex picture emerges. Public and private talks have taken place, and more are planned. If you go beyond the talks to actions, things become even more interesting.
We have discussed this before, but it is important to understand the strategic interests of the two countries at this point to understand what is going on. Ever since the birth of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Iraq has been the buffer between the Iranians and the Arabian Peninsula. The United States expected to create a viable pro-American government quickly after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and therefore expected that Iraq would continue to serve as a buffer. That did not happen for a number of reasons, and therefore the strategic situation has evolved.
The primary American interest in Iraq at this point is a negative one — namely, that Iraq not become an Iranian satellite. If that were to happen and Iranian forces entered Iraq, the entire balance of power in the Arabian Peninsula would collapse. Whatever the future of Iraq, U.S. policy since the surge and before has been to prevent a vacuum into which Iran can move. The primary Iranian interest in Iraq also is negative. Tehran must make sure that no Iraqi government is formed that is dominated by Sunnis, as happened under the Baathists, and that the Iraqi military never becomes powerful enough to represent an offensive threat to Iran. In other words, above all else, Iran’s interest is to avoid a repeat of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
Obviously, each side has positive goals. The United States would love to see a powerful, pro-American Iraqi government that could threaten Iran on its own. The Iranians would love to see a pro-Iranian government in Baghdad and the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. Neither side is in a position to achieve these goals. The United States cannot create a pro-U.S. government because the Iranians, through their influence in the Shiite community, can create sufficient chaos to make that impossible. Through the surge, the United States has demonstrated to the Iranians that it is not withdrawing from Iraq, and the Iranians do not have the ability to force an American withdrawal. So long as the Americans are there and moving closer to the Sunnis, the Iranians cannot achieve their positive goals and also must harbor concerns about the long-term future of Iraq. Each side has blocked the other’s strategic positive goal. Each side now wants to nail down its respective negative goal: avoiding the thing it fears the most.
Ever since the 2006 U.S. congressional midterm elections, when President George W. Bush confounded Iranian expectations by actually increasing forces in Iraq rather than beginning a phased withdrawal, the two countries have been going through a complex process of talks and negotiations designed to achieve their negative ends: the creation of an Iraq that cannot threaten Iran but can be a buffer against Iranian expansion. Neither side trusts the other, and each would love to take advantage of the situation to achieve its own more ambitious goals. But the reality on the ground is that each side would be happy if it avoided the worst-case scenario.
Again, ignoring the rhetoric, there has been a fairly clear sequence of events. Casualties in Iraq have declined — not only U.S. military casualties but also civilian casualties. The civil war between Sunni and Shia has declined dramatically, although it did not disappear. Sunnis and Shia both were able to actively project force into more distant areas, so the decline did not simply take place because neighborhoods became more homogeneous, nor did it take place because of the addition of 30,000 troops. Though the United States created a psychological shift, even if it uses its troops more effectively, Washington cannot impose its will on the population. A change in tactics or an increase of troops to 150,000 cannot control a country of 25 million bent on civil war.
The decline in intracommunal violence is attributable to two facts. The first is the alliance between the United States and Sunni leaders against al Qaeda, which limited the jihadists’ ability to strike at the Shia. The second is the decision by the Iranians to control the actions of Iranian-dominated militias. The return of Muqtada al-Sadr — the most radical of the Shiite leaders — to ayatollah school and his decision to order his followers to cease fire dramatically reduced Shiite-on-Sunni violence. That would not, and could not, have happened without Iranian concurrence. If the Iranians had wanted the civil war to continue unabated, it would have. The Iranians cannot eliminate all violence, nor do they want to. They want the Americans to understand that they can resume the violence at will. Nevertheless, without the Iranian decision to limit the violence, the surge would not have worked.
If the prime Iranian threat against the United States was civil war in Iraq, the prime American threat against Iran was an air campaign against Iranian infrastructure. Such a campaign was publicly justified by the U.S. claim that Iran was developing nuclear weapons. With the Iranians having removed the threat of overwhelming civil war in Iraq, the United States responded by removing the threat of an air campaign. The publication of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) stating that Iran does not have a nuclear program at present effectively signaled the Iranians that there would be no campaign.
There was intense speculation that the NIE was a “coup” by the intelligence community against the president. Though an interesting theory, not a single author of the NIE has been fired, none of the intelligence community leaders has been removed, and the president has very comfortably lived with the report’s findings. He has lowered the threat of war against Iran while holding open the possibility — as the NIE suggests — that the Iranians might still be a threat, and that a new NIE might require airstrikes.
The Iranians reduced Shiite violence. The United States reduced the threat of airstrikes. At various points, each side has tested and signaled to the other. The Iranians have encouraged small-scale attacks by Shia in recent weeks, but nothing like what was going on a year or two ago. During Bush’s trip to the region, the United States triggered a crisis in the Strait of Hormuz to signal the Iranians that the United States retains its options. The rhetoric remains apocalyptic, but the reality is that, without admitting it, each side has moved to lower the temperature.
Clearly, secret negotiations are under way. The announcement that an agreement was reached on the structure and subject of a public meeting this week by definition means that unpublicized conversations have been taking place. Similarly, the announcement that Ahmadinejad will be visiting Iraq could not have come without extensive back-channel discussions. We would suspect that these discussions actually have been quite substantial.
The Iranians have made clear what they want in these negotiations. Mottaki was quoted in the Iranian media as saying, “We did express our readiness for entering into negotiations with the U.S. when the talks were held by the five Security Council permanent members plus Germany over Iran’s nuclear program.” He also said that, “Revising its policies toward Iran, the U.S. can pave the way for us to consider the circumstances needed for such talks to be held.” Since talks are being held, it must indicate some movement on the American part.
It all comes down to this: The United States, at the very least, wants a coalition government in Iraq not controlled by Iran, which can govern Iraq and allow the United States to draw down its forces. The Iranians want an Iraqi government not controlled by the United States or the Sunnis, which can control Iraq but not be strong enough to threaten Iran. Iran also wants the United States to end sanctions against Iran, while the United States wants Iran to end all aspects of its nuclear program.
Ending sanctions is politically difficult for the United States. Ending all aspects of the nuclear program is difficult for Iran. The United States can finesse the sanctions issue by turning a blind eye to third powers trading with Iran and allowing U.S. companies to set up foreign subsidiaries to conduct trade with Iran. The Iranians can finesse the nuclear issue, maintaining limited aspects of the program but not pursuing all the technologies needed to build a weapon.
Rhetoric aside, we are therefore in a phase where there are ways for each side to get what it wants. Obviously, the political process is under way in both countries, with Iranian parliamentary elections on March 14 and the U.S. presidential race in full swing. Much domestic opposition is building up against Ahmadinejad, and an intensifying power struggle in Iran could be a fairly large distraction for the country in the short term. The Iranians also could wait a bit more to see how the U.S. presidential campaign shapes up before making any major decisions.
But then, a political process is always under way. That means the rhetoric will remain torrid; the public meetings few and low-key; the private discussions ongoing; and actions by each side sometimes inexplicable, keyed as they are to private discussions.
But it is clear from this week’s announcements by the Iranians that there is movement under way. If the Iranian president does visit Iraq and the United States makes no effort to block him, that will be the signal that some sort of accommodation has been reached. The United States and Iran will not recognize each other and will continue to condemn and even threaten each other. But this is truly a case where their rhetoric does not begin to reflect the reality.
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Mr. President, Don't Forget Iran
By CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
February 19, 2008; Page A19
Dear Mr. President: A few months ago, it became possible to hear members and supporters of your administration going around Washington and saying that the question of a nuclear-armed Iran "would not be left to the next administration." As a line of the day, this had the advantage of sounding both determined and slightly mysterious, as if to commit both to everything and to nothing in particular.
That slight advantage has now, if you will permit me to say so, fallen victim to diminishing returns. The absurdly politicized finding of the National Intelligence Estimate -- to the effect that Iran has actually halted rather than merely paused its weapons-acquisition program -- has put the United States in a position where it is difficult even to continue pressing for sanctions, let alone to consider disabling the centrifuge and heavy-water sites at Natanz, Arak and elsewhere.
Over the course of the next year, you will have to decide whether this question will indeed be left to become a problem for the succeeding administration. As matters now stand, the U.S. is in the not-unfamiliar position of appearing to be more bellicose than it actually is. The picture is complicated by the fact that, unlike Iraq in the past or North Korea today, Iran can boast quite an impressive "civil society" movement, which would like both to replace the current ramshackle theocracy and to adopt better and closer relations with the U.S.
In other words, Iran is running on two timetables. The first one -- the gradual but definite emergence of a democratization trend among the young and the middle class -- is something that we can gauge but not determine. The second one -- the process by which a messianic regime lays hold of the means to manufacture apocalyptic weaponry -- could move rather faster, and is partly designed in any case to insulate the mullahs from regime change.
Is it possible that these two apparently discrepant elements can be brought into a more, shall we say, synergistic relationship, and that the U.S. can regain the initiative that has (yet again!) been lost to it by the actions of its own intelligence bureaucracy? The answer is yes.
Consider our advantages. To begin with, all visitors to Tehran report an extraordinary level of sympathy with the U.S. among the general population. On my own visit to the country, I was astonished by the sheer number of people who had relatives overseas, and who wished they could join them. Most especially among the young, pro-American cultural and musical "statements" are as common as they were in Eastern Europe before 1989.
We have removed from power the two most hated enemies, not of the Iranian mullahs alone, but of the Iranian people. It is true that many Iranians feel nervous about having American forces on their Afghan and Iraqi frontiers, but it is equally true that our ability to demolish the Taliban and the Saddam Hussein tyrannies has greatly impressed many Iranians. Iranians are acutely aware of the backwardness of their country. Iran may be floating on a lake of oil, but still conducts much the same backward, rug-and-pistachio economy that it was operating when the mullahs seized power almost 30 years ago.
Changing my gear and tone a little, I want to mention another kind of advantage altogether. Iran is scheduled to suffer from a devastating earthquake in the very near future. Its capital, Tehran, is built on a cobweb of fault-lines: a predicament not improved by the astonishing amount of illegal and uninspected construction that takes place, thanks to corruption and incompetence, within its perimeter.
I want to underline what might be called a seismic imperative. A serious earthquake in Iran could wreak untold damage not just on the Iranian people but on their neighbors, and the clerical regime is doing nothing to prepare for this eventuality or to protect against it.
In the aftermath of the 2003 earthquake that rocked Bam, American search-and-rescue teams performed prodigies of valor and skill and became so popular locally that the news of their achievements had to be hushed up by the regime's less-than-perfect censorship. Consider, then, the "public diplomacy" impact of a serious public offer to Iran, made through international media and from the podium (so often usurped by the clownish Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) of the United Nations. The U.S. could propose the following: a commitment to help Iran protect its centers of population and its key installations against an earthquake. Along with the provision of expertise and advice would come a request for inspections of key facilities, especially those which might, if ruptured, pose a Chernobyl-type threat to neighboring countries.
At one stroke, this would make a strong appeal, on a matter of urgent material interest, to the general Iranian public. It would point a contrast between our priorities and those of the regime. And it would position us, before the fact, for something not unlike the well-improvised post-tsunami operation mounted by the U.S. Navy in Indonesia.
In the same speech it ought to be said that the U.S. and its allies -- committed as they are to assisting Iran to acquire a peaceful nuclear energy capability, and alarmed as they are by signs of a deceptive strategy in this regard -- would like to be sure that our negotiating partners truly represent the Iranian people. It could even be said that our intervention in Iraq, and the consequent liberation of the Shiites, will prove to have long-term positive consequences.
I have heard it argued that any carrot-shaped initiatives directed at Tehran constitute a reward for the regime's bad behavior, and might even encourage the harder-line mullahs to believe that their intransigence had paid off. But I don't think that this can be said for the proposals outlined above, which are directed at the Iranian people, and which in effect offer them considerable benefits in exchange for something that the majority of them appear to desire in any case, namely political and social transparency.
It's eternally fashionable in Washington (and elsewhere) to contrast "diplomatic" initiatives with "saber-rattling" ones. What this naïve dichotomy overlooks is the plain fact that without the known quantity of the American saber, few if any diplomatic movements would be possible. If the moment comes when you, Mr. President, feel that a "Nixon-in-China" initiative is required, and an offer of direct dealing with Iran and the Iranians is warranted, it will be important for you to find some telling words in which to phrase an acknowledgment of those facts.
The current period of suspended animation cannot be protracted indefinitely. In our own current election, every serious candidate has stated that the outcome of a nuclear theocracy is simply not acceptable. It will indeed need to be decided, and in the lifetime of your administration, whether we aim merely to negate that intolerable ambition, or whether we have the ingenuity to make this the occasion for a wider and deeper engagement, consummating the progress made in Iraq and Afghanistan and confirming it in the keystone society that lies between them.
Mr. Hitchens is a Vanity Fair columnist. An expanded version of this article first appeared in the Winter 2008 issue of World Affairs.
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Iran's Nuclear Threat
By ZALMAY KHALILZAD
March 4, 2008; Page A17
The United Nations Security Council has passed another resolution concerning Iran because its nuclear program is an unacceptable threat. Iran's violations of Security Council resolutions not only continue, but are deepening. Instead of suspending its proliferation-sensitive activities as the council has required, Iran is dramatically expanding the number of operating centrifuges and developing a new generation of centrifuges, testing one of them with nuclear fuel.
Once again, Iran has not made the choice the world had hoped for; once again, the Security Council has no choice but to act. At stake is the security of a vital region of the world, and the credibility of the Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency, as they seek to hold Iran to its nonproliferation commitments.
The latest report from the IAEA states that Iran has not met its obligation to fully disclose its past nuclear-weapons program. On the core issue of whether Iran's nuclear program is strictly peaceful, the report showed no serious progress.
The IAEA presented Iran with documents assembled over a period of years from multiple member states and the agency's own investigations. The documents detailed Iran's efforts to develop a nuclear warhead, including designs for a missile re-entry vehicle, and showed other possible undeclared activities with nuclear material.
Iran dismissed these documents as "baseless and fabricated." But the IAEA does not share that conclusion.
Instead of slogans and obfuscations, the international community needs answers from Iran. The international community must be able to believe Iran's declaration that its nuclear program is for exclusively peaceful purposes. Iranian leaders must as a first step fully disclose past weapons-related work, and implement additional safeguards to ensure no continuing hidden activities. We agree with the IAEA that until Iran takes these steps, Iran's nuclear program cannot be verified as peaceful.
The latest IAEA report also states that Iran is not suspending its proliferation-sensitive activities.
For almost two years now, the Security Council has required Iran to suspend all of its enrichment-related, reprocessing, and heavy water-related activities. I want to ask the Iranian leaders, "If your goal is to generate nuclear power for peaceful purposes, why do you court increasing international isolation, economic pressure and more, all for a purported goal more easily and inexpensively obtained with the diplomatic solution we and others offer?"
I want the Iranian people and others around the world to know that the United States recognizes Iran's right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. They should know that the five permanent members of the Security Council and Germany have offered to help Iran develop civil nuclear power, if it complies with the Security Council's demand -- a very reasonable demand -- to suspend enrichment. They should know that the package of incentives includes active international support to build state-of-the art light water power reactors, and reliable access to nuclear fuel.
Iran should do what other nations have done to eliminate any doubts that their nuclear program is peaceful. Many states have made the decision to abandon programs to produce a nuclear weapon. Two of them sit on the Security Council today: South Africa and Libya.
Other countries that have stepped away from past nuclear-weapon aspirations include Brazil, Argentina, Romania, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. These countries did not see their security diminished as a result of their decisions. Indeed, one could easily say their security has been enhanced. Nor did they lose their right to develop nuclear energy. We urge Iran to take the same path these other states have chosen.
The international community has good reason to be concerned about Iran's activities to acquire a nuclear-weapons capability. The present Iranian regime, armed with nuclear weapons, would pose a greater potential danger to the region and to the world.
The Iranian government has been a destabilizing force in the broader Middle East and beyond. Contrary to its statements, Iran has been funding and supporting terrorists and militants for operations in Lebanon, the Palestinian territories, Iraq and Afghanistan. Their lethal assistance has harmed countless innocent civilians. The president of Iran has made many reprehensible statements -- embracing the objective of destroying a member state of the United Nations.
Because of all these factors, the international community cannot allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons. If Iran continues down its current path, it would likely fuel proliferation activities in the region, which, in turn, could cause the demise of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty regime itself.
The U.S. remains committed to a diplomatic solution. If Iran shares this commitment, it will suspend its enrichment and reprocessing activities and let diplomacy succeed. We call on Iran to engage in constructive negotiations over the future of its nuclear program. Such negotiations, if successful, would have profound benefits for Iran and the Iranian people.
The message from the U.S. to the people of Iran is that America respects you and your great country. We want Iran to be a full partner in the international community. And as President Bush has said, if Iran respects its international obligations, it will have no better friend than the United States of America.
Mr. Khalilzad is U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.
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Irresolution on Iran
March 7, 2008; Page A14
The Bush Administration is hailing as a diplomatic triumph Monday's 14-0 Security Council resolution further sanctioning Iran for its nuclear programs. For its part, Tehran calls the U.N. action "worthless," and unfortunately the Iranians are closer to the mark.
For a resolution in the making for a year, it turns out to be an astonishingly hollow document. It adds a handful of names to the list of Iranians who are subject to travel bans and asset freezes. It calls on states to exercise "vigilance" in dealing with two Iranian banks -- Melli and Saderat -- implicated in Iran's nuclear programs, but falls short of sanctioning them. And it allows states to inspect Iranian-bound cargoes suspected of transporting prohibited items, but only if those cargoes are being moved by Iran's national air and shipping lines. Good luck enforcing that.
This is all the more remarkable given what the U.N.'s own inspectors at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are saying about Iran -- that is, the evidence on which the Security Council based its decision. In a report released late last month, the IAEA focuses on what it calls "alleged studies" Iran conducted on nuclear weapons development. For example, it notes Iranian studies of the "schematic layout of the contents of the inner cone of a re-entry vehicle," which the IAEA assesses "as quite likely to be able to accommodate a nuclear device."
Elsewhere, the report states that "during the meetings of 3-5 February 2008, the Agency made available documents for examination by Iran and provided additional technical information related to: the testing of high voltage detonator firing equipment; the development of an exploding bridgewire detonator (EBW); the simultaneous firing of multiple EBW detonators; and the identification of an explosive testing arrangement that involved the use of a 400 [meter] shaft and a firing capability remote from the shaft by a distance of 10 km, all of which the Agency believes would be relevant to nuclear weapon R&D."
Iran insists the documents are "fabricated," presumably by the Zionist conspiracy. Yet last week, IAEA Deputy Director General Olli Heinonen gave a technical briefing to IAEA member states in which he noted that the information on Iran "came from multiple member states and covered a wide range of activities," according to a U.S. official familiar with the briefing. The official added that Iran "was first confronted with questions on these weaponization activities in 2005, thus putting the lie to Iranian claims that it did not have sufficient time or opportunity to respond to the IAEA's inquiries."
Meanwhile, Iran continues to flout the Security Council's chief demand that it suspend its uranium enrichment program. The production of sufficient quantities of fissile material is one of three key components in any nuclear weapons program, a fact that was relegated to a footnote in December's U.S. National Intelligence Estimate claiming Iran had suspended its nuclear weapons program in the fall of 2003.
Nor did that NIE make any mention of Iran's ongoing ballistic missile programs, the second key component. Instead, its chief claim was that Iran had suspended work on weaponization, which by all expert accounts is the least challenging part of a nuclear-weapons program. The IAEA report does not make clear if its own information corroborates the NIE claim about the suspension of this work. But it is a fresh reminder that Iran almost certainly lied about its previous weapons work, and continues to lie today.
That alone ought to be reason for stepped up pressure on the Islamic Republic. Instead, the weakness of this week's resolution, though masked by the show of unanimity, demonstrates that the "international community" has reached the outer limit of what it is prepared to do to stop Iran from becoming the world's 10th nuclear-weapons state. There is no more juice to be squeezed out of this lemon.
It has now been nearly five years since the Bush Administration began pursuing a multilateral track on Iran, a course it has followed patiently nearly to the end of its term. That hasn't done much to assuage its usual critics, and it didn't prevent its own intelligence bureaucracy from torpedoing that diplomacy with the December NIE.
What it has done is give Iran vital time to develop its nuclear knowhow and technical skill, perhaps to a point of no return. For President Bush, whose signature promise has been that he would not allow the world's most dangerous weapons to fall into the hands of the most dangerous regimes, this is not a record to be proud of.
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Geopolitical Diary: Bush's Overtures to Iran and a Message to the American Public
April 11, 2008
In his speech on Thursday morning, U.S. President George W. Bush made two clear overtures to Iran, signaling that an agreement over Iraq is possible. The first came as a choice to Tehran, saying it “can live in peace with its neighbor, enjoy strong economic and cultural and religious ties, or it can continue to arm and train and fund illegal militant groups which are terrorizing the Iraqi people and turning them against Iran. If Iran makes the right choice, America will encourage a peaceful relationship between Iran and Iraq. If Iran makes the wrong choice, America will act to protect our interests and our troops and our Iraqi partners.”
The second overture split al Qaeda from Iran, saying “Iraq is the convergence point for two of the greatest threats to America in this new century — al Qaeda and Iran.”
These two messages show that the United States does not consider negotiations with Iran to be off-limits — as it does regarding talks with al Qaeda — and that if Iran cooperates (i.e. negotiates with the United States), the issue of Iraq could be settled peacefully to more or less the mutual satisfaction of both Washington and Tehran.
In testimony to the U.S. Senate on April 8, Gen. David Petraeus issued the same kind of message, saying that Iran had a choice on how the situation in Iraq would progress and leaving the door open for cooperation. However, Bush and Petraeus continued to make it very clear that the United States would punish Iran if it chose to continue to support elements of Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mehdi Army. Washington has by no means removed any threats of retaliation from the table. While the United States will pause its troop reductions in Iraq this summer to consolidate its gains and hedge its bets, the sustainment of the U.S. military force in Iraq will also resonate strongly in Tehran.
Bush and Petraeus’ statements seem to be responses to an Iranian Foreign Ministry announcement on April 8 that the United States wanted to start another round of talks with Iran. These negotiations have been taking place on and off for the past year. On April 7, al-Sadr announced that he might disband the Mehdi Army, which seems to indicate that Iran is willing to halt its violent meddling in Iraq – temporarily at least. And this might suggest that talks between Washington and Tehran are progressing.
However, too many deal-breakers are still on the table to call this conflict settled. Israel of late has issued warnings to Syria, Hezbollah and Iran and is conducting war exercises, suggesting that something is brewing in the Levant. Israel also is gearing up for an offensive against Hamas in Gaza. Another Mideast conflict in the midst of negotiations over Iran, while not necessarily devastating, would put a U.S.-Iranian deal in jeopardy. Meanwhile, the upcoming U.S. elections are looming: it would be in Iran’s best interest to reach a conclusion with Bush rather than try to negotiate a deal with an unknown quantity — the next American president.
Statements from Bush’s speech and in Petraeus’ testimony acknowledge that Iran is a significant stakeholder in Iraq. Without cooperation from the Iranians, Iraq has no chance of recovering. By insisting that the situation in Iraq has improved, Bush and Petraeus are implicitly saying that, so far, Iran is cooperating. Dual statements — despite all of their caveats — from the president and the U.S. commander in Iraq suggesting that Iran is cooperating with the United States is a significant improvement in rhetoric. This is a signal to Iran that Washington is willing to engage in a final settlement, and it is a signal to the American public to prepare for a more open dialogue between the two rivals. Progress with Iraq does not come without progress with Iran.
It will be interesting to watch Iran over the next few days to see how the leadership there responds to these overtures. More positive signals from Iran could mean that further negotiations are pending. The political situation between the United States and Iran is reflecting the situation on the ground — one that offers the opportunity of a tenable agreement over the future of Iraq.
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Interesting. I would rather have McCain negotiating this with a position of strength than Obama giving away the store with weakness.
"“Iraq is the convergence point for two of the greatest threats to America in this new century — al Qaeda and Iran.”
China is clearly the biggest threat we face.
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China is less of an immediate threat. Iran may well do things in the short term that scar the flow of history.
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http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0411/p99s01-duts.html
A new report by The Times of London says that satellite photographs of a site in Iran indicate the location is being used to develop a ballistic missile that could reach most of continental Europe.
The Times writes that the photographs show the launch site of a Kavoshgar 1 rocket that Iran tested on February 4. Tehran claimed that the rocket was intended to further a nascent Iranian space program, but The Times says that the photos suggest otherwise.
Analysis of the photographs taken by the Digital Globe QuickBird satellite four days after the launch has revealed a number of intriguing features that indicate to experts that it is the same site where Iran is focusing its efforts on developing a ballistic missile with a range of about 6,000km (4,000 miles).
A previously unknown missile location, the site, about 230km southeast of Tehran, and the link with Iran's long-range programme, was revealed by Jane's Intelligence Review after a study of the imagery by a former Iraq weapons inspector. A close examination of the photographs has indicated that the Iranians are following the same path as North Korea, pursuing a space programme that enables Tehran to acquire expertise in long-range missile technology.
Geoffrey Forden, a research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that there was a recently constructed building on the site, about 40 metres in length, which was similar in form and size to the Taepodong long-range missile assembly facility in North Korea.
The Times adds that the rocket launched from the facility in February was based on Iran's Shahab 3B missile, which is in turn based on North Korea's Nodong missile. Geoffrey Forden, a member of the UN team monitoring Iraq's weapons of mass destruction in 2002 and 2003, noted that while the test rocket did not indicate any significant advances in Iran's missile technology, the launch site had "very high levels of security and recent construction activity" and appeared to be "an important strategic facility."
If the Iranian facility is indeed developing a long-range ballistic missile, it would explain NATO's decision last week to move ahead with the missile shield program supported by the US. The Christian Science Monitor reported last week that the Bush administration scored a key success by persuading NATO to approve the missile shield, which is meant to protect against missiles like those that Iran is linked to.
NATO members all supported the US position on missile-shield defense, which is to be deployed in the Czech Republic and Poland. "There is a threat ... and allied security must be indivisible in the face of it," read the statement on missile defense.
But Iran has denied any hostile intent behind its rocket program. While Tehran has not yet commented on the Times report, after the February test of the Kavoshgar 1 rocket it stated its intent to use the technology for launching satellites, reported The New York Times.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad... said on state-run television: "We need to have an active presence in space. We witness today that Iran has taken its first step in space very firmly, precisely and with awareness."
Iran has said that it wants to put satellites into orbit to monitor natural disasters and to improve telecommunications, as well as for security reasons.
Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najar said Iran would launch its domestically made satellite, called Omid, meaning Hope, in June, Fars News reported.
But US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack called the launch "troubling," noting that "the kinds of technologies and capabilities that are needed in order to launch a space vehicle for orbit are the same kinds of capabilities and technologies that one would employ for long-range ballistic missiles."
Much of the concern of both the US and the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN's nuclear watchdog, stems from evidence found on a laptop stolen by an Iranian in 2004 and turned over to US intelligence services. Among other documents on the laptop, investigators found "drawings on modifying Iran's ballistic missiles in ways that might accommodate a nuclear warhead," reported The Washington Post in February. But the problem is proving that the documents are legitimate.
U.S. intelligence considers the laptop documents authentic but cannot prove it. Analysts cannot completely rule out the possibility that internal opponents of the Iranian leadership could have forged them to implicate the government, or that the documents were planted by Tehran itself to convince the West that its program remains at an immature stage....
British intelligence, asked for a second opinion, concurred last year that the documents appear authentic. German and French officials consider the information troubling, sources said, but Russian experts have dismissed it as inconclusive. IAEA inspectors, who were highly skeptical of U.S. intelligence on Iraq, have begun to pursue aspects of the laptop information that appear to bolster previous leads.
"There is always a chance this could be the biggest scam perpetrated on U.S. intelligence," one U.S. source acknowledged. "But it's such a large body of documents and such strong indications of nuclear weapons intent, and nothing seems so inconsistent."
Despite the possibility of Iran developing a long-range ballistic missile in time, Mr. Forden says that they likely still have a long way to go. ArmsControlWonk.com, a blog on WMDs and national security, cites Forden's observations about the flaws revealed by the February launch .
Iran's February 4th launch of a Shahab-3 just keeps on getting more and more interesting; that is if you are interested in just how good of a missile the Shahab/No'dong is. Video from Iran's television show that there is a failure of the missile's thrust vector control system nineteen seconds into its powered flight. At that point, there is a brief flaring at the very end of the missile and an object is seen flying off for several seconds, until it leaves the video's frame as the camera continues to follow the missile. Tellingly, it doesn't just drop off the missile but is given quite a transverse boost.
Forden says that the debris indicates that the missile's graphite jet vanes, used to steer the rocket in flight, are being "eaten away" by the rocket exhaust. Such a problem can knock a missile severely off course, he adds.
So what does this mean for missile proliferators in general and Syria and Iran (and North Korea since they are all involved in the development of these missiles) in particular? It means that they are still having a hard time producing graphite tough and pure enough to be used in large missiles. It also indicates that a top priority for their missile engineers will be to develop other thrust vector control mechanisms.
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An Iranian Oil Mystery
May 16, 2008 | 0200 GMT
Iran confirmed on Thursday that it has booked a supertanker to store up to 270,000 tons of crude oil for up to 90 days. The Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs) that Iran commissioned from Singapore-headquartered Tanker Pacific are expected to arrive in Iran the first week of June.
Iran already has more than 28 million barrels of oil floating in tankers outside its main export terminal in the Persian Gulf. The fleet of tankers storing this crude is owned by NITC, a subsidiary of state-owned oil firm National Iranian Oil Co. (NIOC), and has a capacity of more than 30 million barrels of crude — the equivalent of more than a week of Iran’s oil output.
There is something very wrong with this picture.
With oil prices soaring above $127 per barrel, any energy-producing country would be jumping at the opportunity to sell its crude and reap hefty profits. The Iranians, however, are choosing to store a huge bulk of their crude offshore in large tankers. Instead of making money off crude sales, Iran is expending loads of petrodollars to store nearly 30 million barrels of crude for weeks. Storing crude in offshore tankers for long periods of time is certainly not cheap.
So, what is Iran up to?
There are several possible explanations to Iran’s curious energy policy. Some energy analysts have speculated that Iran is holding out for a better market price to sell its oil. But with oil prices already hitting record highs, this explanation does not add up.
Another explanation is that the current policy is a result of the NIOC’s inferior management skills — which is certainly possible, given Iran’s poor track record in managing its investment-deprived energy sector. The intent behind such a policy would be for Iran to manipulate global crude prices by reducing exports and driving up demand.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad already threw around threats in recent days to cut Iranian oil output, sending jitters through the energy market that ended up pushing oil prices to $127 per barrel. From the standpoint of the Iranian Energy Ministry, the threats to reduce output combined with a reduction in exports could drive up prices further and allow the Iranians to get a better deal on their crude sales.
But it appears that the Iranians already tried this strategy — and failed — in the summer of 2006. Beginning in March of that year, the Iranian government issued threats that it would cut its crude production while storing around 20 million barrels of oil in tankers. But instead of selling at a higher price, the Iranians found that oil traders simply looked elsewhere to make up for the difference. In the end, the Iranians wound up selling the bulk of that crude at a major discount to Royal Dutch/Shell and India’s Reliance.
Moreover, Iran is highly unlikely to follow through with its threats of dropping crude output. The Iranians are already producing oil at capacity at 4.02 million barrels per day (bpd). With the Iranian oil sector accounting for approximately 80 percent of Iran’s total exports (with 12 percent of the country’s gross domestic product absorbed in energy subsidies), the country cannot afford to cut production and absorb the loss in income. Despite being the world’s fourth-largest oil producer, Iran is also the world’s second-largest importer of gasoline due to its faltering refining sector; and it is a major food importer. With food prices and inflation rising, Iran is all the more dependent on its oil revenues to maintain internal political stability, and it would be shooting itself in the foot if it took the hit of cutting its oil output.
The more likely reason behind Iran hoarding its oil is a drop in demand for Iranian crude — which spells far more serious consequences for the Islamic Republic.
Iran’s main oil export is a heavy crude that is difficult for refiners to convert into transport fuel. Most of the oil currently being stored off the Iranian coast comes from the Soroush and Nowruz fields, which produce approximately 190,000 bpd of low-quality, high-sulfur crude. Iran has already had a difficult time finding buyers for this heavy sour crude, but still is highly reluctant to cut the price down. The Iranians appear to have now reached a point where they have little choice but to take the hit in income and store the crude, in the hopes that demand for their product will rebound.
The main energy clients for Iranian crude include Japan, China, India, South Korea, Italy and other Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development nations. But as the global food crisis worsens and inflation rates continue to soar worldwide, these countries will be loath to put up with Iran’s high prices for low-quality crude.
Iran can easily disguise its energy woes with rhetoric on how it is punishing the West by cutting output and driving up global crude prices. These threats will continue to send a jolt through energy investors and bump up prices a notch or two. But Iran will have a much harder time reaping the benefits of high energy prices as long as its energy income is strained by a drop in demand for its crude. Oil is the backbone of the Iranian economy, and if Iran is resorting to storing up loads of crude in the Gulf for lack of buyers, its financial — and thus internal political — stability will soon be coming into serious question.
It’s important to remember that Iran has an incredibly delicate social stability index to manage, with only about 55 percent of its population composed of ethnic Persians. The remaining population is made up of ethnic minorities who are kept in check by Tehran through a combination of military force and heavy state subsidies. If it is already having trouble sustaining its oil exports — and its economic problems continue to worsen — Iran runs the risk of losing its ability to function as a state, much less an aggressive one.
Tell Stratfor What You Think
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http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/755cqpzu.asp?pg=1
Unintelligence on Iranian Nukes
Appalling gamesmanship at the CIA.
by Michael Rubin
02/25/2008, Volume 013, Issue 23
During his February 5 testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell backpedaled from the December 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) and its claim that, "in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program."
Not only did McConnell testify that the Islamic Republic was working to master the enrichment of uranium--"the most difficult challenge in nuclear production"--but he also acknowledged that, "because of intelligence gaps," the U.S. government could not be certain that the Iranian government had fully suspended its covert nuclear programs. "We assess with high confidence that Iran has the scientific, technical, and industrial capacity eventually to produce nuclear weapons," he testified. "In our judgment, only an Iranian political decision to abandon a nuclear weapons objective would plausibly keep Iran from eventually producing nuclear weapons--and such a decision is inherently reversible."
The NIE was no accident, and McConnell's pirouette does more than confirm the intelligence community's sloppiness. The 2007 NIE was built on geopolitical assumptions as much as any hard intelligence, and historians will deem it important not because it was accurate, but because it made utterly clear the collapse of the intelligence community. While the crudeness of its assault on the president's Iran policy makes it the best example of the intelligence community's agenda politics, it is far from the only one.
My initiation into CIA policy plays came less than a week after Baghdad's fall to coalition forces in April 2003. In the months before the war, U.S. government officials had assessed thousands of Iraqi political activists and technocrats in order to prepare to fill the Iraqi political -vacuum. Representatives from State, the Pentagon, and the National Security Council were meeting to vet invitations for the Nasiriya Conference where Iraqis would discuss post-liberation governance.
Rather than simply present the biographies of the various Iraqi figures, the CIA sought to be a privileged policy player. Its representative announced that not only would Langley be inviting its own candidates outside the interagency consensus, but the CIA would not be sharing the names or backgrounds of its invitees. Putting aside the ridiculousness of the CIA belief that it could invite delegates anonymously to a public conference, more troubling was the principle. Far from limiting its work to intelligence, the CIA leadership was unabashedly involving itself in major policy initiatives.
The reverberations of Langley's policy games haunted reconstruction. CIA officials would promise governorships to Iraqis without any coordination. Often, diplomats, military officials, and Pentagon civilians would learn of such deals only after other Iraqis had been appointed or elected to such offices. (Some U.S. servicemen surely paid the price as spurned Iraqis responded to what they saw as betrayal.) Once the son of a Kurdish leader remarked how ridiculous State-Defense bickering was when the CIA had implemented and funded a decision on the policy issue months before without any coordination whatsoever.
Many of the agency's senior analysts are arrogant after years behind their computers, believing they know far better what U.S. policy should be than the policymakers for whom they draft reports. The recourse of the disgruntled, bored, or politicized analyst is the leak--the bread and butter of any national security correspondent. Journalists who fulfill the leakers' objectives win ever more tantalizing scoops; those who maintain professional integrity and question the agenda behind any leak, find their access cut. The result is a situation in which journalists who might otherwise double-check sources, take a single intelligence analyst at his word, even if he is using them to fight a policy battle.
Iraq again provides a case study. In order to shield themselves from accountability over flawed intelligence or to bolster their Iraqi proxies at the expense of competitors, CIA officials provided a steady stream of leaks to favored correspondents like the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh or McClatchy's Warren Strobel. Such leaks ranged from allegations that the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans--a policy shop--was a rogue intelligence operation to misattributions of the provenance of prewar intelligence.
It was not uncommon, for example, to see false or exaggerated intelligence attributed to the Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmad Chalabi when it had actually come from Kurdish officials. This was never more clear than in a July 17, 2004, New York Times correction. The paper was retracting three stories which alleged a connection between Chalabi and an Iraqi source code-named Curveball, whose information later turned out to be bogus. The editors explained that their correspondent had "attribute[d] that account to American intelligence officials who spoke on condition of anonymity." They continued: "Those officials now say that there was no such established relationship." In other words, intelligence officials lied to a reporter to achieve a policy aim.
Such behavior is not limited to debates over policies impacting countries thousands of miles away. W. Patrick Lang, a former Defense Intelligence Agency official, told the American Prospect in 2005 that his intelligence community colleagues used leaks to try to influence the 2004 presidential election. "Of course they were leaking. They told me about it at the time. They thought it was funny. They'd say things like, 'This last thing that came out, surely people will pay attention to that. They won't reelect this man.' " The intelligence leadership did not refer the matter to the judiciary, unlike the leak concerning Valerie Plame.
To deflect criticism of the NIE, intelligence officials reached out to reporters. "Hundreds of officials were involved and thousands of documents were drawn upon in this report . . . making it impossible for any official to overly sway it," the Wall Street Journal was told. Wayne White, a former analyst in State's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, suggested it was "absolutely disgusting" that anyone could impugn the professionalism of lead author (and his former colleague) Thomas Fingar. This is disingenuous. Personnel are policy. Half of Washington's battles involve who writes the first and last drafts of any paper or memo.
McConnell's testimony undercut the idea that the intelligence agencies deserve a reputation for either professionalism or integrity. A tolerance for political gamesmanship has besmirched the entire community. With the NIE giving Iran what President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared its "greatest victory during the past 100 years," the consequence for U.S. national security is grave.
In the wake of the Iraq war, many Democrats accused the Bush administration of politicizing intelligence. It was a false charge, but good politics. But the fact is, the problem was the opposite: an intelligence community driven by the desire to conduct policy.
Michael Rubin, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, was an Iran country director at the Pentagon between September 2002 and April 2004.
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U.S. President George W. Bush on June 11 raised the possibility of a military strike against Iran to thwart the country’s presumed nuclear ambitions, The Associated Press reported. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, speaking to a crowd in the Iranian city of Shahr-e-Kord, said Bush would not be able “to harm even one centimeter of the sacred land of Iran.”
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I don't know how many times it becomes clear that only military force will work.
BO response IMO will be:
Iran is not a real threat to the US. They are not the Soviet Union. They have no intercontinental missles. I will be tough with them. People who are saying I can't protect the US are descending into personal attacks and disappoint me. I will protect us. I will send the police and an army of $600/hr liberal lawyers to talk some sense into them and out legaleeze them. We are a country built on 200 years of laws. What a joke. His scripted lines are getting so predictable and obnoxious.
We are apparently ready to repeat the same mistakes of history. And the young who are forever idealistic are not old enough to understand this though they think they are smarter. If I recall the line "youth is wasted on the young" was a line from *ancient* Greece. Some things never do change.
***Ahmadinejad says West failed in Iran nuclear crisis
Jun 19 06:54 AM US/Eastern
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Thursday the West has failed to break Iran's will in the nuclear standoff, days after world powers presented Tehran with a new offer aimed at ending the crisis.
"In the nuclear issue, the bullying powers have used up all their capabilities but could not break the will of the Iranian nation," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by state television.
World powers -- Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States -- on Saturday offered Tehran a new package of technological and economic incentives in exchange for suspending uranium enrichment activities.
The West fears the process might be used to make an atomic bomb although Iran insists it only wants to generate nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
Ahmadinejad's comments were his first statement on the nuclear crisis since the offer was presented but it was not clear if they represented a reaction to the proposal.
The Iranian government spokesman has already said Tehran will reject any offer demanding it suspends uranium enrichment.
The UN nuclear watchdog has been investigating Iran's nuclear drive for over five years but has never been able to conclude whether the programme is peaceful.
Iran has said it is examining the package but has so far showed no indication that it will change its defiant course in its nuclear drive.
Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency Ali Asghar Soltanieh ruled out on Wednesday that the country could freeze enrichment, saying: "Iran will never submit to such an illegal act."***
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http://hotair.com/archives/2008/06/22/europe-fears-obama-on-iran/
Europe fears Obama on Iran
POSTED AT 11:10 AM ON JUNE 22, 2008 BY ED MORRISSEY
One might think that Europe would welcome Barack Obama with open arms, but according to Glenn Kessler at the Washington Post, Obama has them worried. Key European allies fear a rupture between the US and the Continent if Obama attempts to waive the precondition of enrichment cessation in dealing with Iran. While they would like to see a heavier emphasis on team play rather than American hegemony, Obama’s insistence on cozying up to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is far out of step with the rest of the West:
European officials are increasingly concerned that Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign pledge to begin direct talks with Iran on its nuclear program without preconditions could potentially rupture U.S. relations with key European allies early in a potential Obama administration.
The U.N. Security Council has passed four resolutions demanding that Iran stop enriching uranium, each time highlighting the offer of financial and diplomatic incentives from a European-led coalition if Tehran suspends enrichment, a route to producing fuel for nuclear weapons. But Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has said he would make such suspension a topic for discussion with Iran, rather than a precondition for any negotiations to take place.
European officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said they are wary of giving up a demand that has been so enshrined in U.N. resolutions, particularly without any corresponding concessions by Iran. Although European officials are eager to welcome a U.S. president promising renewed diplomacy and multilateralism after years of tensions with the Bush administration, they feel strongly about continuing on the current path.
Obama’s response? Dr. Susan Rice told the Post that Europe has failed, and a new approach was needed. That ought to kick-start a new era in American diplomacy, eh?
While Europe may not care for the Bush administration’s tendency towards saber-rattling, they do not prescribe to the nonsense that dropping the precondition for ending enrichment would somehow make the Iranians more likely to stop. The EU has been on the front line of this issue for several years, and they have first-hand experience with Iranian lies and double-dealing. They understand that it will take a strong, united, and dominant front to force the Iranians into retreat on uranium enrichment.
At the moment, Europe has its hands full in pushing Russia and China into recognizing this, even with the US on board. An Obama presidency would put the US in a position even softer than that of Russia and China and give the Iranians a breath of fresh air. Obama’s team says such talks would provide the US with more leverage against Iran, but never quite explain how that would work. Supposedly, failed talks at the presidential level would prompt tougher sanctions from Russia and China, but why would they agree to that when their own failed talks with their own client did not? Why would they act tougher when the West acts weaker?
What Europe fears is the Chamberlain effect. When a leader of a democracy gets elected on a peace platform and then meets with the head of hostile states, a tremendous pressure for success grows until the democratic leader starts bargaining to show some kind of victory. After all, if Obama walked away from Ahmadinejad empty handed, he’d look like a buffoon. Ahmadinejad would have little pressure to produce anything from such a meeting, except to remain obstinate.
Europe likes to remind people that the preconditions of cessation are European demands, not American, although the US has supported it wholeheartedly. Obama’s insistence on dropping this precondition in order to score PR points with MoveOn and Ahmadinejad looks a lot less like multilateralism and much more like cowboy diplomacy than anything Bush has done on Iran thus far. If Obama is to Europe’s left on Iran, what does that say about his foreign policy?
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http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,370164,00.html
EU Approves Sanctions Against Iran's Largest Bank
Monday, June 23, 2008
BRUSSELS, Belgium — European Union nations approved new sanctions against Iran on Monday, including an assets freeze of the country's biggest bank.
The Bank of Melli is suspected of providing services to Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs and, in a similar move, was blacklisted by the United States last year.
The EU said it will also announce Tuesday additional financial and travel sanctions — effective immediately — on several Iranian companies and "senior experts" linked to Tehran's nuclear program.
The 27-nation bloc is also studying sanctions against Iran's oil and gas sector — but such a step would probably take several months to implement, diplomats say.
Monday's sanctions were formally adopted without debate at the beginning of EU talks in Luxembourg. EU leaders agreed on the measure at talks in Brussels on Friday.
Western nations fear Iran's uranium enrichment program could be used to make a nuclear bomb. Iran insists its enrichment work is intended to produce fuel for nuclear reactors that would generate electricity and has vowed to push ahead with uranium enrichment.
The EU's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, held unsuccessful talks with Iranian officials in Tehran last week in the latest diplomatic overture aimed at convincing them to accept an offer of economic incentives in return for an end to its uranium enrichment program.
In Tehran, independent analyst Saeed Laylaz said the freezing of Bank Melli's assets would lead to the Iranian economy becoming more isolated and more dependent on Chinese products.
But he suggested President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad might stand to benefit. Targeting Iran "drives inflation up," Laylaz said, "but it helps Ahmadinejad's government hide its failures behind the sanction."
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In Bolton's opinion:
"An Obama victory would rule out military action by the Israelis because they would fear the consequences given the approach Obama has taken to foreign policy," said Mr Bolton, who was Mr Bush's ambassador to the UN from 2005 to 2006."
***Israel 'will attack Iran' before new US president sworn in, John Bolton predicts
By Toby Harnden in Washington
Last Updated: 9:50AM BST 24/06/2008
John Bolton, the former American ambassador to the United Nations, has predicted that Israel could attack Iran after the November presidential election but before George W Bush's successor is sworn in.
John Bolton, the former American ambassador to the United Nations
PA
Bolton: 'the argument for military action is sooner rather than later'
The Arab world would be "pleased" by Israeli strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, he said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph.
"It [the reaction] will be positive privately. I think there'll be public denunciations but no action," he said.
Mr Bolton, an unflinching hawk who proposes military action to stop Iran developing nuclear weapons, bemoaned what he sees as a lack of will by the Bush administration to itself contemplate military strikes.
Article continues
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"It's clear that the administration has essentially given up that possibility," he said. "I don't think it's serious any more. If you had asked me a year ago I would have said I thought it was a real possibility. I just don't think it's in the cards."
Israel, however, still had a determination to prevent a nuclear Iran, he argued. The "optimal window" for strikes would be between the November 4 election and the inauguration on January 20, 2009.
"The Israelis have one eye on the calendar because of the pace at which the Iranians are proceeding both to develop their nuclear weapons capability and to do things like increase their defences by buying new Russian anti-aircraft systems and further harden the nuclear installations .
"They're also obviously looking at the American election calendar. My judgement is they would not want to do anything before our election because there's no telling what impact it could have on the election."
But waiting for either Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate, or his Republican opponent John McCain to be installed in the White House could preclude military action happening for the next four years or at least delay it.
"An Obama victory would rule out military action by the Israelis because they would fear the consequences given the approach Obama has taken to foreign policy," said Mr Bolton, who was Mr Bush's ambassador to the UN from 2005 to 2006.
"With McCain they might still be looking at a delay. Given that time is on Iran's side, I think the argument for military action is sooner rather than later absent some other development."
The Iran policy of Mr McCain, whom Mr Bolton supports, was "much more realistic than the Bush administration's stance".
Mr Obama has said he will open high-level talks with Iran "without preconditions" while Mr McCain views attacking Iran as a lesser evil than allowing Iran to become a nuclear power.
William Kristol, a prominent neo-conservative, told Fox News on Sunday that an Obama victory could prompt Mr Bush to launch attacks against Iran. "If the president thought John McCain was going to be the next president, he would think it more appropriate to let the next president make that decision than do it on his way out," he said.
Last week, Israeli jets carried out a long-range exercise over the Mediterranean that American intelligence officials concluded was practice for air strikes against Iran. Mohammad Ali Hosseini, spokesman for the Iranian foreign ministry, said this was an act of "psychological warfare" that would be futile.
"They do not have the capacity to threaten the Islamic Republic of Iran. They [Israel] have a number of domestic crises and they want to extrapolate it to cover others. Sometimes they come up with these empty slogans."
He added that Tehran would deliver a "devastating" response to any attack.
On Friday, Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency, said military action against Iran would turn the Middle East into a "fireball" and accelerate Iran's nuclear programme.
Mr Bolton, however, dismissed such sentiments as scaremongering. "The key point would be for the Israelis to break Iran's control over the nuclear fuel cycle and that could be accomplished for example by destroying the uranium conversion facility at Esfahan or the uranium enrichment facility at Natanz.
"That doesn't end the problem but it buys time during which a more permanent solution might be found.... How long? That would be hard to say. Depends on the extent of the destruction."***
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http://wcbstv.com/national/israel.iran.attack.2.755478.html
IAEA Chief: Iran Could Make Nuke In 6 Months
CBS News Interactive: About Iran
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (CBS) ― The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said Iran could create a nuclear weapon in six months.
IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei spoke on Al-Arabiya television on June 20, discussing Iran's nuclear program, and the potential for the Middle Eastern country to produce a nuclear weapon.
"If Iran wants to turn to the production of nuclear weapons, it must leave the NPT, expel the IAEA inspectors, and then it would need at least, considering the number of centrifuges and the quantity of uranium Iran has...It would need at least six months to one year," ElBaradei said.
"Therefore, Iran will not be able to reach the point where we would wake up one morning to an Iran with a nuclear weapon," he said.
His interviewer then asked "If Iran decides today to expel the IAEA from the country, it will need six months to produce [nuclear] weapons?"
The IAEA chief answered, "It would need this period to produce a weapon, and to obtain highly-enriched uranium in sufficient quantities for a single nuclear weapon."
The ElBaradei interview was conducted one day after reports emerged of a large-scale military exercise by Israel.
U.S. officials said they thought the Israeli exercises were meant to warn Iran of Israel's abilities to hit its nuclear sites.
ElBaradei also warned that he will resign as chief of the UN nuclear agency if Iran is attacked by any country.
"I always think of resigning in the event of a military strike...If military force is used, I would conclude that there is no mechanism left for me to defend," he said.
"The reports this week of Israeli military maneuvers, which took place in early June, provoked the IAEA warning," said CBS News Foreign Affairs Pamela Falk, who is based at the U.N., "because atomic energy chief ElBaradei has been pleading with Iran to accept a new package of incentives before another round of sanctions would be imposed."
"The problem in the region is that, as time passes and the clock is ticking on Iran's uranium enrichment program, there is a fear that Israel will act, as it did in Syria last year, to attack at least one of Iran's nuclear facilities," said Falk, who was in Saudi Arabia earlier this week.
"Israel is evidently the most threatened by the last IAEA report, which concluded that there are unanswered questions about Iran's ability to eventually develop nuclear weapons," said Falk, "so it is elBaradei himself who produced the report that is making Israel nervous."
Meanwhile, Iran is reiterating its decision to continue enriching uranium, calling Western pressure to suspend the work "illogical."
The statement by a government spokesman came as Europe waits for Iran's formal answer to an international package of incentives designed to rein in its nuclear program.
Iran's official IRNA news agency quoted Iranian spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham on Saturday as saying that his country will respond to the package at a convenient time.
The package would give Tehran economic incentives, and the chance to develop alternate light-water reactors, in return for dropping the uranium enrichment.
(© 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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Its Seymour Hersh, so super caveat lector.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh?currentPage=all
Normally I like to post the content in addition to the URL, but this one is just too long for that.
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**If you see a story with a Seymour Hersh byline, assume that it's weakly sourced and has been spun like cotton candy to fit his very obvious agenda.**
http://michellemalkin.com/2008/06/29/are-we-doing-cloak-and-dagger-stuff-in-iran/
Are we doing cloak and dagger stuff in Iran?
By see-dubya • June 29, 2008 03:14 PM
Well, DUH, I hope so. But it’s not like they tell everybody this stuff, you know. It’s supposed to be a secret.
Seymour Hersh, however, would have us believe a whole bunch of anonymous military, intel, and political people are eager to confirm to him that we’re doing something new and secret over there.
You could read the whole New Yorker article, but why bother? Hersh says a lot of nutty things–usually things that can’t be proven and are never proven. Here’s a Fox News summary instead, and I like this White House response:
The White House did not comment on the article. And one administration official, who asked not to be identified, dismissed the piece: “We’ve declined comment on Hersh’s quarterly articles. You can almost tell time by them.”
The thing about Hersh’s rambling is that if Iran believes it, they could crack down on those minority groups and dissidents that Hersh claims we’re funding. And Iran isn’t exactly bound by Boumediene v. Bush in their interrogations, you know?
For that matter, if there is any truth to what Hersh has written, it may compromise operations enough that we have to go to Plan B.
I hope it was worth it, Sy.
UPDATE: More on “Plan B” at Israel Insider.
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U.S. President George W. Bush issued a highly classified presidential finding in late 2007 approving the initiation of covert operations focused on “undermining Iran’s nuclear ambitions and trying to undermine the government through regime change,” according to a July 7 article in The New Yorker by Seymour Hersh. Congressional leaders reportedly have been informed of the finding, and approved up to $400 million dollars to fund the operation.
This is, of course, explosive news. What is explosive is not that the United States is spending money on covert operations in Iran, but that someone has leaked a highly classified document to a reporter. The secret is now out; indeed, it was released before the article’s publication date. Hersh said only that the person who gave him the information was familiar with the document’s contents. This means his source is a person with extraordinarily high, code-named clearance — not to mention a criminal.
We would expect the Bush administration to be launching multiple investigations to find the leaker. If he is a Republican or a member of the administration or the intelligence community, then massive damage control is essential. If he is a Democrat who leaked (or an official of an agency deemed unfriendly to the administration), the incident represents a political opportunity. Everyone who had access to that document should be attached to a polygraph right now. Washington should have been in turmoil all weekend.
It wasn’t. Aside from some desultory comments, no one seems terribly upset that a major covert operation has been uncovered in the press and thereby crippled.
We are certain that a journalist of Hersh’s stature, writing for a respected publication like The New Yorker, did not make his story up. Since arrests are not pending, we can only conclude that the information was deliberately leaked to Hersh by the administration. This would not be the first time Hersh has been used as a channel by administration leakers. In 2006, he reported that the administration was carrying out covert operations in Iran for roughly the same end. Hersh is not friendly to the administration to say the least. A story by him carries great credibility because it appears to be an authentic scoop by a major journalist revealing things the administration doesn’t want revealed. Such a story therefore increases the sense of uncertainty in Iran substantially more than if a minor, pro-administration journalist published it. As we have pointed out in the case of the Mediterranean air exercises by Israel, the United States and Israel are intent on increasing the psychological pressure on Iran. This story fits into that pattern.
The only thing interesting in the story is the idea that until late 2007 there had been no presidential finding and the United States was not engaged in covert operations in Iran to disrupt Iran’s nuclear program and foment regime change. Given the administration’s stance on Iran, it is unthinkable that the intelligence community would not have been running operations in Iran for years focused on just these things. Stratfor has regularly reported on various bombings in the southwestern Arab regions of Iran as well as in Sistan-Balochistan, noting that these would be likely areas to foment unrest.
The latest finding could be an intensification in operations, but the authorization to spend up to $400 million to mess with the Iranians is really not all that much money — especially since that is the cap, and the time frame for expenditures isn’t authorized. But as Hersh made clear in 2006, operations already were under way, meaning a finding had to have been in place.
With all due respect to Mr. Hersh and The New Yorker, this is a report on the obvious. The United States regards Iran as a major target for covert operations, urgently wants to know everything it can about Iran’s nuclear facilities and would love to overthrow the Iranian government. A few hundred million, even on a long shot, is the least the United States would throw at this. As for a finding in late 2007, we do not know where the bureaucratic process is right now, but there have been presidential findings on covert operations in Iran for almost thirty years. Still, the details the administration has decided to make available to The New Yorker via Hersh should make worthwhile reading.
The important point is that unless there has been a massive breach of security, the administration has again acted to increase tensions with Iran — and this just a week after floating the idea of increased diplomatic ties with Iran and about ten days since leaking the report on the Israeli exercises. Since this article has been in preparation for weeks or months, and its publication date has not been under administration control, it remains unclear where in the sequence this leak was intended. But psychological warfare with Iran seems the order of the day, and this article is clearly part of it.
Our read of course might be wrong. Grand juries might be convening as we write and the FBI could be ranging all over D.C. taking statements from everyone with access to covert U.S. plans in Iran. But until that happens, we look at this as another attempt to make the Iranians feel insecure.
Tell Stratfor What You Think
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Stratfor gives Hersh more credit than I do. It wouldn't surprise me to find his source is made up and he's inventing things, as NY Times reporters have a history of doing.
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I find it hard to believe Stratford's interpretation.
It doesn't add up. You mean to tell me the administration would deliberately leak that they are performing politically sensitive covert operations in Iran and Pakastan?
The last thing Bush needs to do is create more fodder for the crats.
Also this puts American lives at risk. I don't believe Stratford's interpretation is true. This doesn't put pressure on Iran IMO.
I think it more likely Hersh has an either idealogue (crat and/or dove) or bribed mole somewhere giving him information. I also doubt he is making it up.
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I too wonder if Strat is a bit too in love with a particular theory about what's going on to see this for what it is.
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Geopolitical Diary: The Economic and Political Effects of an Iranian Threat
July 2, 2008
The rumors and denial of rumors continue to swirl around Iran. Endless leaks of decisions made by the United States and/or Israel to strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities continue. In the latest variants, Americans warned that Israel might already have decided to attack Iran, with the date set sometime between the U.S. election and Inauguration Day. Or it might be the Americans attacking. It is not clear what effect this is having on Iran, but it is certainly making others players nervous, not the least of which are the oil markets.
There is an important interaction going on between two geopolitical elements. One is the attempt by Israel and the United States to force the Iranians to capitulate on the nuclear issue by convincing them that an attack is inevitable if they don’t. The other is the impact of oil prices on the global economy and thereby on international power relations. An attack on Iranian nuclear facilities would obviously spike oil prices. The real question would be whether that spike in prices would last and how high it would go. The answer to that question rests in what the Iranians would do in response. The Iranians have now been duly warned that an attack is coming. One would think that they have considered their response.
The obvious response, if the Iranians are capable of it, would be to block the Strait of Hormuz, through which Saudi and Kuwaiti oil flows to the world markets. The obvious means for this, as we discussed in an analysis Tuesday, would be to mine the Strait. That might not be as easy as it appears, since the U.S. Navy could deploy in the Strait en masse and block any Iranian ship that might try to approach the channel. But the Iranians would likely retain the ability to mine parts of the Persian Gulf itself. Iran has a long coast and a lot of small boats. It wouldn’t take much to scatter mines.
Most importantly, it would not have to be effective. The mere possibility of mines — the uncertainty factor — would not only slow down the movement of tankers in the Gulf, but also spike insurance rates. Tankers cost a lot of money and their cargoes these days are incredibly expensive. Risking both ship and cargo is not something tanker owners like to do. They buy insurance. If the possibility of mines in the Gulf existed, insurance rates would not only rise, but might become altogether unavailable. Insurance and re-insurance companies these days do not have enormous appetites for unpredictable risk involving large amounts of money. And without insurance, as we saw during the tanker wars in the 1980s, owners won’t take the risk themselves.
Iran’s counter could be to increase the potential risk to the point where insurers back off. At that point, governments would have the option of insuring tankers themselves. Given how quickly governments move, particularly in what would have to be an international undertaking, oil supplies could be disrupted for days or even weeks. At this point, speculators and psychology aside, prices would spike dramatically. The creaking sound would turn into a cracking sound for the world economy.
Herein lies the fear for markets. The longer the psychological warfare goes on, the more nervous they will become and the more pressure there will be on the global economy. The thought of this going on until after the November election may or may not panic the Iranians. But it is certainly worrying the markets at a time when the markets should be calmed. It is hard to figure out whether months of uncertainty or rapid action would have more soothing results.
Conducting an extended psychological campaign against Iran makes complete politico-military sense. It does not make politico-economic sense. It creates a massive unknown in a situation where no action may actually be taken. Here is the problem. It is clear that Israel and the United States don’t really want to attack Iran. If they wanted that, they would shut up and do it. But that’s a guess. So the markets must take into account a possible attack and an Iranian counter. Hitting Iran fast, taking the hit and then calming the markets by showing that the Iranians can’t disrupt tanker traffic makes more sense from an economic standpoint than constantly creating unknowns.
The problem is that neither Israel nor the United States is certain that Iran can’t disrupt tanker traffic. And they don’t want Iran to have nuclear weapons. Some decisions have to be made. Attack, don’t attack — but stop threatening to attack.
stratfor
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Its Reuters, so caveat lector:
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July 8, 2008
Iran Says Will Hit Tel Aviv And U.S. Ships if Attacked
By REUTERS
Filed at 1:43 p.m. ET
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran will hit Tel Aviv, U.S. shipping in the Gulf and American interests around the world if it is attacked over its disputed nuclear activities, an aide to Iran's Supreme Leader was quoted as saying on Tuesday.
"The first bullet fired by America at Iran will be followed by Iran burning down its vital interests around the globe," the students news agency ISNA quoted Ali Shirazi as saying in a speech to Revolutionary Guards.
The United States and its allies suspect Iran is trying to build nuclear bombs. Tehran says its program is peaceful.
Leaders of the Group of Eight rich countries expressed serious concern at the proliferation risks posed by Iran's nuclear program.
In a statement issued after G8 leaders met in Hokkaido, northern Japan, the grouping urged Tehran to suspend all enrichment-related activities.
"We also urge Iran to fully cooperate with the IAEA," the G8 said, referring to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said earlier that major world powers had decided to send European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana to Iran for talks on an incentives package they offered last month to induce Tehran to change its nuclear policy.
Sarkozy did not say when Solana would travel to Tehran. Iran formally replied on Friday to the offer by the United States, France, Britain, China, Russia and Germany.
France said Iran's response had ignored the world powers' demand for a suspension of uranium enrichment before talks on implementing the package -- a condition rejected on Monday as "illegitimate" by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
'GREAT HOPE'
In Prague, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said there were ways that Iran might wish to talk with Solana or others in order to get that suspension to take place.
"I did speak with Javier Solana yesterday. He is in contact with his Iranian counterpart and it's our great hope that the Iranians will avail themselves of this opportunity to get on the right side of the international community."
Shirazi's comments intensified a war of words that has raised fears of military confrontation and helped boost world oil prices to record highs in recent weeks.
"The Zionist regime is pressuring White House officials to attack Iran. If they commit such a stupidity, Tel Aviv and U.S. shipping in the Persian Gulf will be Iran's first targets and they will be burned," Shirazi was quoted as saying.
Shirazi, a mid-level cleric, is Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's representative to the Revolutionary Guards.
In Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's spokesman, Mark Regev, declined to comment on the threat to hit Tel Aviv, saying only: "Shirazi's words speak for themselves."
Israel, believed to be the Middle East's only nuclear-armed power, has vowed to prevent Iran from acquiring an atomic bomb. The United States says it wants to resolve the dispute by diplomacy but has not ruled out military action.
In April, Israel's Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, who is a former army general and defense minister, told Israeli media: "An Iranian attack will prompt a severe reaction from Israel, which will destroy the Iranian nation."
'VERY SCARY'
Tel Aviv is an Israeli coastal metropolis hit in 1991 by Scud missiles launched by former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein during a U.S.-led war with Baghdad.
"I think it is very scary what they are saying," said Roy Katalan, holding his infant daughter in his arms on a Tel Aviv beach. "I think we should take him (Shirazi) seriously."
The latest Iranian threats had little impact on financial markets in Israel. "This has no relevance on dollar-shekel trade. I assume if we see a strike, there will be a reaction," said Neil Corney, treasurer for Citigroup's office in Tel Aviv.
Oil tumbled to below $136 on Tuesday, dropping by about $10 this week on a stronger dollar and eased concern over an Atlantic hurricane. Oil had hit a record $145.85 last week on tensions over Tehran's nuclear ambitions and worries a brewing storm could hit oil fields in the Gulf of Mexico.
Iran has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz if it comes under attack. About 40 percent of globally traded oil moves through the Gulf waterway.
In Washington, the U.S. Treasury designated four Iranian firms and four individuals on Tuesday for their ties to Iran's nuclear and missile programs, a move that bans U.S. companies from dealing with them and freezes any assets they may have under U.S. jurisdiction.
The Revolutionary Guards' commander of artillery and missile units, Mahmoud Chaharbaghi, said 50 brigades of his forces had been equipped with what he called smart cluster munitions.
"All our arms, bullets and rockets are on alert" to defend Iranian territory, Hemayet daily quoted him as saying.
U.S. and British naval forces wrapped up military exercises in the Gulf and said they were unrelated to tensions with Iran. The Bahrain-based U.S. Fifth Fleet said "Exercise Stake Net" took place in the central and southern Gulf and was part of training aimed at protecting the region's oil infrastructure.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world...=1&oref=slogin
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Iran's Missile Threat
July 10, 2008; Page A14
Talk about timing, perhaps fortuitous. On Tuesday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was in Prague signing an agreement that's a first step toward protecting Europe from ballistic missile attack. As if on cue, Tehran yesterday tested nine missiles, including several capable of reaching southern Europe, as well as Israel and U.S. troops stationed in the Middle East. Remind us. Who says Iran isn't a threat?
The chief naysayer is Moscow, which continues to insist that the planned U.S.-led missile defense for Europe is aimed at defeating Russian missiles, not Iranian ones. This was Vladimir Putin's line, and the new Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, picked it up yesterday, saying that the antimissile system "deeply distresses" Russia and is a threat to its national security. The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement warning that if the system is deployed, "we will be forced to react not with diplomatic, but with military-technical methods." Good to see the Russians haven't lost their subtle touch.
No one in that neighborhood – least of all the Russians – actually believes Iran's missile program is anything but dangerous. Russians talk privately about the Iranian threat, and it's not hard to imagine a scenario whereby Tehran shares a missile – and perhaps a nuclear warhead – with its brother Muslims in Chechnya.
In any case, Washington's proposed antimissile system for Europe is designed to defend against one or two missiles launched from Iran, not against the thousands of missiles in the Russian arsenal. It would include a tracking radar in the Czech Republic and 10 interceptors in Poland (or perhaps Lithuania, if the Poles can't get their act together). Russia's claim that this highly limited defense poses a threat to its nuclear deterrence is absurd.
Yesterday's tests offered no big surprises about Iran's missile technology, but they are a useful reminder of just how real the Iranian threat is – and how rapidly it is growing. One of the missiles tested was the latest update of the Shahab-3, which has a range of about 1,250 miles.
Replace the payload with a lighter one – say, a nuclear warhead – and the range gains 1,000 miles. Add a booster and the range can be extended even farther. North Korea did just that with its Taepodong missile – technology that it passed along to Iran. U.S. intelligence estimates that Iran will have a ballistic missile capable of reaching New York or Washington by about 2015.
Iran may already have the capability to target the U.S. with a short-range missile by launching it from a freighter off the East Coast. A few years ago it was observed practicing the launch of Scuds from a barge in the Caspian Sea.
This would be especially troubling if Tehran is developing EMP – electromagnetic pulse – technology. A nuclear weapon detonated a hundred miles over U.S. territory would create an electromagnetic pulse that would virtually shut down the U.S. economy by destroying electronic circuits on the ground. William Graham, head of a Congressional commission to assess the EMP threat, testifies before the House Armed Services Committee this morning. We hope someone asks him about Iran.
The proposed "third site" in Europe is part of a rudimentary missile-defense system that the U.S. already has in place for the homeland. It's one of the unsung successes of the Bush Presidency, and the U.S. and its allies are safer for it. Yet few Democrats are willing to acknowledge it. That apparently includes Barack Obama, whose response to Iran's missile tests yesterday was to call for more direct diplomacy with Tehran, tougher threats of economic sanctions and bigger incentives to behave – all of which Tehran has sneered at numerous times.
Some 30 nations, including North Korea and Syria, have ballistic missiles and their proliferation is sure to continue. The European site is part of the Bush Administration's vision of missile defense with a global reach. Iran's latest missile tests show that Europe needs an antimissile system more than ever.
See all of today's editorials and op-eds, plus
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Is Tehran Bluffing?
July 10, 2008 - by Spook 86
On the heels of a recent Israeli Air Force exercise — and cautionary words from the United States — Iran, quite literally, fired back on Wednesday. According to military and press accounts, Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) units [1] test-fired nine missiles, including a medium-range Shahab-3, capable of reaching Israel.
While the Iranian missile test was enough to ratchet up regional tensions (and trigger a new spike in oil prices), it is possible to read too much into the day’s events, at least militarily. First, this type of drill is hardly an unusual event; IRGC missile units conduct an average of two or three major exercises each year, and missile crews practice continuously at their garrisons. Preparations for the test had been underway for several days and, presumably, detected by U.S. and Israeli intelligence.
Secondly, reporting on the missile test — or at least the information available so far — ignores the salient question about the supposed “highlight” of the exercise: the launch of an extended range Shahab-3 that could target Israel. This is not the first time Iran has tested a longer-rage version of the Shahab-3; launches involving that type of missile date back almost a decade.
But many of those tests had something in common: they resulted in failures, ranging from missiles that blew up in flight, failed to achieve the desired range, or strayed badly off course. So far, Tehran hasn’t provided details on Wednesday’s Shahab-3 launch, only saying that it has a maximum range of 1250 miles and is capable of carrying a one-ton payload. If the extended-range Shahab-3 remains unreliable, it will pose less of a threat to Israel and other potential targets in the Middle East.
In fact, Iran reportedly stopped work on another missile program (dubbed the Shahab-4), replacing it with BM-25 intermediate range missiles from North Korea. The BM-25 — based on an old Soviet SLBM design — arrived in Iran more than a year ago but has not been operationally tested. Cancellation of the Shahab-4 and slow progress with the BM-25 suggest continuing problems with Tehran’s intermediate and long-range missile programs.
Deficiencies can also be found among operational systems. Media reports on Wednesday’s launch are wildly inaccurate in one important element: characterizing many of the missiles tested as long-range systems. The Shahab-3 is actually classified as a medium-range system; the other missiles tested appear to be short-range systems, capable of reaching targets less than 150 miles away — and with only limited accuracy.
In fact, the three missiles that were launched simultaneously (and highlighted in press photos) are unsophisticated battlefield rockets, probably a Zelzal variant. Iran first introduced the Zelzal in the mid-1990s; it was based on the Russian Frog-7 design, which dates from the 1950s. Not exactly state-of-the-art. But the western press accepts Iranian military claims uncritically and often inflates the threat, much to Tehran’s delight.
Remember that advanced fighter that Iran built, supposedly equal to our own F/A-18? It’s actually a remanufactured U.S. F-5, with a second vertical stabilizer and marginally upgraded avionics. Or that high-speed torpedo? It is based on a Soviet design from World War II, requiring precise pre-launch calculations. If the target changes speed, zig-zags, or does anything to upset the firing solution, the torpedo misses its mark.
But with the media unwilling (or unable) to call Tehran’s military bluff, the exaggerated claims continue. After Wednesday’s launch, a senior Iranian officer told reporters that “our missiles are ready for the shooting at any time or place.” He said the purpose of the exercise was to show “we are ready to defend the integrity of the Iranian nation.”
In reality, his claims about a “hair-trigger” alert status are a bit of a stretch. Under some scenarios, it would take Iranian crews several hours to mount a strike due to the technology used in their missile systems. For example, older Shahab-3 variants use highly-voliatle liquid fuel, which must be loaded onto the missile before it can launch. While a highly-proficient crew can prepare the missile for firing in about an hour, less-skilled personnel may need two or three hours to complete the same task.
That’s a critical concern because it means the missile will sit at a fixed site while the preparations are made, increasing its vulnerability to detection and air attack. The problem is further compounded by the limitations of some Shahab-3 launchers which cannot raise an already-fueled missile to the firing position. As a result, the missile must be elevated prior to fueling, making the Shahab-3 easier to detect.
However, those problems do not mean that Iran’s missile threat can be ignored or marginalized. Ballistic missile “hunting” remains an imprecise art, at best. In a country like Iran (which is roughly the size of Alaska), there are plenty of launch sites where Shahab-3 crews could escape detection and targeting. Tehran also has detailed knowledge of our intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance systems, sometimes scheduling missile movements and other activities during “gaps” in overhead coverage.
Iran has also invested in underground facilities for its missile units, allowing crews to conduct maintenance and training operations without being detected by intelligence systems. One such facility, built specifically for the Shahab-3, contains a vertical launch shaft, permitting the missile to be fueled and fired with minimal warning. Tehran has also begun building in-ground silos for some of its missiles, making it more difficult to monitor activity. These trends, coupled with Iran’s efforts to build more missiles and outfit them with nuclear weapons, are reasons for concern.
Still, it’s important to place events like the missile test in their proper context, at least from an operations perspective. Iran’s ballistic missile forces are improving, but they remain hindered by old technology and limited accuracy. It would be difficult (at least over the short term) for Tehran to build a nuclear weapon small enough to fit atop one of its existing missiles. Until that obstacle is overcome, Iran will lack a viable option for delivering a nuclear device, particularly against distant targets.
The bad news is that Iran has the cash, resolve, and technological access to overcome these obstacles. Liquid-fueled systems are being replaced by solid-fueled missiles and rockets (which can be launched in a matter of minutes) and left unchecked, Tehran will eventually get its hands on technology for smaller nuclear warheads, ideal for short and medium-range missile systems. Measures aimed at concealing missile and nuclear activity are also improving.
From a technical and military standpoint, Iran revealed nothing new in Wednesday’s test. Indeed, the event was (to some degree) an exercise in opportunism, allowing Tehran to grab some headlines, boost oil prices, and send messages to its adversaries at the end of a G-8 summit and in the middle of a U.S. presidential campaign. While preparations for the test began weeks or months ago, it is possible that Iran delayed the launch until the “right” political moment arrived.
And that brings us to a pair of salient points, with clear implications for our future dealings with Tehran. First, it would be reassuring to know that our intelligence community wasn’t fooled by today’s launch. A good barometer in that area is the presence of an RC-135 Cobra Ball aircraft, which tracks missile tests at long range. With sufficient warning from various intel sources, “The Ball” is usually in position ahead of time, ready to collect data with its infrared telescopes and other on-board systems. The appearance of Cobra Ball (or other intel platforms) also sends a powerful message to our adversaries: we know what you’re up to. On the other hand, if our sensors weren’t in position, it would raise the dire prospect that we’re losing track of the Iranian missile program and other, more ominous activities.
The final point focuses on the larger question of dealing with Iran and its WMD ambitions. Not long after Wednesday’s missile salvo was revealed, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama called for more sanctions against Iran and direct negotiations. But we’ve been trying that approach for several years (largely through the European Union), with no appreciable progress. Why does Mr. Obama believe the failed policies of the past will now work with the clerics in Tehran?
If anything, the missile test is a reminder that there are limits to diplomacy, and at some point the next commander-in-chief may be forced to try something else. Senator Obama’s refusal to consider those other options will only embolden Iran, and likely lead to further acceleration of its missile and nuclear programs. There’s no way you can read “too much” into that reality.
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Former CIA Agent in Iran Comes In from the Heat
July 8, 2008 - by 'Reza Khalili'
[Editor’s note: Pajamas Media has spoken with “Reza Khalili’s” attorney in Washington, D.C. who confirmed Khalili “had a working relationship with a US intelligence agency.” We have also seen a copy of the June 5, 2008 email sent by the agency’s “Manuscript Review” department authorizing the publication of this article.]
In an interview with Roger L. Simon, “Khalili” further amplifies his accusation of Iranian involvement in Lockerbie and addresses the controversial question of whether the Shiite mullahs would form alliances with Sunnis. A transcript of the interview is [1] here. More interviews with “Khalili” in disguised video form will be coming in the future from PJM. ]
The men who ordered the destruction of the Pan Am flight over Lockerbie and the bombings of the Marine Corps barracks in Lebanon, the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, and the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia are pursuing the nuclear program in Iran and with one goal in mind: to obtain The Bomb.
And they want to destroy you.
After the Iranian Revolution, I was an officer in the Revolutionary Guards. I was also a spy working for the CIA, code name Wally. My position in the Guards gave me access to the Khomeini regime’s deep secrets and a firsthand look at the unfolding horror: torture, rapes, executions, assassinations, suicide bombers, training of terrorists, and the transfer of arms and explosives to other countries to support terrorist attacks. I risked my life and my family’s trying to expose this regime because I believed it should be stopped. Once again I incur such risks to bring awareness that lack of action endangers the world.
In the mid-80s, I reported to the CIA that the Revolutionary Guards’ intelligence unit had information that Saddam Hussein had made a strategic decision to acquire nuclear arms. I heard this from several sources within the Guards and also in a conversation with a member of the intelligence unit, who told me that the Guards were informed through arms dealers in the black market that Saddam was desperately looking for an atomic bomb. It was then that the Guards’ commanders and Iranian leadership decided to go nuclear and actively shop for components in the black market because they made a determination that the Iran-Iraq war could not have been won without a nuclear bomb. Mohsen Rezaei, then-commander of the Revolutionary Guards, requested permission from Ayatollah Khomeini to make Iran a nuclear power. Khomeini agreed.
Some years later, while I was stationed in Europe working for the CIA, I met with three Iranian agents who were shopping for nuclear parts. The agents confirmed what I had heard through the Guards: that Hashemi Rafsanjani had promised retaliation for the downing of an Iranian civilian jet by a U.S. warship over the Persian Gulf on July 3, 1988, toward the end of the Iran-Iraq war. According to the U.S government, an inexperienced crew mistakenly identified the Iranian Airbus as an attacking F-14 fighter; 290 people were killed. The agents said it was Rafsanjani who ordered the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland on Dec. 21, 1988, which killed 270 people. They also talked about involvement of a Palestinian man and the radio transmitter that carried the bomb, information that I passed on to the CIA. I made an assessment at that time that Iran had ordered, through surrogates, the bombing of the Pan Am flight.
There was not much of a follow-up on Iran’s involvement in that incident because Rafsanjani had become the president of Iran, and my CIA contact told me to consider Rafsanjani the new king of Iran. It was apparent to me that President George H.W. Bush was going to support and trust Rafsanjani as the new ruler of Iran. He was promised cooperation and good relations by the mullahs, and the U.S. administration and the CIA in turn were convinced that the mullahs were open to a new chapter in Iran-U.S relations.
I believed then, as I do now, that the mullahs would never abandon their ambitions, and that after 29 years of negotiations by Europe and world powers, the world has yet to understand that the mullahs will not change direction or behavior. In the early ’90s, the senior Bush administration and the CIA finally realized they were being duped — the mullahs’ promises never materialized. The CIA asked me to look for an Iranian who could testify that Iran was in the process of making a nuclear bomb. That request was later withdrawn.
Iran remains the main sponsor of terrorism around the world. Iranian consulates, embassies, airlines, and shipping line offices are the main hub for terrorist activities. Money, arms, and explosives are transferred through these centers to fund terrorist groups and jihadists. Quds Force units of the Revolutionary Guards use the Iranian consulates as their command and control centers to plan and carry out assassinations, kidnappings, and terrorist activities. The mullahs even transferred money and arms in state visits using their high-ranking officials, knowing full well that because of diplomatic immunity they would not be subject to search during such visits. As I reported to the CIA, these activities were closely coordinated through Iran’s foreign ministry, the ministry of intelligence, and the Revolutionary Guards.
And then there is the Syrian connection, which facilitates the Revolutionary Guards in training and arming Hezbollah, based in Lebanon, and Hamas, based in the Palestinian Territory. Syrian facilities and political channels are at the Revolutionary Guards’ disposal, expanding their terror network. The mullahs not only support Syria with massive financial aid in hundreds of millions of dollars but also share missile-delivery technology and other military armaments. The Quds Force leadership is in close contact with Syrian military leaders, coordinating terrorist activities throughout the Middle East.
As Iran pursued its nuclear ambitions over the past few years, it needed to keep U.S. forces on the defensive in Iraq so Washington would not think of invading Iran. Tehran’s strategy was to use the mullahs’ connection to the Shiite clergies and population in Iraq that had been built up years before the U.S invasion. The Guards had established Badr brigades that had been expanded into a division with Iraqi recruits during the Iran-Iraq war and had helped Ayatollah Hakim in establishing the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, currently one of Iraq’s most powerful political parties. Its goal is to put as much pressure on U.S. forces through terror attacks as it can so the U.S. administration won’t think of expanding the Iraq war, giving Iran time to accelerate its nuclear research and development. Tehran knows full well it is in a race, and if it is able to perfect the technology, the West will have no choice but to live with a nuclear Iran. It also believes that after the current President Bush, the next U.S. administration (if led by a Democrat) will most likely reduce forces and slowly move out, leaving it for the Iraqis to sort things out, which ultimately will result in Iran’s domination of the region, with catastrophic consequences for the Free World. This has already happened with Hezbollah. Iran armed and trained Hezbollah into a political force in Lebanon which controls events on the ground, limiting the power of the Lebanese government and even confronting Israel as we saw in the 2006 Lebanon war.
Iran’s current defense minister, Mostafa Najjar, was in charge of the Revolutionary Guards forces in Lebanon that facilitated the attack on the Marine Corps barracks in Beirut on Oct. 23, 1983, killing 241 U.S. servicemen with the largest non-nuclear bomb in history. The current deputy defense minister, Ahmad Vahidi, was the commander of the Quds Forces and the chief intelligence officer of the Guards, in charge of the terrorist activities outside of Iran. He had received authorization for taking the fight to the U.S forces and Israel’s interests around the world directly from Imam Khomeini, the supreme leader at the time. The operations in Lebanon were coordinated by these two men.
Four years after that bombing, Iran’s then-minister of the Revolutionary Guards, Mohsen Rafiqdoost, boasted that, “Both the TNT and the ideology, which in one blast sent 400 U.S. officers to hell, were provided by Iran.” Vahidi is currently on Interpol’s Most Wanted List for the attack on the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires on July 18, 1994. That attack killed 87 and injured more than 100.
There is also strong evidence of the Quds Forces’ involvement in the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 U.S. servicemen and wounded 372 more on June 25, 1996. The attack was carried out by the Iranian-backed Saudi Hezbollah, but led back to the leadership in Tehran. In 2001, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft said the attack was inspired, supported, and supervised by elements in the Iranian government.
The most radical Islamists control the government in Iran. The Revolutionary Guards’ reach is all-encompassing: they control the vital industries in Iran, serve as ministers in President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s cabinet, are members of the Parliament, control events in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian Territory through their Quds Force, and expand their terror network throughout the world, all the while making inroads in nuclear enrichment and missile-delivery technology.
It is not an exaggeration to claim that the radicals belonging to the secretive society called “Hojjatieh,” who are devoted to the 12th Imam, have taken control of all vital positions in Iran. Ayatollah Janati, the head of the Guardian Council in charge of interpreting the constitution, supervising elections, and approving of candidates running for public office, has been very vocal about his opposition to the West: “We are anti-American and we are America’s enemy,” and “Non-Muslims are animals roaming the planet.” They believe that the 12th Imam supports their agenda of obtaining nuclear weapons and destroying Israel in order to start the chaos necessary for the final destruction of what they see as American imperialism and Israeli Zionism.
The Revolutionary Guards, with the help of North Korea, are making advancements in their ballistic missile program by expanding the reach of its Shahab missiles and the successful launch of its long range Kavoshgar 1 missile on February 4, 2008. These missiles are capable of reaching Europe. At the same time, they are moving full speed ahead with their nuclear enrichment activity by installing the new IR-2 centrifuges which can enrich uranium at a faster speed than the P1 model. Iran has installed 3,000 P1 centrifuges with the goal of expanding that number to 50,000 within five years. It is estimated that it will take 1,200 of the new centrifuges to produce enough material for one nuclear weapon in one year as opposed to 3000 units of the P1 model that does the same job. The Guards always believed in a dual process in their operations for their military projects, so if one failed or was sabotaged, the other would carry on. They are doing just that. There is word that in the mountainous region of Mazandaran province, in the north of Iran, the Guards are pursuing nuclear arms underground.
Mostafa Najjar, the current defense minister, is overseeing the enrichment process and the missile-delivery advancements, and his deputy, Ahmad Vahidi, is overseeing the proliferation of arms and missiles to terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas in coordination with Syria.
Today, trying to fool the world, the current supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, has publicly declared that pursuit and acquisition of atomic bombs are against Islam. But it was Khamenei himself, along with Hashemi Rafsanjani, Rezaei, and others in the leadership, who ordered the start of research and development of nuclear technology in the mid-80s.
Khamenei put out a statement to the world in 2008 that God would punish Iranians if they did not support the country’s disputed nuclear program, and any stop in the continuation of the nuclear work would be against God’s will. Ahmadinejad, in a recent 2008 speech, told the audience that the “enemy” (referring to the U.S. and Israel) and their superficial power are on a path to destruction, and that the countdown to their total destruction has begun.
The rulers in Iran believe it is their duty to prepare the circumstances for the reappearance of the 12th Imam. “Our Revolution’s main mission is to pave the way for the reappearance of the 12th Imam, Imam Mahdi,” Ahmadinejad said during a speech in 2005 to leaders from across the country. Shiites believe the reappearance of the 12th Imam will bring justice and peace to the world by establishing Islam throughout the world. They believe he will reappear when the world has fallen into chaos. It is believed the chaos will start in Afghanistan and then move into Iraq, where there will be blood and destruction everywhere (already in the works) and from there to the world with burning dark clouds (nuclear war). The 12th Imam will then come to destroy the “Dajjal,” the False Messiah, free the world from oppression and aggression, and then bring justice where it will be heaven on earth for many years to come. It is said Jesus will reappear at the same time and fight alongside Mahdi.
Members of the Iranian leadership say they have a “signed contract” with the 12th Imam and are doggedly pursuing nuclear weapons to bring on that catastrophe. Iran’s president, Ahmadinejad, has said that Israel must be destroyed (2005 “World without Zionism” speech, “Israel must be wiped off the map”). This is no idle threat.
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If the mullahs’ true intention is to provide electricity through nuclear energy for the Iranians (which they claim) — the same Iranians whose women, students, teachers, writers and union workers are being flogged, beaten, tortured and stoned to death, the same Iranians who are denied a free election or freedom of speech — then why wouldn’t they accept the comprehensive incentive package offered by the world leaders in full, scrap the enrichment process, and bring peace and prosperity to their nation?
The reason is that their belief in Islam’s conquest of the world through the coming of the 12th Imam mandates their actions, and — just as a suicide bomber — they are not even interested in their own survival and cannot be diverted from their chosen path. The question is: Can the world afford to sit idly by and wait for Armageddon?
Next Page: transcript of “Reza Khalili’s” interview with Roger L. Simon
MR. SIMON: This is Roger Simon for Pajamas Media and I am here with Reza Khalili. Khalili is not the gentleman’s real name, he is a former CIA agent who infiltrated the
Revolutionary Guard of Iran. This may be a first on the radio or on the internet to reveal a former CIA agent to infiltrate that organization. Welcome to Pajamas Media, Mr. Khalili.
MR. KHALILI: Thank you.
MR. SIMON: How long did you work for the CIA?
MR. KHALILI: Well one thing is, Roger, I can’t be specific on the time, location, so forth and so on, to protect my identify but I’ll give you an estimate which was from the ’80s through the ’90s.
MR. SIMON: And you worked as a member of the Revolutionary Guard?
MR. KHALILI: I was, and I was working as a member of the Revolutionary Guard, yes.
MR. SIMON: And how did you come to work with the CIA?
MR. KHALILI: I went to Iran after the revolution since I had my education here in the United States, and I went with the hope that things are going to move along on — on a freedom for all political parties and so forth and so on. But what I witnessed was killings of the opposition, torture of the opposition, radical idea taking place in Iran forcing Iranian people, ordinary citizens to give into very restricted laws of Islam.
As the time went along, I became totally disgusted and I lost some good friends to the revolution, I had people dear to me die in the revolution and I basically took it upon myself to take action and make a difference. So I flew back to the US. Actually, I got the hope of the Revolutionary Guard to facilitate my trip. I made up some story which was partly true and flew to US, contacted the FBI, got in touch with the CIA and went through training and then back to Iran to the Revolutionary Guard, starting my new job as a CIA agent.
MR. SIMON: Had you joined the Revolutionary Guard before you came back to the US?
MR. KHALIL: Yes. I was in the Revolutionary Guard before I came in the US, yes.
MR. SIMON: Are there other members of the Revolutionary Guard who are US agents.
MR. KHALIL: Well, really I can’t comment on that. I can’t comment on that.
MR. SIMON: Reza Khalili is going to be doing a series of interviews, many on video — disguised video of course — for Pajamas Media, in which we will get into a great deal of detail on the workings of the Revolutionary Guard and so forth.
But let us turn now to an article, the first article that Mr. Khalili has done for Pajamas Media, which is appearing now and has a very sensational charge right at the top, a very controversial charge, that Iran was behind the Lockerbie disaster.
Now, this has usually been ascribed to Gaddafi and the Libyans. How are you sure that this is an Iranian caused event?
MR. KHALILI: Well, right after the disaster in the Persian Gulf, the US war ship shot down an Iranian civilian jet which caused, you know, more than 290 people were killed in that incident. That coincided with an ultimatum from President Reagan to the leadership of Iran to accept peace with Iraq. That ultimatum was very powerful, very — it was in the lines that if you do not accept peace, we’re going to come all out on you.
So the Libyans got together with Khomeini — Rafsanjani, Khomeini and the rest and they decided it was time to accept piece. And both Rafsanjani at that time, and the others in the leadership, promised the
Revolutionary Guard that they’re going to take revenge for the shooting down of the Iranian airliner. That was — I heard that from my sources within the Revolutionary Guard — that they were going to take revenge and hit a blow to the U.S. interest.
Now, shortly after that — shortly after the Pan Am incident I was in Europe on a mission and I had met with Iranian agents somewhere in Europe. I knew specifically who they were tied to and how high up they were connected. And it was right after the Pan Am bombing. We talked about the incident, they verified that Rafsanjani had ordered the Pan Am bombing and the retaliation for the Iranian airliner incident and they talked about a Palestinian suspect and the transistor — that the bomb was in the transistor radio. And then went on and talked about some of the investigation of one of the European governments that was in the process and which was not publicly available to people.
In my conversation with them I was convinced that this was an Iranian act. It was delivered, as promised, through their proxies. I reported my findings to the CIA, gave the names of the agents. They were traced — their travels were traced; where they were before, what countries they had visited. I told them of their connection to the Iranian hierarchy and so that’s where we left it off.
I expected a follow-up; nothing happened because six, seven months after Rafsanjani became the president Khomeini had died. Khamenei became the new supreme leader and CIA and US — the new US administration, President Bush Senior, made an assessment that
Hashimi Rafsanjani, the new president, is ready for a change in diplomatic relations as Rafsanjani had sent signals to the new US administration, as they always do they’re the master of deception.
So they changed their policies. They had traded my vision and opinion under Iranian government that they can never be trusted. Each one of them are a terrorist, and I’m not exaggerating. Everyone one of them have blood on their hand, either an American, Israeli or Persian.
So I was a foot soldier. I was somebody at the front lines reporting the facts and my opinion. Obviously they have their own analysts and organization that comes up with these opinions that they thought Rafsanjani was going to be a new leader and they told me, specifically, that Rafsanjani — consider Rafsanjani as the new king of Iran.
Well, about a year later they came to the conclusion that they were duped into such relations and they asked me to look for an Iranian who would testify that Iran was making a nuclear bomb at that time. Now I’m talking about early ’90s. That goes to show that the CIA And the US government knew that Iran was working on a nuclear bomb. I had reported in the mid ’80s that they were going to do that. They had come to a conclusion to do that because Saddam was looking for a nuclear bomb and technology during the war and as always, their policies of negotiation and trusting the Iranian leadership was false and hence the result and where we are right now.
MR. SIMON: Now, let me ask you a question about this. Does this mean that you think that the Iranian were working with Gaddafi on some level?
MR. KHALILI: Well, if — there was an article published June 2007, it was by Judd Scotland on Sunday and the evidence that the investigation was steered away from pointing to Iran and some of the evidence was actually interfered with to point to the defendant. Now, I don’t know who did it, as far as the specific person, but I know that Iran controls, and has under its command, several proxies throughout the world and they’ve shown that over and over again with the Beirut bombing, with the Khobar bombing, with the Pan Am bombing. In the ’90s they did a suicide bombing in Argentina on the Jewish community.
Some of the leaders, the current people in the Iranian government, are on Interpol’s most wanted. The Argentinean judge has an arrest warrant on Rafsanjani and several others; Rezai, Ahmad Vahidi, Velayati, Fallahian the minister of intelligence at that time.
The German prosecutor has arrest warrants for several of them. They are under arrest warrants by the three — they have done many, many assassinations and terrorist activities that are all streamed through the Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of Intelligence and the leadership in charge. And that’s the case right now. They’re still there. They’re still working the government with one goal in mind.
MR. SIMON: Reza Khalili, I am going to ask you a question that relates to the current presidential campaign in the United States because John McCain came under a certain amount of fire, supposedly for confusing Shiah’s and Shiites and Iran. In this fire they said that Iranian Shiahs would not work with Sunnis, do you think this is true?
MR. KHALILI: Well, it’s important to state that the Iranian government has been working with the Iraqi courts. That happened all along the Iran/Iraq war. Even though they did not share same ideology, the Iraqi courts and the Iranians were hand in hand to topple Saddam. They’ve been working with the Ba’athist regime of Syria since the revolution.
MR. SIMON: Who are Sunnis, of course, yes.
MR. KHALILI: Right. So they’ve been helping the Syrians and they’ve been expanding their power in the Middle East through the joint cooperation with the Syrians. Also the Taliban, their sworn enemy, they’ve been helping them in the uprising, after the invasion of Afghanistan, to counter attack the neutral forces and keep the pressure on the Americans.
They’ve got a long history with working with the leftist, with every terrorist group that they can to promote their agenda.
MR. SIMON: What about working with the biggest Sunni of all, Al Qaeda, do you think they’ve worked with Al Qaeda?
MR. KHALILI: Well, Ahmad Vahidi, the current deputy of the Defense Department. And he used to be the head of the Qods forces. He had — he’s had new things with Al Qaeda. He’s had contacts with Al Qaeda and they — of course they do share common goals but the enemy of my enemy is my best friend. Then, you know, that applies. They’ve had contact, they’ve helped and they have facilitated every different group as long as it promotes their agenda.
MR. SIMON: Well, thank you very much, Reza Khalili, for talking with Pajamas Media. We look forward to talking with you soon on podcast and in video form. Thank you very much.
MR. KHALILI: Thanks so much, bye bye.
MR. SIMON: All right. Bye.
Transcribed by Pnina Eilberg, [2] eScribers
Article printed from Pajamas Media: http://pajamasmedia.com
URL to article: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/former-cia-agent-in-iran-comes-in-from-the-heat/
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The Geopolitics of Iran: Holding the Center of a Mountain Fortress
Stratfor Today » July 14, 2008 | 1007 GMT
Editor’s Note: This is the third in a series of monographs by Stratfor founder George Friedman on the geopolitics of countries that are currently critical in world affairs. Click here for a printable PDF of the monograph in its entirety.
By George Friedman
To understand Iran, you must begin by understanding how large it is. Iran is the 17th largest country in world. It measures 1,684,000 square kilometers. That means that its territory is larger than the combined territories of France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and Portugal — Western Europe. Iran is the 16th most populous country in the world, with about 70 million people. Its population is larger than the populations of either France or the United Kingdom.
Under the current circumstances, it might be useful to benchmark Iran against Iraq or Afghanistan. Iraq is 433,000 square kilometers, with about 25 million people, so Iran is roughly four times as large and three times as populous. Afghanistan is about 652,000 square kilometers, with a population of about 30 million. One way to look at it is that Iran is 68 percent larger than Iraq and Afghanistan combined, with 40 percent more population.
More important are its topographical barriers. Iran is defined, above all, by its mountains, which form its frontiers, enfold its cities and describe its historical heartland. To understand Iran, you must understand not only how large it is but also how mountainous it is.
Iran’s most important mountains are the Zagros. They are a southern extension of the Caucasus, running about 900 miles from the northwestern border of Iran, which adjoins Turkey and Armenia, southeast toward Bandar Abbas on the Strait of Hormuz. The first 150 miles of Iran’s western border is shared with Turkey. It is intensely mountainous on both sides. South of Turkey, the mountains on the western side of the border begin to diminish until they disappear altogether on the Iraqi side. From this point onward, south of the Kurdish regions, the land on the Iraqi side is increasingly flat, part of the Tigris-Euphrates basin. The Iranian side of the border is mountainous, beginning just a few miles east of the border. Iran has a mountainous border with Turkey, but mountains face a flat plain along the Iraq border. This is the historical frontier between Persia — the name of Iran until the early 20th century — and Mesopotamia (“land between two rivers”), as southern Iraq is called.
The one region of the western border that does not adhere to this model is in the extreme south, in the swamps where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers join to form the Shatt al-Arab waterway. There the Zagros swing southeast, and the southern border between Iran and Iraq zigzags south to the Shatt al-Arab, which flows south 125 miles through flat terrain to the Persian Gulf. To the east is the Iranian province of Khuzestan, populated by ethnic Arabs, not Persians. Given the swampy nature of the ground, it can be easily defended and gives Iran a buffer against any force from the west seeking to move along the coastal plain of Iran on the Persian Gulf.
Running east along the Caspian Sea are the Elburz Mountains, which serve as a mountain bridge between the Caucasus-Zagros range and Afghan mountains that eventually culminate in the Hindu Kush. The Elburz run along the southern coast of the Caspian to the Afghan border, buffering the Karakum Desert in Turkmenistan. Mountains of lesser elevations then swing down along the Afghan and Pakistani borders, almost to the Arabian Sea.
Iran has about 800 miles of coastline, roughly half along the eastern shore of the Persian Gulf, the rest along the Gulf of Oman. Its most important port, Bandar Abbas, is located on the Strait of Hormuz. There are no equivalent ports along the Gulf of Oman, and the Strait of Hormuz is extremely vulnerable to interdiction. Therefore, Iran is not a major maritime or naval power. It is and always has been a land power.
The center of Iran consists of two desert plateaus that are virtually uninhabited and uninhabitable. These are the Dasht-e Kavir, which stretches from Qom in the northwest nearly to the Afghan border, and the Dasht-e Lut, which extends south to Balochistan. The Dasht-e Kavir consists of a layer of salt covering thick mud, and it is easy to break through the salt layer and drown in the mud. It is one of the most miserable places on earth.
Iran’s population is concentrated in its mountains, not in its lowlands, as with other countries. That’s because its lowlands, with the exception of the southwest and the southeast (regions populated by non-Persians), are uninhabitable. Iran is a nation of 70 million mountain dwellers. Even its biggest city, Tehran, is in the foothills of towering mountains. Its population is in a belt stretching through the Zagros and Elbroz mountains on a line running from the eastern shore of the Caspian to the Strait of Hormuz. There is a secondary concentration of people to the northeast, centered on Mashhad. The rest of the country is lightly inhabited and almost impassable because of the salt-mud flats.
If you look carefully at a map of Iran, you can see that the western part of the
country — the Zagros Mountains — is actually a land bridge for southern Asia. It is the only path between the Persian Gulf in the south and the Caspian Sea in the north. Iran is the route connecting the Indian subcontinent to the Mediterranean Sea. But because of its size and geography, Iran is not a country that can be easily traversed, much less conquered.
The location of Iran’s oil fields is critical here, since oil remains its most important and most strategic export. Oil is to be found in three locations: The southwest is the major region, with lesser deposits along the Iraqi border in the north and one near Qom. The southwestern oil fields are an extension of the geological formation that created the oil fields in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq. Hence, the region east of the Shatt al-Arab is of critical importance to Iran. Iran has the third largest oil reserves in the world and is the world’s fourth largest producer. Therefore, one would expect it to be one of the wealthiest countries in the world. It isn’t.
Iran has the 28th largest economy in the world but ranks only 71st in per capita gross domestic product (as expressed in purchasing power). It ranks with countries like Belarus or Panama. Part of the reason is inefficiencies in the Iranian oil industry, the result of government policies. But there is a deeper geographic problem. Iran has a huge population mostly located in rugged mountains. Mountainous regions are rarely prosperous. The cost of transportation makes the development of industry difficult. Sparsely populated mountain regions are generally poor. Heavily populated mountain regions, when they exist, are much poorer.
Iran’s geography and large population make substantial improvements in its economic life difficult. Unlike underpopulated and less geographically challenged countries such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, Iran cannot enjoy any shift in the underlying weakness of its economy brought on by higher oil prices and more production. The absence of inhabitable plains means that any industrial plant must develop in regions where the cost of infrastructure tends to undermine the benefits. Oil keeps Iran from sinking even deeper, but it alone cannot catapult Iran out of its condition.
The Broad Outline
Iran is a fortress. Surrounded on three sides by mountains and on the fourth by the ocean, with a wasteland at its center, Iran is extremely difficult to conquer. This was achieved once by the Mongols, who entered the country from the northeast. The Ottomans penetrated the Zagros Mountains and went northeast as far as the Caspian but made no attempt to move into the Persian heartland.
Iran is a mountainous country looking for inhabitable plains. There are none to the north, only more mountains and desert, or to the east, where Afghanistan’s infrastructure is no more inviting. To the south there is only ocean. What plains there are in the region lie to the west, in modern-day Iraq and historical Mesopotamia and Babylon. If Iran could dominate these plains, and combine them with its own population, they would be the foundation of Iranian power.
Indeed, these plains were the foundation of the Persian Empire. The Persians originated in the Zagros Mountains as a warrior people. They built an empire by conquering the plains in the Tigris and Euphrates basin. They did this slowly, over an extended period at a time when there were no demarcated borders and they faced little resistance to the west. While it was difficult for a lowland people to attack through mountains, it was easier for a mountain-based people to descend to the plains. This combination of population and fertile plains allowed the Persians to expand.
Iran’s attacking north or northwest into the Caucasus is impossible in force. The Russians, Turks and Iranians all ground to a halt along the current line in the 19th century; the country is so rugged that movement could be measured in yards rather than miles. Iran could attack northeast into Turkmenistan, but the land there is flat and brutal desert. The Iranians could move east into Afghanistan, but this would involve more mountain fighting for land of equally questionable value. Attacking west, into the Tigris and Euphrates river basin, and then moving to the Mediterranean, would seem doable. This was the path the Persians took when they created their empire and pushed all the way to Greece and Egypt.
In terms of expansion, the problem for Iran is its mountains. They are as effective a container as they are a defensive bulwark. Supporting an attacking force requires logistics, and pushing supplies through the Zagros in any great numbers is impossible. Unless the Persians can occupy and exploit Iraq, further expansion is impossible. In order to exploit Iraq, Iran needs a high degree of active cooperation from Iraqis. Otherwise, rather than converting Iraq’s wealth into political and military power, the Iranians would succeed only in being bogged down in pacifying the Iraqis.
In order to move west, Iran would require the active cooperation of conquered nations. Any offensive will break down because of the challenges posed by the mountains in moving supplies. This is why the Persians created the type of empire they did. They allowed conquered nations a great deal of autonomy, respected their culture and made certain that these nations benefited from the Persian imperial system. Once they left the Zagros, the Persians could not afford to pacify an empire. They needed the wealth at minimal cost. And this has been the limit on Persian/Iranian power ever since. Recreating a relationship with the inhabitants of the Tigris and Euphrates basin — today’s Iraq — is enormously difficult. Indeed, throughout most of history, the domination of the plains by Iran has been impossible. Other imperial powers — Alexandrian Greece, Rome, the Byzantines, Ottomans, British and Americans — have either seized the plains themselves or used them as a neutral buffer against the Persians.
Underlying the external problems of Iran is a severe internal problem. Mountains allow nations to protect themselves. Completely eradicating a culture is difficult. Therefore, most mountain regions of the world contain large numbers of national and ethnic groups that retain their own characteristics. This is commonplace in all mountainous regions. These groups resist absorption and annihilation. Although a Muslim state with a population that is 55 to 60 percent ethnically Persian, Iran is divided into a large number of ethnic groups. It is also divided between the vastly dominant Shia and the minority Sunnis, who are clustered in three areas of the country — the northeast, the northwest and the southeast. Any foreign power interested in Iran will use these ethnoreligious groups to create allies in Iran to undermine the power of the central government.
Thus, any Persian or Iranian government has as its first and primary strategic interest maintaining the internal integrity of the country against separatist groups. It is inevitable, therefore, for Iran to have a highly centralized government with an extremely strong security apparatus. For many countries, holding together its ethnic groups is important. For Iran it is essential because it has no room to retreat from its current lines and instability could undermine its entire security structure. Therefore, the Iranian central government will always face the problem of internal cohesion and will use its army and security forces for that purpose before any other.
Geopolitical Imperatives
For most countries, the first geographical imperative is to maintain internal cohesion. For Iran, it is to maintain secure borders, then secure the country internally. Without secure borders, Iran would be vulnerable to foreign powers that would continually try to manipulate its internal dynamics, destabilize its ruling regime and then exploit the resulting openings. Iran must first define the container and then control what it contains. Therefore, Iran’s geopolitical imperatives:
1. Control the Zagros and Elburz mountains. These constitute the Iranian heartland and the buffers against attacks from the west and north.
2. Control the mountains to the east of the Dasht-e Kavir and Dasht-e Lut, from Mashhad to Zahedan to the Makran coast, protecting Iran’s eastern frontiers with Pakistan and Afghanistan. Maintain a line as deep and as far north and west as possible in the Caucasus to limit Turkish and Russian threats. These are the secondary lines.
3. Secure a line on the Shatt al-Arab in order to protect the western coast of Iran on the Persian Gulf.
4. Control the divergent ethnic and religious elements in this box.
5. Protect the frontiers against potential threats, particularly major powers from outside the region.
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Part Two
Iran has achieved four of the five basic goals. It has created secure frontiers and is in control of the population inside the country. The greatest threat against Iran is the one it has faced since Alexander the Great — that posed by major powers outside the region. Historically, before deep-water navigation, Iran was the direct path to India for any Western power. In modern times, the Zagros remain the eastern anchor of Turkish power. Northern Iran blocks Russian expansion. And, of course, Iranian oil reserves make Iran attractive to contemporary great powers.
There are two traditional paths into Iran. The northeastern region is vulnerable to Central Asian powers while the western approach is the most-often used (or attempted). A direct assault through the Zagros Mountains is not feasible, as Saddam Hussein discovered in 1980. However, manipulating the ethnic groups inside Iran is possible. The British, for example, based in Iraq, were able to manipulate internal political divisions in Iran, as did the Soviets, to the point that Iran virtually lost its national sovereignty during World War II.
The greatest threat to Iran in recent centuries has been a foreign power dominating Iraq —Ottoman or British — and extending its power eastward not through main force but through subversion and political manipulation. The view of the contemporary Iranian government toward the United States is that, during the 1950s, it assumed Britain’s role of using its position in Iraq to manipulate Iranian politics and elevate the shah to power.
The 1980-1988 war between Iran and Iraq was a terrific collision of two states, causing several million casualties on both sides. It also demonstrated two realities. The first is that a determined, well-funded, no-holds-barred assault from Mesopotamia against the Zagros Mountains will fail (albeit at an atrocious cost to the defender). The second is that, in the nation-state era, with fixed borders and standing armies, the logistical challenges posed by the Zagros make a major attack from Iran into Iraq equally impossible. There is a stalemate on that front. Nevertheless, from the Iranian point of view, the primary danger of Iraq is not direct attack but subversion. It is not only Iraq that worries them. Historically, Iranians also have been concerned about Russian manipulation and manipulation by the British and Russians through Afghanistan.
The Current Situation
For the Iranians, the current situation has posed a dangerous scenario similar to what they faced from the British early in the 20th century. The United States has occupied, or at least placed substantial forces, to the east and the west of Iran, in Afghanistan and Iraq. Iran is not concerned about these troops invading Iran. That is not a military possibility. Iran’s concern is that the United States will use these positions as platforms to foment ethnic dissent in Iran.
Indeed, the United States has tried to do this in several regions. In the southeast, in Balochistan, the Americans have supported separatist movements. It has also done this among the Arabs of Khuzestan, at the northern end of the Persian Gulf. And it has tried to manipulate the Kurds in northwestern Iran. (There is some evidence to suggest that the United States has used Azerbaijan as a launchpad to foment dissent among the Iranian Azeris in the northwestern part of the country.)
The Iranian counter to all this has several dimensions:
1. Maintain an extremely powerful and repressive security capability to counter these moves. In particular, focus on deflecting any intrusions in the Khuzestan region, which is not only the most physically vulnerable part of Iran but also where much of Iran’s oil reserves are located. This explains clashes such as the seizure of British sailors and constant reports of U.S. special operations teams in the region.
2. Manipulate ethnic and religious tensions in Iraq and Afghanistan to undermine the American positions there and divert American attention to defensive rather than offensive goals.
3. Maintain a military force capable of protecting the surrounding mountains so that major American forces cannot penetrate.
4. Move to create a nuclear force, very publicly, in order to deter attack in the long run and to give Iran a bargaining chip for negotiations in the short term.
The heart of Iranian strategy is as it has always been, to use the mountains as a fortress. So long as it is anchored in those mountains, it cannot be invaded. Alexander succeeded and the Ottomans had limited success (little more than breaching the Zagros), but even the Romans and British did not go so far as to try to use main force in the region. Invading and occupying Iran is not an option.
For Iran, its ultimate problem is internal tensions. But even these are under control, primarily because of Iran’s security system. Ever since the founding of the Persian Empire, the one thing that Iranians have been superb at is creating systems that both benefit other ethnic groups and punish them if they stray. That same mindset functions in Iran today in the powerful Ministry of Intelligence and Security and the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). (The Iranian military is configured mainly as an infantry force, with the regular army and IRGC ground forces together totaling about 450,000 troops, larger than all other service branches combined.)
Iran is, therefore, a self-contained entity. It is relatively poor, but it has superbly defensible borders and a disciplined central government with an excellent intelligence and internal security apparatus. Iran uses these same strengths to destabilize the American position (or that of any extraregional power) around it. Indeed, Iran is sufficiently secure that the positions of surrounding countries are more precarious than that of Iran. Iran is superb at low-cost, low-risk power projection using its covert capabilities. It is even better at blocking those of others. So long as the mountains are in Iranian hands, and the internal situation is controlled, Iran is a stable state, but one able to pose only a limited external threat.
The creation of an Iranian nuclear program serves two functions. First, if successful, it further deters external threats. Second, simply having the program enhances Iranian power. Since the consequences of a strike against these facilities are uncertain and raise the possibility of Iranian attempts at interdiction of oil from the Persian Gulf, the strategic risk to the attacker’s economy discourages attack. The diplomatic route of trading the program for regional safety and power becomes more attractive than an attack against a potential threat in a country with a potent potential counter.
Iran is secure from conceivable invasion. It enhances this security by using two tactics. First, it creates uncertainty as to whether it has an offensive nuclear capability. Second, it projects a carefully honed image of ideological extremism that makes it appear unpredictable. It makes itself appear threatening and unstable. Paradoxically, this increases the caution used in dealing with it because the main option, an air attack, has historically been ineffective without a follow-on ground attack. If just nuclear facilities are attacked and the attack fails, Iranian reaction is unpredictable and potentially disproportionate. Iranian posturing enhances the uncertainty. The threat of an air attack is deterred by Iran’s threat of an attack against sea-lanes. Such attacks would not be effective, but even a low-probability disruption of the world’s oil supply is a risk not worth taking.
As always, the Persians face a major power prowling at the edges of their mountains. The mountains will protect them from main force but not from the threat of destabilization. Therefore, the Persians bind their nation together through a combination of political accommodation and repression. The major power will eventually leave. Persia will remain so long as its mountains stand.
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Iran Has Earned Nothing
July 22, 2008; Page A18
In its waning days, the Bush Administration seems to be veering toward a policy of détente with Iran. Recent moves include a face-to-face meeting with Iran over its nuclear program and the likelihood of reopening a diplomatic mission in Tehran for the first time since -- well, you remember. Iran responded to these gestures on the weekend by rebuffing the West's latest set of carrots while refusing once again to give up its uranium enrichment.
What precisely did Iran do to deserve the warm shoulder? Now as ever, Tehran underwrites and arms terrorist proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Gaza, and calls for Israel's destruction. Earlier this month, it tested long-range missiles capable of reaching southern Europe. As for getting that bomb, Iran has made steady progress this decade, enriching uranium in increasingly sophisticated centrifuges in violation of three U.N. Security Council resolutions.
The State Department is playing down any shift in its approach toward Iran. William Burns, the third most senior U.S. diplomat, merely sat in on the latest round of talks this weekend between the 5+1 group -- the permanent Security Council members and Germany -- and Iran's chief negotiator, Saeed Jailili. And yesterday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, possibly trying to rebalance the latest tilt, threatened a return to sanctions absent a "serious answer" from Iran on giving up its enrichment program.
As for the establishment of a U.S. Interests Section in Tehran, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack on Thursday wouldn't say when a decision might be taken, adding, "We want to have people-to-people contact with the Iranian people." News reports claim the decision is all but made, pending approval by the Iranians.
Diplomacy has its uses, and the U.S. can do more to support the Iranian peoples' struggle to shake off their oppressive theocracy. Just how a U.S. Interests Section would achieve that is another question: The Iranian government maintains a tight grip on what foreign embassies can or cannot do, as British diplomats have learned after twice coming under attack the past three years.
But diplomacy also means getting something for giving something. That's not how it has worked here. Mr. Bush has conceded Iran's supposed "right" to build nuclear reactors, despite the fact that Tehran forfeited that right when the U.N. found it to be in material breach of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Mr. Bush has also offered to negotiate directly with Tehran on the sole condition -- the only "precondition," as Barack Obama refers to it -- that Iran stop enriching uranium. Yet Iran continues to enrich.
The Iranians understand that the fondest wish of America's foreign policy establishment is to strike what is often called a "grand bargain" that would lead to the normalization of relations between the two states. We would not be opposed to such a bargain, provided it required Iran to verifiably abandon all its nuclear programs, including the so-called civilian ones; stop supplying arms to militias that are killing our soldiers in Iraq; end its support for terrorist groups and hand over the suspects in the 1996 Khobar Towers bombings, in which 19 U.S. servicemen died.
Instead, Iran is having it both ways, behaving like a rogue state even as it is increasingly accorded the respect due a normal one. We understand that the U.S. has had diplomatic relations with other rotten regimes. But so long as U.S. diplomatic recognition of Iran remains a carrot in any negotiations with them, what's the point of surrendering it by stages now?
That's a question some of our friends in the neighborhood are asking themselves. We know from talks with Iraqis that they wonder what price they might pay for our accommodation of their ambitious, meddling neighbor. We know from our Israeli friends, too, that they sense the accommodationist drift of our Iran policy and are drawing conclusions of their own. Unlike the Bush Administration in its legacy-hunting days, inconstancy is not a policy option they can afford.
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Then again, this does give some political cover for a military strike as "we've now bent over backwards" to get them to comply, with no success.
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Although I fear it to be wrong, as I have been sharing here for some time now, Stratfor has not feared to go its own way with its analysis:
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Geopolitical Diary: The Solid Footing of U.S.-Iranian Negotiations
July 21, 2008 | 2336 GMT
After a weekend of heated political haggling in Geneva between the United States and Iran over the latter’s nuclear program, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had some tough words for Iran on Monday. Speaking from Abu Dhabi, Rice basically said that Iran needs to quit stalling, get serious about these negotiations and suspend uranium enrichment or else face another round of hard-hitting sanctions in two weeks. She added that the United States has already done enough to demonstrate that it is serious about these talks, casting doubt on whether Washington would again send a U.S. diplomat to the next meeting in Geneva to hear Iran’s response.
From Washington’s point of view, the U.S. government has already taken a number of concrete steps to create a political atmosphere conducive to negotiating with the Iranians. In the lead-up to the Geneva meeting, the United States floated the idea of setting up a diplomatic office in Tehran, backed away from its demand for Iran to suspend uranium enrichment in the “pre-negotiation” phase, delayed negotiations with the Iraqi government on keeping a long-term U.S. military presence in Iraq and broke with long-standing policy by sending a U.S. diplomat to the meeting in Geneva.
As far as the United States is concerned, it is Iran’s turn to make concessions, beginning with the ever-so-touchy subject of uranium enrichment. But by refusing to budge on suspending uranium enrichment to further the talks, Iran made clear over the weekend that it is not about to be rushed with these negotiations. A number of critics of our analysis on U.S.-Iran negotiations are quick to claim that this is all just a stalling ploy by the Iranians to buy time to advance their nuclear program. That might be the case, but the Iranians don’t exactly have the luxury of stalling for time.
Iran cannot afford a stalemate in Iraq that gives the United States and Saudi Arabia ample time to bolster Iraq’s Sunnis and undercut Iran’s historic chance at consolidating Shiite influence in its Western neighbor. Moreover, the Iranians remember well the value of sorting out the tough issues with a weak U.S. administration in an election year rather than starting from scratch with a new and unpredictable government carrying a fresh political mandate come November. To this end, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a highly influential figure in the Iranian leadership, has stressed in recent interviews how Iran must learn from its past and not write off the war threats from Israel and the United States. Rafsanjani has drawn parallels between the current threat environment and the situation Iran faced during the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, when the country was hit hard by a U.S.-backed Iraqi regime.
The hard part for both Iran and the United States comes now, and Iran is facing a strict timetable to sort out the nuclear issue and get a fair deal on Iraq.
But Iran has a very delicate matter on its hands. After decades of pursuing a foreign policy built on hostility toward the United States, Iran now needs to convince its public that now is a good idea to talk to the Great Satan. Likewise, the United States needs to demonstrate that it’s politically acceptable to talk to a member of the Axis of Evil. The United States is a bit further along in this public relations campaign. After the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group report was released back in December 2006, the U.S. public warmed up to the idea of holding negotiations with Iran. In fact, the political debate has evolved to the point where the bulk of Americans are asking, “why aren’t we talking to the Iranians?”
In Iran, it gets a bit trickier. Living in a relatively closed society and constantly being subjected to stories of Iranian prowess and U.S. cowardice makes for a difficult transition. Indeed, there have already been clear signs of a power struggle within Iran’s ruling circles over whether Iran should move forward with these negotiations, with the main concern being how to open up to the West without having the clerics lose control of the regime.
Comforted by the fact that Washington has largely accepted that the clerical regime is here to stay, the pragmatic conservative faction in Iran appears to be winning in this debate with a public relations campaign already in full swing to prepare the Iranian public for a political rapprochement with the United States. The Iranian state-run press has been smothered lately with articles and op-eds discussing the merits of negotiating with the United States. A number of endorsements for this path have come from the senior clerical leadership, notably including Iran’s primary decision-maker, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In fact, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s vice president in charge of tourism caused quite the stir Monday when he stated “Iran is friends with the American and Israeli people” and that Iran sees “the Americans as one of the best nations in the world” — quite a long way from the traditional Iranian rhetoric of “Death to America”.
We can’t help but notice the uptick in these messages coming from the Iranian leadership. If Iran were simply jerking the Americans and the Europeans around in these negotiations to buy time for a nuclear program that has extremely low chances of developing into a real military threat in the first place, there would be little need to go through the trouble of opening up the public’s mind to re-engaging with the West. And while the U.S.-Iranian political jockeying and military posturing will intensify in the coming weeks, no matter how rocky the road, these negotiations are on solid footing.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/m.../25/do2503.xml
Mystery explosions point to Iran's secret arms shipments to terrorists
For an organisation that prides itself on being a well-run administrative machine, the leadership of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards is having a rather testing time. It’s not just last Saturday’s mysterious explosion in a suburb of Tehran that killed 15 people that is causing the leadership sleepless nights, although the nationwide news black-out imposed immediately afterwards does suggest the Revolutionary Guards, the storm troops of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, are rattled.
Details are only now starting to reach the outside world, and it looks increasingly like sabotage was responsible for devastating a military convoy as it travelled through Khavarshahar. The company responsible for moving the equipment, LTK, is owned by the Revolutionary Guards and is suspected of being involved in shipping arms to Lebanon’s Hizbollah Shia Muslim militia, which is trained and funded by Tehran.
The Revolutionary Guards’ arms shipments to Lebanon and its allies in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia are usually shrouded in such secrecy that only a few senior members of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government are briefed in advance. As the international crisis over Iran’s nuclear programme deepens, the Revolutionary Guards have intensified their efforts to supply regional allies with military hardware so that, in the event of Tehran becoming involved in an armed confrontation with the West, Iran can respond by opening a number of fronts in the Middle East and beyond.
The need to keep the arms build-up secret would explain the Revolutionary Guards’ decision to ban the Iranian media from reporting the explosion, even though it was heard throughout the capital. But what really concerns Iran’s leadership is that the incident is the latest in a long line of unexplained explosions.
In May, officials blamed British and American agents for an explosion at a mosque in Shiraz that had just finished staging an exhibition of Iran’s latest military hardware. Last year more than a dozen Iranian engineers were killed while trying to fit a chemical warhead to a missile in Syria.
A few months earlier, a train reported to be carrying military supplies to Syria was derailed by another mysterious explosion in northern Turkey. It is highly unlikely that these incidents are unrelated, which has only served to deepen the mood of fear and suspicion gripping the Revolutionary Guards’ leadership.
Tensions have been running high in Tehran since Seymour Hersh, the respected American investigative journalist, revealed in the New Yorker magazine last month that President George W Bush had authorised up to $400 million to fund a major escalation in covert operations to destabilise the regime.
Having contended with Iran’s attempts to undermine the Iraqi government over the past five years, British and American military commanders are more than happy to undertake covert operations in Iran, and there have been unconfirmed reports that special forces are operating undercover in the country.
Western diplomats and nuclear inspectors who frequently travel to Tehran as part of the international effort to persuade the Iranians to halt their uranium enrichment activities report that a sense of paranoia appears to have gripped the regime in recent months.
“There has certainly been a change of mood since the start of the year,” a Vienna-based official told me this week. “In the past they always appeared very self-confident and sure-footed in their dealings with foreign officials. Now they come across as very suspicious, and watch our every move.”
Tehran’s changed political atmosphere might be explained by the fact that President Ahmadinejad and his senior officials realise they are running out of time in their negotiations with the West. After more than four years of painstaking talks with the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran is continuing to enrich uranium at its underground facility at Natanz, a clear breach of its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Even senior officials at the agency, who have gone out of their way to accommodate the Iranians’ concerns, have little confidence that the Iranians have any intention of reaching a compromise. “All they seem interested in is extending the talks as long as possible while all the time they continue with their uranium enrichment programme,” said an official close to the talks. “Their entire strategy appears to be based on playing for time.”
Iran has just another week to respond to the latest proposal put forward by the West at last weekend’s meeting with Iranian officials in Geneva, in which Iran was offered economic reconstruction in return for halting the enrichment programme.
Iran is intensifying efforts to strengthen the effectiveness of Hizbollah in southern Lebanon in preparation for a possible attack on Israel. Revolutionary Guards are keen to strengthen its leadership following the assassination of Imad Mugniyeh, Hizbollah’s head of security, in the Syrian capital by Israeli agents last February.
Mugniyeh, the terrorist behind suicide truck bomb attacks on American and French troops in the 1980s, played a key role in building up Hizbollah’s military strength, which proved to be highly effective during its 2006 attack against Israeli forces in southern Lebanon. Tehran wants to appoint one of its commanders as a replacement, but has received unexpected resistance from Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary-general. Nasrallah insists Mugniyeh’s replacement must come from within Hizbollah’s ranks. Suddenly nothing seems to be going the Revolutionary Guards’ way.
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'US talks to Iran to legitimize attack'
Jul. 27, 2008
Yaakov Katz , THE JERUSALEM POST
Recent talks the United States held with Iran are aimed at creating legitimacy for a potential attack against Iranian nuclear facilities, defense officials speculated on Sunday as Defense Minister Ehud Barak headed to Washington for talks with senior administration officials.
Barak will travel to Washington and New York and will hold talks with his counterpart Robert Gates, Vice President Dick Cheney, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Michael Mullen, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley.
Officials said it was likely that President George W. Bush would join the meeting between Barak and Hadley. On Wednesday, Barak will fly to New York for a brief meeting with United Nations Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon.
Barak's departure to the US came as IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi returned to Israel on Sunday from a week-long visit to the US as Mullen's guest. Ashkenazi held talks with Cheney, Hadley and other senior officials with a focus on the Iranian nuclear program.
"There is a lot of strategic thinking concerning Iran going on right now but no one has yet to make a decision what to do," said a top IDF officer, involved in the dialogue between Israel and the US. "We are still far away from the point where military officers are poring over maps together planning an operation."
In recent weeks, Mullen has said publicly that he is opposed to military action against Iran which would open a "third front" for the US military which is currently fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Barak's talks in the US come a little over a week after the Bush administration sent its number three diplomat to Geneva to participate in European Union talks with Iran over its nuclear program.
The move led to reports that the US was changing its isolation tactic vis-à-vis Iran but Israeli defense officials speculated Sunday that the move was really a ploy to buy international support in the event that Bush decides to attack Iran in his last months in office.
"This way they will be able to say they tried everything," one official speculated. "This increases America's chances of gaining more public support domestically as well as the support of European nations which are today opposed to military action."
Diplomatic officials have speculated that the Iran-US talks were also connected to the presidential elections.
According to the IDF officer, the frequent meetings between Israel and the US in recent weeks - Mullen was in Israel in June - is a sign of the strong ties between the two countries as well as the mutual interest both take in different regional issues such as Iran, Hizbullah, Hamas and Syria.
This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1215331116435&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
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Well, , , maybe , , , but to me it reads like Bush-Rice have drawn yet another line in the sand which will be disrespected as well.
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stratfor
Iran has become the main thoroughfare for jihadist traffic leaving Iraq for Pakistan’s tribal belt, a state-owned newspaper in Afghanistan said on Sunday. An editorial in the daily Anis described the Shiite Islamic republic as a “tunnel for terrorists” to Waziristan. “The people of Afghanistan can’t remain silent against such Iranian behaviors since this country sends those individuals to Afghanistan who kill and murder Afghans,” Anis said. The paper went on to say that “Iran under present conditions has become as the easiest entry for terrorists from the Middle East to Afghanistan and the [Afghan] government has to blockade this tunnel by whatever means.”
While most of the world’s attention is on the Pakistani factor in the Afghan jihadist insurgency, there is not much focus on Iran’s role in its eastern neighbor — even though the Iranians enjoy a considerable amount of influence (linguistic, ethnic, cultural, financial, etc.) in Afghanistan.
It should not be forgotten that Tehran provided significant cooperation to Washington in the latter’s move to overthrow the Taliban regime in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. But even though it was working with the United States to oust the Taliban from power, Iran reportedly allowed al-Qaeda members fleeing the U.S. air assault on Afghanistan to enter Iran and remain in safe-houses maintained by the country’s elite military force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. Many of those said to be protected in Iran were senior al Qaeda leaders such as former al Qaeda military chief Seif al-Adel, its ex-spokesman Suleiman Abu Ghaith and Osama bin Laden’s son Saad bin Laden (all of whom are likely still in Iranian “custody”). The founder of the jihadist movement in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, also reportedly entered Iraq from Iran, where he sought refuge after fleeing the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in the fall of 2001.
Iran has no love for the Taliban or al-Qaeda. On the contrary, they are bitter sectarian and ideological rivals. This rivalry notwithstanding, Tehran maintains complex relationships with these jihadist actors in order to advance its national security interests. Tehran hopes to be able to use them as bargaining chips in any final settlement with the United States.
But before it reaches that stage, Tehran is still routing and rerouting jihadist traffic to pressure the United States and become a player. In between the two regime changes of 2001 and 2003, it was in Iran’s interest to facilitate jihadist relocation into Iraq to force Washington’s hand. But circumstances have changed drastically since then.
The Iranians know that with the situation in Iraq moving toward a settlement of sorts, U.S. attention is returning to Afghanistan. Tehran thus wants to be able to play a major role there as well, especially at a time when the principal U.S. ally in the Afghan theater, Pakistan, is becoming increasingly unreliable. Therefore, Iran is likely facilitating the flow of jihadists in the opposite direction.
It should be noted that it was only a few days ago that Iranian Vice-President Gholam Reza Aghazadeh (also the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization), in reference to U.S.-Iranian talks on its controversial nuclear issue, said that if substantive negotiations start, “many important problems will be resolved: the problem of a stable Middle East, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iraq and the problem of the high oil price.”
Washington and its wealthy Arab allies have created a bulwark to contain Tehran’s regional ambitions in the Middle East. But Iran takes comfort from the fact that it can still project power into its western and eastern neighbors. Iranian national security policy concerning Iraq is already in an advanced stage, which means the Persian state will be devoting more of its energies to enhance its standing in Afghanistan — at a time when very high-level back-channel meetings between the Bush administration and Iran’s clerical regime are under way.
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Crafty,
I'm hoping i'm right, though if I were betting i'd tend to put my money on us not acting until it's too late. :cry:
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Iran: Sixteen Christian converts arrested
Tehran, 29 July (AKI) - Sixteen Iranians who converted from Islam to Christianity were arrested on Tuesday in Malakshahr, on the outskirts of the central Iranian city of Isfahan.
The six women, eight men and two adolescents who were arrested were assisting in a conversion ceremony and baptism of three new members of the church at a private house that had been transformed into an evangelical church.
The owners of the home, an elderly couple, were allegedly beaten up before they were locked up in an unmarked lorry.
In April, 10 Christian converts were arrested in Shiraz.
The official evangelical churches in Isfahan received orders not to allow any Muslims to attend their ceremonies and not to facilitate in any way the conversions.
Iranian law does not stipulate any punishment for those who convert from Islam to other faiths, even if the converts are subject to repression.
A few months ago, the government presented a bill which is currently being discussed in parliament, to include in the penal code the crime of "Ertedad" which is the act of abandoning the Muslim faith.
If the parliament does approve the law, the punishment for abandoning Islam will be the death penalty.
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Iran Plans Nuclear Strike
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http://www.newsmax.com/timmerman/ira...29/117217.html
Newsmax.com
U.S. Intel: Iran Plans Nuclear Strike on U.S.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008 9:00 AM
By: Kenneth R. Timmerman
Iran has carried out missile tests for what could be a plan for a nuclear strike on the United States, the head of a national security panel has warned.
In testimony before the House Armed Services Committee and in remarks to a private conference on missile defense over the weekend hosted by the Claremont Institute, Dr. William Graham warned that the U.S. intelligence community “doesn’t have a story” to explain the recent Iranian tests.
One group of tests that troubled Graham, the former White House science adviser under President Ronald Reagan, were successful efforts to launch a Scud missile from a platform in the Caspian Sea.
“They’ve got [test] ranges in Iran which are more than long enough to handle Scud launches and even Shahab-3 launches,” Dr. Graham said. “Why would they be launching from the surface of the Caspian Sea? They obviously have not explained that to us.”
Another troubling group of tests involved Shahab-3 launches where the Iranians "detonated the warhead near apogee, not over the target area where the thing would eventually land, but at altitude,” Graham said. “Why would they do that?”
Graham chairs the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack, a blue-ribbon panel established by Congress in 2001.
The commission examined the Iranian tests “and without too much effort connected the dots,” even though the U.S. intelligence community previously had failed to do so, Graham said.
“The only plausible explanation we can find is that the Iranians are figuring out how to launch a missile from a ship and get it up to altitude and then detonate it,” he said. “And that’s exactly what you would do if you had a nuclear weapon on a Scud or a Shahab-3 or other missile, and you wanted to explode it over the United States.”
The commission warned in a report issued in April that the United States was at risk of a sneak nuclear attack by a rogue nation or a terrorist group designed to take out our nation’s critical infrastructure.
"If even a crude nuclear weapon were detonated anywhere between 40 kilometers to 400 kilometers above the earth, in a split-second it would generate an electro-magnetic pulse [EMP] that would cripple military and civilian communications, power, transportation, water, food, and other infrastructure," the report warned.
While not causing immediate civilian casualties, the near-term impact on U.S. society would dwarf the damage of a direct nuclear strike on a U.S. city.
“The first indication [of such an attack] would be that the power would go out, and some, but not all, the telecommunications would go out. We would not physically feel anything in our bodies,” Graham said.
As electric power, water and gas delivery systems failed, there would be “truly massive traffic jams,” Graham added, since modern automobiles and signaling systems all depend on sophisticated electronics that would be disabled by the EMP wave.
“So you would be walking. You wouldn’t be driving at that point,” Graham said. “And it wouldn’t do any good to call the maintenance or repair people because they wouldn’t be able to get there, even if you could get through to them.”
The food distribution system also would grind to a halt as cold-storage warehouses stockpiling perishables went offline. Even warehouses equipped with backup diesel generators would fail, because “we wouldn’t be able to pump the fuel into the trucks and get the trucks to the warehouses,” Graham said.
The United States “would quickly revert to an early 19th century type of country.” except that we would have 10 times as many people with ten times fewer resources, he said.
“Most of the things we depend upon would be gone, and we would literally be depending on our own assets and those we could reach by walking to them,” Graham said.
America would begin to resemble the 2002 TV series, “Jeremiah,” which depicts a world bereft of law, infrastructure, and memory.
In the TV series, an unspecified virus wipes out the entire adult population of the planet. In an EMP attack, the casualties would be caused by our almost total dependence on technology for everything from food and water, to hospital care.
Within a week or two of the attack, people would start dying, Graham says.
“People in hospitals would be dying faster than that, because they depend on power to stay alive. But then it would go to water, food, civil authority, emergency services. And we would end up with a country with many, many people not surviving the event.”
Asked just how many Americans would die if Iran were to launch the EMP attack it appears to be preparing, Graham gave a chilling reply.
“You have to go back into the 1800s to look at the size of population” that could survive in a nation deprived of mechanized agriculture, transportation, power, water, and communication.
“I’d have to say that 70 to 90 percent of the population would not be sustainable after this kind of attack,” he said.
America would be reduced to a core of around 30 million people — about the number that existed in the decades after America’s independence from Great Britain.
The modern electronic economy would shut down, and America would most likely revert to “an earlier economy based on barter,” the EMP commission’s report on Critical National Infrastructure concluded earlier this year.
In his recent congressional testimony, Graham revealed that Iranian military journals, translated by the CIA at his commission’s request, “explicitly discuss a nuclear EMP attack that would gravely harm the United States.”
Furthermore, if Iran launched its attack from a cargo ship plying the commercial sea lanes off the East coast — a scenario that appears to have been tested during the Caspian Sea tests — U.S. investigators might never determine who was behind the attack. Because of the limits of nuclear forensic technology, it could take months. And to disguise their traces, the Iranians could simply decide to sink the ship that had been used to launch it, Graham said.
Several participants in last weekend’s conference in Dearborn, Mich., hosted by the conservative Claremont Institute argued that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was thinking about an EMP attack when he opined that “a world without America is conceivable.”
In May 2007, then Undersecretary of State John Rood told Congress that the U.S. intelligence community estimates that Iran could develop an ICBM capable of hitting the continental United States by 2015.
But Iran could put a Scud missile on board a cargo ship and launch from the commercial sea lanes off America’s coasts well before then.
The only thing Iran is lacking for an effective EMP attack is a nuclear warhead, and no one knows with any certainty when that will occur. The latest U.S. intelligence estimate states that Iran could acquire the fissile material for a nuclear weapon as early as 2009, or as late as 2015, or possibly later.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld first detailed the “Scud-in-a-bucket” threat during a briefing in Huntsville, Ala., on Aug. 18, 2004.
While not explicitly naming Iran, Rumsfeld revealed that “one of the nations in the Middle East had launched a ballistic missile from a cargo vessel. They had taken a short-range, probably Scud missile, put it on a transporter-erector launcher, lowered it in, taken the vessel out into the water, peeled back the top, erected it, fired it, lowered it, and covered it up. And the ship that they used was using a radar and electronic equipment that was no different than 50, 60, 100 other ships operating in the immediate area.”
Iran’s first test of a ship-launched Scud missile occurred in spring 1998, and was mentioned several months later in veiled terms by the Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States, a blue-ribbon panel also known as the Rumsfeld Commission.
I was the first reporter to mention the Iran sea-launched missile test in an article appearing in the Washington Times in May 1999.
Intelligence reports on the launch were “well known to the White House but have not been disseminated to the appropriate congressional committees,” I wrote. Such a missile “could be used in a devastating stealth attack against the United States or Israel for which the United States has no known or planned defense.”
Few experts believe that Iran can be deterred from launching such an attack by the threat of massive retaliation against Iran. They point to a December 2001 statement by former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, who mulled the possibility of Israeli retaliation after an Iranian nuclear strike.
“The use of an atomic bomb against Israel would destroy Israel completely, while [the same] against the Islamic only would cause damages. Such a scenario is not inconceivable,” Rafsanjani said at the time.
Rep. Trent Franks, R, Ariz., plans to introduce legislation next week that would require the Pentagon to lay the groundwork for an eventual military strike against Iran, to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and EMP capability.
“An EMP attack on America would send us back to the horse and buggy era — without the horse and buggy,” he told the Claremont Institute conference on Saturday. “If you’re a terrorist, this is your ultimate goal, your ultimate asymmetric weapon.”
Noting Iran’s recent sea-launched and mid-flight warhead detonation tests, Rep. Franks concluded, “They could do it — either directly or anonymously by putting some freighter out there on the ocean.”
The only possible deterrent against Iran is the prospect of failure, Dr. Graham and other experts agreed. And the only way the United States could credibly threaten an Iranian missile strike would be to deploy effective national missile defenses.
“It’s well known that people don’t go on a diet until they’ve had a heart attack,” said Claremont Institute president Brian T. Kennedy. “And we as a nation are having a heart attack” when it comes to the threat of an EMP attack from Iran.
“As of today, we have no defense against such an attack. We need space-based missile defenses to protect against an EMP attack,” he told Newsmax.
Rep. Franks said he remains surprised at how partisan the subject of space-based missile defenses remain. “Nuclear missiles don’t discriminate on party lines when they land,” he said.
Arizona Republican Sen. Jon Kyl, a long-standing champion of missile defense, told the Claremont conference on Friday that Sen. Obama has opposed missile defense tooth and nail and as president would cut funding for these programs dramatically.
“Senator Obama has been quoted as saying, ‘I don’t agree with a missile defense system,’ and that we can cut $10 billion of the research out — never mind, as I say, that the entire budget is $9.6 billion, or $9.3 billion,” Kyl said.
Like Franks, Kyl believes that the only way to eventually deter Iran from launching an EMP attack on the United States is to deploy robust missile defense systems, including space-based interceptors.
The United States “needs a missile defense that is so strong, in all the different phases we need to defend against . . . that countries will decide it’s not worth coming up against us,” Kyl said.
“That’s one of the things that defeated the Soviet Union. That’s one of the ways we can deal with these rogue states . . . and also the way that we can keep countries that are not enemies today, but are potential enemies, from developing capabilities to challenge us. “
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Eh, i'm a bit skeptical of the newsmax EMP article.
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While Diplomats Dither,
Iran Builds Nukes
By JOHN R. BOLTON
August 5, 2008; Page A19
This weekend, yet another "deadline" passed for Iran to indicate it was seriously ready to discuss ending its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Like so many other deadlines during these five years of European-led negotiations, this one died quietly, with Brussels diplomats saying that no one seriously expected any real work on a Saturday.
The fact that the Europeans are right -- this latest deadline is not fundamentally big news -- is precisely the problem with their negotiations, and the Bush administration's acquiescence in that effort.
The rationality of continued Western negotiations with Iran depends critically on two assumptions: that Iran is far enough away from having deliverable nuclear weapons that we don't incur excessive risks by talking; and that by talking we don't materially impede the option to use military force. Implicit in the latter case is the further assumption that the military option is static -- that it remains equally viable a year from now as it is today.
Neither assumption is correct. Can we believe that if diplomacy fails we can still take military action "in time" to prevent Iranian nuclear weapons? "Just in time" nonproliferation assumes a level of intelligence certainty concerning Iran's nuclear program that recent history should manifestly caution us against.
Every day that goes by allows Iran to increase the threat it poses, and the viability of the military option steadily declines over time. There are a number of reasons why this is so.
First, while the European-led negotiations proceed, Iran continues both to convert uranium from a solid (uranium oxide, U3O8, also called yellowcake) to a gas (uranium hexafluoride, UF6) at its uranium conversion facility at Isfahan. Although it is a purely chemical procedure, conversion is technologically complex and poses health and safety risks.
As Isfahan's continuing operations increase both Iran's UF6 inventory and its technical expertise, however, the impact of destroying the facility diminishes. Iran is building a stockpile of UF6 that it can subsequently enrich even while it reconstructs Isfahan after an attack, or builds a new conversion facility elsewhere.
Second, delay permits Iran to increase its stock of low-enriched uranium (LEU) -- that is, UF6 gas in which the U235 isotope concentration (the form of uranium critical to nuclear reactions either in reactors or weapons) is raised from its natural level of 0.7% to between 3% and 5%.
As its LEU stockpile increases, so too does Tehran's capacity to take the next step, and enrich it to weapons-grade concentrations of over 90% U235 (highly-enriched uranium, or HEU). Some unfamiliar with nuclear matters characterize the difference in LEU-HEU concentration levels as huge. The truth is far different. Enriching natural uranium by centrifuges to LEU consumes approximately 70% of the work and time required to enrich it to HEU.
Accordingly, destroying Iran's enrichment facility at Natanz does not eliminate its existing enriched uranium (LEU), which the IAEA estimated in May 2008 to be approximately half what is needed for one nuclear weapon. Iran is thus more than two-thirds of the way to weapons-grade uranium with each kilogram of uranium it enriches to LEU levels. Moreover, as the LEU inventory grows, so too does the risk of a military strike hitting one or more UF6 storage tanks, releasing potentially substantial amounts of radioactive gas into the atmosphere.
Third, although we cannot know for sure, every indication is that Iran is dispersing its nuclear facilities to unknown locations, "hardening" against air strikes the ones we already know about, and preparing more deeply buried facilities in known locations for future operations. That means that the prospects for success against, say, the enrichment facilities at Natanz are being reduced.
Fourth, Iran is clearly increasing its defensive capabilities by purchasing Russian S-300 antiaircraft systems (also known as the SA-20) directly or through Belarus. In late July, Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates and his spokesman contradicted Israeli contentions that the new antiaircraft systems would be operational this year. Assuming the Pentagon is correct, its own assessment on timing simply enhances the argument for Israel striking sooner rather than later.
Fifth, Iran continues to increase the offensive capabilities of surrogates like Syria and Hezbollah, both of which now have missile capabilities that can reach across Israel, as well as threaten U.S. troops and other U.S. friends and allies in the region. It may well be Syria and Hezbollah that retaliate initially after an Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, thus making further strikes against Iran more problematic, at least in the short run.
Iran is pursuing two goals simultaneously, both of which it is comfortably close to achieving. The first -- to possess all the capabilities necessary for a deliverable nuclear weapon -- is now almost certainly impossible to stop diplomatically. Thus, Iran's second objective becomes critical: to make the risks of a military strike against its program too high, and to make the likelihood of success in fracturing the program too low. Time favors Iran in achieving these goals. U.S. and European diplomats should consider this while waiting by the telephone for Iran to call.
Mr. Bolton, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, is the author of "Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations" (Simon & Schuster, 2007).
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Summary
What Tehran claimed was a successful launch of a “dummy” satellite Aug. 16 is being disputed by Washington — even as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad offers to help other Muslim countries launch their own satellites. Despite the likely failure of the launch, the emergence of a multiple-stage satellite-launch vehicle in Iran is a significant event for both Tehran and Washington.
Analysis
Iran’s claim that it successfully launched a “dummy” satellite Aug. 16 aboard its Safir Omid (“Envoy of Hope”) satellite-launch vehicle (SLV) was followed by two significant developments only days later. On Aug. 18, Tehran offered to help other Muslim nations put their own satellites into orbit, while the United States reported that the Iranian launch failed when the SLV’s second stage began to behave erratically. While the Safir Omid may indeed prove to have limited capability, the Iranian launch attempt was a noteworthy event nonetheless.
Related Links
The Iranian Missile Program
Iran: The Latest Satellite Launch
United States: The Future of Ballistic Missile Defense
Stratfor has long held that the ability to launch a satellite should not be considered beyond the reach of Iran’s scientists and engineers — an assertion we base largely on the North Korean example. Indeed, cooperation between Tehran and Pyongyang in missile development has been extensive, which means that the former can benefit significantly from the latter’s experience and design work. Based on this cooperation, Tehran already has the raw tools at its disposal to potentially achieve a successful launch.
Both countries’ missile programs rely heavily on the Soviet Scud design, which is itself based largely on the World War II German V-2, the world’s first true ballistic missile. The Scud design heritage is clearly evident in the base of the Iranian SLV’s first stage, where both the external fins (visible in the photo below, marked with Roman numerals) and the mountings for the exhaust vanes are evident.
VAHIDREZA ALAI/AFP/Getty Images
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad being shown the Safir Omid satellite-launch vehicleThe width of the SLV suggests that its first stage is based on Iran’s Shahab-3 medium-range ballistic missile, and the distinctively tall height and slenderness that characterize the Iranian SLV is remarkably similar to the North Korean Taepodong-1. The main difference in outward appearance is the width of the second stage.
(click image to enlarge)
This height and slenderness is generally considered to be inefficient by Western engineers. But the Scud is what Pyongyang and Tehran have to work with. Although the design has certainly been stretched further than it ever should have been, Pyongyang very nearly demonstrated in 1998 that it would get the job done.
The payload capacity, in all likelihood, is extremely limited — Iran is likely toying with the capability to orbit a radio transmitter smaller than Sputnik. What’s more, Iranian Scud-extrapolations do not appear to have demonstrated a meaningful level of accuracy to be useful as a military weapon. The limitations of the old Scud design also place upper limits on accuracy. Even if the missile could carry a larger payload, it is unlikely that the payload could be delivered with sufficient accuracy to threaten a specific target smaller than a major urban area. (And Iran’s ability to build a crude nuclear device, much less a weapon capable of being mounted on such a missile, remains in question.)
But SLVs have profound implications for a country’s long-range ballistic missile program. It is now clear that Tehran is tinkering with what appears to be a workable design based on North Korean experience that incorporates a second stage. Although the United States claims the second stage performed erratically, this may suggest that separation and ignition were indeed achieved — a significant step.
Iran has more or less hit a wall in terms of the distance it can cover with a single-stage ballistic missile. To further extend its reach, it must master missile staging. If it eventually succeeds in doing so, Tehran will demonstrate that capability to its domestic audience in the form of a nationalism-inspiring SLV. It will also give credence to Washington’s ballistic missile defense efforts in Europe.
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Geopolitical Diary: Iranian Diplomacy in the Caucasus
September 18, 2008
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki on Wednesday visited Georgia, where he met with Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili. During the visit, Mottaki told the Georgian leader that Tehran was closely observing the ongoing events in the Caucasus and that his country wants stability and security in the region restored. The Iranian foreign minister also said that his government was in the process of offering solutions to various regional actors in the hopes of normalizing the regional situation.
Mottaki’s visit to Tbilisi comes a day after a meeting with his Armenian counterpart in Tehran and two days after talks with his German counterpart in Berlin. On Sept. 13, Mottaki held talks with Russian leaders in Moscow and then flew to Azerbaijan to confer with officials in Baku. This flurry of diplomatic activity on the part of the Iranians underscores Tehran’s deep interests in the Caucasus.
After seeing Turkey’s moves in the region in the wake of the Georgian crisis, the Iranians do not want to be left out of the game. The Iranian ethnic, religious, linguistic and cultural ties to the Caucasus go back centuries — long before the Ottomans took control of the Caucasus, Persian empires ruled major parts of the area.
We have talked about how a resurgent Russia presents Iran with an opening to extract concessions from the United States in Iraq and on the nuclear issue. In this regard, Tehran’s calculus is that a Washington wanting to counter a revived Kremlin would be eager to reach a settlement on Iraq to free itself for dealings with Moscow.
Iran’s cautious behavior toward Russia, however, suggests that Tehran is not ready to jump on the Russian bandwagon. There are three key reasons for this.
First, in order for Iran to reach its goals in terms of Iraq, the nuclear issue, and its own international rehabilitation, it needs to work with the United States. From the Iranian point of view, Russia is a means to an end and not a substitute for the United States.
Second, in the past Russia has used Iran for its own strategic purposes. Tehran is quite disappointed that Moscow has not followed through on any of its promises — whether with regard to security guarantees, weapons sales or even the failure to complete Iran’s first nuclear power plant (for which the Iranians have already paid).
Third, and most important, is that a Russia imposing itself on the Caucasus poses a long-term security threat to Iran’s northern borders. After all, it was not too long ago that the Soviet Union under Stalin invaded Iran. Hence, Iranian moves toward regional diplomacy are largely designed to ensure that a Russian resurgence can be kept at tolerable levels.
But the Turks have the lead in this arena, which raises the question of what the Iranians hope to gain from their attempts to play a role in the Caucasus. The best option for Iran would be to cooperate with Turkey toward the common goal of containing Russia. There is also the additional potential benefit of connecting with the United States via the Turks in the process, not to mention the potential energy links Iran could build to connect to Europe through the Turks.
There are, however, a number of obstacles that prevent Turkish-Iranian cooperation from materializing. To start, Iran would not want to irk Russia at a time when Tehran is still not getting a deal from the United States. The Turks are in a much more comfortable position to risk angering the Russians but the Iranians do not have that luxury. Ankara is the world’s 18th-largest economy and a member of NATO, while Iran has very few friends and is reeling from economic sanctions.
Another reason why Tehran cannot play much of a role in the Caucasus is that its only anchor in the region is Armenia, and that is a relationship of expediency. While the Turks and the Azerbaijanis are moving toward a rapprochement with the Armenians, it is unlikely that they will want to allow Iran — a historical competitor for regional influence (especially for the Turks) — to establish a foothold in the region. Essentially, Iran faces sufficient arrestors blocking its path to becoming a regional player in the Caucasus, which is not unlike the situation that it faces in the Middle East where wealthy Sunni Arab states are reining in its regional ambitions.
Regardless of the role it will or will not play in the Caucasus, Iranian moves in the region highlight a very critical element in Iranian foreign policy vis-a-vis Russia. The Islamic republic is not prepared to align with Russia in Moscow’s efforts to reassert itself on the global scene. This is a critical weakness that the United States can exploit to its advantage in countering both Iranian and Russian moves.
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Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visits the United Nations in New York this week. Don't expect an honest update from him on his country's nuclear program. Iran is now edging closer to being armed with nuclear weapons, and it continues to develop a ballistic-missile capability.
AP
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Such developments may be overshadowed by our presidential election, but the challenge Iran poses is very real and not a partisan matter. We may have different political allegiances and worldviews, yet we share a common concern -- Iran's drive to be a nuclear state. We believe that Iran's desire for nuclear weapons is one of the most urgent issues facing America today, because even the most conservative estimates tell us that they could have nuclear weapons soon.
A nuclear-armed Iran would likely destabilize an already dangerous region that includes Israel, Turkey, Iraq, Afghanistan, India and Pakistan, and pose a direct threat to America's national security. For this reason, Iran's nuclear ambitions demand a response that will compel Iran's leaders to change their behavior and come to understand that they have more to lose than to gain by going nuclear.
Tehran claims that it is enriching uranium only for peaceful energy uses. These claims exceed the boundaries of credibility and science. Iran's enrichment program is far larger than reasonably necessary for an energy program. In past inspections of Iranian nuclear sites, U.N. inspectors found rare elements that only have utility in nuclear weapons and not in a peaceful nuclear energy program. Iran's persistent rejection of offers from outside energy suppliers or private bidders to supply it with nuclear fuel suggests it has a motive other than energy in developing its nuclear program. Tehran's continual refusal to answer questions from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) about this troublesome part of its nuclear program suggests that it has something to hide.
The world rightfully doubts Tehran's assertion that it needs nuclear energy and is enriching nuclear materials for strictly peaceful purposes. Iran has vast supplies of inexpensive oil and natural gas, and its construction of nuclear reactors and attempts to perfect the nuclear fuel cycle are exceedingly costly. There is no legitimate economic reason for Iran to pursue nuclear energy.
Iran is a deadly and irresponsible world actor, employing terrorist organizations including Hezbollah and Hamas to undermine existing regimes and to foment conflict. Emboldened by the bomb, Iran will become more inclined to sponsor terror, threaten our allies, and support the most deadly elements of the Iraqi insurgency.
Tehran's development of a nuclear bomb could serve as the "starter's gun" in a new and potentially deadly arms race in the most volatile region of the world. Many believe that Iran's neighbors would feel forced to pursue the bomb if it goes nuclear.
By continuing to act in open defiance of its treaty obligations under the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty, Iran rejects the inspections mandated by the IAEA and flouts multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions and sanctions.
At the same time, Iranian leaders declare that Israel is illegitimate and should not exist. President Ahmadinejad specifically calls for Israel to be "wiped off from the map," while seeking the weapons to do so. Such behavior casts Iran as an international outlier. No one can reasonably suggest that a nuclear-armed Iran will suddenly honor international treaty obligations, acknowledge Israel's right to exist, or cease efforts to undermine the Arab-Israeli peace process.
Mr. Ahmadinejad is also the chief spokesman for a regime that represses religious and ethnic minorities, women, students, labor groups and homosexuals. A government willing to persecute its own people can only be viewed as even more dangerous if armed with nuclear weapons.
Finally, our economy has suffered under the burden of rising oil prices. Iran is strategically located on a key choke point in the world's energy supply chain -- the Strait of Hormuz. No one can suggest that a nuclear Iran would hesitate to use its enhanced leverage to affect oil prices, or would work to ease the burden on the battered economies of the world's oil importers.
Facing such a threat, Americans must put aside their political differences and send a clear and united message that a nuclear armed Iran is unacceptable.
That is why the four of us, along with other policy advocates from across the political spectrum, have formed the nonpartisan group United Against Nuclear Iran. Everyone must understand the danger of a nuclear-armed Iran and mobilize the power of a united American public in opposition. As part of the United Against Nuclear Iran effort, we will announce various programs in the months ahead that we hope will be rallying points for the American and international public to voice unified opposition to a nuclear Iran.
We do not aim to beat the drums of war. On the contrary, we hope to lay the groundwork for effective U.S. policies in coordination with our allies, the U.N. and others by a strong showing of unified support from the American people to alter the Iranian regime's current course. The American people must have a voice in this great foreign-policy challenge, and we can make a real difference through national and international, social, economic, political and diplomatic measures.
Mr. Holbrooke is a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Mr. Woolsey is a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Mr. Ross was a special Middle East coordinator for President Clinton. Mr. Wallace was a representative of the U.S. to the U.N. for management and reform.
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Imagine yourself as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, now in your fourth year as president of Iran and about to make yet another appearance at the U.N.'s General Assembly in New York. Superficially -- but only superficially -- things do not appear to be going well.
AP
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Over the weekend, you replaced the head of your central bank over differences about an inflation rate of 28%, up from 12% in 2006. He's the second one to go in just a year. Ali Larijani, once your top nuclear negotiator, resigned last year over his objections to your confrontational style, and may challenge you in next year's presidential election. Your boss, the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has also cooled on your presidency.
Abroad, your tenure has brought about three binding, albeit weak, U.N. sanctions. The often pliant International Atomic Energy Agency last week issued a scathing report, scoring your government for obstructing its investigations and citing evidence that your military has sought to refit long-range missiles to carry a nuclear warhead. Now France and Britain are pressing for another round of sanctions -- and another kick in the shins to your faltering economy.
As for your well-publicized doubts and disquisitions on the future of Israel, or the existence of homosexuality in Iran, or the Holocaust, or the divine halo you sensed the first time you spoke at the U.N., you have succeeded -- as George W. Bush never could have done on his own -- in convincing the American public that Iran is a clear and present danger. In Tel Aviv they say you must be a Mossad mole. Could the Islamic Republic possibly have an uglier face?
Of course not. And that's the whole point of your presidency. Your goal has been to define Iranian deviancy down. You've succeeded handsomely.
A decade ago, before anyone outside the torture chambers of Tehran's Evin prison knew your name, it was former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani who personified the Iranian hard line. He green-lighted terrorist attacks on Jewish targets in Argentina; he refused to revoke the death sentence on novelist Salman Rushdie; a German court fingered him in the assassinations of Iranian-Kurdish dissidents in a Berlin restaurant. When Mohammad Khatami succeeded him as president, the world breathed a sigh of relief.
Now it is Mr. Rafsanjani who is often spoken of as a "pragmatist" and a "moderate" -- as compared to you.
As for the nuclear file, in 2004 the West's bottom line was that Iran had to suspend uranium enrichment as a precondition for negotiations. Mr. Khatami obliged (or at least pretended to); the West's negotiating position barely budged.
By contrast, since you took over you have installed thousands of centrifuges, spinning uranium roughly at a rate of a bomb's worth of fissile material every year. And while you've paid a price in U.N. sanctions, you've also caused Russia and China to split with the rest of the Security Council over stiffer penalties. Better yet, the Bush administration has gone from refusing to negotiate, to offering conditional negotiations, to pursuing low-level negotiations and now, lately, feeling its way toward tacit diplomatic normalization. All that without you bending an inch toward the West.
Above all, you have given the world time to digest the notion that Iran will inevitably become a nuclear power, and that nothing can be done to stop it -- at least at any kind of acceptable price. Will Americans agree to open a third military front in the Middle East? Does Israel, which couldn't so much as defeat Hezbollah, want to roll the dice on a bombing run that will spark another bloody regional war but retard Iran's nuclear programs by at most a few years? How will the U.S. afford its epic Wall Street bailouts if you shut down the Straits of Hormuz?
Surely your enemies will take no such risks. Which is why you're pleased that the more far-seeing Americans are coming around to your point of view. Look at former CIA spy Robert Baer. Mr. Baer has a new book arguing that the U.S. ought not "to stand in the way of Iran's quest to dominate Islam." He thinks Israel's nuclear arms should be put under U.N. supervision. He believes the U.S. and Iran are ripe for the kind of alliance Nixon forged with Mao.
It cannot surprise you that such ideas are now taking root with the American intelligentsia; useful idiots always contribute to the revolution.
And what about your own future? It's true that Iran has inflation and other economic headaches, but didn't the Imam Khomeini say he didn't start a revolution to bring down the price of melons? If the Almighty wills that you will leave office next year, so be it. As president, you have done more for the Islamic Republic in your four years than all your predecessors combined managed in their 25.
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At its annual Vienna powwow this week, the world's nuclear watchdog is taking Iran for a few spins over its atomic ambitions. But the mullahs in Tehran know this diplomatic waltz well, and they can rest assured the dance merely frees up more time and space for them to get their bomb.
The International Atomic Energy Agency report does at least tell us the Iranians are closer than ever to becoming a nuclear power. In unusually scathing terms for an outfit disinclined to criticize Iran, the IAEA lays bare Tehran's lack of cooperation and implies it was hiding illegal military work related to its nuclear program. After six years of monitoring, says IAEA boss Mohamed ElBaradei, "the agency has not been able to make substantive progress" to resolve concerns about Iran's military ambitions.
According to the IAEA report, Iran had built up a stockpile of 1,058 pounds of "low-enriched" uranium hexafloride by the end of August. At this rate, as Gary Milhollin of Iran Watch pointed out in the New York Times, Iran will have the low-enriched uranium necessary to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for a bomb by mid-January. Iran has recently tested long-range missiles and tried to retrofit them to carry a nuclear warhead.
The five permanent members of the Security Council, plus Germany, are on record saying a nuclear Iran would be unacceptable. Surely the U.N., meeting in General Assembly last week days after the IAEA report came out, would respond with urgency. Sure enough, the Europeans and the U.S. suggested another round of sanctions, a position backed by China. And sure enough, Russia scotched those plans.
In its place, the Security Council adopted a resolution calling on Iran to abide by the previous three resolutions to suspend its enrichment program. Translation: "Stop -- or we'll do nothing." Condoleezza Rice called it "a very positive step." Her Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, a foreign minister in the Andrei Gromyko mold, was more honest: "This is a reiteration of the status quo."
The Russian ambassador at the U.N., Vitaly Churkin, claimed the irresolute resolution would channel "the minds of everybody in the direction of political rather than military enterprises." The potentially tragic irony is that the failure of resolve makes a military conflict more likely. If Iranian nuclear progress isn't halted by political or economic means, someone -- probably Israel -- will try to stop it by force.
The Security Council nonaction did give Iran a pretext to make fresh threats. A senior Iranian lawmaker told the state news agency that Iran would limit the IAEA's access to the known nuclear sites. The covert sites are off limits. Presumably he was speaking on orders. But the Europeans, joined in recent months by the Bush Administration, still claim to believe that Iran can be talked out of the bomb.
The Iranians have been offered everything from membership in the World Trade Organization to Western billions and backing for its energy sector, including civilian nuclear reactors. The mullahs mock those entreaties. And in the latest humiliation, Iran's terrorist client state with its own nuclear ambitions, Syria, was poised this week to win a seat on the IAEA's 35-member board. The U.S. and EU are trying to get Afghanistan in its place.
Both of America's Presidential candidates say they worry about a new nuclear arms race. The best way to stop proliferation, particularly in the combustible Middle East, is to start getting serious about stopping Iran from joining the club.
Please add your comments to the Opinion Journal forum.
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It's been a while since German military officers attended rallies that feature threats to Jews. Last month Berlin's defense attaché in Tehran resumed that tradition at Iran's annual military parade.
The German envoy had the privilege of hearing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad promise to "break the hands" of invaders amid banners that read "Israel should be eradicated from the universe" and shouts of "Down with Israel" and "We will crush America under our feet."
Iran's parades are notorious for their "Death to Israel and America" slogans, which is why the European Union shuns these hate-filled spectacles. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier was "very annoyed" about the attaché's faux pas, according to a report in Der Spiegel, and summoned Herbert Honsowitz, the ambassador to the Islamic Republic, to Berlin. Mr. Honsowitz, who is known for pushing trade between the two nations, has since returned to his post and is expected to serve out his term.
This episode illustrates the fundamental problem with Germany's attitude toward Iran: the disconnect between what Berlin says is its official policy goal -- stopping the mullahs' quest for nuclear arms -- and what Berlin actually does. Germany remains Iran's key Western trading partner. The German-Iranian Chamber of Industry and Trade counts about 2,000 members, including such big names as Siemens and BASF. In the first seven months of this year, Germany's Federal Office of Economics and Export Control approved 1,926 business deals with Iran -- an increase of 63% over last year. During that same period, German exports to Iran rose 14.1%.
For the record, French exports went up 21% during the first six months of the year, but they are still worth less than half of Germany's €2.2 billion of exports. Britain's exports to Tehran, only a fraction of Germany's trade with Iran, fell 20%. And while France and the U.K. are both pushing for tougher EU sanctions against Iran, Germany is reluctant to join their cause.
Given this reality, it's not surprising that Berlin's ambassador in Tehran apparently thought nothing of sending a military envoy to Iran's "Down with Israel" rally. He simply put Germany's mouth where its money already is.
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Barack Obama's declaration that, if elected, he would be willing to sit down and talk to Iran "without preconditions" has been widely discussed in this country. It's a key policy difference between him and John McCain, who rejects unconditional talks with Tehran.
So what does the Islamic Republic think? The enterprising reporters at the state news agency recently asked a high-ranking official for his opinion on talks with the U.S. As it turns out, Iran has its own "preconditions" and they don't suggest a diplomatic breakthrough, or even a summit, anytime soon.
Mehdi Kalhor, Vice President for Media Affairs, said the U.S. must do two things before summit talks can take place. First, American military forces must leave the Middle East -- presumably including such countries as Iraq, Qatar, Turkey and anywhere else American soldiers are deployed in the region. Second, the U.S. must cease its support of Israel. Until Washington does both, talks are "off the agenda," the Islamic Republic News Agency reports. It quotes Mr. Kalhor as saying, "If they [the U.S.] take our advice, grounds for such talks would be well prepared.
Iran is one of the toughest and most urgent foreign policy problems the new U.S. Administration will face. If Mr. Obama ends up in the Oval Office on January 20, he may find that solving it will take more than walking into a room and talking to Iranians "without preconditions."
Please add your comments to the Opinion Journal forum.
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But, but Obama is going to heal the earth. He promised......
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I don't think as much of T. Friedman as he does, but this piece does make some fair points.
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Sleepless in Tehran
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: October 28, 2008
NYT
I’ve always been dubious about Barack Obama’s offer to negotiate with Iran — not because I didn’t believe that it was the right strategy, but because I didn’t believe we had enough leverage to succeed. And negotiating in the Middle East without leverage is like playing baseball without a bat.
Well, if Obama does win the presidency, my gut tells me that he’s going to get a chance to negotiate with the Iranians — with a bat in his hand.
Have you seen the reports that Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is suffering from exhaustion? It’s probably because he is not sleeping at night. I know why. Watching oil prices fall from $147 a barrel to $57 is not like counting sheep. It’s the kind of thing that gives an Iranian autocrat bad dreams.
After all, it was the collapse of global oil prices in the early 1990s that brought down the Soviet Union. And Iran today is looking very Soviet to me.
As Vladimir Mau, president of Russia’s Academy of National Economy, pointed out to me, it was the long period of high oil prices followed by sharply lower oil prices that killed the Soviet Union. The spike in oil prices in the 1970s deluded the Kremlin into overextending subsidies at home and invading Afghanistan abroad — and then the collapse in prices in the ‘80s helped bring down that overextended empire.
(Incidentally, this was exactly what happened to the shah of Iran: 1) Sudden surge in oil prices. 2) Delusions of grandeur. 3) Sudden contraction of oil prices. 4) Dramatic downfall. 5) You’re toast.)
Under Ahmadinejad, Iran’s mullahs have gone on a domestic subsidy binge — using oil money to cushion the prices of food, gasoline, mortgages and to create jobs — to buy off the Iranian people. But the one thing Ahmadinejad couldn’t buy was real economic growth. Iran today has 30 percent inflation, 11 percent unemployment and huge underemployment with thousands of young college grads, engineers and architects selling pizzas and driving taxis. And now with oil prices falling, Iran — just like the Soviet Union — is going to have to pull back spending across the board. Fasten your seat belts.
The U.N. has imposed three rounds of sanctions against Iran since Ahmadinejad took office in 2005 because of Iran’s refusal to halt uranium enrichment. But high oil prices minimized those sanctions; collapsing oil prices will now magnify those sanctions. If prices stay low, there is a good chance Iran will be open to negotiating over its nuclear program with the next U.S. president.
That is a good thing because Iran also funds Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria and the anti-U.S. Shiites in Iraq. If America wants to get out of Iraq and leave behind a decent outcome, plus break the deadlocks in Lebanon and Israel-Palestine, it needs to end the cold war with Iran. Possible? I don’t know, but the collapse of oil prices should give us a shot.
But let’s use our leverage smartly and not exaggerate Iran’s strength. Just as I believe that we should drop the reward for the capture of Osama bin Laden — from $50 million to one penny, plus an autographed picture of Dick Cheney — we need to deflate the Iranian mullahs as well. Let them chase us.
Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, compares it to bargaining for a Persian carpet in Tehran. “When you go inside the carpet shop, the first thing you are supposed to do is feign disinterest,” he explains. “The last thing you want to suggest is ‘We are not leaving without that carpet.’ ‘Well,’ the dealer will say, ‘if you feel so strongly about it ...’ ”
The other lesson from the carpet bazaar, says Sadjadpour, “is that there is never a price tag on any carpet. The dealer is not looking for a fixed price, but the highest price he can get — and the Iran price is constantly fluctuating depending on the price of oil.” Let’s now use that to our advantage.
Barack Hussein Obama would present another challenge for Iran’s mullahs. Their whole rationale for being is that they are resisting a hegemonic American power that wants to keep everyone down. Suddenly, next week, Iranians may look up and see that the country their leaders call “The Great Satan” has just elected “a guy whose middle name is the central figure in Shiite Islam — Hussein — and whose last name — Obama — when transliterated into Farsi, means ‘He is with us,’ ” said Sadjadpour.
Iran is ripe for deflating. Its power was inflated by the price of oil and the popularity of its leader, who was cheered simply because he was willing to poke America with a stick. But as a real nation-building enterprise, the Islamic Revolution in Iran has been an abject failure.
“When you ask young Arabs which leaders in the region they most admire,” said Sadjadpour, they will usually answer the leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. “When you ask them where in the Middle East would you most like to live,” he added, “the answer is usually socially open places like Dubai or Beirut. The Islamic Republic of Iran is never in the top 10.”
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Geopolitical Diary: Iran and an Obama Administration
November 7, 2008 | 0256 GMT
A number of senior Iranian officials on Thursday issued positive statements toward the United States. One of those was Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who, in a rare move, congratulated U.S. President-elect Barack Obama on his electoral victory. Then the Islamic Republic’s Prosecutor-General, Ayatollah Qorban-Ali Dori-Najafabadi, called on Obama to demonstrate goodwill and end sanctions against Tehran. Elsewhere, Iranian Ambassador to Kuwait Ali Jannati said his country was ready to normalize relations with the United States and expressed hope that, under an Obama administration, Washington would change its policies toward Tehran.
Important to note in these various remarks is that they were made by prominent hard-liners as opposed to the more pragmatic conservative elements in the clerical regime. The most noteworthy of these was the Iranian envoy to Kuwait, who is the son of a very senior and powerful radical cleric, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, chairman of the Guardian Council — the body that vets candidates for public office and has the power of legislative oversight. So, the question is, why is the Ahmadinejad administration, which would normally be lambasting the United States, now acting all warm and fuzzy?
For starters, the Iranians, like many other international actors, expect an Obama administration — in a sharp departure from the attitude of its predecessor — would invest heavily in some bold diplomacy. From Tehran’s point of view, this potentially could provide the perfect opening for it to move ahead and consolidate its position vis-a-vis Iraq and the nuclear issue. The Iranians feel that they are well placed to negotiate with a new White House from a position of relative strength, especially given Obama’s need to make good on his electoral promise to disengage militarily from Iraq.
The interest of a geopolitically emergent Iran, however, is not the only factor informing Ahmadinejad’s calculus. Before it can truly improve its position, Tehran desperately needs to get ahead of a burgeoning economic crisis. Just two days ago, Iran’s deputy central bank governor for economic affairs, Ramin Pashaei, said that Tehran needs the price of oil to average a little over $60 a barrel until March 2009 (the end of the current Iranian year) to avoid “big problems.” It should be noted that on Thursday oil prices were barely able to stay at the $60 mark.
The faltering state of the Iranian economy is the sore point for Ahmadinejad, who is up for re-election in June 2009. He, therefore, desperately needs to show some sort of victory in order to secure his re-election. The president and his ultraconservative faction also realize that Tehran must bury the hatchet with the United States in order to achieve its objective of being a global player — and Ahmadinejad wants to be able to claim this success.
On the U.S. side of this equation, an Obama administration also will want to engage diplomatically with the clerical regime — but the million-dollar question is, how does it go about doing that without creating problems for itself both at home and internationally. The Bush administration, which was not bogged down with public doubts about its commitment to national security, has been unable to make much progress on this front.
Even in its fading moments, the Bush administration is struggling between the need to deal with Iran and the need to contain it. On Thursday, the Treasury Department imposed additional restrictions against Iran’s banks — a move that comes amid reports that the administration could announce the opening of a “U.S. interests section” in Iran before the end of November. The Bush administration has also had a hard time balancing its need to engage Iran with its commitment to its Arab allies and Israel.
For an Obama administration, this could create an even bigger problem, with the Israelis and the Arabs very uncomfortable with the new U.S. government reaching out to Iran. Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who is hoping to be prime minister in the aftermath of the Israeli election slated for February, expressed opposition to any move on the part of an Obama administration to talk to Iran. Similarly, Saudi King Abdullah, who is due to arrive in New York next week for an interfaith gathering at the United Nations, will reportedly be putting out feelers to Obama in an effort to gauge how the balance of power in the Persian Gulf will be affected by the moves to engage Iran.
Striking a balance between the need to reach a settlement with Iran (on Iraq, at least) and the need to maintain existing relationships with Israel and the Arab states could very well prove to be the most challenging foreign policy issue that the Obama administration will find itself struggling with very early on in its term.
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1/20/09 will be a glorious day for the mullahs. Full steam ahead on the nukes that will turn Tel Aviv into a sheet of glass.
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http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2008/11/iran-ahmadineja.html
Aware of Obama's affinity for socializing with terrorists, A-jad offers a hand of friendship. Wonderful.
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I got this in the mail and here is a link to a position paper about the 30 year failure of negotiations with Iran. BO is going to continue down the same path. Iran may already even posses of bomb. Of course Iran sees as as weak now. Of course they will play the lets talk game. They have been doing it for decades. Yet "70%" of Iranians are not happy with the Radicals in control.
http://www.hillsdale.edu/images/userImages/mvanderwei/Page_4221/ImprimisOct08.pdf
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If Barack Obama is to persuade Iran to negotiate away its illegal nuclear weapons program, he will first need to generate more leverage than what the Bush administration is leaving him with. The current U.N. sanctions have proven too weak to dissuade Tehran's leaders, and Russia and China seem determined to keep those sanctions weak. Meanwhile, the regime continues to insist there are no incentives in exchange for which it would halt or even limit its nuclear work.
David KleinHowever, Tehran has an economic Achilles' heel -- its extraordinarily heavy dependence on imported gasoline. This dependence could be used by the United States to peacefully create decisive leverage over the Islamic Republic.
Iranian oil wells produce far more petroleum (crude oil) than Iran needs. Yet, remarkably for a country investing so much in nuclear power, Iran has not developed sufficient capacity to refine that crude oil into gasoline and diesel fuel. As a result, it must import some 40% of the gasoline it needs for internal consumption.
In recent months, Iran has, according to the respected trade publication International Oil Daily and other sources including the U.S. government, purchased nearly all of this gasoline from just five companies, four of them European: the Swiss firm Vitol; the Swiss/Dutch firm Trafigura; the French firm Total; British Petroleum; and one Indian company, Reliance Industries. If these companies stopped supplying Iran, the Iranians could replace only some of what they needed from other suppliers -- and at a significantly higher price. Neither Russia nor China could serve as alternative suppliers. Both are themselves also heavily dependent on imports of the type of gasoline Iran needs.
Were these companies to stop supplying gasoline to Iran, the world-wide price of oil would be unaffected -- the companies would simply sell to other buyers. But the impact on Iran would be substantial.
When Tehran attempted to ration gasoline during the summer of 2007, violent protests forced the regime to back down. Cutting off gasoline sales to Iran, or even a significant reduction, could have an even more dramatic effect.
In Congress, there is already bipartisan support for peacefully cutting off gasoline sales to Iran until it stops its illicit nuclear activities. Barack Obama, John McCain and the House of Representatives have all declared their support.
On June 4 of this year, for example, Sen. Obama said at a speech in Washington, D.C.: "We should work with Europe, Japan and the Gulf states to find every avenue outside the U.N. to isolate the Iranian regime -- from cutting off loan guarantees and expanding financial sanctions, to banning the export of refined petroleum to Iran."
He repeated this sentiment during the presidential candidates' debate on Oct. 7: "Iran right now imports gasoline . . . if we can prevent them from importing the gasoline that they need . . . that starts changing their cost-benefit analysis. That starts putting the squeeze on them."
How do we stop the gasoline from flowing? The Bush administration has reportedly never asked the Swiss, Dutch, French, British or Indian governments to stop gasoline sales to Iran by the companies headquartered within their borders. An Obama administration should make this request, and do the same with other governments if other companies try to sell gasoline to Iran.
But the U.S. also has significant direct leverage over the companies that currently supply most of Iran's imported gasoline.
Consider India's Reliance Industries which, according to International Oil Daily, "reemerged as a major supplier of gasoline to Iran" in July after taking a break for several months. It "delivered three cargoes of gasoline totaling around 100,000 tons to Iran's Mideast Gulf port of Bandar Abbas from its giant Jamnagar refinery in India's western province of Gujarat." Reliance reportedly "entered into a new arrangement with National Iranian Oil Co. (NIOC) under which it will supply around . . . three 35,000-ton cargoes a month, from its giant Jamnagar refinery." One hundred thousand tons represents some 10% of Iran's total monthly gasoline needs.
The Jamnagar refinery is heavily supported by U.S. taxpayer dollars. In May 2007, the U.S. Export-Import Bank, a government agency that assists in financing the export of U.S. goods and services, announced a $500 million loan guarantee to help finance expansion of the Jamnagar refinery. On Aug. 28, 2008, Ex-Im announced a new $400 million long-term loan guarantee for Reliance, including additional financing of work at the Jamnagar refinery.
Or consider the Swiss firm Vitol. According to International Oil Daily, Vitol "over the past few years has accounted for around 60% of the gasoline shipped to Iran." Vitol is currently building a $100 million terminal in Port Canaveral, Florida.
Last year, when Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty discovered that an Indian company, Essar, was seeking to both invest some $1.6 billion in Minnesota and invest over $5 billion in building a refinery in Iran, he put Essar to a choice. Mr. Pawlenty threatened to block state infrastructure subsidies and perhaps even construction permits for the Minnesota purchase unless Essar withdrew from the Iranian investment. Essar promptly withdrew from the Iranian investment.
Florida officials could consider taking a similar stance with Vitol.
In today's Opinion Journal
REVIEW & OUTLOOK
A Barack MarketEmpire State ImplosionThe Greens Get Harpooned
TODAY'S COLUMNISTS
Wonder Land: A Monument to Government Power
– Daniel HenningerHistory Favors Republicans in 2010
– Karl Rove
COMMENTARY
How to Put the Squeeze on Iran
– Orde F. KittrieObama and Missile Defense
– John R. BoltonIt's Time to Rethink Our Retirement Plans
– Roger W. Ferguson Jr.The Minnesota example is not the only precedent. U.S. outreach to foreign banks and to oil companies considering investing in Iran's energy sector has reportedly convinced more than 80 banks and several major potential oil-field investors to cease all or some of their business with Iran. Among them: Germany's two largest banks (Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank), London-based HSBC, Credit Suisse, Norwegian energy company StatoilHydro, and Royal Dutch Shell.
A sustained initiative may be able to convince most or all current and potential suppliers that the profits to be gained from continuing to sell gasoline to Iran will be dwarfed by the lost loan guarantees and subsidies and foregone profits they will incur in the U.S. from continuing to do business with Iran.
Last Sunday, a group of 60 Iranian economists called for the regime to drastically change course, saying that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's "tension-creating" foreign policy has "scared off foreign investment and inflicted heavy damage on the economy." The economists said the current sanctions, as weak as they are, have cost Iran billions of dollars by forcing it to use middlemen for exports and imports. Halting Iran's gasoline supply could contribute to reaching a tipping point -- at which economic pressures and protests convince the regime its illicit nuclear program poses too great a risk to its grip over the Iranian people.
If the federal and key state governments in the U.S. were to make it their goal to achieve a halt by companies selling gasoline to Iran, it could be a game-changer. It may be our best remaining hope for peacefully convincing Iran to desist from developing nuclear weapons.
Mr. Kittrie is a professor of law at Arizona State University and a fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He previously worked for 11 years at the U.S. Department of State, including as a specialist on nuclear nonproliferation and sanctions.
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Geopolitical Diary: Iran's Bond Announcement and High Hopes For Talks
November 20, 2008 | 0104 GMT
Iran’s deputy central bank governor, Hossein Qazavi, said Nov. 19 that Iran is considering issuing a $1 billion international bond “to attract international investment,” seven months after it repaid its last bond. The issuance would be Iran’s first since 2002, and only its third since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Through a bond market, countries look to “sell” their debts to international investors by parceling them into portions that can be bought individually. Raising money through the bond market is often easier than getting a loan from one or several banks; because the debt is divided into portions that investors of nearly any size can afford, banks and/or individuals with less capital on hand can come to the table. By getting more players involved, the country that needs its debt serviced can increase competition over the bond and thus decrease the price it has to pay for it. Of course, for this to work, someone actually has to want to buy the bond. Unlike a loan that is negotiated with one or several financial institutions, a bond market works on the principle of a market. It rewards credit-worthy countries whose debts are highly sought after (due to the state’s perceived financial strength and, therefore, its ability to repay the “loan” plus interest), and punishes countries that are not credit-worthy. In those terms, forays into the bond market are risky, as they potentially expose states to investor scrutiny.
The current conditions in global credit markets make investment in Iranian bonds highly unlikely, as very few sovereign or private investors have any money on hand, particularly to buy risky bonds. But leaving this aside, Qazavi’s announcement leads one to wonder about the overall health of the Islamic Republic.
With oil prices poised to sink below $50 per barrel any day now, Iran is scrambling to cover its budgetary costs, with potential social unrest looming if various government subsidies — particularly those for gasoline, which refinery-poor and gasoline-guzzling Iran must import — have to be cut. Tehran is staring social unrest in the face, and desperate times might call for such desperate measures as begging cash-strapped foreign investors for $1 billion.
Another problem with the bond issuance in the current geopolitical climate is that it is unclear whether any European or Asian bank would dare to finance the bond. Since 2002, when Iran’s last bond was issued, the United States has specifically targeted Iranian banks, cajoling the European Union to stop doing business with certain Iranian banks and getting more than 40 international banks to agree to halt business with Tehran. In October 2007, Washington also designated several Iranian banks as supporters of terrorism.
Furthermore, the United States’ Iran Sanctions Act (ISA), currently in place until 2011, strongly discourages foreign companies from investing in Iran’s energy sector and pledges retaliatory sanctions against those who do. In his announcement, Qazavi noted that the bond issuance would let investors “safely invest and take part in various projects including petrochemicals” — investments in which the ISA specifically tries to discourage the participation of non-U.S. entities. It’s unclear whether the ISA would give Washington the authority to put Iranian bond purchasers under sanctions, but the possibility clearly exists, and it will be enough to deter already bearish global investors.
On the flip side, Qazavi’s comments might be evidence that the latest round of negotiations between the Americans and Iranians are progressing well, and that they might even be nearing a conclusion. Washington’s ultimate goal in the negotiations is to limit Iran’s influence in Iraq, while Tehran wants to limit the United States’ ability to roll forces eastward from Baghdad. Negotiations began as early as months before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, but ultimately stalled on the most important issues, as an emboldened United States rejected Iran’s offers for a comprehensive deal on Iraq. Iran responded to the rebuff by restarting its nuclear program, and by supporting Hezbollah in its conflict with Israel in the summer of 2006, as well as backing Shiite groups in a flare-up of violence in Iraq in November of that year. The two sides went back to the negotiating table after the 2007 U.S. troop surge.
With the United States and Iraq inking a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) that will lead to the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq in three years, it appears that Washington and Tehran also are now close to a deal. Iran’s judiciary chief, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, confirmed as much on Nov. 18, when he said the Iraqi government had done “very well” in approving the SOFA. It was the first time Tehran had voiced any sort of approval of the agreement. The United States of course hopes that the Baghdad of 2011 will be able to resist Tehran’s influence, and that the troop withdrawal will therefore be possible.
Qazavi’s comments on the $1 billion bond, put in the context of ongoing negotiations, suggest that Tehran might be betting that talks with the Americans are near an end. A U.S. rapprochement with Iran would certainly place a stamp of approval on foreign investment in Iran. Without such a stamp, any bond issuance would make little sense. Therefore, Iran either must be desperate for capital due to serious economic problems, or preparing for a positive announcement on the negotiating front.
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The recent U.N. report that Iran may have enough nuclear material to build an atomic bomb is causing concern in Germany -- not over an Islamic bomb, but over the risk of tougher U.N. sanctions.
The German-Iranian Chamber of Commerce sponsored a seminar this week in Hamburg entitled "Iran Sanctions -- Practical Consequences for German Companies." The session was designed to help firms in "these difficult times" -- a reference to U.N. trade sanctions, not the global economy. Speakers included Sabine Hummerich from Bank Melli, Iran's largest bank. In June, the European Union froze Bank Melli's assets because of its ties to Tehran's nuclear program and barred dealings with the bank. This didn't stop organizers from inviting Ms. Hummerich to lecture about the "Financial Transaction of Iranian Business Deals."
As Europe's largest exporter to Iran, Germany has unique leverage over the regime. But Berlin refuses to use it. German exports to Iran are up 14.1% in the first seven months of this year. The Islamic Republic is so popular in Germany that another group, Management Circle, is planning a two-day crash course next month in Frankfurt. The program lists seven reasons for doing business with Iran, including "traditional good economic and political relations with Germany."
Readers may recall that Barack Obama assailed President Bush for not doing more diplomatically to contain Iran, including more vigorous sanctions. Job one on that score for Mr. Obama would seem to be persuading his many admirers in Germany. Good luck.
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Iran's universities are again the scene of battles over the country's future. In the digital age, we're able to take a better peek inside.
Footage of recent student protests in Tehran, Shiraz and Hamedan are all over the Internet. In particular, one clip of a student dressing down a government dignitary reveals a remarkable willingness to defy the regime. On the video, a young man at Shiraz University rises to address the visiting speaker of parliament and former nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani. "I'm not going to ask you a question because I don't accept you as the legitimate speaker or the parliament as legitimate," the student says, citing the elimination of opposition candidates in the previous parliamentary election.
Watch the Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syMT93tETME
Courtesy of YouTube.Sitting on stage before a hundred or so students, Mr. Larijani looks taken aback and says nothing. "Let me tell you what is weighing heavily on my heart," the student continues. "I hate three things. One, I hate [President] Mahmoud Ahmadinejad."
Applause erupts -- in itself an act of defiance, since the mullahs consider clapping, along with neckties, a Western habit. "Two, I hate him for his hypocrisy." At this point, some pro-regime students -- whom reports link to the government-sanctioned Basij organization, the mullahs' brown shirts -- interrupt with chants and heckles. Amid the mayhem, the video ends. We don't know the young man's name or what happened to him after this October 9 encounter. Some Iranians speculate he was arrested; others say he went into hiding.
Since the last student uprising was crushed six years ago, Iran has seen sporadic but growing resistance to the regime -- most recently at the "Student Day" rallies on December 6 that commemorate the 1953 killing of three demonstrators by the Shah's army. The Shiraz student calls to mind the lone man, that "unknown rebel," who stood up to Chinese tanks during the Tiananmen protests. President-elect Obama says the U.S. should engage Iran. As one of our friends points out, "He has a choice: Engage with what Larijani represents, or engage with the generation of that student."
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By JOHN R. BOLTON
"You'd have to be an idiot to trust the North Koreans," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said recently. Apparently unaware of the irony, she then predicted eventual success for the six-party talks on the North's nuclear weapons program.
President-elect Barack Obama has promised major changes in U.S. diplomacy and repeatedly criticized the Bush administration on both substance and style. Mr. Obama has pledged more negotiation and multilateralism -- less saber-rattling and "take it or leave it" unilateralism. While Iraq was Mr. Obama's focal point in the campaign, the biggest problem ahead is countering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
But on proliferation, what is striking are the similarities between Mr. Obama and President George W. Bush's second term. Given Mr. Bush's recent record, continuity between the two presidencies is hardly reassuring. And where Mr. Obama differs with Mr. Bush, he is only more accommodating to the intractable rogues running Pyongyang and Tehran. This is decidedly bad news.
The recent, embarrassing collapse of the six-party talks starkly underlines how, under Mr. Obama, everything old will be new again. The talks are classic multilateral diplomacy, pursued since 2003 with notable deference to North Korea. There's been about as much engagement with Pyongyang as consenting adults can lawfully have.
The outcome of this Obama-style diplomacy was the same as all prior negotiations with the leaders of the world's largest prison camp. North Korea charged even for the privilege of sitting at the negotiating table, extracted concession after concession, endlessly renegotiated points that had been resolved, and ultimately delivered nothing of consequence in return.
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When pressed, North Korea would bluster and threaten to rain destruction on South Korea. "Experts" on North Korea would observe that this was just its style, nothing to worry about. Thus did the Bush administration enable the North's bullying behavior by proclaiming even greater willingness to offer further carrots.
Most recently in Beijing, Pyongyang refused to put in writing what U.S. negotiators say it committed to verbally -- namely, verifying its commitment to abandon its nuclear program. But even taking U.S. negotiators at their word, this did not constitute real verification. The charade of verification was only one more ploy to squeeze out U.S. concessions, which Mr. Bush's negotiators seemed prepared to give.
On Iran, also for over five years, Mr. Bush has endorsed vigorous European diplomacy. The Europeans offered every imaginable carrot to persuade Iran to drop its nuclear program in exchange for a different relationship with Europe and America. This produced no change in Iran's strategic objective of acquiring deliverable nuclear weapons. The only real consequence is that Iran is five years closer to achieving that objective. It now has indigenous mastery over the entire nuclear fuel cycle.
The Obama alternative? "Present the Iranian regime with a clear choice" by using carrots and sticks to induce Iran to give up its nuclear aspirations. What does Mr. Obama think Mr. Bush and the Europeans have been doing? Does he really think his smooth talking will achieve more than Europe's smoothest talkers, who were in fact talking for us the whole time?
In Today's Opinion Journal
REVIEW & OUTLOOK
The Euro Decade and Its LessonsTreasury to Ford: Drop Dead
TODAY'S COLUMNISTS
Declarations: In With the New
– Peggy NoonanPotomac Watch: The Senate Goes Wobbly on Card Check
– Kimberley A. Strassel
COMMENTARY:
Conservatives Can Unite Around the Constitution
– Peter BerkowitzLet's Be Worthy of Their Sacrific
– Karl RoveLet's Write the Rating Agencies Out of Our Law
– Robert RosenkranzObama Promises Bush III on Iran
– John R. BoltonIsrael's Policy Is Perfectly 'Proportionate'
– Alan M. DershowitzWhile Mr. Obama has uttered only generalities on North Korea, his Iran policy will be worse than Mr. Bush's. He acts as though the years of failed efforts to dissuade Iran from going nuclear simply didn't happen. That is blindness, not continuity. And that's without Mr. Obama's pledge to meet personally with Iran's leaders, an incredible act of legitimization he seems willing to give away for nothing.
Neither North Korea nor Iran is prepared to voluntarily give up nuclear or ballistic missile programs. The Bush policy was flawed not because its diplomacy was ineffective or disengaged, not because it was too intimidating to its adversaries, and not because it lacked persistence. Mr. Bush's flaw was believing that negotiation and mutual concession could accomplish the U.S. objective -- the end of proliferation threats from Pyongyang and Tehran -- when the objectives of our adversaries were precisely the opposite. They sought to buy valuable time to improve and expand their nuclear programs, extract as many carrots as possible, and play for legitimacy on the world stage.
Iran and North Korea achieved their objectives through diplomacy. Mr. Bush failed to achieve his. How can Mr. Obama do better? For starters, he could increase the pressure on China, which has real leverage over North Korea, to press Kim Jong Il's regime in ways that the six-party talks never approached. Options on Iran are more limited, but meaningful efforts at regime change and assisting Israel should it decide to strike Iran's nuclear facilities would be good first steps.
Sadly, the chances Mr. Obama will adopt these policies are far less than the steadily dwindling possibility that the Bush administration might yet come back to reality. Mr. Obama's handling of the rogue states will -- at best -- continue the Bush policies, which failed to stop nuclear proliferation. Get ready for a dangerous ride.
Mr. Bolton, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, is the author of "Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations" (Simon & Schuster, 2007).
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The announcement late Friday that Lloyds bank has admitted to illegally transferring Iranian money into the U.S. deserves more public attention. The deferred prosecution agreement is a victory for the Manhattan District Attorney's office despite backroom foot-dragging from the U.S. Treasury. And it's further evidence of how deadly serious Iran is in seeking to buy parts for its missile and nuclear programs.
APUnder Lloyds TSB Group's deferred prosecution agreement with District Attorney Robert Morgenthau and the Justice Department, the British bank will pay a $350 million fine and, most important, share all its records on the Iranian transfers. If Lloyds continues to cooperate, neither the bank nor its executives will be criminally prosecuted for violating the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, under which the U.S. has imposed sanctions on Iran.
State-owned Iranian banks Saderat and Melli have been barred from the U.S. financial system for their ties to terrorism and nuclear proliferation, respectively, and were specifically cited in the U.N. Security Council's most recent sanctions order against Iran. But for years, Lloyds and other financial firms helped Iran's rogue banks infiltrate the U.S. Why did Iran's banks need American dollars? In some cases they appear to have purchased items within U.S. borders. In others, law enforcement sources believe the banks were channeling billions in cash through U.S. banks to third countries to parties demanding payment in dollars.
Our sources say the money trail often began at the Iranian Central Bank, which sent funds to banks Melli and Saderat, as well as to Bank Sepah, which a U.S. Treasury official has called "the financial linchpin of Iran's missile procurement network." The U.K. branches or subsidiaries of the Iranian banks would send electronic messages via the Swift banking payments system to Lloyds and possibly other financial houses. Employees at Lloyds would then re-key the data into a new Swift message, carefully removing any reference to Iran or its banks. Employees at the British bank called this "stripping." The sophisticated screening software at American banks would have raised red flags if the true source of the funds had been revealed, but coming from a respected British financial institution, they weren't questioned.
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Lloyds admits to stripping for Iran from 2001-2004, though it may have begun in the 1990s and wasn't detected by law enforcement until early 2007. But one reason for deferring prosecution is that Lloyds's employees began to raise questions and convinced the bank's leadership to end the illegal Iranian transfers via London by April of 2004. Lloyds's offices in Dubai and Tokyo continued to facilitate Iranian money transfers into the U.S. until October of that year. Illegal transfers from Sudan, similarly disguised to evade sanctions but at much lower dollar amounts, occurred through 2007.
We're told that records of transfers back to London suggest that the Iranians sometimes used overnight deposits in the U.S. to take advantage of favorable interest rates. But American officials are also now in a race to track down all of the ultimate destinations. Mr. Morgenthau's office, which has led this effort, suspects that some funds may have been used to purchase raw materials for long-range missiles.
In Today's Opinion Journal
REVIEW & OUTLOOK
Bank of the United States
TODAY'S COLUMNISTS
The Americas: Dictatorship for Dummies
– Mary Anastasia O'GradyInformation Age: How the Music Industry Can Get Digital Satisfaction
– L. Gordon Crovitz
COMMENTARY
Charter Schools Can Close the Education Gap
– Joel I. Klein and Al SharptonTake It From McCain's Advisers: The GOP Would Raise Taxes
– Matt MillerWhy Russia Stokes Mideast Mayhem
– Garry KasparovThe U.S. Votes 'Present' at the U.N.
– John R. BoltonWe're also told that nine other banks are being investigated, including another British bank, a Swiss bank and a German bank. But since any illegal activity does not appear to have involved the U.S. subsidiaries of foreign firms, there is a question of how cooperative the foreign banks will be. The biggest potential payoff from Lloyds's cooperation should be when the bank identifies for U.S. law enforcers all of the wire transfers that originated in Iran, thus helping the CIA and FBI track them to their final destinations.
The size of this financial cover-up shows the lengths Iran has been going to evade sanctions and expand its military arsenal. Mr. Morgenthau has done a service in releasing the details, all the more so given the strange reticence of the U.S. Treasury. Treasury has long pushed for tough financial sanctions on Iran. Yet in this case it fought against criminal sanction, preferring only a civil judgment, and it argued for a lower fine. One possible explanation is that Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson didn't want to offend British regulators by coming down too hard on one of their banks. However, it strikes us that helping Iran cover up its weapons-buying is serious enough to deserve the criminal sanction. Treasury officials declined our repeated invitations to comment.
Iran continues to make progress on its nuclear program, and yesterday the New York Times reported that President Bush refused a recent Israeli request for weapons that could help in any military strike against Tehran's nuclear sites. Whether or not that proves to be an historic mistake, it increases the importance of financial pressure on Iran. President-elect Obama has said he wants to toughen sanctions against Iran, and his new Treasury team can help by cooperating more with Mr. Morgenthau's investigation.
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Iran: Students Rally To Martyrdom
January 21, 2009 | 1519 GMT
Approximately 100,000 students have joined an organization, whose members are purportedly willing to carry out “martyrdom seeking operations,” the Indo-Asian News Service reported Jan. 21.
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Geopolitical Diary: More Progress Ahead for U.S.-Iranian Talks
January 27, 2009 | 0256 GMT
Susan Rice, the new U.S. envoy to the United Nations, on Monday echoed President Barack Obama’s campaign pledge to pursue a new approach in dealing with Iran, saying his administration intends to engage in direct diplomacy with Tehran.
Though relations between the countries have been pockmarked with “Death to America” slogans, trampled U.S. flags, militant proxy battles and nuclear plant centrifuges spinning in defiance, the U.S. occupation of Iraq gave Tehran and Washington many reasons to start talking again. Iran had a golden opportunity to consolidate Shiite influence in the heart of the Arab world, and the United States needed to deal with the Iranians to keep Iraq from tearing itself apart in a full-scale civil war.
Despite the long-standing tensions, the back-channel talks that had been taking place even before the United States invaded Iraq progressed, in the final phase of the Bush presidency, to the point that dialogue was able to break out into the public sphere, allowing the world to warm to the idea of the Great Satan talking to a member of the Axis of Evil. Now, after a year-long campaign filled with Iranian pledges to talk to the United States’ main adversaries, the sporadic and indirect negotiations are about to evolve into direct diplomatic talks. It’s been a rollercoaster relationship, but it is slowly and surely moving toward a more cooperative stance.
Signs of progress can already be seen: There are serious discussions about the U.S. State Department setting up a diplomatic office in Tehran, and hard-line Iranian ayatollahs are practically welcoming the Obama administration with open arms. We do not expect either Iran or the United States to rush the process, however. The Obama administration is still putting together a diplomatic team to develop an Iran strategy, and the Iranians have to get through presidential elections in June. That said, neither side is wasting time in laying the groundwork for a more constructive relationship.
The U.S. military drawdown in Iraq will be a significant confidence-building factor in these talks. With the world’s most powerful military force flanking them in both Iraq and Afghanistan, the Iranians have had more than a few sleepless nights over the past several years. The drawdown in Iraq has been made possible both by the success of the U.S. surge in stabilizing Iraq (which was also quietly facilitated to some extent by the Iranians) and a strategic need for the United States to refocus on Afghanistan, where a victory over al Qaeda and the Taliban is anything but assured.
The Iranians still will be faced with a residual U.S. military presence in Iraq over the longer term and a U.S.-Iraqi strategic partnership designed to counter Iranian influence, but they at least can be assured that within the next year, the United States will no longer be in an immediate offensive posture on their western frontier. In fact, the Pentagon is making contingency plans for the United States to complete the bulk of its withdrawal from Iraq by the end of 2010 — a year ahead of the deadline stipulated by the U.S.-Iraqi Status of Forces Agreement — pending Obama’s approval.
In addition to building confidence for U.S.-Iranian dialogue, moves toward an accelerated U.S. withdrawal also could open new doors for cooperation in Afghanistan. There is no love lost between Tehran and al Qaeda or the Taliban, but Iran has been heavily involved in arming the jihadist insurgency in Afghanistan – hoping to keep the United States too preoccupied to think about regime change in Tehran. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) also has plenty of intelligence that the United States would appreciate concerning the movements of al Qaeda operatives who travel in and out of Iran under the IRGC’s watch. U.S. Central Command chief Gen. David Petraeus indicated recently that Afghanistan is an issue of mutual interest for Washington and Tehran. And with the U.S. military focus shifting from Iraq to Afghanistan, there is strong potential for a meeting of the minds between these two on how to contain the Taliban and eradicate al Qaeda.
Another test of U.S.-Iranian cooperation will concern the Mujahideen e-Khalq (MeK) — a cult-like Marxist-based group whose primary aim is to overthrow Iran’s clerical regime. Approximately 3,000 MeK members have been holed up in Camp Ashraf, in Iraq’s Diyala province, under the watch of the U.S. military throughout out the war. Tehran has worried that the United States and other Western powers could use the group as a tool to undermine the stability of the Iranian regime. Now that the United States is drawing down forces in Iraq, the Iranians want assurances from Washington that the MeK will not be able to reorganize. Mainly out of concern for human rights, the United States cannot simply extradite the MeK members to Iran or release them to authorities in Iraq, where they likely would be tortured and executed. For this reason, many of them are likely to find political asylum in the European Union, which voted Monday to remove the group from its list of terrorist organizations. The MeK threat might be a useful card for the United States and Europe to hold onto in their negotiations with Iran, but moving forward, Iran likely would demand some guarantees from the Obama administration that the group will be completely neutralized, in return for any potential cooperation on al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Of course, a number of significant challenges remain on the path toward rapprochement. In addition to the deep-set distrust that the United States and Iran have harbored for three decades, the nuclear issue — despite widely varying estimates on its threat value — remains a key sticking point in any diplomatic arrangement. This is especially true as the United States has to balance Iran against its relationship with Israel and the surrounding Arab states, which who all want to see Iran boxed in from all sides. While a full and imminent rapprochement might be wishful thinking, it is hard to deny these days that Iran and the United States are at least moving toward some sort of mutual understanding.
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Somehow it seems fitting that this Jimmy Carter redux focuses on Iran.
Revealed: the letter Obama team hope will heal Iran rift
Symbolic gesture gives assurances that US does not want to topple Islamic regime
Robert Tait and Ewen MacAskill in Washington
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 29 January 2009 01.44 GMT
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Officials of Barack Obama's administration have drafted a letter to Iran from the president aimed at unfreezing US-Iranian relations and opening the way for face-to-face talks, the Guardian has learned.
The US state department has been working on drafts of the letter since Obama was elected on 4 November last year. It is in reply to a lengthy letter of congratulations sent by the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on 6 November.
Diplomats said Obama's letter would be a symbolic gesture to mark a change in tone from the hostile one adopted by the Bush administration, which portrayed Iran as part of an "axis of evil".
It would be intended to allay the suspicions of Iran's leaders and pave the way for Obama to engage them directly, a break with past policy.
State department officials have composed at least three drafts of the letter, which gives assurances that Washington does not want to overthrow the Islamic regime, but merely seeks a change in its behaviour. The letter would be addressed to the Iranian people and sent directly to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, or released as an open letter.
One draft proposal suggests that Iran should compare its relatively low standard of living with that of some of its more prosperous neighbours, and contemplate the benefits of losing its pariah status in the west. Although the tone is conciliatory, it also calls on Iran to end what the US calls state sponsorship of terrorism.
The letter is being considered by the new secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, as part of a sweeping review of US policy on Iran. A decision on sending it is not expected until the review is complete.
In an interview on Monday with the al-Arabiya television network, Obama hinted at a more friendly approach towards the Islamic Republic.
Ahmadinejad said yesterday that he was waiting patiently to see what the Obama administration would come up with. "We will listen to the statements closely, we will carefully study their actions, and, if there are real changes, we will welcome it," he said.
Ahmadinejad, who confirmed that he would stand for election again in June, said it was unclear whether the Obama administration was intent on just a shift in tactics or was seeking fundamental change. He called on Washington to apologise for its actions against Iran over the past 60 years, including US support for a 1953 coup that ousted the democratically elected government, and the US shooting down of an Iranian passenger plane in 1988.
The state department refused to comment yesterday on the draft letters.
US concern about Iran mainly centres on its uranium enrichment programme, which Washington claims is intended to provide the country with a nuclear weapons capability. Iran claims the programme is for civilian purposes.
The diplomatic moves are given increased urgency by fears that Israel might take unilateral action to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities.
The scale of the problem facing the new American president was reinforced yesterday when a senior aide to Ahmadinejad, Aliakbar Javanfekr, said that, despite the calls from the US, Iran had no intention of stopping its nuclear activities. When asked about a UN resolution calling for the suspension of Iran's uranium enrichment, Javanfekr, the presidential adviser for press affairs, replied: "We are past that stage."
One of the chief Iranian concerns revolves around suspicion that the US is engaged in covert action aimed at regime change, including support for separatist groups in areas such as Kurdistan, Sistan-Baluchestan and Khuzestan.
The state department has repeatedly denied that there is any American support for such groups.
In its dying days, the Bush administration was planning to open a US interests section in the Iranian capital Tehran, one step down from an embassy. Bush's secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, said that never happened because attention was diverted by the Russian invasion of Georgia. Others say that rightwingers in the Bush administration mounted a rearguard action to block it.
The idea has resurfaced, but if there are direct talks with Iran, it may be decided that a diplomatic presence would obviate the need for a diplomatic mission there, at least in the short term.
While Obama is taking the lead on policy towards Iran, the administration will soon announce that Dennis Ross will become a special envoy to the country, following the appointments last week of George Mitchell, the veteran US mediator, as special envoy to the Middle East, and Richard Holbrooke, who helped to broker the Bosnia peace agreement, as special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Ross, who took a leading role in the Middle East peace talks in Bill Clinton's administration, will be responsible on a day-to-day basis for implementing policy towards Iran.
In a graphic sign of Iranian mistrust, the hardline newspaper Kayhan, which is considered close to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has denounced Ross as a "Zionist lobbyist".
Saeed Leylaz, a Tehran-based analyst, said a US letter would have to be accompanied by security guarantees and an agreement to drop economic sanctions. "If they send such a letter it will be a very significant step towards better ties, but they should be careful in not thinking Tehran will respond immediately," he said.
"There will be disputes inside the system about such a letter. There are lot of radicals who don't want to see ordinary relations between Tehran and Washington. To convince Iran, they should send a very clear message that they are not going to try to destroy the regime."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/28/barack-obama-letter-to-iran/print
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Iran Says Obama's Offer To Talk Shows U.S. Failure
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US President Barack Obama's offer to talk to Iran shows that America's policy of "domination" has failed, the government spokesman said on Saturday. "This request means Western ideology has become passive, that capitalist thought and the system of domination have failed," Gholam Hossein Elham was quoted as saying by the Mehr news agency.
"Negotiation is secondary, the main issue is that there is no way but for (the United States) to change," he added.
After nearly three decades of severed ties, Obama said shortly after taking office this month that he is willing to extend a diplomatic hand to Tehran if the Islamic republic is ready to "unclench its fist".
In response, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad launched a fresh tirade against the United States, demanding an apology for its "crimes" against Iran and saying he expected "deep and fundamental" change from Obama.
Iranian politicians frequently refer to the US administration as the "global arrogance", "domineering power" and "Great Satan".
Tensions with the United States have soared over Iran's nuclear drive and Ahmadinejad's vitriolic verbal attacks against Washington's close regional ally Israel.
Former US president George W. Bush refused to hold talks with the Islamic republic -- which he dubbed part of an "axis of evil" -- unless it suspended uranium enrichment, and never took a military option to thwart Tehran's atomic drive off the table.
The new administration of Obama has also refused to rule out any options -- including military strikes -- to stop Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
Iran denies any plans to build the bomb and insists its nuclear programme is solely aimed at peaceful ends.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php...show_article=1
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"The new administration of Obama has also refused to rule out any options -- including military strikes"
Empty bluffs like these are nothing short of ridiculous. Now if BO really wants to scare the beegeebees out of Ahmadinejad he should challenge him to a one on one game of HOOPS - winner take all. Now that is scary (and believable).
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The U.S. Treasury Department added the Free Life Party of Kurdistan (PJAK) to its list of terrorist organizations on Wednesday. PJAK is a sister organization of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the prominent Kurdish guerrilla group that operates in Turkey and has bases in northern Iraq. PJAK also has bases in northern Iraq, but focuses its operations on northwestern Iran, where that country’s Kurdish minority is concentrated.
The timing of the Treasury move is significant. Tehran has complained for some time that the United States, in collaboration with Israeli and Western intelligence organizations, supports groups like PJAK whose aim is to undermine the stability of the Iranian regime.
And the Iranians have cause for concern. The geopolitical core of Iran, where the population is most densely concentrated, is in the mountainous northern and central regions. That geography itself creates ample opportunities for foreign rivals or domestic opponents to stir up trouble for the regime: Since only about half of the population is ethnically Persian, one of Iran’s chief security imperatives is to contain minority ethnic groups dispersed throughout the mountains. The group of biggest concern for the Iranians has been Mujahideen e-Khalq (MeK), a cult-like Islamist-Marxist rebel group with the explicit goal of overthrowing the clerical regime.
MeK fighters have been holed up in Iraq’s Diyala province, under the watch of the U.S. military – but now that U.S. troops are withdrawing from Iraq in large numbers, something must done about the approximately 3,000 MeK members. Iran wants guarantees that groups like the MeK and PJAK will be neutralized. By placing PJAK on the U.S. terror list, Washington has made a symbolic move that tells Tehran that it is prepared to make certain concessions that will allow the clerical regime to rest more comfortably.
It is not clear yet how favorably the Iranians might respond to this move. U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration has made it clear that it will pursue engagement with Iran, and a number of backchannel discussions have been set into motion. But the Iranians are taking things slowly. With presidential elections approaching in June, Tehran is struggling to work out its next steps in negotiating with Washington. There is also more work to be done to prepare the Iranian public psychologically for public negotiations with the so-called “Great Satan.”
Iran’s priority right now is to convince the populace and surrounding states that Tehran is pursuing these negotiations from a position of strength. It intends to demonstrate that strength with things like satellite launches, pronouncements that wax philosophic about Iran’s nuclear achievements, and political victories in neighboring Iraq. Meanwhile, the United States is grappling with the complexities of an engagement policy through gestures such as the blacklisting of PJAK – even as Washington tries to downplay more contentious issues like Iran’s nuclear program, and to maintain a hard-line stance on sanctions.
There remains a long way to go in revising the U.S.-Iranian narrative of negotiations, but Tehran has little time to stall. The Iranians need to negotiate with the United States over common interests in Iraq, especially if they want to secure an internationally recognized sphere of influence there. Although final results are not yet known, provincial elections in Iraq this past weekend appear to have strengthened factions that complicate Iran’s ambitions there – and that, in turn, bodes well for the security situation and a U.S. drawdown. The Iranians are slowly coming to terms with the fact that Washington will have a significant stake in Baghdad well after the withdrawal, especially as figures like Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki are strengthening central authority at the expense of Iran’s closest Shiite allies. And even when the drawdown is complete, a residual force of probably 10,000 to 20,000 American troops will remain in Iraq, to keep the Iranians at bay and allay the fears of Iraq’s Sunni minority.
Of course, there are still plenty of things for Tehran to discuss with Washington that would help Iran to break out of its isolation. The United States and its NATO allies are turning to Tehran for assistance in neighboring Afghanistan, where Iran can provide intelligence and logistical support to help contain the Taliban. Cooperation with the Americans over Afghanistan isn’t nearly as touchy a subject as cooperation over Iraq — Afghanistan hasn’t invaded Iran in recent memory, and Iraq has. But it still would mean breaking the ice publicly and sitting down for talks.
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Second post
Summary
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Feb. 3 declared a nighttime indigenous satellite launch a success. The technology required to pull off such a launch is, by and large, also applicable to an intercontinental ballistic missile. Though responses from foreign governments have been slow to come in, such a success — if genuine — will give Tehran new leverage with the United States and Europe.
Iran claims to have inserted a small telecommunications satellite into orbit during a nighttime launch broadcast on Iranian state television Feb. 3, amid the 10-day celebration of the 30th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressed the country on television, calling the launch a success.
If the claims are true, the event would mark the first indigenously designed and built satellite Iran has put into orbit on its Safir Omid (“Envoy of Hope”) satellite launch vehicle (SLV), which is also indigenously designed and built. This is a feat Iran apparently failed to accomplish last August (and something North Korea just barely failed to do in 1998 with its first Taepodong SLV). While this satellite insertion is a significant development in and of itself for the Iranian missile program, it has much more far-reaching implications for Iran’s relations with other powers.
Stratfor argued two years ago that such a launch was quite feasible based on Iranian cooperation with North Korea and Pakistan in missile development. The Safir Omid has the same distinctive narrow, elongated shape as North Korea’s Taepodong series. Indeed, North Korea is currently moving its own latest Taepodong SLV to a new launch facility on the country’s northwest coast for an anticipated launch later this spring.
Both the Taepodong and the Safir Omid rely heavily on the Russian Scud design, which is itself based heavily on the Nazi V-2 from World War II and has likely been pushed beyond its inherent design limitations in many ways. A demonstration of successful staging and satellite insertion, however, is also a demonstration of rudimentary intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capability. The distinction between an SLV and an ICBM is largely one of guidance and payload. (This is not to say, however, that an ICBM version of the Safir Omid would necessarily have anywhere near the range to reach the continental United States on a conventional ballistic trajectory, that it has any meaningful degree of accuracy, or that Iran is anywhere near having a nuclear device that could be mounted on it.)
For the United States, the launch certainly gives new impetus to the argument in favor of completing a pair of U.S. ballistic missile defense (BMD) installations slated to be built in Poland and the Czech Republic. While the new administration of President Barack Obama has thus far kept its position on these installations deliberately ambiguous, it will be the White House’s first major policy choice on BMD. And Iran might have just made it more difficult (though hardly impossible) to delay the building of these installations, much less to cancel them outright.
The Iranian launch also comes close on the heels of a Feb. 2 announcement by NATO that it would permit member states to make independent, bilateral arrangements with Tehran for the transit of supplies to NATO military forces in Afghanistan. The relationship between the West and Iran is complex, especially as most or all of Europe is likely within range of an Iranian ICBM version of the Safir Omid. The launch will not necessarily derail such transit talks, but Iran’s relationships with even the more amenable European powers still face significant hurdles. But as North Korea has so aptly demonstrated, such launches — in addition to serving as nationalistic fodder for domestic audiences — can have very real utility in international negotiations.
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Geopolitical Diary: A U.S. Treasury Move and a Signal to Iran
February 5, 2009
The U.S. Treasury Department added the Free Life Party of Kurdistan (PJAK) to its list of terrorist organizations on Wednesday. PJAK is a sister organization of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the prominent Kurdish guerrilla group that operates in Turkey and has bases in northern Iraq. PJAK also has bases in northern Iraq, but focuses its operations on northwestern Iran, where that country’s Kurdish minority is concentrated.
The timing of the Treasury move is significant. Tehran has complained for some time that the United States, in collaboration with Israeli and Western intelligence organizations, supports groups like PJAK whose aim is to undermine the stability of the Iranian regime.
And the Iranians have cause for concern. The geopolitical core of Iran, where the population is most densely concentrated, is in the mountainous northern and central regions. That geography itself creates ample opportunities for foreign rivals or domestic opponents to stir up trouble for the regime: Since only about half of the population is ethnically Persian, one of Iran’s chief security imperatives is to contain minority ethnic groups dispersed throughout the mountains. The group of biggest concern for the Iranians has been Mujahideen e-Khalq (MeK), a cult-like Islamist-Marxist rebel group with the explicit goal of overthrowing the clerical regime.
MeK fighters have been holed up in Iraq’s Diyala province, under the watch of the U.S. military – but now that U.S. troops are withdrawing from Iraq in large numbers, something must done about the approximately 3,000 MeK members. Iran wants guarantees that groups like the MeK and PJAK will be neutralized. By placing PJAK on the U.S. terror list, Washington has made a symbolic move that tells Tehran that it is prepared to make certain concessions that will allow the clerical regime to rest more comfortably.
It is not clear yet how favorably the Iranians might respond to this move. U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration has made it clear that it will pursue engagement with Iran, and a number of backchannel discussions have been set into motion. But the Iranians are taking things slowly. With presidential elections approaching in June, Tehran is struggling to work out its next steps in negotiating with Washington. There is also more work to be done to prepare the Iranian public psychologically for public negotiations with the so-called “Great Satan.”
Iran’s priority right now is to convince the populace and surrounding states that Tehran is pursuing these negotiations from a position of strength. It intends to demonstrate that strength with things like satellite launches, pronouncements that wax philosophic about Iran’s nuclear achievements, and political victories in neighboring Iraq. Meanwhile, the United States is grappling with the complexities of an engagement policy through gestures such as the blacklisting of PJAK – even as Washington tries to downplay more contentious issues like Iran’s nuclear program, and to maintain a hard-line stance on sanctions.
There remains a long way to go in revising the U.S.-Iranian narrative of negotiations, but Tehran has little time to stall. The Iranians need to negotiate with the United States over common interests in Iraq, especially if they want to secure an internationally recognized sphere of influence there. Although final results are not yet known, provincial elections in Iraq this past weekend appear to have strengthened factions that complicate Iran’s ambitions there – and that, in turn, bodes well for the security situation and a U.S. drawdown. The Iranians are slowly coming to terms with the fact that Washington will have a significant stake in Baghdad well after the withdrawal, especially as figures like Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki are strengthening central authority at the expense of Iran’s closest Shiite allies. And even when the drawdown is complete, a residual force of probably 10,000 to 20,000 American troops will remain in Iraq, to keep the Iranians at bay and allay the fears of Iraq’s Sunni minority.
Of course, there are still plenty of things for Tehran to discuss with Washington that would help Iran to break out of its isolation. The United States and its NATO allies are turning to Tehran for assistance in neighboring Afghanistan, where Iran can provide intelligence and logistical support to help contain the Taliban. Cooperation with the Americans over Afghanistan isn’t nearly as touchy a subject as cooperation over Iraq — Afghanistan hasn’t invaded Iran in recent memory, and Iraq has. But it still would mean breaking the ice publicly and sitting down for talks.
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Berlin
While the U.S. has ratcheted up its efforts to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear arms, the Islamic Republic is reaping a windfall from European companies. These firms' deals aid a regime that is bent on developing nuclear weapons and which financially supports the terror organizations Hamas and Hezbollah.
The Austrian oil giant OMV is itching to implement a €22 billion agreement signed in April 2007 to produce liquefied natural gas from Iran's South Pars gas field; at last May's annual shareholder meeting, Chief Executive Officer Wolfgang Ruttenstorfer said OMV was only waiting for "political change in the U.S.A." Raiffeisen Zentralbank, Austria's third-largest bank, is active in Iran and, according to a story by the Journal's Glenn Simpson last February, has absorbed the transactions of key European banks that shut down their operations in Iran. And in late January Paolo Scaroni, CEO of Italian energy corporation Eni SpA, told the Associated Press that his firm will continue to fulfill its contractual obligations in Iran and feels no external pressure to sever ties with Iran's energy sector.
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Yet because of the sheer volume of its trade with Iran, Germany, the economic engine of Europe, is uniquely positioned to pressure Tehran. Still, the obvious danger of a nuclear-armed Iran has not stopped Germany from rewarding the country with a roughly €4 billion trade relationship in 2008, thereby remaining Iran's most important European trade partner. In the period of January to November 2008, German exports to Iran grew by 10.5% over the same period in 2007. That booming trade last year included 39 "dual-use" contracts with Iran, according to Germany's export-control office. Dual-use equipment and technology can be used for both military and civilian purposes.
One example of Germany's dysfunctional Iran policy is the energy and engineering giant Siemens. The company acknowledged last week at its annual stockholder meeting in Munich, which I attended, that it conducted €438 million in trade with Iran in 2008, and that its 290 Iran-based employees will remain active in the gas, oil, infrastructure and communications sectors.
Concerned stockholders and representatives from the political organization Stop the Bomb, a broad-based coalition in Germany and Austria seeking to prevent Iran from building a nuclear-weapons program, peppered Siemens CEO Peter Löscher with questions about the corporation's dealings with the Iranian regime. A Stop the Bomb spokesman questioned Siemens's willingness to conduct business with a country known for its human- and labor-rights violations, ranging from the violent oppression of women to the murder of gays to the repression of religious and ethnic minority groups. The spokesman referred to Siemens's Nazi-era history as an employer of forced labor from the Auschwitz extermination camp and asked how, in light of the corporation's Nazi history, the company could support an "anti-Semitic and terrorist regime" that threatens to wipe Israel off the map.
Mr. Löscher replied to the 9,500 stockholders in Olympic Hall that, "For Siemens, compliance and ethics have the highest priority, including where human-rights issues are involved." Yet, after further questions from the Stop the Bomb spokesman, he acknowledged that Siemens and its joint partner, Nokia, had delivered state-of-the-art communications surveillance technology to Iran last spring.
Information-technology experts say that the companies' "monitoring centers" are used to track mobile and land-line telephone conversations, and that their "intelligence platform" systems allow the Iranian secret service to track financial transactions and airplane movements. The technologies could also be used to monitor persecuted minority and dissident groups in Iran.
Siemens, the largest German trade partner of Iran, represents a window onto an opulent economic partnership between the two countries. German firms such as Mercedes-Benz, whose Web site lists an Iranian general distributor, and insurance giant Munich Re have also remained indifferent to the growing calls to isolate Iran economically. Yesterday, a Munich Re spokesman confirmed to me that the company insures goods in transit to Iran. This was the first such public disclosure by the firm.
And the deals just keep on coming. The Hannoversche Allgemeine newspaper, for example, reported in late January that the German engineering firm Aerzen secured a contract totaling €21 million to supply process gas blowers and screw-type compressors to a steel factory in Esfahan, Iran.
All of this is taking place while Iran is moving at an astonishing pace to process high-grade uranium for its atomic bomb. Iran's launch of its first domestically produced satellite on Tuesday prompted an alarmed French Foreign Ministry spokesman Eric Chevallier to underscore the link between Iran's military nuclear capability and its compatibility with the satellite technology.
Trade and security experts assert that Iran cannot easily replace high-tech German engineering technology with that from competitor nations such as China and Russia. The hollow pleas by Chancellor Angela Merkel, who favors a policy of moral pressure to convince corporations to be "sensitive" about cutting new deals with the regime in Tehran, did not prevent her administration from approving over 2,800 commercial deals with Iran in 2008.
Transparency is badly needed in this area. The German Federal Office of Economics and Export Control (BAFA) refuses to disclose the nature of these agreements. Economics Minister Michael Glos, who oversees BAFA and is considered an advocate of trade with Iran, should reveal the names of the firms commencing trade with a country that sponsors terror organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas. The German firms are hiding behind a wall of nondisclosure to avoid being blacklisted on the U.S market.
The Merkel administration heavily subsidizes investments in Iran by providing German firms with €250 million in credit guarantees. A day before the International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan. 27, the German business daily Handelsblatt reported that Berlin intended to discontinue all credit guarantees supporting trade with Iran. After the report was picked up by the major media, Mrs. Merkel's spokesman quietly denied that the government had canceled the credit guarantees. This suggests that Berlin cynically leaked the story to Handelsblatt to polish its international image and repair strained relations with Israel, a country whose security Chancellor Merkel has deemed "nonnegotiable" for Germany.
There are other signs that Germany's political elites consider Iran just another trading partner. Former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder is scheduled to visit Iran in late February, just after 10 days of celebrations in the country honoring Ayatollah Khomeini and the radical Islamic state he ushered in 30 years ago. Mr. Schröder, who plans to attend the dedication of a foundation for supporting scientific research and has opposed the imposition of sanctions on the Iranian regime, surely will not use the opportunity to criticize Germany's booming trade relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran.
In short, while Berlin claims it wants to discourage Iran from building a nuclear bomb, it has so far done little to actually stop the bomb. German legislation prohibiting trade with Iran, coupled with an immediate cessation of credit guarantees, would decisively setback, if not stop, Iran's nuclear weapons program and set an invaluable example for other EU countries to adapt for their own companies.
Mr. Weinthal is the Jerusalem Post's correspondent in Berlin.
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The europeans are masters of "feed the crocodile, hoping it'll eat you last". :roll:
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By MICHAEL LEDEEN
Last week Iran put its own telecommunications satellite into orbit. U.S. officials in the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon were certainly right to warn that this shows that the mullahs have now mastered the technology needed to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles. But the terror masters in Tehran believe the satellite has an even greater significance -- another step toward the return of the Shiite messiah, or Mahdi, the long-vanished 12th Imam.
APMany Iranian leaders believe that the 12th Imam will return in the Last Days, which will be marked by global chaos and conflict, at the end of which Muslim believers will have conquered the infidels and the mullahs will rule the world. According to medieval Shiite texts, a message announcing the Mahdi's return will be carried to the four corners of the world so that none will be able to say he did not know that the Last Days were soon to arrive.
Eerily, the rocket that carried the telecommunications satellite into space was named "Safir" (message) and the satellite itself "Omid" (hope). In short order we can expect to hear Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announcing the imminent return of the Mahdi. He has already described the launch as a "holy event." These believers see the launch of Omid as the fulfillment of the Mahdi prophecy.
They see other portents as well. The ancient Shiite texts forecast that the seas will turn blood red just prior to the return of the Mahdi, and lo and behold some Iranian newspapers are reporting a rapid growth of red seaweed in the Persian Gulf. To this, the believers add the economic convulsion of the West, the defeat of the hated neocons in the recent U.S. elections, the failure of the West to stop the Iranian nuclear program, and what they insist was the heroic victory of Hamas in Gaza. The mullahs are desperately trying to convince their restive citizens, and perhaps even themselves, that they are going to be saved by the ultimate miracle.
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Any serious person looking at Iran today, however, would be more likely to conclude that their doom, not their triumph, is right around the corner. No country has been hit harder by the global economic crisis. Nearly 90% of Iran's national revenues come from oil, which has crashed to $40 a barrel from $140. Suddenly the mullahs are short of cash. And while the mullahs boast of a glorious victory in Gaza, most everyone in the Middle East knows that their proxy, Hamas, was badly battered, and that neither Iran nor its favorite terrorists in Hezbollah risked any of their own to challenge the Israeli Defense Forces.
Moreover, Iran's considerable support for al Qaeda in Iraq was doubly defeated, first on the battlefield and last week at the ballot box. The Status of Forces Agreement between the U.S. and Iraq was also a blow, as Tehran's mullahs, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had gone all-out to block it.
Even the magical auguries are less than advertised: The satellite launch was carried out by 50-year-old technology, similar to that of the Soviets at the time of Sputnik, and the red seaweed has been around for a very long time and noted by scientists for decades. The Iranian people are unlikely to believe that this regime will lead a victorious global jihad when they are enduring economic misery and enhanced repression. Executions are running at a record rate. The mullahs are so insecure that they have cracked down on Iran's most famous woman, the Nobel Prize-winning human-rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi.
The mullahs know their own people hate them, and the combination of economic failure and the defeat of their proxy forces increases their peril. The appeal to miracles is a sign of desperation, suggesting that this is a particularly good time for the U.S. finally to begin to support the Iranians against their oppressors.
The Obama administration wants to talk to the Iranians, and some reports suggest they have been talking for months. American negotiators should take every opportunity to call for respect for human rights -- on behalf of the labor leaders demanding that salaries be paid, women demanding equal rights, students asserting their freedom to criticize, and even dissident ayatollahs, such as Montazeri and Boroujedi, who have branded the regime as heretical. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would seem an ideal champion for these victims.
Above all, the U.S. must not make the mistake of limiting demands to the nuclear program. A free Iran must be the objective. There is abundant evidence that the overwhelming majority of Iranians want to be part of the Western world and live in peace with their neighbors. If Iran were free and democratic, we would not lose sleep over uranium enrichment at Natanz. We must be the people's voice. We can offer more hope than Mr. Ahmadinejad's broadcasts from outer space.
Mr. Ledeen is a scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. His new book, "Accomplice to Evil: Iran and the War Against the West" will be published later this year by St. Martin's Press.
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Reformist to stand against Ahmadinejad in Iran election
Ian Black in Tehran
The Guardian, Monday 9 February 2009
Muhammad Khatami, Iran's leading reformist, has said he will stand against the hardline Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in this summer's elections, opening up the prospect of significant change that could bring improved relations with the US.
Khatami, 65, ended months of speculation when he told supporters in Tehran yesterday: "I strongly announce my candidacy in the elections. Is it possible to remain indifferent toward the revolution's fate and shy away from running?"
Analysts said the decision would mean a dramatic contest in June, offering voters a candidate who promoted liberalisation at home and accommodation with the west when he served as president for two terms from 1997-2005 during the so-called "Tehran spring".
Ahmadinejad, the incumbent, is blamed for economic mismanagement and for isolating Iran by backing militant groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah and by his strident attacks on Israel.
In an optimistic scenario, if Khatami became president again he could be the leader who, in the words of Barack Obama, would "unclench the fist" and improve Iran's strained relations with the US and the west. That would clearly have to include agreement to defuse the row over the country's nuclear ambitions. Iran says it wants to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes but it is suspected of seeking to build nuclear weapons.
"The differences between Khatami and Ahmadinejad are bigger than between Obama and McCain," said Mustafa Tajzad, a former minister. "The results of the Iranian election will matter for the whole world."
Khatami has condemned his rival's "aggressive and blistering rhetoric", saying it "plays into the hands of the enemy, harming the country and the system."
Analysts and diplomats are divided over his chances of beating Ahmadinejad, so far supported by the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who makes all key decisions.
Muhammad Atrianfar, a close ally, told the Guardian he believed Khatami could win. "We feel instinctively that people are reformists now, especially after such bad government by Ahmadinejad. Poor people who used to support him have turned against him."
Unofficial polling shows Khatami would beat the incumbent by a two-to-one margin, but an unusually big turnout - in the face of widespread voter apathy - would be needed to ensure victory.
Some fear Khatami may have harmed his chances by hesitating for so long over whether to throw his hat into the ring, reinforcing his image as a has-been.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009...iran-elections
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Moving GM's post to this thread:
**Tick-tock-tick-tock**
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/02/12/just-a-reminder-obama-doesnt-believe-the-sham-nie-on-iran-either/
Just a reminder: Obama doesn’t believe the sham NIE on Iran either
posted at 5:59 pm on February 12, 2009 by Allahpundit
Remember that? The one that assured us, preposterously, that Iran gave up its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and was instantly celebrated by idiot liberals as proof that there’s no threat and therefore no cause for Chimpy to keep rattling his saber? Never mind that classified portions of the same document acknowledged the possibility of more than a dozen covert nuke sites closed to inspectors, and never mind that actually building a bomb isn’t the critical step in weaponization. Figuring out enrichment — what Iran’s doing right now — is.
And now that Bush is gone and the left has to govern, they’re finally free/forced to admit it.
In his news conference this week, President Obama went so far as to describe Iran’s “development of a nuclear weapon” before correcting himself to refer to its “pursuit” of weapons capability.
Obama’s nominee to serve as CIA director, Leon E. Panetta, left little doubt about his view last week when he testified on Capitol Hill. “From all the information I’ve seen,” Panetta said, “I think there is no question that they are seeking that capability.”
The language reflects the extent to which senior U.S. officials now discount a National Intelligence Estimate issued in November 2007 that was instrumental in derailing U.S. and European efforts to pressure Iran to shut down its nuclear program…
U.S. officials said that although no new evidence had surfaced to undercut the findings of the 2007 estimate, there was growing consensus that it provided a misleading picture and that the country was poised to reach crucial bomb-making milestones this year.
Omri Ceren’s entertaining himself by digging through the archives of nutroots blogs for gloating statements at the time about neocon fearmongering having been debunked anew. He gives them more credit than I do by assuming they really were as cretinously gullible as they seemed. I think they knew, or most of them knew, that fanatics fond of by-proxy expansionism aren’t going to risk round after round of economic sanctions just to have their very own little nuclear reactor. And so they used the NIE, in bad faith, for the purpose with which it was intended — as a political tool, to make sure Bush couldn’t take any drastic action to stop the program (which was unlikely anyway). And now, lo and behold, it’s their problem to deal with, except Iran’s that much closer to their goal. Be careful what you wish for, etc.
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When Iran successfully orbited its Omid satellite earlier this month, many in the U.S. responded with indifference. David Albright, a noted analyst of nuclear proliferation, downplayed the Iranian space launcher as "not that sophisticated" and the satellite itself as "Sputnik technology, a little metal ball that goes 'beep beep beep.'" Unnamed U.S. officials concurred, stating that "There are no alarm bells ringing because of this launch," calling the event "largely symbolic."
But such equanimity is entirely unwarranted.
Let's first look at the Omid satellite. The Iranians concede its limited capabilities. Its main payload is a simple transmitter/receiver, and it has a short lifetime limited by the capacity of its small internal batteries. At 60 pounds it is minute compared to modern military and civilian satellites. Yet as a first satellite for a novice space-faring nation, it compares well with the rudimentary Sputnik and even more so with the tiny Explorer 1, America's first venture into space. Those modest machines ushered in today's giant military and commercial satellites girdling the earth. When the first Iranian spy satellite starts transmitting high resolution photographs of U.S. installations in the Middle East and elsewhere to Tehran, the true significance of the Omid will become evident.
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But it is the Safir space launch vehicle that calls for even closer scrutiny. The strong synergy between ballistic missiles and space launchers has existed since the early days of the space age when the Soviet Union's first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), the R7, was used to orbit Sputnik 1. The U.S.'s first intermediate-range ballistic missile, the Redstone, was used to orbit the Explorer 1. Iran has followed the same route, as is evident from the Safir first stage, which is almost indistinguishable from the Shahab 3 ballistic missile. True, its propulsion technology hails back to the Scud missiles of the 1950s. But in the missile business old is not necessarily obsolete. Witness for example the Soviet R7 rocket that lofted Sputnik 1 half a century ago and is still going strong today as the first stage of the very reliable Soyuz launcher. Similarly, the Safir's rocket technology will continue to be used for ballistic missiles in the foreseeable future.
The real sophistication of the Safir lies in its second stage, with its elegant configuration and lightweight design. Its propulsion is based on the more modern technology of storable liquid propellants that can be kept almost indefinitely inside the missile, making it launch-ready at any moment -- a significant advantage for military missiles. The U.S. used this technology in the past and so do some of Russia's contemporary ICBMs and submarine-launched ballistic missiles.
A cleverly designed clamshell nose fairing (a protective cover), evidently made of composite materials, shields the Omid satellite during the Safir's liftoff. Such fairings are key elements not only in space launchers but also in multiple-warhead ballistic missiles.
The Safir ground support system is also remarkable. The missile is transported by and fired from a Shahab ballistic missile mobile launcher, while a hinged service tower provides access for the ground crews.
Contrary to statements such as David Albright's, the Safir demonstrates a fair amount of sophistication for an initial launcher. The question remains whether this sophistication is indigenous and what features, if any, have been imported from abroad. Some of the Safir's features bear the telltale signs of previous space launching experience, implying outside help. Such help could come from any country that possesses Soviet-era missile and space technology. Yet the Safir is far more advanced than North Korea's space launcher. This fact -- and the magnitude of the entire Iranian space enterprise -- indicates that much of the success is homegrown.
The magnitude of the Safir launch becomes more apparent when we consider it alongside the much less advertised launch of the Sajeel two-stage solid-propellant ballistic missile that preceded it in November 2008. Within the space of four short months the Iranians demonstrated a mastery of three different rocket propulsion technologies (liquid, storable liquid, and large diameter solid), three different thrust vectoring technologies (graphite jet vanes, tungsten jet vanes, gimbaled rocket motors), two systems of stage separation, and an embryonic multiple-warhead nose fairing. All the above are proscribed technologies whose international transfers are controlled by the Missile Technology Control Regime and by the national legislations of its subscribing countries. By rights, none of those technologies should have been available to Iran. This is a significant setback to international nonproliferation efforts and an encouragement to future proliferators.
To argue that the Safir is too puny to be used as an ICBM is to miss the big picture. It is the technology and talent behind the Safir that is cause for trepidation. Taken in context, the Safir demonstrates scientific and engineering proficiency coupled with global-range missile technology in the hands of a radical regime and a nuclear wannabe. Iran's disclosed road map to space includes more capable, heavier and higher orbiting satellites. This will require heftier space launchers, the construction of which would enrich Iran's rocket-team experience and whose building blocks could easily be used for ICBMs in due time.
Trivializing Iran's first space launch as "largely symbolic" demonstrates a lack of appreciation of what it really symbolizes: That Iran is now poised to project power globally. If alarm bells aren't yet ringing for the Obama administration, they should be.
Mr. Rubin, head of Israel's Missile Defense Organization from 1991 to 1999, won the Israel Defense Prize in 1996 and 2003.
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http://formerspook.blogspot.com
Sunday, February 01, 2009
Advance the Clock
Just five days ago, we noted the apparent inevitability of an Israeli strike against Iran's nuclear facilities. Comparing that possibility to the famous "Doomsday Clock" (made famous by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists), we calculated that, if an Israeli attack is depicted in those terms, then the "strike clock" now reads two minutes until midnight.
And it may be time to advance the hands yet again. Benjamin Netanyahu, the man who will most likely be the next Prime Minister of Israel, has reiterated his determination to halt Tehran's nuclear ambitions. In a TV interview just weeks before the Israeli election, Mr. Netanyahu stated flatly that "Iran will not be armed with a nuclear weapon."
In an interview with Israel's Channel 2 TV, Netanyahu said if elected prime minister his first mission will be to thwart the Iranian nuclear threat. Netanyahu, the current opposition leader and head of the hardline Likud party, called Iran the greatest danger to Israel and to all humanity.
When asked if stopping Iran's nuclear ambitions included a military strike, he replied: "It includes everything that is necessary to make this statement come true."
Mr. Netanyahu's remarks were part of an interview with all three candidates for Prime Minister. Opinion polls show Netanyahu with a lead over Ehud Barak's Labor Party, and and Kadima's Tipi Livni, just nine days before the election.
The interview format was odd, at least by American standards. While the candidates were together in a Channel 2 studio, they did not debate each other. Instead, they responded to questions from You Tube users. Netanyahu was the only candidate asked about the Iranian threat; Mr. Barak (the current Defense Minister) and Ms. Livni, the Foreign Minister, were asked about how they would respond to the Hamas rocket threat.
Netanyahu's comments were the latest indication that the next Israeli government will deal decisively with Iran. Last week, the respected International Institute for Strategic Studies predicted that Tehran will have enough fissile material for at least one nuclear weapon by the end of 2009.
While that doesn't mean that Iran will have a ready-made bomb within twelve months, it is a reminder that Tehran is approaching the point of no return. As their stockpile of enriched uranium continues to grow, the Iranians will be able to create a small nuclear arsenal, even if Israel strikes key nuclear sites. Timing for the attack is also being influenced by Tehran's pending acquisition of the S-300 air defense system. When the S-300 achieves operational capability--probably later this year--Israeli operational planning will become much more complicated.
The third factor is the recent change in the White House, and Israeli perceptions that Barack Obama will be more conciliatory toward Iran. So far, the new president has done little to dissuade that notion. There are unconfirmed reports that the administration is crafting a new letter to the Iranian leadership, and just lask week, Mr. Obama said he wanted a "comprehensive approach" toward Iran, with diplomacy (presumably) taking the lead.
It's little wonder that Israel feels increasingly isolated, and believes it has no choice but to deal with Iran on its own. Mr. Netanyahu's remarks don't guarantee an Israeli attack, but prospects for that option have certainly increased, given the likelihood that Likud will win next week's election.
We'd say President Obama's "comprehensive solution" will soon be overcome by events. The strike clock now reads 90 seconds to midnight--and ticking.
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What can Israel do?
Even Bush in his final months is reputed to have denied permission to act. Do you think they will fly over Iraq without BO's permission?!? Syria? Turkey? (there is a relationship there, but not enough for this!)
Other than their nuke capable subs, I can think of no option.
Does this writer suggest that Israel is about to pre-empt Iran with Nukes?!?
Sorry, IMHO more thinking needs to be done here.
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As one commenter posted "may God help us"
http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/02/26/1811713.aspx
BUSHEHR, Iran – As we were bused from the airport in the southwestern coastal city of Bushehr toward Iran’s nuclear power plant, the most noticeable feature was the large number of anti-aircraft guns dotted across the landscape to protect the facility from attack.
It was a rare occasion – after years of delays, Iranian and Russian engineers carried out a series of critical tests at Iran’s first nuclear power plant Wednesday. The Iranian authorities offered a group of journalists a guided tour of the facility to showcase the event.
VIDEO: Iran showcases its nuclear plant to reporter
The facility – which Iran says will be used to generate electricity – was built by the Russians at a cost of about a billion dollars.
The tests on Wednesday were essentially a dry run, without enriched uranium in the rods, just lead, before full-scale operations are due to begin in the coming months.
"We are very proud. Our power plant is on its way to being ready, despite all the pressure from the West not wanting us to advance," said Mohsen Shirzai, an engineer at the plant who was giving us a guided tour.
The tour itself was sanitized and carefully stage managed, but that was not the point.
The Iranians wanted to send a clear message to the international community: They have made a massive leap forward in their plans to develop nuclear technology, their nuclear plant is in its final stages and in a matter of months Iran will be a nuclear energy-powered country, despite efforts by American, Israel and Europe to curb the program.
‘A nuclear Iran’
"The United States should face reality and accept living with a nuclear Iran," said Vice President Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran.
Aghazadeh went on to say that Iran has increased the number of centrifuges enriching uranium to 6,000, up from 5,000 in November. The move was in defiance of the U.N. Security Council demands that Iran halt all enrichment activities because it is a key process in the development of a nuclear bomb – as well as nuclear energy.
Meantime, the Russian influence was plain to see everywhere at the plant. Dozens of Russian engineers were milling around the facility, teaching and working. Most of the signs in the plant were either in Persian or Russian. The Russians even had their own camp within the site with accommodations and shops selling Russian produce, an area that was closed off to Iranian personnel.
During a joint press conference with the Russians and the Iranians inside the facility I asked Sergei Kiriyenko, the head of Russia’s state Rosatom Atomic Corporation, how he could be confident that Iran will not develop a nuclear warhead.
But his Iranian counterpart, Aghazadeh, wouldn’t let Kiriyenko answer, saying that he was in a better position to answer that question. In his response, he unsurprisingly towed the government line that Iran has no intention of producing a nuclear warhead.
Point of pride
Signs of progress here at Busher are an enormous source of pride for Iranians. But coupled with Iran launching a satellite into space and reports that it has accumulated large quantities of enriched uranium – they are major causes for concern in the United States and Israel.
Does Iran really have enough uranium to make a nuclear weapon?
One thing is clear – if it doesn't today, it can speed up the process substantially, now that they have mastered these other complicated procedures.
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Israel can find a way, or what's left of Israel can exercise the "Sampson option".
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The Iran-Israel nuclear endgame is now much closer
Feb. 26, 2009
EDWIN BLACK , THE JERUSALEM POST
In recent days, four key developments have clicked in to edge Iran and Israel much closer to a military denouement with profound consequences for American oil that the nation is not prepared to meet.
What has happened?
First, Iran has proven it can successfully launch a satellite into outer space as it did on February 2. Teheran claimed, to the incredulity of Western governments, that the satellite was to monitor earthquakes and enhance communications. Few believe that, especially since America's own space program continuously launches unpublished military satellite missions. Teheran plans three more satellites this year, creating an easily weaponized space net that worries American military planners.
Second, the International Atomic Energy Agency last week admitted that it had underestimated Iran's nuclear stockpile by about one-third. The watchdog group now confirms Iran possesses 2,227 lbs. of nuclear material, sufficient to create at least one nuclear bomb. That stockpile includes 1,010 kilograms of low-enriched uranium hexafluoride, or approximately 700 kilograms containing the vital uranium 235 isotope, the stuff needed to weaponize.
Third, Iran has ramped up its enrichment program with thousands of new homegrown, highly advanced centrifuges. As The Cutting Edge News reported in April 2008, Iran wants 6,000 centrifuges to speed the enrichment of weapons-grade material. The number of working centrifuges now exceeds 5,400, including 164 new ones believed to be the faster and more efficient IR-2 and IR-3 models made in Iran. These new Iranian centrifuges are at least as sophisticated as its recently imported P-2 models.
American policymakers are now convinced that Iran, despite all protests and charades, is in a mad dash to create a deliverable nuclear weapon. The Obama administration has almost openly abandoned the assertions of the CIA's much-questioned 2008 National Intelligence Estimate that concluded Iran was not pursuing nuclear weaponry for the simple reason that its atomic program and military programs were housed in separate buildings.
Fourth, Binyamin Netanyahu has just become prime minister of Israel. He is determined to take action before - not after - Iran achieves its nuclear potential. This creates a volatile, hair-trigger situation that could explode at any moment. Hence, the endgame is now vastly closer than it was in mid-January, when many believed Israel might take action during the lame-duck interregnum.
Israeli countermeasures to date have included a massive international covert program of equipment sabotage, assassination of key nuclear personnel and a vibrant diplomatic offensive. But all these efforts combined amount to nothing more than delaying tactics, as Iran is irrevocably determined to achieve a nuclear weapon as fast as possible. Many believe such a weapon will be used to fulfill its prediction that Israel will soon be wiped off the map.
THE CONSEQUENCES for this confrontation are apocalyptic because Iran's full partner in this enterprise is Russia. The Russian company Atomstroiexport has provided most if not all of the nuclear material for the 1,000 megawatt Bushehr reactor, along with thousands of technicians to service and operate it.
Following its invasion of Georgia, Moscow forged ahead with final delivery plans for the S-300 advanced air defense system which can track scores of IAF airborne intruders simultaneously, whether low-level drones or high-altitude missiles, and shoot them down. But the S-300, the linchpin of Iran's defense against Israel, will not be fully operational for several months, creating a narrow window for Israel to act. Indeed, Russia has just announced a pause in missile deliveries for the system in fear that it will accelerate an Israeli response.
Iran, of course, has repeatedly threatened to counter any such attack by closing the Strait of Hormuz, as well as launching missiles against the Ras Tanura Gulf oil terminal and bombarding the indispensable Saudi oil facility at Abqaiq which is responsible for some 65 percent of Saudi production. Any one of these military options, let alone all three, would immediately shut off 40% of all seaborne oil, 18% of global oil, and some 20% of America's daily consumption.
America's oil vulnerability has been back-burnered due to the economic crisis and the plunge in gasoline prices. However, the price of gasoline will not mitigate an interruption of oil flow. The price of oil does not impact its ability to flow through blocked or destroyed facilities. Indeed, an interruption would not restore prices to those of last summer - which Russian and Saudi oil officials say is needed - but probably zoom the pump cost to $20 per gallon.
American oil vulnerability in recent months has escalated precisely because of oil's precipitous drop to $35 to $40 a barrel. At that price, America's number one supplier, Canada, which supplies some 2 million out of 20 million barrels of oil a day, cannot afford to produce. Canadian oil sand petroleum is not viable below $70 a barrel. Much of Canada's supply has already been cancelled or indefinitely postponed. America's strategic petroleum reserve can only keep that country moving for approximately 57 days.
THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION, like the Bush administration before it, has developed no plan or contingency legislation for an oil interruption, such as a surge in retrofitting America's 250 million gas guzzling cars and trucks - each with a 10-year life - or a stimulus of the alternate fuel production needed to rapidly get off oil. Ironically, Iran has undertaken such a crash program converting some 20% of its gasoline fleet yearly to compressed natural gas (CNG) as a countermeasure to Western nuclear sanctions against the Teheran regime that could completely block the flow of gasoline to Iran. Iran has no refining capability.
The question of when and how this endgame will play out is not known by anyone. Israeli leaders wish to avoid military preemption at all costs if possible. But many feel the military moment must come; and when that moment does come, it will be swift, highly technologic and in the twinkling of an eye. But as one informed official quipped, "Those who know, don't talk. Those who talk, don't know."
The writer is The New York Times best-selling investigative author of IBM and the Holocaust, Internal Combustion and the just released The Plan: How to Save America When the Oil Stops - or the Day Before (Dialog Press).
www.edwinblack.com
This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1235410719930&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull
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Again, what military options does Israel really have here?
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It's my opinion that Israel has SpecOps forces that are or can rapidly be deployed for direct action missions. I'm betting the IAF can evade/avoid detection enroute to hitting Iran.
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Agree the Israeli are awesome, but the logistics of hitting Iran are a b*tch.
Distance makes fuel a serious issue, even flying over Iraq. Do you think His Glibness will let them fly over Iraq?!?
Syria?
Or?
And WHERE to hit? With WHAT? The sites are quite numerous, many locations not known, and most of them are hardened, and as Stratfor knows, plenty of them are now protected by Russian AA.
The only technically feasible option which occurs to me is missile launches from Israeli subs-- and that opens the gates to hell itself.
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Agree the Israeli are awesome, but the logistics of hitting Iran are a b*tch.
**It's difficult, to be sure, but not impossible.**
Distance makes fuel a serious issue, even flying over Iraq. Do you think His Glibness will let them fly over Iraq?!?
**What is he going to do? Scramble fighters to shoot down the IAF?**
Syria?
**The IAF recently defeated Syria's air defenses and cratered certain buildings, didn't they?**
Or?
And WHERE to hit? With WHAT? The sites are quite numerous, many locations not known, and most of them are hardened, and as Stratfor knows, plenty of them are now protected by Russian AA.
**I don't think Israel can wipe out the nuclear program, however they can delay/expose it.**
The only technically feasible option which occurs to me is missile launches from Israeli subs-- and that opens the gates to hell itself.
I don't think Israel will go nuclear first.
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Assuming for the moment that BO wouldn't shoot down Israeli jets, given what we have just seen in giving $900 to Hamas, it seems pretty likely to give him a chance to do what he wants-- rupture the alliance with Israel.
Of course the Israelis just handled Syria, but the point here is about using them as a flight plath, an even longer one that over Iraq, and one with substantial risk of being spotted and Iran notified.
And if sounds like we both agree that such raids are not likely to achieve lasting consequence , , ,
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y JOHN R. BOLTON
As Iran prepares to fire up its Bushehr nuclear reactor -- and as the International Atomic Energy Agency governing board meets this week, again confronted with further progress by Tehran's nuclear program -- it is worth asking how the Obama administration is responding.
Well, the State Department recently named Dennis Ross, a seasoned Middle East negotiator, as a "special adviser" to the Gulf region -- a bureaucratic but important prerequisite for direct talks with Iran. Unfortunately, a new envoy and a new diplomatic tone cannot disguise the ongoing substantive collapse of U.S. policy and resolve in the teeth of the Islamic Republic's growing challenge.
Tehran welcomes direct negotiations with Washington. Why not, given the enormous benefits its nuclear programs have accrued during five and a half years of negotiations with Europe? Why not, with America at the table, buy even more time to marry its impending nuclear weapons with its satellite-launching ballistic missile capability?
We have yet to see any evidence that Barack Obama (any more than George W. Bush) knows how to stop Iran. Consider these four blunt threats to our interests that direct talks may only facilitate, not reduce.
First, diplomacy has not and will not reduce Iran's nuclear program. Ironically, European leaders are belatedly feeling hollow in the pits of their diplomatic stomachs, now that their failed diplomacy has left us with almost no alternatives to a nuclear Iran. Imagine their dismay that President Obama is now "opening" to Iran, thus eviscerating their tentative efforts to "close" the diplomatic cover under which Iran has almost achieved the worst-case outcome, deliverable nuclear weapons.
The West's collective failure to stop Iran's nuclear ambitions has persuaded Iran that it faces minimal risks in greater adventurism on other fronts as well. Mr. Obama's discovery of "carrots and sticks," after a half decade of European failure to make that mantra a successful policy, will lead Tehran's mullahs to one inescapable conclusion: They have won the nuclear race, absent imminent regime change or military action.
Second, dealing with Hamas, Hezbollah and Syria as though they are unrelated to Iran's broader threat is exactly backwards. Mr. Obama is again following Europe's mistaken view that ending the Arab-Israeli conflict will help to resolve other regional problems. But concentrating on Gaza only increases Hamas's leverage, just as negotiating with Syria only enhances its (and thereby Iran's) bargaining power.
We should deal instead with diseases, not symptoms. Changing Tehran's Holocaust-denying regime could end its nuclear program, as well as eliminate its continuing financing of and weapons supplies for Hamas and Hezbollah, reduce its malign hold over Syria, and strengthen Lebanon's fragile democracy. Taming Iran is not a magical cure-all, but surely addressing the central threat is more sensible than haphazardly dealing with the symptoms separately.
Third, Iran opposes a freer, more stable Iraq, and U.S. diplomacy will not change that. Given the recent political and military progress in stabilizing Iraq, Tehran holds a weak hand. Accordingly, legitimizing Iran as a factor in Iraqi affairs via diplomacy is patently illogical and would only strengthen Iran at the very moment Mr. Obama has announced the reduction of America's presence and clout in Iraq.
Iran's theocracy knows God's law without the help of mere voters, and it has no taste for the democracy to which Iraqis are growing increasingly accustomed. It is telling that Iran's Baghdad ambassador is a commander of the Revolutionary Army's elite Quds force.
Lastly, Iran has no incentive to "help" in Afghanistan, especially on narcotics, despite a domestic narcotics problem. Tehran's approach to Afghanistan is more subtle and complex. Whatever the desire to reduce its own drug problem, why should Iran not welcome increased sales to the decadent West and a weaker Kabul government? Moreover, if Iran cannot have its own puppets in control, it will welcome a corrupt, divided and incompetent Afghan government, rather than help us achieve the opposite result. As with Iraq, weak and divided neighbors on its borders are assets not liabilities for Tehran -- and ample reason not to assist us in changing these realities.
Hordes of U.S. officials with vague and overlapping mandates -- special envoys, ambassadors, cabinet officials, and, of course, the vice president -- are racing to be in the first photo-op with Iran. But what should focus our attention is the substantive risk that Tehran will use its opportunity to employ diplomacy to undermine U.S. interests.
Iran has already made clear how it will proceed. By recently withholding visas for the U.S. women's badminton team, Iran symbolically dashed administration hopes to update "ping pong" diplomacy. Perhaps in Iran they still play badminton with a clenched fist rather than an open hand.
Mr. Bolton, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, is the author of "Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations" (Simon & Schuster, 2007).
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As a Presidential candidate, Barack Obama called a nuclear Iran "a grave threat" and said "the world must prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon." But he also called for direct, high-level talks in the hopes that the mullahs could be persuaded to abandon their nuclear dreams.
APWe've never held out much hope for those talks, which would inevitably be complicated and protracted. Mr. Obama is already trying to lure Russian help on Iran by offering to trade away hard-earned missile defense sites in Eastern Europe. Russia's President claims to be unimpressed. And now it turns out that the rate at which Iran's nuclear programs are advancing may render even negotiations moot.
That's a fair conclusion from the latest report by the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency. Among other disclosures, the IAEA found that Iran has produced more than 1,000 kilograms of low enriched uranium (LEU), enough for a single bomb's worth of uranium after further enrichment. The IAEA also found that Iran had underreported its stock of LEU by about 200 kilograms, which took the agency by surprise partly because it only checks Iran's stockpile once a year. This is the basis for Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Michael Mullen's weekend acknowledgment that the U.S. believes Iran has enough fissile material to make a bomb.
Iran now possesses 5,600 centrifuges in which it can enrich uranium -- a 34-fold increase from 2006 -- and plans to add 45,000 more over five years. That will give Tehran an ability to make atomic bombs on an industrial scale. Iran has also announced that it plans to begin operating its Russian-built reactor at Bushehr sometime this spring. That reactor's purposes are ostensibly civilian, but it will eventually produce large quantities of spent fuel that can covertly be processed into weapons-usable plutonium.
That's not all. The IAEA says its inspectors have been denied access to a heavy water reactor in Arak, and that Iran has put a roof over the site "rendering impossible the continued use of satellite imagery to monitor further construction inside the reactor building." Most proliferation experts agree that the Arak reactor, scheduled for completion in 2011, can have no purpose other than to produce weapons-grade plutonium.
True to form, Iran continues to deny the IAEA access to other parts of its nuclear programs, including R&D facilities and uranium mines. "Regrettably," says the report, "as a result of the continued lack of cooperation by Iran in connection with the remaining issues which give rise to concerns about possible military dimensions of Iran's nuclear programme, the Agency has not made any substantive progress on these issues."
Further Reading
Click here to read the IAEA report.
The report contains much more of this. It is the latest in a long line of reports that should have sounded alarms but instead have accustomed the world to conclude that a nuclear Iran is something we'll just have to live with. Well, not the entire world: Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned last week that "time is slipping through our fingers" when it comes to stopping Tehran. "What is needed," he added, "is a two-pronged course of action which includes ironclad, strenuous sanctions . . . and a readiness to consider options in the event that these sanctions do not succeed."
Nobody -- Mr. Obama least of all -- can doubt what Mr. Barak means by "options." Nor should the Administration doubt that an Israeli strike, however necessary and justified, could put the U.S. in the middle of a broader Middle East war. If Mr. Obama wants to avoid a security crisis in the first year of his watch, he will have to get serious about Iran now.
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Putin just bitch-slapped our trainee president. Iran will get it's nuke, Russia will force us to abandon eastern europe and we will get nothing in return.
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second post of the day
Iran can develop a nuclear weapon within a year and has access to enough fissile material to produce up to 50 nuclear weapons, a panel of current and former U.S. officials advising the Obama administration said Wednesday.
By James Rosen
FOXNews.com
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Iran can develop a nuclear weapon within a year and has ready access to enough fissile material to produce up to 50 nuclear weapons, according to a panel of current and former U.S. officials advising the Obama administration.
William Schneider, Jr., chairman of the Defense Science Board and a former under secretary of state in the Reagan administration, offered those estimates Wednesday during a news conference announcing the release of a new "Presidential Task Force" report on Iran by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
The report, entitled "Preventing a Cascade of Instability: U.S. Engagement to Check Iranian Nuclear Progress," was signed by a team of policymakers, former officials and Iran scholars that included Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind..
Also signing on to the early draft form were two individuals expected to play significant roles in the development of the Obama administration's foreign policy: former Ambassador Dennis Ross, named last month by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as a special envoy on the Iran issue, and Robert Einhorn, a former assistant secretary of state who is expected to accept a senior position dealing with non-proliferation issues.
The "cascade" refers to a set of 164 high-speed centrifuges used to enrich uranium to the high levels necessary to produce a nuclear weapon. The United Nations' nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, recently reported that Iran has enough low enriched uranium to produce a nuclear weapon, and currently has 5,600 centrifuges operating at its pilot enrichment facility in Natanz. Iran has declared its intention to add another 45,000 centrifuges over the next five years.
But Schneider said Iran has already "perfected the industrial aspects of enriching uranium," and can easily develop a nuclear weapon long before 2014.
"The ability to go from low enriched uranium to highly enriched uranium, especially if [the Iranians] expand the number of centrifuges, would be a relatively brief period of time, perhaps a year or so, before they'd be able to produce a nuclear weapon," Schneider said at the news conference. "So it's not a long-distance kind of problem."
Moreover, Schneider warned that the fundamentalist Islamic regime in Tehran -- which has threatened to wipe Israel off the map and equipped and funded regional terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah -- has access to significant amounts of the raw fissile material that would be the core ingredient in such a nuclear arsenal.
These indigenous natural resources include "yellowcake," the raw uranium ore that is converted to gas and then fed into the cascades of centrifuges. "Iran has enough yellowcake in the country to perhaps produce enough highly enriched uranium, if they go to that length, to produce perhaps fifty nuclear weapons," Schneider said.
Neither of the other two panel members who appeared alongside Schneider at the news conference -- Eugene Habiger, a retried four-star general and former commander in chief of the U.S. Strategic Command, and Nancy Soderberg, a former ambassador to the U.N. and National Security Council staffer during the Clinton administration -- disputed Schneider's claims.
The Washington Instiyute's nine-page report also warned that Israel "may feel compelled" to take military action to try to destroy or retard the Iranian nuclear program if Russia sells the S-300 surface-to-air missile system to Iran.
"Israeli leaders seem convinced that at least for now, they have a military option," the report states.
"However, Israelis see the option fading over the next one to two years, not only because of Iran's nuclear progress and dispersion of its program but also because of improved Iranian air defenses, especially the expected delivery of the S-300. ... Israel therefore may feel compelled to act before the option disappears."
Schneider, who along with Habiger and Soderberg conferred with high-level officials from Israel, Jordan, Qatar, and Bahrain during a trip to the Middle East last December, reported that the Israeli military still believes it can hold the Iranian nuclear apparatus "at risk," but will no longer hold that view if Tehran acquires more sophisticated air defense technology from Moscow.
"It is the transfer of the S-300 that is likely to be a trigger for Israeli action," Schneider said. "The time frame is getting compressed and we need to act quickly if we are going to be successful [in resolving the issue peacefully]."
"Time is not on our side," agreed Habiger. "We've been mucking about on this issue for years now."
Habiger and Soderberg said it remains possible for the U.S., by working with Russia, China and Arab allies in the Persian Gulf, to persuade Iran not to obtain a nuclear weapon.
"They are a rational actor," Soderberg said of the Iranian regime. "They are deterrable." If the costs of pursuing the nuclear program are made sufficiently high, the panel said -- particularly through the imposition of sanctions on Iran's oil and gas sector -- Tehran's "cost-benefit analysis" could be changed.
Iran's defense minister visited Moscow last month to press for the Russian state-controlled arms exporter, Rosoboronexport, to sell Iran the S-300 system. Russian officials, at least publicly, were non-committal.
However, Iran signed a $700 million contract with Russia in 2005 to purchase 29 low-to-medium altitude surface-to-air missiles, which were delivered the following year and became operational in early 2007.
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Sex, drugs and Islam
By Spengler
Political Islam returned to the world stage with Ruhollah Khomeini's 1979 revolution in Iran, which became the most aggressive patron of Muslim radicals outside its borders, including Hamas in the Palestinian territories and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Until very recently, an oil-price windfall gave the Iranian state ample resources to pursue its agenda at home and abroad. How, then, should we explain an eruption of social pathologies in Iran such as drug addiction and prostitution, on a scale much worse than anything observed in the West? Contrary to conventional wisdom, it appears that Islamic theocracy promotes rather than represses social decay.
Iran is dying. The collapse of Iran's birth rate during the past 20 years is the fastest recorded in any country, ever. Demographers have sought in vain to explain Iran's population implosion through family planning policies, or through social factors such as the rise of female literacy.
But quantifiable factors do not explain the sudden collapse of fertility. It seems that a spiritual decay has overcome Iran, despite best efforts of a totalitarian theocracy. Popular morale has deteriorated much faster than in the "decadent" West against which the Khomeini revolution was directed.
"Iran is dying for a fight," I wrote in 2007 (Please see Why Iran is dying for a fight, November 13, 2007.) in the literal sense that its decline is so visible that some of its leaders think that they have nothing to lose.
Their efforts to isolate Iran from the cultural degradation of the American "great Satan" have produced social pathologies worse than those in any Western country. With oil at barely one-fifth of its 2008 peak price, they will run out of money some time in late 2009 or early 2010. Game theory would predict that Iran's leaders will gamble on a strategic long shot. That is not a comforting thought for Iran's neighbors.
Two indicators of Iranian morale are worth citing.
First, prostitution has become a career of choice among educated Iranian women. On February 3, the Austrian daily Der Standard published the results of two investigations conducted by the Tehran police, suppressed by the Iranian media. [1]
"More than 90% of Tehran's prostitutes have passed the university entrance exam, according to the results of one study, and more than 30% of them are registered at a university or studying," reports Der Standard. "The study was assigned to the Tehran Police Department and the Ministry of Health, and when the results were tabulated in early January no local newspaper dared to so much as mention them."
The Austrian newspaper added, "Eighty percent of the Tehran sex workers maintained that they pursue this career voluntarily and temporarily. The educated ones are waiting for better jobs. Those with university qualifications intend to study later, and the ones who already are registered at university mention the high tuition [fees] as their motive for prostitution ... they are content with their occupation and do not consider it a sin according to Islamic law."
There is an extensive trade in poor Iranian women who are trafficked to the Gulf states in huge numbers, as well as to Europe and Japan. "A nation is never really beaten until it sells its women," I wrote in a 2006 study of Iranian prostitution, Jihads and whores.
Prostitution as a response to poverty and abuse is one thing, but the results of this new study reflect something quite different. The educated women of Tehran choose prostitution in pursuit of upward mobility, as a way of sharing in the oil-based potlatch that made Tehran the world's hottest real estate market during 2006 and 2007.
A country is beaten when it sells its women, but it is damned when its women sell themselves. The popular image of the Iranian sex trade portrays tearful teenagers abused and cast out by impoverished parents. Such victims doubtless abound, but the majority of Tehran's prostitutes are educated women seeking affluence.
Only in the former Soviet Union after the collapse of communism in 1990 did educated women choose prostitution on a comparable scale, but under very different circumstances. Russians went hungry during the early 1990s as the Soviet economy dissolved and the currency collapsed. Today's Iranians suffer from shortages, but the data suggest that Tehran's prostitutes are not so much pushed into the trade by poverty as pulled into it by wealth.
A year ago I observed that prices for Tehran luxury apartments exceeded those in Paris, as Iran's kleptocracy distributed the oil windfall to tens of thousands of hangers-on of the revolution. $35 billion went missing from state oil funds, opposition newspapers charged at the time. Corruption evidently has made whores of Tehran's educated women. (Please see Worst of times for Iran, June 24, 2008.)
Second, according to a recent report from the US Council on Foreign Relations, "Iran serves as the major transport hub for opiates produced by [Afghanistan], and the UN Office of Drugs and Crime estimates that Iran has as many as 1.7 million opiate addicts." That is, 5% of Iran's adult, non-elderly population of 35 million is addicted to opiates. That is an astonishing number, unseen since the peak of Chinese addiction during the 19th century. The closest American equivalent (from the 2003 National Survey on Drug Use and Health) found that 119,000 Americans reported using heroin within the prior month, or less than one-tenth of 1% of the non-elderly adult population.
Nineteenth-century China had comparable rates of opium addiction, after the British won two wars for the right to push the drug down China's throat. Post-communist Russia had comparable rates of prostitution, when people actually went hungry. Iran's startling rates of opium addiction and prostitution reflect popular demoralization, the implosion of an ancient culture in its encounter with the modern world. These pathologies arose not from poverty but wealth, or rather a sudden concentration of wealth in the hands of the political class. No other country in modern history has evinced this kind of demoralization.
For the majority of young Iranians, there is no way up, only a way out; 36% of Iran's youth aged 15 to 29 years want to emigrate, according to yet another unpublicized Iranian study, this time by the country's Education Ministry, Der Standard adds. Only 32% find the existing social norms acceptable, while 63% complain about unemployment, the social order or lack of money.
As I reported in the cited essay, the potlatch for the political class is balanced by widespread shortages for ordinary Iranians. This winter, widespread natural gas shortages left tens of thousands of households without heat.
The declining morale of the Iranian population helps make sense of its galloping demographic decline. Academic demographers have tried to explain collapsing fertility as a function of rising female literacy. The problem is that the Iranian regime lies about literacy data, and has admitted as much recently.
In a recent paper entitled "Education and the World's Most Raid Fertility Decline in Iran [2], American and Iranian demographers observe:
A first analysis of the Iran 2006 census results shows a sensationally low fertility level of 1.9 for the whole country and only 1.5 for the Tehran area (which has about 8 million people) ... A decline in the TFR [total fertility rate] of more than 5.0 in roughly two decades is a world record in fertility decline. This is even more surprising to many observers when one considers that it happened in one of the most Islamic societies. It forces the analyst to reconsider many of the usual stereotypes about religious fertility differentials.
The census points to a continued fall in fertility, even from today's extremely low levels, the paper maintains.
Most remarkable is the collapse of rural fertility in tandem with urban fertility, the paper adds:
The similarity of the transition in both urban and rural areas is one the main features of the fertility transition in Iran. There was a considerable gap between the fertility in rural and urban areas, but the TFR in both rural and urban areas continued to decline by the mid-1990s, and the gap has narrowed substantially. In 1980, the TFR in rural areas was 8.4 while that of urban areas was 5.6. In other words, there was a gap of 2.8 children between rural and urban areas. In 2006, the TFR in rural and urban areas was 2.1 and 1.8, respectively (a difference of only 0.3 children).
What the professors hoped to demonstrate is that as rural literacy levels in Iran caught up with urban literacy levels, the corresponding urban and rural fertility rates also converged. That is a perfectly reasonable conjecture whose only flaw is that the data on which it is founded were faked by the Iranian regime.
The Iranian government's official data claim literacy percentage levels in the high 90s for urban women and in the high 80s for rural women. That cannot be true, for Iran's Literacy Movement Organization admitted last year (according to an Agence-France Presse report of May 8, 2008) that 9,450,000 Iranians are illiterate of a population of 71 million (or an adult population of about 52 million). This suggests far higher rates of illiteracy than in the official data.
A better explanation of Iran's population implosion is that the country has undergone an existential crisis comparable to encounters of Amazon or Inuit tribes with modernity. Traditional society demands submission to the collective. Once the external constraints are removed, its members can shift from the most extreme forms of modesty to the other extreme of sexual license. Khomeini's revolution attempted to retard the disintegration of Persian society, but it appears to have accelerated the process.
Modernity implies choice, and the efforts of the Iranian mullahs to prolong the strictures of traditional society appear to have backfired. The cause of Iran's collapsing fertility is not literacy as such, but extreme pessimism about the future and an endemic materialism that leads educated Iranian women to turn their own sexuality into a salable commodity.
Theocracy subjects religion to a political test; it is hard for Iranians to repudiate the regime and remain pious, for religious piety and support for political Islam are inseparable, as a recent academic study documented from survey data [3].
As in the decline of communism, what follows on the breakdown of a state ideology is likely to be nihilism. Iran is a dying country, and it is very difficult to have a rational dialogue with a nation all of whose available choices terminate in oblivion.
[1] Der Standard, Die Wahrheit hinter der islamischen Fassade
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[2] Education and the World's Most Raid Fertility Decline in Iran
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[3] Religiosity and Islamic Rule in Iran, by Gunes Murat Tezcur and Tagh Azadarmaki.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KB24Ak02.html
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I'm confused. What is the Iranian birth rate?
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Yadlin: 'Iran crossed nuclear tech threshold'
Mar. 8, 2009
Herb Keinon , THE JERUSALEM POST
In a chilling indication that Iran's arms program is advancing steadily, Israel acknowledged for the first time that Teheran had mastered the technology to make a nuclear bomb on the same day that the Iranians announced they had successfully tested a new air-to-surface missile.
Iran has "crossed the technological threshold," and its attainment of nuclear military capability is now a matter of "incorporating the goal of producing an atomic bomb into its strategy," OC Military Intelligence Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin told the cabinet on Sunday.
"Iran is continuing to amass hundreds of kilograms of low-enriched uranium, and it hopes to exploit the dialogue with the West and Washington to advance toward the production of an atomic bomb," he said.
Yadlin said the Islamic republic hoped to use the expected dialogue with the Obama administration to buy time to procure the amount of high-enriched uranium needed to build a bomb.
"Iran's plan for the continuation of its nuclear program while simultaneously holding talks with the new administration in Washington is being received with caution in the Middle East," the intelligence chief said. "The moderates are worried that this approach will come at their expense and will be used by the radical axis to continue to carry out terror activities and rearm. In contrast, those in the radical axis are saying that despite the change in the Americans' stance, they will continue to act against them."
Yadlin's assessment brought him into line with a similar assessment made last week by Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, who said Teheran had enough fissile material to build a bomb now.
But in an indication of just how subjective the question of Iran's progress toward a bomb has become, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates took issue with Mullen, saying the Iranians were not "close to a weapon at this point."
The UN's International Atomic Energy Agency also said last week that it had been mistaken in earlier reports and now had evidence that Iran had enough enriched uranium to make a nuclear weapon.
Yadlin's rather dramatic statement was not made in public, but was part of the security briefing he gave at Sunday's cabinet meeting. One government official said that the point of releasing the information now seemed to be to impress upon the international community the urgency of the matter.
"He wanted to ring the alarm bells, to make it clear that everyone understood that Iran was continuing with its enrichment," the official said.
The official pointed out that Yadlin had used the phrase "mastered the technology" in regards to Iran, not that it had reached a "point of no return."
Israel made a decision a few years ago not to talk anymore about a "point of no return," since that implied that Iran could not be stopped - an impression the Iranians were keen on making, but which Israel did not want to play into, the official said.
Even though the Iranians have apparently mastered the technology for creating a nuclear weapon, it has still not done so and is probably still a couple of years away from that, he said. Consequently, Teheran could still be stopped.
The Iranians were clearly overcoming certain technological issues, and it was a matter of time before they would be able to enrich the uranium needed for a weapon, the official said.
"The idea behind Yadlin's statement was to shake people up, to show that the Iranians were still making progress," the official speculated.
Two weeks ago, Iran's nuclear chief, Vice President Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, announced that 6,000 centrifuges were now operating at the enrichment facility in Natanz. He said Teheran hoped to install more than 50,000 centrifuges there over the next five years.
With the amount of centrifuges it is using in the enrichment process, Iran could add about 100 kg. of uranium to its stockpile each month, or even more, considering that it is setting up additional ready-to-go centrifuges every day.
Even 100 kg. would give it an estimated low-enriched uranium stockpile of just over 1,100 kg. - the minimum experts believe is required to yield the 25 kg. of highly enriched weapons-grade uranium needed to build a bomb. But unless the Iranians have a nuclear facility that is completely hidden from the world's view, the international community would know when Teheran began to create the high-grade uranium needed for a nuclear weapon, because it would have to kick the IAEA inspectors out of the country to do so.
Reuters, meanwhile, quoted Iran's Fars News Agency on Sunday as saying the Islamic republic had test-fired a new air-to-surface missile, in the country's latest display of military power. According to the report, the missile - produced domestically and with a range of 110 km. - was designed for use by military aircraft against naval targets.
"Now these jet fighters have acquired a new capability in confronting threats," Reuters quoted the semi-official news agency as saying.
The missile has a far shorter range than the surface-to-surface Shihab and is believed to be meant to disrupt sea traffic in the strategic Straits of Hormuz, through which 40 percent of the world's oil must travel.
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It might be possible to turn the Arab world against Iran, in the near future they may be begging Nato to disarm Iran.
Morocco severs relations with Iran
RABAT, Morocco – Morocco cut off diplomatic relations with Iran on Friday, accusing Tehran in a rare public spat of trying to spread Shia Islam in this Sunni Arab kingdom.
The tensions were compounded by recent Iranian comments toward Sunni-led Bahrain that have raised hackles in the Arab world, Morocco's Foreign Ministry said.
The ministry accused largely Shiite Iran's Embassy in Rabat of trying to "alter the religious fundamentals of the kingdom" and threaten Morocco's religious unity.
The ministry, in a statement, called Iran's actions "intolerable interference in the internal affairs of the kingdom."
Iranian officials could not immediately be reached for comment after Morocco's Friday night announcement.
The Moroccan press has repeatedly accused the Iranian Embassy of proselytism in recent years. The Iranian ambassador denied the charges as recently as last week.
There are officially no Shiite Muslims in this North African kingdom, which is more than 99 percent Sunni, with the remainder of the population Jewish or Christian.
King Mohamed VI is the "commander of the believers" in the country, and the Foreign Ministry's statement equated attacking Moroccan religious unity to challenging the monarch.
Many Arab states have grown frustrated with Iran's hard-line leadership in recent years.
Morocco's move could be "a sign that Arab states are prepared to take a much tougher stand against Iran," Anthony Cordesman, a Middle-East analyst at the Washington-based Center for International and Strategic Studies, said by telephone. Or at least states "not directly threatened by it."
While small Mideast states are trying to soothe their relations with Iran because of the country's traction around the Persian Gulf, Morocco on the Atlantic coast is far from the tensions.
"It's almost as if we're seeing a polarization of the Arab world," Cordesman said.
Moderate states and U.S. allies like Morocco, Egypt or Saudi Arabia are increasingly irked by Iran's hard-line leadership, and worried by the political clout Tehran is gaining through the successes of the Shia or even Sunni groups it backs in Iraq, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.
Morocco's king entertains strong ties with other Arab sovereigns, including Bahrain's sultan, whose legitimacy was recently questioned by Iran.
Morocco offered its "full support for the unity and territorial integrity of the brotherly Kingdom of Bahrain," according to a Foreign Ministry statement last week. "Morocco is astonished by the odd treatment the kingdom has been subject to by Iranian authorities," the ministry said after a prominent Iranian figure made comments last month perceived as a threat to Bahrain's sovereignty.
The Gulf kingdom of Bahrain is ruled by a Sunni elite, but its Shiite majority has close ties to Iran, which holds longtime claims to the island.
Bahrain's foreign minister was in Iran last week trying to ease the tensions.
Morocco's relations with Tehran were previously cut in the early 1980s, shortly after Shiite clerics took power in the Iranian Revolution and Morocco hosted the exiled shah. Iran retaliated by supporting the Polisario independence movement in the Western Sahara, which Morocco annexed in 1975.
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Associated Press Writer Hassan Alaoui contributed to this report.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090306/ap_on_re_af/af_morocco_iran_4
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Report: Iran financed Syrian nuke plans
Tip from defector said to lead to Israeli strike on suspected reactor in '07
The Associated Press
updated 12:29 p.m. PT, Thurs., March. 19, 2009
GENEVA - A top-ranked Iranian defector told the United States that Iran was financing North Korean moves to make Syria into a nuclear weapons power, leading to the Israeli air strike that destroyed a suspected secret reactor, a report said Thursday.
The article in the daily Neue Zuercher Zeitung goes into detail about an Iranian connection and fills in gaps about Israel's Sept. 6, 2007, raid that knocked out Syria's nearly completed Al Kabir reactor in the country's eastern desert.
Ali Reza Asghari, a retired general in Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards and a former deputy defense minister, "changed sides" in February 2007 and provided considerable information to the West on Iran's own nuclear program, said the article, written by Hans Ruehle, former chief of the planning staff of the German Defense Ministry.
"The biggest surprise, however, was his assertion that Iran was financing a secret nuclear project of Syria and North Korea," he said. "No one in the American intelligence scene had heard anything of it. And the Israelis who were immediately informed also were completely unaware."
Ruehle, who did not identify the sources of his information, publishes and comments on security and nuclear proliferation in different European newspapers and broadcasts and has held prominent roles in German and NATO institutions.
U.S. intelligence had detected North Korean ship deliveries of construction supplies to Syria that started in 2002, and American satellites spotted the construction as early as 2003, but regarded the work as nothing unusual, in part because the Syrians had banned radio and telephones from the site and handled communications solely by messengers — "medieval but effective," Ruehle said.
Ship intercepted
Intensive investigation followed by U.S. and Israeli intelligence services until Israel sent a 12-man commando unit in two helicopters to the site in August 2007 to take photographs and soil samples, he said.
"The analysis was conclusive that it was a North Korean-type reactor," a gas graphite model, Ruehle said.
Other sources have suggested that the reactor might have been large enough to make about one nuclear weapon's worth of plutonium a year.
Just before the Israeli commando raid, a North Korean ship was intercepted en route to Syria with nuclear fuel rods, underscoring the need for fast action, he said.
"On the morning of Sept. 6, 2007, seven Israeli F-15 fighter bombers took off to the north. They flew along the Mediterranean coast, brushed past Turkey and pressed on into Syria. Fifty kilometers from their target they fired 22 rockets at the three identified objects inside the Kibar complex.
"The Syrians were completely surprised. By the time their air defense systems were ready, the Israeli planes were well out of range. The mission was successful, the reactor destroyed," Ruehle said.
No comment from Israel
Israel estimates that Iran had paid North Korea between $1 billion and $2 billion for the project, Ruehle said.
Israel has refused from the beginning to comment on, confirm or deny the strike, but after a delay of several months Washington presented intelligence purporting to show the target was a reactor being built with North Korean help.
Iranian officials were not available for comment because of a national holiday. In general, Iran has been silent about the Syrian facility bombed by Israel. Syrian officials could not be reached for comment. But Syria has denied the facility was a nuclear plant, saying it was an unused military building. It has also denied any nuclear cooperation with North Korea or Iran.
The International Atomic Energy Agency earlier this year said U.N. inspectors had found processed uranium traces in samples taken from the site.
Syria has suggested the traces came from Israel ordnance used to hit the site, but the IAEA said the composition of the uranium made that unlikely. Israel has denied it was the source of the uranium.
Syria has told diplomats that it built a missile facility over the ruins of the site.
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By JOHN BOLTON
While President Obama's unanticipated Nowruz holiday greeting to Iran generated considerable press attention, his video wasn't really this week's big news related to the Islamic Republic. Far more important was that a senior defector -- Iran's former Deputy Minister of Defense Ali Reza Asghari -- disclosed Tehran's financing of Syria's nuclear weapons program. That program's centerpiece was a North Korean nuclear reactor in Syria. Israel destroyed it in September 2007.
At this point, it is impossible to ignore Iran's active efforts to expand, improve and conceal its nuclear weapons program in Syria while it pretends to "negotiate" with Britain, France and Germany (the "EU-3"). No amount of video messages will change this reality. The question is whether this new information about Iran will sink in, or if Washington will continue to turn a blind eye toward Iran's nuclear deceptions.
That the Pyongyang-Damascus-Tehran nuclear axis went undetected and unacknowledged for so long is an intelligence failure of the highest magnitude. It represents a plain unwillingness to allow hard truths to overcome well-entrenched policy views disguised as intelligence findings.
Key elements of our intelligence community (IC) fought against the idea of a Syrian nuclear program for years. In mid-2003, I had a bitter struggle with several IC agencies -- news of which was leaked to the press -- concerning my testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee about the Syrian program. Then Sen. Joe Biden made the Syria testimony an issue in my 2005 confirmation battle to become ambassador to the United Nations, alleging that I had tried to hype concern about Syria's nuclear intentions. (In fact, my testimony, in both its classified and unclassified versions, was far more anodyne than the facts warranted.)
Key IC agencies made two arguments in 2003 against the possibility of a clandestine Syrian nuclear weapons program. First, they argued that Syria lacked the scientific and technological capabilities to sustain such a program. Second, they said that Syria did not have the necessary economic resources to fund a program.
These assertions were not based on highly classified intelligence. Instead, they were personal views that some IC members developed based on public information. The intelligence that did exist -- which I thought warranted close observation of Syria, at a minimum -- the IC discounted as inconsistent with its fixed opinions. In short, theirs was not an intelligence conclusion, but a policy view presented under the guise of intelligence.
How wrong they were.
As for Syria's technical expertise, North Korea obviously had the scientific and technological ability to construct the reactor, which was essentially a clone of the North's own at Yongbyon. Moreover, it is entirely possible that Syria's nuclear program -- undertaken with Pyongyang's assistance -- is even more extensive. We will certainly never know from Syria directly, since Damascus continues to deny it has any nuclear program whatever. It's also stonewalling investigation efforts by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
As for Syria's ability to finance a nuclear program, Iran could easily supply whatever Syria might need -- even in a time of fluctuating oil prices. Moreover, given Iran's hegemony over Syria, it is impossible to believe Syria would ever undertake extensive nuclear cooperation with North Korea without Iran's acquiescence. Iran was likely an active partner in a three-way joint venture on the reactor, supplying key financial support and its own share of scientific knowledge. Cooperation on ballistic missile programs between Pyongyang and Tehran is longstanding and well-advanced, and thereby forms a basis of trust for nuclear cooperation. Moreover, both Iran and North Korea share a common incentive: to conceal illicit nuclear weapons programs from international scrutiny. What better way to hide such programs than to conduct them in a third country where no one is looking?
Uncovering the North Korean reactor in Syria was a grave inconvenience for the Bush administration. It enormously complicated both the failing six-party talks on North Korea and the EU-3's diplomatic efforts with Iran, which Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice so actively supported.
Mr. Asghari's revelations about Iranian financing of Syria's nuclear program -- if borne out -- will have precisely the same negative impact on Obama administration policies, since they track Mr. Bush's so closely. In fact, the two administrations' approaches differ only to the extent that Mr. Obama is poised to pursue policies, like face-to-face negotiations with Iran, that the second term Bush State Department wanted to do, but faced too much internal dissonance to implement.
The Nowruz video reflects the dominant view within the Obama administration that its "open hand" will be reciprocated. It's likely Iran will respond affirmatively to the near-plaintive administration request to "engage."
And why not? Such dialogue allows Iran to conceal its true intentions and activities under the camouflage of negotiations, just as it has done for the past six years with the EU-3. What's more, Iran will see it as confirmation of U.S. weakness and evidence that its policies are succeeding.
There is very little time for Mr. Obama to change course before he is committed to negotiations. He could start by following Iran's money trail.
Mr. Bolton, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, is the author of "Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations" (Simon & Schuster, 2007).
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Just kind of reiterates what is already obvious.
BO has already made it completely clear he will not stop Iran's nuclear program.
He has already made the determination it would be too costly to do so.
When Iran gets a working bomb (and Missles) he has already telegraphed the message more or less we can't or really won't stop you but if you ever use a nuc we will respond with a devastating blow (more or less).
Israel will have to go it alone. But the world is already poised against them. Perhaps the US can stop them too. I don't know.
But there is certainly no evidence BO will allow them to take military action against Iran like perhaps W would have.
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MSNBC.com
Iran’s Khamenei dismisses Obama overture
Khamenei: ‘We haven't seen any change’ in U.S. policy toward government
The Associated Press
updated 7:50 a.m. CT, Sat., March. 21, 2009
TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dismissed overtures from President Barack Obama on Saturday, saying Tehran does not see any change in U.S. policy under its new administration.
Khamenei was responding to a video message Obama released Friday in which he reached out to Iran on the occasion of Nowruz, the Persian new year, and expressed hopes for an improvement in nearly 30 years of strained relations.
Khamenei holds the last word on major policy decisions, and how Iran ultimately responds to any concrete U.S. effort to engage the country will depend largely on his say.
Khamenei demands changes
In his most direct assessment of Obama and prospects for better ties, Khamenei said there will be no change between the two countries unless the American president puts an end to U.S. hostility toward Iran and brings "real changes" in foreign policy.
"They chant the slogan of change but no change is seen in practice. We haven't seen any change," Khamenei said in a speech before a crowd of tens of thousands in the northeastern holy city of Mashhad.
In his video message, Obama said the United States wants to engage Iran, but he also warned that a right place for Iran in the international community "cannot be reached through terror or arms, but rather through peaceful actions that demonstrate the true greatness of the Iranian people and civilization."
Khamenei asked how Obama could congratulate Iranians on the new year and accuse the country of supporting terrorism and seeking nuclear weapons in the same message.
Khamenei said there has been no change even in Obama's language compared to that of his predecessor.
"He (Obama) insulted the Islamic Republic of Iran from the first day. If you are right that change has come, where is that change? What is the sign of that change? Make it clear for us what has changed."
Still, Khamenei left the door open to better ties with America, saying "should you change, our behavior will change too."
Severed ties
Diplomatic ties between the United States and Iran were cut after the U.S. Embassy hostage-taking after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which toppled the pro-U.S. shah and brought to power a government of Islamic clerics.
The United States cooperated with Iran in late 2001 and 2002 in the Afghanistan conflict, but the promising contacts fizzled — and were extinguished completely when Bush branded Tehran part of the "Axis of Evil."
Khamenei enumerated a long list of Iranian grievances against the United States over the past 30 years and said the United States was still interfering in Iranian affairs.
He mentioned U.S. sanctions against Iran, U.S. support for Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during his 1980-88 war against Iran and the downing of an Iranian airliner over the Persian Gulf in 1988.
He also accused the United States of provoking ethnic tension in Iran and said Washington's accusations that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons are a sign of U.S. hostility. Iran says its nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes, like energy production, not for building weapons.
"Have you released Iranian assets? Have you lifted oppressive sanctions? Have you given up mudslinging and making accusations against the great Iranian nation and its officials? Have you given up your unconditional support for the Zionist regime? Even the language remains unchanged," Khamenei said.
Khamenei, wearing a black turban and dark robes, said America was hated around the world for its arrogance, as the crowd chanted "Death to America."
Toward engagement?
Obama has signaled a willingness to speak directly with Iran about its nuclear program and hostility toward Israel, a key U.S. ally. At his inauguration last month, the president said his administration would reach out to rival states, declaring "we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist."
"They say we have stretched a hand toward Iran. ... If a hand is stretched covered with a velvet glove but it is cast iron inside, that makes no sense," he said.
Khamenei said sanctions only served to make Iran self-reliant. Iran frequently boasts of achievements in various technological fields, including uranium enrichment, space technology, missiles and passenger and fighter plane production, despite sanctions.
"Sanctions benefited us. We have to thank the Americans in this sector. If sanctions had not been imposed, we would have not reached the point of progress and technology we are in now," he said.
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Iran: Accepting an Invitation to Talk
STRATFOR Today » March 26, 2009 | 1536 GMT
AFP/Getty Images
Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on March 21, 2009 in Mashhad, IranIran confirmed March 26 that it will accept a U.S. invitation to participate in a U.N. conference at The Hague on March 31 regarding the future of Afghanistan. The conference, originally proposed by the United States, will be attended by delegates from more than 80 countries. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi said that Iran still has yet to decide who it will send to the meeting on behalf of Tehran.
The acceptance of the U.S. invitation follows a televised address by U.S. President Barack Obama on the occasion of the Persian New Year, in which he offered a new “diplomatic beginning” with the Islamic Republic. The United States is not only publicly recognizing the staying power of the clerical regime, but is also acknowledging an Iranian sphere of influence that spreads to Southwest Asia in Afghanistan. While Iran is pleased to be in this diplomatic spotlight, it must also tread carefully. The Iranians made it clear in their response to Obama that the mere offering of talks is insufficient. Iran has geopolitical interests in Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan, and Iran is motivated to develop its nuclear program, all of which clash with U.S. interests. If the United States is unwilling to shift its position on any of these issues, then Iran will not exhibit much eagerness to go beyond the talks and actually deal.
Still, Iran is not about to pass up an opportunity to show the world that it carries significant influence beyond the borders of the Islamic Republic. The United States and its NATO allies could use Iran’s assistance in Afghanistan, specifically in regard to the wealth of intelligence the Iranians have on Taliban and al Qaeda movements in the country. There is also potential for discussions over a supplemental supply route for coalition forces in southern Afghanistan that could run through Iran. Although Iran is willing to play the diplomatic game, tangible cooperation will come at a high price, particularly as the United States is building a strategy to engage “moderate” Taliban. On a tactical level, the Iranians might offer support to certain Taliban factions in Afghanistan with an aim of keeping U.S. and NATO forces tied down on its eastern frontier. But on a strategic level, the Iranians do not want to see their Taliban rivals back in power in any shape or form. This is just one of many core disputes that will complicate any new “diplomatic beginning” between Washington and Tehran.
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Geopolitical Diary: Iran Recalibrates Its Strategy For Iraq
March 25, 2009
Iranian parliament speaker Ali Larijani met for two hours Wednesday with Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s foremost Shiite religious leader, in An Najaf, a holy city in southern Iraq. Earlier this month, Iranian Assembly of Experts Chairman Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani led a 105-person delegation to Iraq, where he too met with al-Sistani, Iraq’s three other grand ayatollahs, its president, prime minister and other politicians.
Larijani and Rafsanjani are two of Iran’s most powerful political figures. Both are part of the pragmatic conservative camp and are bitter rivals of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is seeking re-election in June. Larijani and Rafsanjani both view Ahmadinejad as a reckless leader, and they often coordinate with each other and with their allies to cast him in a negative light. And though al-Sistani welcomed Larijani and Rafsanjani to An Najaf, STRATFOR is told that he refused to host Ahmadinejad, whose radical views apparently do not sit well with the influential ayatollah in Iraq.
The Iranian visits to An Najaf go far beyond the petty political rivalries of Tehran. Regardless of whether a hard-liner like Ahmadinejad or a reformist like Mir Hossein Mousavi wins the election in June, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will still be the primary figure calling the shots as he mediates between the rival factions. In fact, the national election Iran really has to worry about is the one taking place next door in Iraq come December.
Iran’s primary goal is to consolidate Shiite influence in Iraq and use its foothold there for projecting Persian influence in the wider region. Iran’s “Plan A” for making this happen was to carve out a federal Shiite zone in Iraq’s oil-rich south. This would give Tehran a firmer grip on Iraq’s Shiite political factions, while also creating a tie to revenues from the oil fields. The main vehicle for the plan was the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), an allied Iraqi faction led by Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, which has devoted significant resources to pushing the idea of an autonomous zone in the south among Shiite voters.
So far, Iran’s Plan A has not progressed as hoped.
The ISCI took a beating in January’s provincial elections, while the more independent Shiite parties that prefer to keep their distance from Iran, like Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Hizb al-Dawah, Muqtada al-Sadr’s radical Shiite movement and the Fadhila Party, saw their popularity soar. In reviewing what went wrong, the ISCI recognized that its close affiliation with Iran, use of religious symbols in campaigning, false claims of al-Sistani’s backing and the push for the creation of a Shiite federal zone in southern Iraq all cost the party support. Ultimately, most Iraqi Shia favored more autonomous candidates, like al-Maliki, who have refused to tether themselves to Tehran when they have other, overarching political, security and economic interests to look after.
Those election results were a setback for Tehran and a sign of trouble to come for Iran’s ability to manage Iraqi Shiite politics. With the United States drawing down its military presence in Iraq and the Turks starting to get more involved in the Middle Eastern region, the time for Iran to consolidate its power in Iraq is now. The Iranians had known this would be no easy task, but they are realizing just how tough it will be now that the plan for an autonomous Shiite zone in Iraq seems unlikely to pan out soon. The best Iran can do between now and the Iraq’s election in December is to shore up support among the various Iraqi Shiite parties, stick to its usual tactics of playing Shiite rivalries against each other and use its commercial, intelligence and religious links to diversify its support base.
To get rid of obstacles like al-Maliki, the Iranians have a contingency plan that would call on their political allies, along with select Kurdish and Sunni groups, to try to unseat the prime minister through a soft coup. (Of course, it would still take a good deal of political maneuvering to get a no-confidence vote passed in Parliament.) Just as importantly, the Iranians must win the support of the Shiite clerical establishment in Iraq if they want their political allies to fare better in December polls. This explains the recent visits by powerbrokers like Rafsanjani and Larijani to An Najaf.
Iraq’s elections are still many months away, but the Iranians appear to be wasting no time in recalibrating their political strategy for Iraq. The fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 created an opening for Iranian expansion into the Arab world, but the United States — backed by the Arab powers and the Turks — remains the gatekeeper in Baghdad. Even as the United States winds down its war in Iraq, the Iranians will not be able to escape Washington’s shadow in their efforts to influence policy in Iraq. That is not to say the Iranians haven’t retained considerable influence to the west. But if Iran already is being forced to turn to Plan B, even as the United States is drawing down its military presence, any lingering ambitions to turn Iraq into an Iranian satellite are likely headed for disappointment.
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http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1237727552931
The wonks' way--Obama must not ignore the implacable nature of Islamist extremism.
Jerusalem Post ^ | 3-27-09
Posted on Friday, March 27, 2009 7:21:13 AM by SJackson
If you follow the trail of arms from Iran - through Somalia, Sudan and Egypt to the Gaza Strip - you come to a fork in the road. One direction leads to the conclusion that Teheran's smuggling of weapons to Hamas for its fight against Israel is but a facet of the greater Islamist confrontation with Western civilization; the other to the determination that there is no war of civilizations, and that Iran and Hamas are ripe for inclusion in the international community.
YESTERDAY, CBS News reported that in January, Israeli aircraft bombed an Iranian arms convoy in Sudan bound for Hamas during Operation Cast Lead. The attack took place northwest of Port Sudan. All the casualties were Sudanese, Eritreans and Ethiopians and all the trucks were destroyed. They were presumably thought to be carrying rockets that would extend Hamas's range to Tel Aviv, making the mission worth the risk.
• The arms start off in Iran, which sees itself at war with Israel on every continent, using all available means and proxies. Teheran orchestrated the bombing of the Israeli embassy in Argentina in 1992, and the Buenos Aires Jewish Community Center in 1994. Iranian instructors taught Hizbullah the art of truck-bombing, which claimed hundreds of Israeli lives in Lebanon.
The mullahs began courting Hamas in 1990, once they had determined that destroying Israel trumped any theological differences with the Sunni jihadists.
Today, Iran is heavily invested in Hamas - financially, diplomatically, militarily and politically.
• The weapons move to Somalia, a failed state and humanitarian basket case controlled by warlords who seek to surmount clan differences with radical Islam. Youthful Shabab extremists are their shock troops. The goal is a world caliphate, but for now they'd settle for Wahhabi control of Somalia. A moderate Islamist president sitting in Mogadishu is too weak to exert power; Muslim pirates rule the coastal waters.
• The next port of call: Sudan. Once Osama bin Laden's headquarters, Sudan is notorious for its genocide against non-Arabs in Darfur. The country has close ties with Iran, whose Revolutionary Guards are training its reconstituted army.
On March 4, the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued a warrant for the arrest of Sudanese leader Omar Hassan al-Bashir. Since then al-Bashir has been to Cairo - twice - to strategize with President Hosni Mubarak. And he means to attend next week's Arab League Summit in Qatar. Beyond the backing he has in the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the African Union, Bashir's support is being spearheaded by Iran, Hamas, Hizbullah, Syria and Islamic Jihad. Iran's parliament speaker, Ali Larijani, called the arrest warrant an "insult directed at Muslims."
• Next port of call - Egypt. Every bullet shipped to Gaza by Iran traverses Egypt, either overland or via the Port of Damietta in a journey coordinated by Hamas in Damascus and Iran's Revolutionary Guard. By the time the shipments arrive at the smugglers' tunnels connecting the Sinai to Gaza, innumerable hands have facilitated them, and innumerable eyes looked the other way.
AMERICAN policy wonks who argue that Iran and Hamas are ripe for inclusion in the international community see taking that direction as "pragmatic." They've unearthed Hamas's "moderate" wing - and it's "open to compromise."
Not, granted, on the core issues of terrorism, honoring previous Palestinian commitments and Israel's right to exist. But Hamas would agree to a lengthy cease-fire. And it might allow Mahmoud Abbas to front for them. Further, say the wonks, with Hamas standing over his shoulder - who knows, Abbas might negotiate a peace deal! It would be brought to a Palestinian referendum, and Hamas would abide by the results.
But none of this will happen, the wonks warn, if the West remains hung up on what Hamas says it will do to Israel.
Similarly, when the US sits down Tuesday at The Hague, with Iran, to discuss Afghanistan, the wonks will likely argue that Teheran's attendance signals its underlying pragmatism - and that this pragmatism could be torpedoed by obsessing over Iranian threats to destroy Israel.
If the new Obama administration takes the easy road counseled by these wonks, willfully ignoring the implacable nature of Islamist extremism, it will have embarked on a journey of disastrous self-delusion.
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There's good news, and some really bad news, about Iran's efforts to evade U.S. sanctions and infiltrate the U.S. financial system.
The good news is that Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau's indictment this week of the Chinese firm LIMMT and its principal Li Fang Wei exposed some of Iran's illicit transactions. The bad news is that Tehran wasn't seeking U.S. currency simply as a safe haven in a turbulent market. The mullahs wanted dollars to buy critical ingredients in the production of long-range missiles and atomic warheads. And Mr. Morgenthau says they got them.
The veteran prosecutor tells us that the illegal arms trade at the heart of his 118-count indictment has provided Iran with the capability to field a new generation of missiles by the end of this year, accurate at a range of 1,300 miles. He reports that his investigation also shows that Iran has acquired technology for atomic weapons that could be ready soon after that.
Background
REVIEW & OUTLOOK
Tehran's Strip Club — 01/12/09
We told you in January about Tehran's use of British banks to conduct "stripping" transactions. Barred from the United States, Iranian banks paid U.K. firms like Lloyds TSB Group to transfer money to correspondent banks in New York while concealing that Iran was the true source of the funds. Lloyds employees had stopped the practice in 2004, though it was not discovered by U.S. law enforcers until 2007. In January, Lloyds agreed to a $350 million fine and promised to cooperate with Mr. Morgenthau's office and the U.S. Justice Department in exchange for a deferred prosecution agreement. The bank could otherwise be charged for violating the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, under which the U.S. has sanctioned Iran.
The big remaining question has been what Tehran was doing with the money it was converting into dollars in U.S. banks. As Mr. Morgenthau continued his investigation, gaining cooperation from banks in the U.S. and around the world, the discovery of the alleged LIMMT transactions showed another pathway into the U.S. banking system apart from the stripping transactions.
And Mr. Morgenthau says his investigation confirmed suspicions that Iran was shopping for missile parts -- such as high-strength aluminum alloys and tungsten copper plates. Many of the items were manufactured in China, none in the U.S. The indictment says LIMMT, which has been under U.S. Treasury sanctions since 2006 for its role in the spread of WMD, set up a series of front companies to sell weapons to subsidiaries of the Iranian Ministry of Defense, with payments routed through U.S. banks.
Given the aggressive U.S. sanctions and the fact that no Americans appear to have been involved in the purchases, one might wonder why the rogues alleged to be on each end of this transaction were determined to do business via U.S. financial institutions. The answer is that while some transactions were conducted in euros, the dollar is still the currency of choice for global arms dealers.
LIMMT might have asked banks in London or Hong Kong to clear a transaction in dollars, but such requests are rare and would have attracted attention. That left New York, where American banks helped spot the allegedly illegal arms trade. In fact, some transactions between LIMMT and the Iranian military were also blocked by overseas banks with no obligation to do so. Seeing that LIMMT was listed on an alert from Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, these unnamed good Samaritans blocked some payments that originated in Iran.
Of course, the cooperation from banks around the world is merely the silver lining in this case. Thanks to Mr. Morgenthau's aggressive prosecution, we see again the lengths Tehran is going to acquire weapons to threaten the world.
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By MICHAEL RUBIN
On Apr. 9, Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, the head of Iran's atomic energy agency, announced that the Islamic Republic had installed 7,000 centrifuges in its Natanz uranium enrichment facility. The announcement came one day after the U.S. State Department announced it would engage Iran directly in multilateral nuclear talks.
Proponents of engagement with Tehran say dialogue provides the only way forward. Iran's progress over the past eight years, they say, is a testament to the failure of Bush administration strategy. President Barack Obama, for example, in his Mar. 21 address to the Iranian government and people, declared that diplomacy "will not be advanced by threats. We seek engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect."
Thus our president fulfills a pattern in which new administrations place blame for the failure of diplomacy on predecessors rather than on adversaries. The Islamic Republic is not a passive actor, however. Quite the opposite: While President Obama plays checkers, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei plays chess. The enrichment milestone is a testament both to Tehran's pro-active strategy and to Washington's refusal to recognize it.
Iran's nuclear program dates back to 1989, when the Russian government agreed to complete the reactor at Bushehr. It was a year of optimism in the West: The Iran-Iraq War ended the summer before and, with the death of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini, leadership passed to Ayatollah Khamenei and President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, both considered moderates.
At the beginning of the year, George H.W. Bush offered an olive branch to Tehran, declaring in his inaugural address, "Good will begets good will. Good faith can be a spiral that endlessly moves on." The mood grew more euphoric in Europe. In 1992, the German government, ever eager for new business opportunities and arguing that trade could moderate the Islamic Republic, launched its own engagement initiative.
It didn't work. While U.S. and European policy makers draw distinctions between reformers and hard-liners in the Islamic Republic, the difference between the two is style, not substance. Both remain committed to Iran's nuclear program. Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, for example, called for a Dialogue of Civilizations. The European Union (EU) took the bait and, between 2000 and 2005, nearly tripled trade with Iran.
It was a ruse. Iranian officials were as insincere as European diplomats were greedy, gullible or both. Iranian officials now acknowledge that Tehran invested the benefits reaped into its nuclear program.
On June 14, 2008, for example, Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, Mr. Khatami's spokesman, debated advisers to current Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the University of Gila in northern Iran. Mr. Ramezanzadeh criticized Mr. Ahmadinejad for his defiant rhetoric, and counseled him to accept the Khatami approach: "We should prove to the entire world that we want power plants for electricity. Afterwards, we can proceed with other activities," Mr. Ramezanzadeh said. The purpose of dialogue, he argued further, was not to compromise, but to build confidence and avoid sanctions. "We had an overt policy, which was one of negotiation and confidence building, and a covert policy, which was continuation of the activities," he said.
The strategy was successful. While today U.S. and European officials laud Mr. Khatami as a peacemaker, it was on his watch that Iran built and operated covertly its Natanz nuclear enrichment plant and, at least until 2003, a nuclear weapons program as well.
Iran's responsiveness to diplomacy is a mirage. After two years of talks following exposure of its Natanz facility, Tehran finally acquiesced to a temporary enrichment suspension, a move which Secretary of State Colin Powell called "a little bit of progress," and the EU hailed.
But, just last Sunday, Hassan Rowhani, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator at the time, acknowledged his government's insincerity. The Iranian leadership agreed to suspension, he explained in an interview with the government-run news Web site, Aftab News, "to counter global consensus against Iran," adding, "We did not accept suspension in construction of centrifuges and continued the effort. . . . We needed a greater number." What diplomats considered progress, Iranian engineers understood to be an opportunity to expand their program.
In his March 24 press conference, Mr. Obama said, "I'm a big believer in persistence." Making the same mistake repeatedly, however, is neither wise nor realism; it is arrogant, naïve and dangerous.
When Mr. Obama declared on April 5 that "All countries can access peaceful nuclear energy," the state-run daily newspaper Resalat responded with a front page headline, "The United States capitulates to the nuclear goals of Iran." With Washington embracing dialogue without accountability and Tehran embracing diplomacy without sincerity, it appears the Iranian government is right.
Mr. Rubin is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
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Marvin Kalb was on cable yesterday and he came out and said war is not an option to talks with Iran.
BO is clear that is his position also though he doesn't say it.
Unless of course he is giving Iran a head fake as to not tip them off and will bomb their nuc sites but I certainly find that hard to believe.
So Iran will become the ninth nuclear power?
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http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/2009/04/hezbollahs-mush.php
April 13, 2009
Hezbollah's Mushroom Cloud
Christopher Hitchens recently went to a rally in the suburbs south of Beirut and found Hezbollah ratcheting up its belligerence. “A huge poster of a nuclear mushroom cloud surmounts the scene,” he wrote in the May issue of Vanity Fair, “with the inscription OH ZIONISTS, IF YOU WANT THIS TYPE OF WAR THEN SO BE IT!” Last week James Kirchick reported seeing the same thing at the same rally in City Journal. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time Hezbollah has threatened nuclear war.
Hezbollah isn’t broadcasting this to the world. If Hitchens and Kirchick hadn’t written about it, few would know the mushroom-cloud banner even exists. It’s not so much a threat as it is a revelation of Hezbollah’s dark psyche. But perhaps Hezbollah’s not shouting “nuclear war” for all to hear means its threats are more dangerous than public taunts from the Iranian government. Empty threats and hyperbole are rife in the Middle East. Death threats are rarely carried out anywhere. Most assassins don’t announce their intentions. They kill their victims without warning. Whatever Hezbollah’s mushroom-cloud banner means, we know this much: intimations of nuclear war with Israel are now coming from Lebanon as well as Iran. The worst case scenario — a mushroom cloud over Tel Aviv — might be slightly more likely than some of us thought.
Every foreign policy-maker and analyst must be wondering whether Israel will bomb Iranian nuclear facilities this year or next. Most don’t know the answer. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself might not know the answer. It’s risky. Hezbollah didn’t open a second front against Israel during the Gaza war a few months ago, but it’s unlikely they’ll sit still in South Lebanon if their patron and armorer in Tehran is attacked. Iran’s Al Quds Force may retaliate against the United States in Iraq. A military strike against Iran could easily trigger a regional conflagration.
There’s a theory floating around the Middle East that I’ve heard from Israelis and Arabs alike, and some find it slightly reassuring: Iran doesn’t want to use nuclear weapons against Israel. Rather, Iran wants nuclear weapons so it can transform itself into a true regional superpower. Arab regimes fear this, which is why Saudi Arabia and Egypt have threatened to develop or purchase their own nuclear arsenals to counter the “Persian bomb.” No Arab state got into an arms race with Israel to counter the “Zionist bomb,” but they’re obviously worried about what might happen to them if Tehran weaponizes uranium. The Iranians don’t want to be neutralized by an arms race, so they’re threatening the Israelis and hoping the Arabs will relax or acquiesce. I don’t know if the theory is true, but Hezbollah’s recent mushroom-cloud banner doesn’t quite fit. Hezbollah didn’t put that on stage to calm nerves in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. They used it to thrill a crowd of furious Shia Arabs in Lebanon.
An Iranian bomb would be a problem for Israelis, Arabs, and the rest of us even if Tehran has no intention of using it. The last thing an energy-dependent planet needs is extremist regimes with vast oil reserves threatening to obliterate each other as India and Pakistan sometimes do. And the second-to-last thing Israel needs is a nuclear umbrella protecting Hamas and Hezbollah. President Barack Obama said a nuclear Iran would be a “game changer” last year. He’s right.
The worst case scenario — the incineration of Tel Aviv and a nuclear retaliation against Tehran — isn’t likely. I don’t expect it will ever actually happen. I’m sure enough — at least 90 percent sure — that I feel safe making the prediction in public. I’m a writer, though, not a policy maker. And I don’t live in Israel. I’m safe and can afford to be wrong. I won’t be killed, nor will I be blamed for getting anyone else killed. The Israeli government won’t make the same risk calculations I make. If I’m wrong, they’re dead, and so is their country.
I can’t tell whether or not Israel will launch a pre-emptive strike. But let’s assume, for the sake of discussion, that it’s 90 percent likely Iran’s threats of annihilation are just bluster. And let me ask this: How would you feel if your doctor diagnosed you with an illness and said there’s a ten percent chance it will kill you? Would you find 90 percent odds of survival acceptable? Would you sleep peacefully and do nothing and hope for the best? I travel to dangerous places. It’s part of my job. But those odds, for me, are prohibitive. Those odds are almost as bad as the odds in Russian Roulette, and you couldn’t pay me enough to play that game even once.
Posted by Michael J. Totten at April 13, 2009 11:29 AM
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The house organ of the O. admistration writes:
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U.S. May Drop Key Condition for Talks With Iran
DAVID E. SANGER
Published: April 13, 2009
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration and its European allies are preparing proposals that would shift strategy toward Iran by dropping a longstanding American insistence that Tehran rapidly shut down nuclear facilities during the early phases of negotiations over its atomic program, according to officials involved in the discussions.
The proposals, exchanged in confidential strategy sessions with European allies, would press Tehran to open up its nuclear program gradually to wide-ranging inspection. But the proposals would also allow Iran to continue enriching uranium for some period during the talks. That would be a sharp break from the approach taken by the Bush administration, which had demanded that Iran halt its enrichment activities, at least briefly to initiate negotiations.
The proposals under consideration would go somewhat beyond President Obama’s promise, during the presidential campaign, to open negotiations with Iran “without preconditions.” Officials involved in the discussion said they were being fashioned to draw Iran into nuclear talks that it had so far shunned.
A review of Iran policy that Mr. Obama ordered after taking office is still under way, and aides say it is not clear how long he would be willing to allow Iran to continue its fuel production, and at what pace. But European officials said there was general agreement that Iran would not accept the kind of immediate shutdown of its facilities that the Bush administration had demanded.
“We have all agreed that is simply not going to work — experience tells us the Iranians are not going to buy it,” said a senior European official involved in the strategy sessions with the Obama administration. “So we are going to start with some interim steps, to build a little trust.”
Administration officials declined to discuss details of their confidential deliberations, but said that any new American policy would ultimately require Iran to cease enrichment, as demanded by several United Nations Security Council resolutions.
“Our goal remains exactly what it has been in the U.N. resolutions: suspension,” one senior administration official said. Another official cautioned that “we are still at the brainstorming level” and said the terms of an opening proposal to Iran were still being debated.
If the United States and its allies allow Iran to continue enriching uranium for a number of months, or longer, the approach is bound to meet objections, from both conservatives in the United States and from the new Israeli government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
If Mr. Obama signed off on the new negotiating approach, the United States and its European allies would use new negotiating sessions with Iran to press for interim steps toward suspension of its nuclear activities, starting with allowing international inspectors into sites from which they have been barred for several years.
First among them is a large manufacturing site in downtown Tehran, a former clock factory, where Iran is producing many of the next-generation centrifuges that it is installing in the underground plant at Natanz. “The facility is very large,” one United Nations inspector said last week, “and we have not been inside since last summer.”
Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency, whose inspectors would be a critical part of the strategy, said in an interview in his office in Vienna last week that the Obama administration had not consulted him on the details of a new strategy. But he was blistering about the approach that the Bush administration had taken.
“It was a ridiculous approach,” he insisted. “They thought that if you threatened enough and pounded the table and sent Cheney off to act like Darth Vader the Iranians would just stop,” Dr. ElBaradei said, shaking his head. “If the goal was to make sure that Iran would not have the knowledge and the capability to manufacture nuclear fuel, we had a policy that was a total failure.”
Now, he contended, Mr. Obama has little choice but to accept the reality that Iran has “built 5,500 centrifuges,” nearly enough to make two weapons’ worth of uranium each year. “You have to design an approach that is sensitive to Iran’s pride,” said Dr. ElBaradei, who has long argued in favor of allowing Iran to continue with a small, face-saving capacity to enrich nuclear fuel, under strict inspection.
By contrast, in warning against a more flexible American approach, a senior Israeli with access to the intelligence on Iran said during a recent visit to Washington that Mr. Obama had only until the fall or the end of the year to “completely end” the production of uranium in Iran. The official made it clear that after that point, Israel might revive its efforts to take out the Natanz plant by force.
A year ago, Israeli officials secretly came to the Bush administration seeking the bunker-destroying bombs, refueling capability and overflight rights over Iraq that it would need to execute such an attack. President George W. Bush deflected the proposal. An Obama administration official said “they have not been back with that request,” but added that “we don’t think their threats are just huffing and puffing.”
Israeli officials and some American intelligence officials say they suspect that Iran has other hidden facilities that could be used to enrich uranium, a suspicion explored in a 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on Iran. But while that classified estimate referred to 10 or 15 suspect sites, officials say no solid evidence has emerged of hidden activity.
“Frankly,” said one administration official, “what’s most valuable to us now is having real freedom for the inspectors to pursue their suspicions around the country.
“We know what’s happening at Natanz,” said the official, noting that every few weeks inspectors are in and out of the plant. “It’s the rest of the country we’re most worried about.”
Matthew Bunn, a nuclear expert at the Belfer Center at Harvard University, said in a interview on Monday that the Obama administration had some latitude in defining what constitutes “suspension” of nuclear work.
One possibility, he said, was “what you call warm shutdown,” in which the centrifuges keep spinning, but not producing new enriched uranium, akin to leaving a car running, but in park.
That would allow both sides to claim victory: the Iranians could claim they had resisted American efforts to shut down the program, while the Americans and Europeans could declare that they had halted the stockpiling of material that could be used to produce weapons.
“The hard part of these negotiations is how to convince everyone that there are no covert sites,” Mr. Bunn said.
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http://www.memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD231709
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By JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that it is imperative that the world prevent the Islamic Republic of Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. She pledged that the Obama administration's engagement with Iran to achieve that end would be carried out "with eyes wide open and under no illusions."
Mrs. Clinton is right. Iran's illicit nuclear activities represent a uniquely dangerous and transformational threat to the United States and the rest of the world -- a threat that demands a response of open-eyed realism.
A realistic response requires that we first recognize that the danger posed by the Islamic Republic's nuclear activities cannot be divorced from its broader foreign policy ambitions and patterns of behavior -- in particular, its longstanding use of terrorist proxies to destabilize and weaken its Arab neighbors and Israel, to carve out spheres of Iranian influence in the Mideast, and to tilt the region toward extremism.
The Iranians have supported Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Palestinian territories, and Shiite militias in Iraq. They have sponsored terrorist attacks that have killed hundreds of American soldiers and thousands of innocent Muslims throughout the region. They have also exploited the plight of the Palestinians in a cynical attempt to put a wedge between moderate Arab governments and their people.
Consider how the balance of power and the prospects for peace in the Middle East would change if Iran were to acquire nuclear weapons -- and its extremist proxies could attack moderate Arab regimes, Israel and us under the protection of Tehran's nuclear umbrella, which they would use to deter conventional military retaliation in response to their aggression.
Engaging Iran with open-eyed realism also requires that we take seriously the violent words of the Iranian regime, and its acts of domestic repression. I know there are some who dismiss Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's calls for Israel to be wiped off the map as little more than political rhetoric. Others urge us not to hear Iran's rulers when they lead crowds in chanting "Death to America." Still others argue that the Iranian regime's mistreatment of its own citizens should not interfere in our diplomacy. If we ever accept that counsel, it would be at our grave peril.
As the Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov once said, "A country that does not respect the rights of its own people will not respect the rights of its neighbors." There is no better proof of this than Iran today.
I am not opposed to pursuing direct engagement with the Iranians. It is certainly the preferred way to end Iran's nuclear program. But engagement is a tactic, not a strategy. What we need is a multipronged strategy that employs all of the elements of our national power. Such a strategy would include a clear and credible set of benchmarks by which we can judge Iran's response to our outreach, a timeline by which to expect results, and a set of carrots and sticks that both sides understand. We must make clear to the Iranians and the region that engagement will not be a process without end, but rather a means to a clearly identified set of ends.
And we must build a consensus domestically and internationally. Just as steps forward by the Iranians will justify continued and rewarding engagement, a lack of progress will be met with what Mrs. Clinton characterized before the House Foreign Affairs Committee as "crippling" sanctions.
With the goal of giving President Barack Obama the authority to impose precisely such sanctions, a bipartisan coalition of senators, organized by Sens. Evan Bayh, Jon Kyl and me, recently introduced legislation that would empower the president to sanction companies that are involved in brokering, shipping or insuring the sale of gasoline and other refined petroleum products to Iran.
During last year's campaign, Mr. Obama expressed interest in using Iran's dependence on imported gasoline as leverage in our nuclear standoff. However, under current law, his authority to do so is uncertain. Our legislation would eliminate this ambiguity and enable the president to tell companies involved in this trade that they must choose between doing business with Iran or doing business with America.
I am especially proud of the breadth of the coalition that introduced this bill. It includes some of the most liberal and most conservative members of the U.S. Senate, and it should send an unambiguous message of unity, strength and resolve from America to Iran and the rest of the world.
We should likewise seek to build greater unity among our friends abroad. In the Middle East today, there is an unprecedented convergence of concerns about Iran among Arabs and Israelis alike. The question is whether we can seize this moment to help usher into place a new strategic architecture for the Middle East -- keeping in mind that some of the strongest alliances in history have been forged among old antagonists when confronted by a new, common threat.
Iran's easiest path to a nuclear weapon is clear: It is by dividing the rest of us, Europeans from Americans, the Russians and Chinese from the West. It is by pitting Arabs against Arabs in Lebanon, Iraq, the Palestinian Authority and the Gulf, and by stirring up hatred between Muslims and Jews. It is by dividing the Iranian people from the American people when we are otherwise natural allies. It is by dividing us here at home -- Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals.
The best way to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons is equally clear: It is by recognizing that whatever differences divide us on other matters, our shared interest in stopping the Iranian government from getting nuclear weapons is far greater. This is why we must urgently unite to prevent that dangerous result.
Mr. Lieberman is an Independent Democratic senator from Connecticut. This article is adapted from a speech he delivered at the American Enterprise Institute.
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Geopolitical Diary: Iran's Political System Approaching Impasse
June 8, 2009
The last debate in Iran’s first-ever televised series of presidential candidate debates will take place on Monday. The debates among candidates seeking election on June 12 have been marked by vicious attacks from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — not only against his main challenger, former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, but also against several other key figures within the Iranian political establishment. They include Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the regime’s second most influential leader (after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei). The president has made several serious charges against his opponents, laying bare the extent of the rifts within the state.
Ahmadinejad claimed to have evidence that Rafsanjani (a former two-term president who currently heads Iran’s two most powerful institutions) and his family accumulated their wealth illegally, and that Rafsanjani had conspired with an Arab state to undermine Ahmadinejad’s government. He went so far as to accuse Mousavi’s wife (an intellectual and dean of a university), who has been at the forefront of her husband’s campaign, of securing her academic credentials through inappropriate or illegal means. The situation is serious enough that Khamenei, who had supported Ahmadinejad in his bid for a second term, criticized the president, saying, “One doesn’t like to see a nominee, for the sake of proving himself, seeking to negate somebody else. I have no problem with debate, dialogue and criticism, but these debates must take place within a religious framework.”
From Khamenei’s point of view, the polarization of state and society in the run-up to the election makes it all the more difficult to manage the rival factions, as he has done for the past two decades.
Undoubtedly, this is shaping up to be the most important presidential election in Iran’s history, especially because it is a bellwether of what is happening at a higher level: a potential unraveling of the political system that has been in place since Iran’s 1979 revolution. As we have noted previously, the cohesiveness of the Iranian state has been deteriorating, with a rift between the president’s ultra-conservative camp and the pragmatic conservative camp led by Rafsanjani. The United States’ offer of rapprochement has made the situation even more urgent, as Tehran needs to arrive at an internal consensus on the direction of foreign policy and seek economic rehabilitation.
Ahmadinejad’s policies have been exacerbated divisions that have long existed, especially since the 1989 death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Until fairly recently, his successor, Khamenei, kept this internal dissent contained by balancing between different factions that have controlled various state institutions. During Ahmadinejad’s presidency, the internal struggle has shifted: Where it once was a matter of the policy preferences of rival camps within a conservative-dominated political establishment, it has become a situation in which the nature of the Islamic republic’s political system is in question.
Because he is the first Iranian president who is not also a cleric, Ahmadinejad sought to strengthen his position by claiming that his policies were guided by the highly revered and hidden 12th imam of the Shia, the Mahdi. This claim has unnerved the clerics: It undermines their privileged position, not only in the Iranian political system but also in religious terms. The implication of this is that if laypeople have access to the messiah, there is no need for them to rely on clerics — who historically have had tremendous influence among the masses.
Meanwhile, the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) is emerging as a powerful player in Iran, currently second only to the clerics. But as the clerical community becomes marred by internal disagreements and the aging ayatollahs who founded the republic anticipate the day when they will be succeeded by a second generation, the IRGC is very likely to emerge as the most powerful force within the state. The ayatollahs have used their religious position to control the ideological force; if they should become weaker, the non-clerical politicians and technocrats will have a tough time dealing with the IRGC.
The first step in the trajectory of Iran will become evident with the outcome of the June 12 election. But regardless of who wins, the Islamic republic is reaching a point where the political system, facing a great deal of stress and strain, is likely to evolve into something else. It is too early to predict the exact outcome of this struggle, but what is clear is that the clerics are under pressure from many sides.
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Summary
Iranian police broke up demonstrations in Tehran on June 13 when supporters of defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi took to the streets to protest the results of Iran’s presidential election. Rumors are still circulating about the election and whether powerful political figures like Expediency Council chairman Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani will make a move in support of Mousavi. That said, the ruling clerics seem to have made it clear that they support Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the winner. Ahmadinejad can now be expected to use his new mandate to purge Tehran of opposition under the guise of an anti-corruption campaign.
Analysis
It is now after 4:30 a.m. local time in Iran, and police have broken up a throng of some 20,000 demonstrators protesting the final results of the Iranian elections, which gave Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a clear victory over his reformist challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi. The final results showed Ahmadinejad with 62.63 percent of the vote and Mousavi with 33.75 percent.
The number of pro-Mousavi supporters in Tehran grew from a few hundred to several thousand by word of mouth after businesses closed and students got out of class the evening of June 13 to gather around the Interior Ministry building where the votes were counted, in an attempt to demonstrate that Mousavi represented more than 33 percent of the electorate. In some spots, protesters clashed with police. Protesters with whom STRATFOR has communicated said they had been roughed up and have returned home.
Judging both from history and from pictures and anecdotes of protesters on the streets of Tehran, Iran’s security apparatus appears more than capable of breaking up these demonstrations should they continue through the next day. SMS messaging and Facebook have been shut down intermittently in Iran to prevent the protests from gaining momentum. Considering that most of Mousavi’s supporters are among Iran’s urban liberal upper class — who would use SMS messaging and Facebook — these security measures have been moderately effective in keeping protesters from organizing mass demonstrations.
There are a number of claims that the vote was rigged, but it does not appear that such claims can or will be verified. Some level of electoral engineering was likely to have taken place, but the final vote breakdown gives Ahmadinejad a wide enough margin to prevent the opposition from making a strong case that the election was rigged.
Mousavi has been reluctant to lead the protests himself in an open challenge against the state. As a member of the Expediency Council, Mousavi has to look out for his own political future and cannot be seen as the one instigating unrest in the streets. Instead, he is appealing both publicly and privately to clerics and other powerful members of the establishment, including Expediency Council chairman Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Majlis speaker Ali Larijani, to back up his claims of voter fraud. Unless Mousavi gets support from someone in the ruling elite, his protest is likely to fizzle out.
Rumors began circulating several hours ago that Rafsanjani would speak out against the election results and that he had even resigned from his posts in the Expediency Council and the Assembly of Experts. If true, Rafsanjani’s backing would have revitalized and added some much-needed legitimacy to Mousavi’s campaign, and could have led to a major breach within the ruling elite. STRATFOR sources say Rafsanjani did hold a three-hour meeting with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei after the election results were announced, but the reports of his resignation and other dubious rumors of the Election Commission admitting vote fraud do not appear credible. STRATFOR will continue keeping a close watch to see if Rafsanjani makes a move against the establishment over the vote, but for now we see that as a slim possibility. Larijani, meanwhile, is looking out for his political future and his close relationship with the Supreme Leader. He is unlikely to back Mousavi in his protest, despite his opposition to Ahmadinejad.
Khamenei, Interior Minister Sadiq Mahsouli and Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Seyed Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi have all proclaimed that the elections were conducted freely and fairly, making clear that any move to dispute the results would represent a direct challenge to the state. The resounding silence from powerful figures like Rafsanjani and Larijani is a strong indication that the election results and claims of fraud are not compelling enough to cause a split within the ruling elite.
Even if the final tally of votes was fudged to give Ahmadinejad an edge, this election has shed light on an underlying reality that is difficult for most Western analysts and media agencies to accept. Mousavi derives most of his support from urban professional classes who responded positively to “Obamaesque” calls for change and felt that their time had come to take Iran in a different direction. The fact remains, however, that the clerical regime still carries broad support, and Ahmadinejad — despite being lambasted by his political rivals for mishandling the economy and foreign relations — has strong support among the rural, poorer and mostly deeply religious population. Ahmadinejad campaigned heavily for this election and made sure during the campaign to visit rural provinces, where some 24 million Iranians, or 34 percent of the total population, make their living. He also put a lot of money into his campaign to buy popular support. Mousavi, on the other hand, returned into the political limelight only about four months ahead of the election and struggled to connect with Iran’s lower classes, who fail to identify with the working elite or with an Ahmadinejad rival and Mousavi supporter like Rafsanjani, who is widely known and criticized for his corruptive practices.
Ahmadinejad faces opposition even among the ruling elite, but he is already laying the groundwork to unseat his opponents under the veil of an anti-corruption drive. With his renewed mandate, the Iranian president will work through the system to gradually weaken his rivals and stack the various organs of the state with more loyalists. The state is cracking down on dissenters, and unconfirmed rumors are circulating that Mousavi and his fellow reformist candidate and cleric Mehdi Karroubi and reformist supporter and cleric Gholamhossein Karbaschi have been placed under house arrest.
STRATFOR will continue keeping an eye on the streets for more demonstrations and potential moves from Rafsanjani. The situation may be tense over the next few days as Mousavi carries on his campaign to protest the results. But for now the state has spoken, and Iran looks content enough to live with the status quo.
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The Iranian Circus III
Posted By Michael Ledeen On June 13, 2009 @ 6:57 pm In Uncategorized | 44 Comments
Iran doesn’t have elections, it has circuses, and this was proven once again on Friday, when the regime announced that Ahmadinezhad had been retained–call him “landslide Mahmoud” please–as president of the Islamic Republic. So much for the remarks of various pundits claiming that Iran was some sort of “democracy.” There isn’t a single educated Iranian who thinks that the official numbers represent anything more than a brazen insult to the opponents of the regime. Supreme Leader Khamenei rubbed it in when he called the outcome “divine,” but the subtlety was no doubt lost on American commentators, who were mostly concerned that the ugly circus might be good for neocons, or for Israel (yes, much the same thing, I know). Maybe Roger Cohen still believes in [1] Iranian democracy (albeit “incomplete”), but that in itself tells you how silly the idea was.
Ever since the proclamation of Ahmadinezhad’s “triumph,” the streets of the cities have been boiling with anti-regime demonstrations, with the predictable violent crackdown from the security forces. There is hardly a city anywhere in the country where demonstrations are not taking place, and you can gauge the seriousness of the situation by the regime’s response:
Mousavi and Karrubi, the two “reformist” candidates in Friday’s “elections” are under house arrest, along with dozens of their followers;
“Reformist” journalists and activists have been rounded up and jailed;
Cell phones (including, after a day’s delay, international cell phones) have been blocked, access to internet has been filtered, facebook is unreachable, and you can’t tweet (can the silencing of Western reporters be far behind?);
In Tehran, student dormitories are surrounded by security forces.
Stalin would be proud. But even his Soviet Union eventually succumbed to the dissidents, and while the regime has most all of the guns, the chains, the clubs, the tear gas cannisters, and the torture chambers, there are tens of millions of Iranians who hate the regime. The question is whether they are prepared to face down the Basij, the police, and the Revolutionary Guards. It is usually a matter of numbers in these cases: if a million people gather in front of the Supreme Leader’s palace and demand freedom, while half that number make the same demand in front of the government buildings in Isfahan, Shiraz, Tabriz and Mashad, they might win.
Until quite recently, the Iranians did not believe they could do such a thing on their own. They believed they needed outside support, above all American support, in order to succeed. They thought that Bushitlercheney would provide that support, and they were bitterly disappointed. But nobody believes that Obama will help them, and they must know that they are on their own.
Any hope they might have had in the Obama White House was quickly dismissed in the administration’s two statements on the matter. The first came from the president himself, anticipating a Mousavi victory (it is too soon to speculate on the source of this happy thought), and of course, in his narcissistic way, taking personal credit for it:
“We are excited to see what appears to be a robust debate taking place in Iran and obviously, after the speech that I made in Cairo, we tried to send a clear message that we think there’s a possibility of change and, ultimately, the election is for the Iranians to decide but just as what has been true in Lebanon, what can be true in Iran as well, is that you’re seeing people looking at new possiblities, and whoever ends up winning the election in Iran, the fact that there’s been a robust debate hopefully will help advance our ability to engage them in new ways.”
I’ve reread the Cairo Sermon, and I can’t find a single word calling for freedom for the Iranian people. Au contraire, Obama’s words about Iran were penitent, apologizing for the American role, back in 1953, in removing what the president called an elected government (Mossadeq, that is. Except that he was appointed by the shah, not elected at all). But then, history is not his strong suit.
Once it became clear that Ahmadinezhad was staying, the White House, while expressing skepticism about the accuracy of the vote count, nonetheless insisted that it might be good news after all:
The dominant view among Obama administration officials is that the regime will look so bad as a result of whipping up Iranian hopes for democracy and then squelching them that the regime may feel compelled to show some conciliatory response to Obama’s gestures of engagement.
I suppose that might be true if the regime were interested in winning a few points in the next Gallup poll, but these guys are currently fighting for survival. Everybody now knows that most Iranians hate the regime, and a lot of them are not quietly going home and getting ready to soldier on for the next four years of brutal repression, seeing their oil revenues sent to Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and al Qaeda, and to the nuclear weapons program rather than to their own increasingly miserable circumstances. They are making a stand, at least for the moment.
There are many videos on YouTube, and [2] this description from Marie Colvin, a first-class reporter at the (London) Times gives you an idea of the earliest demonstrations in Tehran:
In the Iranian capital’s most serious unrest for 10 years, thousands of liberals who claimed the election had been rigged vented their fury in running battles with police.
They fought officers armed with batons and stun grenades, set fire to police vehicles and threw stones at government buildings.
I saw police in camouflage uniforms and black flak jackets respond by firing the grenades from motorcycles into a crowd that chanted “Down with the dictator” and denounced what it called a stolen election.
In a stand-off near the interior ministry, which oversaw the count, opposition supporters formed barricades of burning tyres, sending plumes of smoke over the city. Helmeted police chased protesters who became detached from the main group and beat them with truncheons.
The first wave of repression failed. By all accounts, as of Saturday/Sunday night the demonstrations had grown. There were demonstrations all over Tehran, from the “good neighborhoods” to the slums, as in every other major city.
If ever there were a time for an American president to speak out in behalf of freedom, this is it. And [3] Steve Hayes called upon Obama to do it:
Obama could tap into the enthusiasm and frustration of the protesters with a few well-chosen words about democracy, the rule of law, the will of the people, consent of the governed and legitimacy. He could choose a compelling story or two from inside Iran to make his points most dramatically, perhaps an anecdote about sacrifices some Iranians made to vote or an example of post-election intimidation.
Not bloody likely. As Allah knows, anything said by Obama on behalf of freedom in Iran would sabotage his utopian vision of negotiating a Grand Bargain with the mullahs, and he’s not a favorite to do that simply because seventy million people are being crushed by an evil regime that vows Death to America, and moves closer to building an arsenal of atomic bombs every day.
No, it’s up to the Iranians. Can the green revolution succeed in the face of “the dictatorship of lies”? Unlikely, to be sure. But life is full of surprises. The end of the mullahcracy is not impossible.
UPDATE: Khamenei scheduled to meet with Mousavi late Sunday night. Karrubi issues statement calling for continuing protests.
Lots of arrests, perhaps a thousand or so in Tehran alone. According to Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi, the infamous section 209 of Evin Prison (solitary confinement, torture cells) has been emptied to make room for new arrivals.
Foreign reporters beaten and detained. One Belgian reporter, two others (unidentified as yet).
Reports that some of the thugs doing the “crowd control” are foreigners, who speak Arabic, not Farsi. These seem to be Hezbollah people, from both Lebanon and Syria.
Rumors that Venezuelan security personnel are also participating, although this is unconfirmed.
It does seem that some Revolutionary Guards have refused to participate in the crackdown; some have reportedly gone over to the protestors. This of course is a key indicator, but it will be extremely difficult to get accurate information.
UPDATE II: Sunday night, my time. Just got this from a fine source:
They have entered the universities and are beating the students. There are reports of deaths around town. Protests all over Europe in front of the embassies, today in DC and LA.
Students are being beaten, pepper sprayed, and gassed.
things are bad. No hope that this administration at least acknowledge the people? They are beaten and killed in the streets. Journalists are being expelled.
ME: Still silence from the White House and Foggy Bottom. This is the most cowardly, immoral non-reaction I can remember. I resigned from my job at the State Dept back in 81 when I thought we were appeasing the Soviets’ repression of Poland, but this is much worse.
Article printed from Faster, Please!: http://pajamasmedia.com/michaelledeen
URL to article: http://pajamasmedia.com/michaelledeen/2009/06/13/the-iranian-circus-iii/
URLs in this post:
[1] Iranian democracy: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/11/opinion/11iht-edcohen.html?ref=opinion
[2] this description: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6493970.ece
[3] Steve Hayes called upon Obama: http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/06/mr_president_another_speech_pl.asp
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Obama's probable response to the crisis:
1. Blame Bush.
2. Issue another apology.
3. Go golfing.
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Mousavi and Karrubi, the two “reformist” candidates in Friday’s “elections” www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/06/mr_president_another_speech_pl.asp
hahahahahahha, reformists eh? the only difference between them and amadinijad is that they want muslims to be able to kill inifdels while wearing blue jeans. Neither of them were willing to recognize Israels right to exist, nor were they willing to halt the nuke program. Its all a media gong show created to by them time and give obama hope that he can fix the situation with sunshine, hugs and puppy dogs.
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Middle East
Jun 16, 2009
Hedgehogs and flamingos in Tehran
By Spengler
In Wonderland, Alice played croquet with hedgehogs and flamingos. In the Middle East, United States President Barack Obama is attempting the same thing, but with rats and cobras. Not only do they move at inconvenient times, but they bite the players. Iran's presidential election on Friday underscores the Wonderland character of American policy in the region.
America's proposed engagement of Iran has run up against the reality of the region, namely that Iran cannot "moderate" its support for its fractious Shi'ite allies from Beirut to Pakistan's northwest frontier. It also shows how misguided Obama was to assume that progress on the Palestinian issue would help America solve more urgent strategic problems, such as Iran's potential acquisition of nuclear weapons.
By assigning 64% of the popular vote to incumbent President Mahmud Ahmadinejad in last weekend's elections, Iran's reigning mullahs, if there was indeed rigging, made a statement - but to whom? The trumpet which dare not sound an uncertain note was a call to Tehran's Shi'ite constituency, as well as to a fifth of Pakistani Muslims. Religious establishments by their nature are conservative, and they engage in radical acts only in need.
Tehran is tugged forward by the puppies of war: Hezbollah in Lebanon and its co-sectarians in Pakistan. With a population of 170 million, Pakistan has 20 million men of military age, as many as Iran and Turkey combined; by 2035 it will have half again as many. It also has nuclear weapons. And it is in danger of disintegration.
Against a young, aggressive and unstable Pakistan, Iran seems a moribund competitor. Iran's fertility decline is the fastest that demographers ever have observed. As I reported on this site last February (Sex, drugs and Islam, February 24, 2009), Iranian fertility by some accounts has fallen below the level of 1.9 births per female registered in the 2006 census to only 1.6, barely above Germany's.
Collapsing fertility is accompanied by social pathologies, including rates of drug addiction and prostitution an order of magnitude greater than in any Western country. Of the 15 countries that show the biggest drop in population growth since 1980, eight are in the Middle East, and the head of the United Nations population division calls the collapse of Islamic population growth "amazing". Pakistan is the great exception, and that makes it the fulcrum of the Muslim world.
Ahmadinejad's invective may be aimed at Jerusalem, but his eye is fixed on Islamabad. That explains the decisions of his masters in Tehran's religious establishment who may have rigged, or at least exaggerated, his election victory. Pakistan's ongoing civil war has a critical sectarian component which the Shi'ites never sought: the Taliban claim legitimacy as the Muslim leadership of the country on the strength of their militancy against the country's Shi'ite minority. Were the Taliban to succeed in crushing Pakistan's Shi'ites, Iran's credibility as a Shi'ite power would fade, along with its ability to project influence in the region.
As Middle East analyst Daniel Pipes asks, "Why did [Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei select Ahmadinejad to "win" the election? Why did he not chose a president-puppet who would present a smile to the world, including Obama, handle the economy competently, not rile the population, and whose selection would not inspire riots that might destabilize the regime? Has Khamenei fallen under the spell of Ahmadinejad or does he have some clever ploy up his sleeve? Whatever the answer is, it baffles me."
The issue is less baffling when raw numbers are taken into account. The issues on which Iran's supposed moderation might be relevant, such as the Arab-Israeli conflict, are less pressing for Tehran than the problems on its eastern border. Of the world's 200 million Shi'ite Muslims, about 30% reside in Iran. Another 10% live in neighboring Iraq, and comprise about two-thirds of the country's population. Yet another 30% of the Shi'ite live in the Indian sub-continent, about equally divided between India and Pakistan. Pakistani Shi'ites make up only about one-fifth of the country's population. Their numbers are just large enough to make the Sunnis ill at ease with their presence.
Shi'ite Sunni
TOTAL 219,667,367 1,238,699,792
Iran 61,924,500 6,880,500
Pakistan 33,160,712 127,668,738
India 30,900,000 123,600,000
Iraq 18,158,400 9,777,600
Turkey 14,550,000 58,200,000
Shi'ite leaders of the region believe that they stand on the verge of an irreversible breakdown of Islamic civilization, a thesis which Iraqi leader Ali W Allawi argued forcefully in a recent book, The Crisis of Islamic Civilization. Allawi wrote, "The much heralded Islamic 'awakening' of recent times will not be a prelude to the rebirth of an Islamic civilization; it will be another episode in its decline. The revolt of Islam becomes instead the final act of the end of a civilization." I reviewed Allawi's book on this site in (Predicting the death of Islam May 5, 2009).
Iran's aspirations for a restored Islamic civilization cannot exclude Pakistan's 30 million Shi'ites. The Taliban's insurgency inside Pakistan is directed against the Shi'ites more than any other target, and to make matters worse, Pakistani intelligence is agitating among Iran's own Sunni minority.
On June 12, the day before Iran's election, a Taliban suicide bomber killed Mufti Sarfraz Naeemi in Lahore, the leader of the pro-government Barelvi Muslim current in Pakistan. As Pakistan's Daily Times wrote June 14, "The reason for this murder was not far too seek. Mufti Naeemi, arguably the most influential of the Ahle Sunnat-Barelvi school of thought in Pakistan, had recently presided over an all-Barelvi conference in Islamabad condemning the Taliban practice of suicide-bombing, and presenting to the nation, as it were, a choice between the extremist Deobandi Taliban and the moderate Ahle Sunnat clerical confederation."
The Deobandi wing of Sunni Islam preaches violence against Pakistan's Shi'ite minority, whose position would be fragile were the Taliban to take power. Although Deobandi Islam is a minority current among Pakistani Sunnis, "The conduct of covert jihad by the state has thrown the Barelvis into obscurity and a lack of street power over the years," the Daily Times wrote. "Their mosques, once in a majority in the country, were either grabbed by the more powerful Deobandis with trained jihadi cadres who could be violent, or simply outnumbered by the more resourceful Deobandi-linked ones."
The threat to Iran from the Pakistani Taliban extends to Iran's eastern provinces. A May 28 bomb destroyed a mosque in the Kordestan city of Zahedan, on the Pakistani border. Iran called in Pakistan's ambassador to protest alleged official support for the terrorists of the Pakistan-based Jundallah Sunni group which planted the bomb. Tehran also has circulated murky allegations that Israel's secret service was behind the mosque bombing.
Kaveh L Afrasiabi wrote on June 3 in Asia Times Online, "Where Iran has Hezbollah, Israel has Jundallah, given Israel's apparent efforts to destabilize Iran by playing an 'ethnic card' against it. This, by some reports, it is doing by nurturing the Sunni Islamist group Jundallah to parallel Tehran's support for Lebanon's formidable Shi'ite group, Hezbollah." (Please see Hezbollah spices up Israel-Iran mix.)
In addition to Israel, Xinhua reported May 30, "Iran also blamed the United States, Britain and some other Western countries behind these attacks, accusing them of destabilizing the Islamic Republic, a charge denied by Washington and London."
It is hard to guess who might be funding Jundallah. Pakistan's secret service as well as the Saudis have a motive to do so. Washington's interest is to strengthen the coalition against the Pashtun-speaking Taliban, which means keeping several ethnic minorities allied against the Taliban with the Punjabi core of Pakistan's armed forces. These include the Dari-speaking Kabuli Pashtuns, the Tajiks and the mainly Shi'ite Hazara, a Turkic tribe whom the Iranians tend to deprecate. That is where Washington looks for help from Teheran.
If Tehran were playing a two-sided chess game with Washington, a moderate face like that of Hossein Mousavi would have served Iranian interests better than Ahmadinejad, as Pipes suggests. But Tehran also has to send signals to the sidelines of the chess match. With the situation on its eastern border deteriorating and a serious threat emerging to the Shi'ites of Pakistan, Iran has to make its militancy clear to all the players in the region. Washington's ill-considered attempts at coalition building are more a distraction than anything else.
Because Tehran's credibility is continuously under test, it cannot hold its puppies of war on a tight leash. Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon will continue to nip at the Israelis and spoil the appearance of a prospective settlement. The louder Iran has to bark, the less credible its bite. Iran's handling of last weekend's presidential election results exposes the weakness of the country's strategic position. That makes an Israeli strike against its alleged nuclear weapons facilities all the more likely - not because Tehran has shown greater militancy, but because it has committed the one sin that never is pardoned in the Middle East - vulnerability.
Spengler is channeled by David P Goldman, associate editor of First Things (www.firstthings.com).
(Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
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second post
Feb 24, 2009
Sex, drugs and Islam
By Spengler
Political Islam returned to the world stage with Ruhollah Khomeini's 1979 revolution in Iran, which became the most aggressive patron of Muslim radicals outside its borders, including Hamas in the Palestinian territories and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Until very recently, an oil-price windfall gave the Iranian state ample resources to pursue its agenda at home and abroad. How, then, should we explain an eruption of social pathologies in Iran such as drug addiction and prostitution, on a scale much worse than anything observed in the West? Contrary to conventional wisdom, it appears that Islamic theocracy promotes rather than represses social decay.
Iran is dying. The collapse of Iran's birth rate during the past 20 years is the fastest recorded in any country, ever. Demographers
have sought in vain to explain Iran's population implosion through family planning policies, or through social factors such as the rise of female literacy.
But quantifiable factors do not explain the sudden collapse of fertility. It seems that a spiritual decay has overcome Iran, despite best efforts of a totalitarian theocracy. Popular morale has deteriorated much faster than in the "decadent" West against which the Khomeini revolution was directed.
"Iran is dying for a fight," I wrote in 2007 (Please see Why Iran is dying for a fight, November 13, 2007.) in the literal sense that its decline is so visible that some of its leaders think that they have nothing to lose.
Their efforts to isolate Iran from the cultural degradation of the American "great Satan" have produced social pathologies worse than those in any Western country. With oil at barely one-fifth of its 2008 peak price, they will run out of money some time in late 2009 or early 2010. Game theory would predict that Iran's leaders will gamble on a strategic long shot. That is not a comforting thought for Iran's neighbors.
Two indicators of Iranian morale are worth citing.
First, prostitution has become a career of choice among educated Iranian women. On February 3, the Austrian daily Der Standard published the results of two investigations conducted by the Tehran police, suppressed by the Iranian media. [1]
"More than 90% of Tehran's prostitutes have passed the university entrance exam, according to the results of one study, and more than 30% of them are registered at a university or studying," reports Der Standard. "The study was assigned to the Tehran Police Department and the Ministry of Health, and when the results were tabulated in early January no local newspaper dared to so much as mention them."
The Austrian newspaper added, "Eighty percent of the Tehran sex workers maintained that they pursue this career voluntarily and temporarily. The educated ones are waiting for better jobs. Those with university qualifications intend to study later, and the ones who already are registered at university mention the high tuition [fees] as their motive for prostitution ... they are content with their occupation and do not consider it a sin according to Islamic law."
There is an extensive trade in poor Iranian women who are trafficked to the Gulf states in huge numbers, as well as to Europe and Japan. "A nation is never really beaten until it sells its women," I wrote in a 2006 study of Iranian prostitution, Jihads and whores.
Prostitution as a response to poverty and abuse is one thing, but the results of this new study reflect something quite different. The educated women of Tehran choose prostitution in pursuit of upward mobility, as a way of sharing in the oil-based potlatch that made Tehran the world's hottest real estate market during 2006 and 2007.
A country is beaten when it sells its women, but it is damned when its women sell themselves. The popular image of the Iranian sex trade portrays tearful teenagers abused and cast out by impoverished parents. Such victims doubtless abound, but the majority of Tehran's prostitutes are educated women seeking affluence.
Only in the former Soviet Union after the collapse of communism in 1990 did educated women choose prostitution on a comparable scale, but under very different circumstances. Russians went hungry during the early 1990s as the Soviet economy dissolved and the currency collapsed. Today's Iranians suffer from shortages, but the data suggest that Tehran's prostitutes are not so much pushed into the trade by poverty as pulled into it by wealth.
A year ago I observed that prices for Tehran luxury apartments exceeded those in Paris, as Iran's kleptocracy distributed the oil windfall to tens of thousands of hangers-on of the revolution. $35 billion went missing from state oil funds, opposition newspapers charged at the time. Corruption evidently has made whores of Tehran's educated women. (Please see Worst of times for Iran, June 24, 2008.)
Second, according to a recent report from the US Council on Foreign Relations, "Iran serves as the major transport hub for opiates produced by [Afghanistan], and the UN Office of Drugs and Crime estimates that Iran has as many as 1.7 million opiate addicts." That is, 5% of Iran's adult, non-elderly population of 35 million is addicted to opiates. That is an astonishing number, unseen since the peak of Chinese addiction during the 19th century. The closest American equivalent (from the 2003 National Survey on Drug Use and Health) found that 119,000 Americans reported using heroin within the prior month, or less than one-tenth of 1% of the non-elderly adult population.
Nineteenth-century China had comparable rates of opium addiction, after the British won two wars for the right to push the drug down China's throat. Post-communist Russia had comparable rates of prostitution, when people actually went hungry. Iran's startling rates of opium addiction and prostitution reflect popular demoralization, the implosion of an ancient culture in its encounter with the modern world. These pathologies arose not from poverty but wealth, or rather a sudden concentration of wealth in the hands of the political class. No other country in modern history has evinced this kind of demoralization.
For the majority of young Iranians, there is no way up, only a way out; 36% of Iran's youth aged 15 to 29 years want to emigrate, according to yet another unpublicized Iranian study, this time by the country's Education Ministry, Der Standard adds. Only 32% find the existing social norms acceptable, while 63% complain about unemployment, the social order or lack of money.
As I reported in the cited essay, the potlatch for the political class is balanced by widespread shortages for ordinary Iranians. This winter, widespread natural gas shortages left tens of thousands of households without heat.
The declining morale of the Iranian population helps make sense of its galloping demographic decline. Academic demographers have tried to explain collapsing fertility as a function of rising female literacy. The problem is that the Iranian regime lies about literacy data, and has admitted as much recently.
In a recent paper entitled "Education and the World's Most Raid Fertility Decline in Iran [2], American and Iranian demographers observe:
A first analysis of the Iran 2006 census results shows a sensationally low fertility level of 1.9 for the whole country and only 1.5 for the Tehran area (which has about 8 million people) ... A decline in the TFR [total fertility rate] of more than 5.0 in roughly two decades is a world record in fertility decline. This is even more surprising to many observers when one considers that it happened in one of the most Islamic societies. It forces the analyst to reconsider many of the usual stereotypes about religious fertility differentials.
The census points to a continued fall in fertility, even from today's extremely low levels, the paper maintains.
Most remarkable is the collapse of rural fertility in tandem with urban fertility, the paper adds:
The similarity of the transition in both urban and rural areas is one the main features of the fertility transition in Iran. There was a considerable gap between the fertility in rural and urban areas, but the TFR in both rural and urban areas continued to decline by the mid-1990s, and the gap has narrowed substantially. In 1980, the TFR in rural areas was 8.4 while that of urban areas was 5.6. In other words, there was a gap of 2.8 children between rural and urban areas. In 2006, the TFR in rural and urban areas was 2.1 and 1.8, respectively (a difference of only 0.3 children).
What the professors hoped to demonstrate is that as rural literacy levels in Iran caught up with urban literacy levels, the corresponding urban and rural fertility rates also converged. That is a perfectly reasonable conjecture whose only flaw is that the data on which it is founded were faked by the Iranian regime.
The Iranian government's official data claim literacy percentage levels in the high 90s for urban women and in the high 80s for rural women. That cannot be true, for Iran's Literacy Movement Organization admitted last year (according to an Agence-France Presse report of May 8, 2008) that 9,450,000 Iranians are illiterate of a population of 71 million (or an adult population of about 52 million). This suggests far higher rates of illiteracy than in the official data.
A better explanation of Iran's population implosion is that the country has undergone an existential crisis comparable to encounters of Amazon or Inuit tribes with modernity. Traditional society demands submission to the collective. Once the external constraints are removed, its members can shift from the most extreme forms of modesty to the other extreme of sexual license. Khomeini's revolution attempted to retard the disintegration of Persian society, but it appears to have accelerated the process.
Modernity implies choice, and the efforts of the Iranian mullahs to prolong the strictures of traditional society appear to have backfired. The cause of Iran's collapsing fertility is not literacy as such, but extreme pessimism about the future and an endemic materialism that leads educated Iranian women to turn their own sexuality into a salable commodity.
Theocracy subjects religion to a political test; it is hard for Iranians to repudiate the regime and remain pious, for religious piety and support for political Islam are inseparable, as a recent academic study documented from survey data [3].
As in the decline of communism, what follows on the breakdown of a state ideology is likely to be nihilism. Iran is a dying country, and it is very difficult to have a rational dialogue with a nation all of whose available choices terminate in oblivion.
[1] Der Standard, Die Wahrheit hinter der islamischen Fassade
.
[2] Education and the World's Most Raid Fertility Decline in Iran
.
[3] Religiosity and Islamic Rule in Iran, by Gunes Murat Tezcur and Tagh Azadarmaki.
(Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
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Haven't checked out all, but the following are links showing some of the violence Iran's rulers are visiting on their populace. Where is Jimmy Carter high moral standards now that the shoe is on a different foot?
Protesters brutalized by Basij
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBp2p3MGJqw
Shootings at Basij Compound
http://iranelection.posterous.com/footage-of-shootings-at-basij-compound-in-teh
Unconscience
video shootings at basij compound
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXYvpJg_3OM
Girl shot by Basij militia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inEpnZIYVAQ
people shot at rally in Tehran
http://twitpic.com/7h9wf
http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/1228/i3919381431.jpg
Video man beaten to death by Police
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHr1UXbqnoQ
video wounded students in dorms
http://www.flickr.com/photos/imanjafari/3624477353/in/photostream/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSECAvBTanQ&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.michaeltotten.com%2Farchives%2F2009%2F06%2Finsurrection-da.php&feature=player_embedded
Riot police use motorcycles to plow crowd
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSECAvBTanQ
plain clothes police using knives
http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/1438/o8sy78.jpg
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Geopolitical Diary: Islamic Republic Destabilizing From Within?
June 16, 2009
Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in Tehran on Monday to protest results of the June 12 election, which returned President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to office. State broadcasters reported that seven people were killed in shooting that erupted after the Basij militia opened fire on protesters, who hurled rocks at a Basij compound near the main protest. The protests have now spread beyond Tehran to several other cities.
Clearly, the situation on the streets has escalated exponentially since the initial weekend protests in Tehran, when the number of demonstrators was much lower. Violent clashes between security forces and protesters are likely to lead to greater unrest in the days ahead; such events tend to feed off one another and build in intensity. The last time Iran experienced so great a level of unrest was during the 1979 revolution, which brought the current regime to power. Consequently, questions are being raised about the stability of the Islamic Republic.
These questions are not being raised only by outside observers. In fact, we are told that the most powerful figures within the clerical establishment — including the second most powerful cleric, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani — have warned Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that the situation could metastasize and lead to the collapse of the regime unless election results are annulled and a fresh vote ordered. Rafsanjani is joined by many other powerful conservatives, who are working behind the scenes to steer the country away from what appears to be an increasingly explosive situation.
Rafsanjani and those who agree with him are obviously concerned about the almost unprecedented unrest on the streets and the possibility that it could destabilize the regime from within. But the radical advice of these conservatives to the Supreme Leader is being driven by the threat to their own political interests that comes not from the public, but from Ahmadinejad and his allies — who would like to use their election win to set the stage for an eventual purge of Rafsanjani and those like him. In other words, Ahmadinejad’s enemies within the system would like to use the current crisis to launch a preemptive strike and neutralize the threat they face from his re-election.
Khamenei, who has long acted as the ultimate arbiter between factions in Tehran, is therefore in the biggest quandary of his political career. He does not want to see the Islamic Republic collapse on his watch. But he has little room to maneuver: He can neither contain the unrest in the streets without a brutal crackdown that could radicalize both the opposition and key government factions, nor can he move easily toward a fresh vote. Ahmadinejad and his allies will not back down after winning what was, ostensibly, a landslide election in their favor.
While many compelling arguments have been made about the improbability of Ahmadinejad winning the election by several million votes, there is insufficient empirical evidence to support the claim of fraud. Foul play on such a large scale would not be possible without the involvement of a very large number of people. Furthermore, requests for the kind of data that could corroborate such fraud have been ignored.
Iran’s powerful Guardians Council, which must certify the election results, has begun a probe into the matter, and therefore it is quite possible that in the next several days such evidence may emerge. But what is stunning is how, thus far, there have been no leaks to the press on the details of the alleged vote tampering. So long as there is no clear evidence of wrongdoing, Ahmadinejad’s opponents cannot make a convincing case against his government.
At this stage, it is difficult to predict the trajectory of events — but this election has clearly resulted in a breach within the Islamic Republic that could prove difficult to mend, regardless of the outcome of the clash between the president and his opponents. Until Friday’s vote, Iran had proven quite resilient — weathering a devastating eight-year war, decades of international sanctions, multiple rebel groups, and a long confrontation with the United States. In the last four days, the regime has found that the greatest threat to its existence comes from within.
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JONAH GOLDBERG:
Obama's choice is not to choose on Iran
The president has an opportunity to stand up for democracy.
Jonah Goldberg
June 16, 2009
Do it, President Obama, please. Take the side of democracy.
Declare yourself and your nation on the side of hope and change where it is more than a slogan and better than a rationalization for ever-bigger government. Stop measuring the success of your diplomacy with Iran by the degree to which the grinning, hate-filled stooge of a clerical junta will "temper" his rhetoric about the pressing need to destroy Israel and slow his ineluctable pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Instead, choose a higher standard. Look to history. Look to the aspirations of the students risking their lives and livelihoods to protest a sham election. Stop fawning over the mythological Muslim street only when it hates America, and look to the real Iranian street at the moment of its greatest need, when its heart may be open to loving America.
You often invoke President Kennedy's pledge to put a man on the moon to justify your domestic agenda. You and your supporters invite comparisons to Camelot. Well, what of John F. Kennedy's most solemn vow? "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty."
No, we should not bomb Iran, or invade it. Those prices are too steep; those burdens are too heavy. But maybe you could lift a finger for democracy?
During the campaign you mocked those who belittled your rhetoric as "just words." Well, what you've offered so far is less than just words. You've put a fresh coat of whitewash on Iran's sham "democracy." On Monday, you proclaimed yourself "troubled" by the events in Iran, before hinting that you'd negotiate with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad no matter what an investigation into his "landslide" victory found. Then there was your pre-election mumbling about "robust debate [that] hopefully will advance our ability to engage them in new ways."
Of course, debate in Iran has been robust only if you are grading on a curve. Ahmadinejad's main opponent, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, was an accidental reform candidate. The mullahs had disqualified about 400 others, leaving in the race only four presumed hacks deemed to be pliant enough not to rock the boat. Mousavi's popular support and the robustness of the debate he ignited were an unintended consequence of a rigged election, not the intention of a democratic regime. Going into the election, you chose to celebrate the process, to placate a theocratic politburo.
Reportedly, you are biding your time, waiting to see what happens, as if it is a great mystery. Your campaign lived and breathed YouTube. Check it now, check it often. You and your team promised "soft power" and "smart power." Well, let's see some of that. Because by not clearly picking a side, it appears you have chosen the wrong side.
Do you fear antagonizing the powers-that-be in Iran? That ship has sailed. Though I am sure they're grateful for your eagerness not to roil the seas around them. Is it because you think "leader of the free world" is just another of those Cold War relics best mothballed in favor of a more cosmopolitan and universal awe at your own story?
"Enough about those people bleeding in the street. What do you think of me?" Is that how it is to be?
During the Bush years, what was best about liberalism had bled away. One of the worst things about the Republican Party has always been its Kissingerian realpolitik, the "it's just business" approach to world affairs that amounted to a willful blindness to our ideals beyond our own borders. The Democratic Party may not have always gotten the policies right, but it had a firm grasp of the principle.
In the 1990s, liberals championed "nation building," and conservatives chuckled at the naivete of it. Then came Iraq, and Republicans out of necessity embraced what liberals once believed out of conviction. The result? Liberals ran from their principles, found their inner Kissingers and embraced a cold realism whose chill emanated from the corpse of their ideals.
Labor unions, such as the AFL-CIO, once battled tyranny abroad on the grounds that workers everywhere need democracy. Today, the president turns a blind eye to the independent labor movement in Iran, and the unions and Democrats spend their time trying to figure out how to eliminate the secret ballot in the American workplace.
So far, "hope and change" has meant spending trillions we do not have on expanded government we do not need. Meanwhile, the huddled masses of Iranians yearning to breathe free think hope and change means something more. But the new American colossus stands all but silent, her beacon dimmed, her luster tarnished.
Please, Mr. President, prove me wrong.
jgoldberg@latimescolumnists.com
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Follow #iranelection on twitter.com to listen in on the direct tidbits of communication that is coming out of Iran. In a half hour there were 21K plus comments coming in. There is a "cyberwar" going on as well. The Iranian government is trying to block communications to social media. There are claims that they have succeeded. But the above number of "twitters" seems to say otherwise. People outside of Iran are setting up proxy servers to allow Iranians to get to twitter.com anonymously. They are also using bitorrent to send huge numbers of videos and photos. There are also Denial of service attacks that are being sent to Iranian government network sites. Denial of service attacks pummel the site with requests until it crashes. This means that the government computer techs will have their hands full just being functional themselves.
Social media is powerful because its much easier to send out information than it is to stifle it in this media. Information can be conveyed instantaneously and it can cerate unification of large numbers of people where in the past uprisings could be dispelled by preventing communications outside of the affected area.
For a good read on this topic try: "Here Comes Everybody" by Clay Sharkey.
Karsk
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http://www.nypost.com/php/pfriendly/print.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nypost.com%2Fseven%2F06182009%2Fpostopinion%2Fopedcolumnists%2Fgreen_light_for_a_crackdown_174811.htm
GREEN LIGHT FOR A CRACKDOWN
By RALPH PETERS
June 18, 2009 --
SILENCE is complicity. Our president's refusal to take a forthright moral stand on the side of the Iranian freedom marchers is read in Tehran as a blank check for the current regime.
The fundamentalist junta has begun arresting opposition figures, with regime mouthpieces raising the prospect of the death penalty. Inevitably, there are claims that dissidents have been "hoarding weapons and explosives."
Foreign media reps are under house arrest. Cellphone frequencies are jammed. Students are killed and the killings disavowed.
And our president is "troubled," but doesn't believe we should "meddle" in Iran's internal affairs. (Meddling in Israel's domestic affairs is just fine, though.)
We just turned our backs on freedom.
Again.
Of all our foreign-policy failures in my lifetime, our current shunning of those demanding free elections and expanded civil rights in Iran reminds me most of Hungary in 1956.
For years, we encouraged the Hungarians to rise up against oppression. When they did, we watched from the sidelines as Russian tanks drove over them.
For decades, Washington policymakers from both parties have prodded Iranians to throw off their shackles. Last Friday, millions of Iranians stood up. And we're standing down.
That isn't diplomacy. It's treachery.
Despite absurd claims that Obama's Islam-smooching Cairo speech triggered the calls for freedom in Tehran's streets, these politics are local. But if those partisan claims of the "Cairo Effect" were true, wouldn't our president be obliged to stand beside those he incited?
Too bad for the Iranians, but their outburst of popular anger toward Iran's oppressive government doesn't fit the administration's script -- which is written around negotiations with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
To Obama, his dogmatic commitment to negotiations is infinitely more important than a few million protesters chanting the Farsi equivalent of "We Shall Overcome."
This is madness. There is no chance -- zero, null, nada -- that negotiations with the junta of mullahs will lead to the termination (or even a serious interruption) of Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons. Our president's faith in his powers of persuasion is beginning to look pathological. Is his program of negotiations with apocalypse-minded, woman-hating, Jew-killing fanatics so sacrosanct that he can't acknowledge human cries for freedom?
Is the Rev. Jeremiah Wright a better role model than Martin Luther King? It's a damned shame that our first minority president wasn't a veteran of our civil-rights struggle, rather than its privileged beneficiary.
An ugly pattern's emerging in our president's beliefs:
He's infallible. This is rich, given all the criticism of the Bush administration's unwillingness to admit mistakes. We now have a president with Jimmy Carter's naivete, Richard Nixon's distaste for laws, Lyndon Johnson's commitment to the wrong war, and Bill Clinton's moral fecklessness.
Democracy isn't important. Our president seems infected by yesteryear's Third-World-leftist view that dictatorships are essential to post-colonial development -- especially for Muslims.
Look where Obama has gone and who he supports: the pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia, his groveling speech in Egypt, his embrace of Hamas, his hands-off approach to the gory regime in Sudan -- and now his dismay at the protests in Iran.
Strict Islam is true Islam. This is bewildering, given Obama's childhood exposure to the tolerant Islam practiced in most of Indonesia. The defining remark of his presidency thus far was his Cairo demand for the right of Muslim women to wear Islamic dress in the West -- while remaining silent about their right to reject the hijab, burqa or chador in the Middle East.
History's a blank canvas -- except for America's sins. Of course, we've had presidents who presented the past in the colors they preferred -- but we've never had one who just made it all up.
Obama's ignorance of history is on naked display -- no sense of the brutality of Iran's Islamist regime, of the years of mass imprisonments, diabolical torture, prison rapes, wholesale executions and secret graves that made the shah's reign seem idyllic. Our president seems to regard the Iranian protesters as spoiled brats.
Facts? Who cares? In his Cairo sermon -- a speech that will live in infamy -- our president compared the plight of the Palestinians, the aggressors in 1948, with the Holocaust. He didn't mention the million Jews dispossessed and driven from Muslim lands since 1948, nor the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinian Christians from the West Bank.
Now our president's attempt to vote "present" yet again green-lights the Iranian regime's determination to face down the demonstrators -- and the mullahs understand it as such.
If we see greater violence in Tehran, the blood of those freedom marchers will be on our president's hands.
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Summary
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spoke to the Iranian people during Friday prayers June 19, siding with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and ordering protesters to end their demonstrations. Khamenei has decided that using force to suppress the uprising is worth the risk, even if it leads to greater infighting among the power brokers of the system. It remains unclear if Ahmadinejad’s opponents will stage a showdown, but the protests have grown enough in size and energy to take on a life of their own.
Analysis
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei delivered a rare but critical Friday sermon prayer June 19 in which he addressed the continuing public unrest in the wake of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s victory in the June 12 presidential election, as well as the schism among the country’s political leadership. As expected, he took a clear position in favor of the president, rejecting accusations of electoral fraud and framing the conflict in terms of foreign powers exploiting the Islamic republic’s internal troubles. More importantly, he warned both the protesters and their leaders to halt the demonstrations and that they would be responsible for any bloodshed.
Khamenei has clearly opted for the forcible suppression of the uprising. STRATFOR had pointed out in a previous report that the country’s elite ideological military force, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has taken command of domestic law enforcement in Tehran. Consequently, from today forward, we can expect to see security forces crush protests. That the two main defeated challengers of Ahamdinejad, former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi and former speaker of parliament Mehdi Karroubi did not attend the prayer session shows that they are not about to accept the verdict.
At the same time, Mousavi and Karroubi cannot be perceived as openly defying the supreme leader and they have an interest in the preservation of the cleric-led political system. Furthermore, their supporters on the streets are far more radical than they are because Mousavi and Karroubi are part and parcel of the system (something which Khamenei pointed out when he said that that all four candidates in the recent presidential election belonged to Iran’s Islamic establishment). Therefore, they will have a hard time balancing between the need to sustain their opposition to the results of the election and controlling the protesters on the streets, especially during a major security crackdown. Regardless of whether the opposition leaders choose to take charge of the demonstrations, the protests have swelled enough in size and energy to take on a life of their own.
Khamenei’s speech also telegraphed to Ahmadinejad’s opponents that he is fully behind the president. He said, “Differences of opinion do exist between officials which is natural. But it does not mean there is a rift in the system. Ever since the last presidential election there existed differences of opinion between Ahmadinejad and Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (the second most powerful cleric in the state). Of course my outlook is closer to that of Ahmadinejad in domestic and foreign policy.” Khamenei also spoke of the difference between him and Rafsanjani, but also praised him as being “close” to the revolution.
This puts Rafsanjani and his pragmatic conservative allies — including the powerful speaker of parliament, Ali Larijani and former IRGC chief and presidential candidate, Mohsen Rezaie — in a difficult spot. On one hand, they cannot accept Ahmadinejad because he is a threat to their political interests. On the other, they cannot openly defy Khamenei as that could lead to the unraveling of the regime. This would explain why Larijani, along with Judiciary Chief Shahroudi and Tehran’s mayor Mohammed Baqer Ghalibaf — who are all key pragmatic conservatives who oppose the president — attended the sermon along with the president and his cabinet. Rezaie did not attend the sermon, but wrote a letter to Khamenei, signaling that he wanted to resolve the issues amicably under the leadership of Khamenei.
Rafsanjani is therefore likely to face great difficulties in his efforts to build a consensus among the clerics against the president because now it is no longer simply about Ahmadinejad. Instead, his moves will be seen as facing off against the supreme leader. As the head of the Assembly of Experts, the most powerful institution in the country, which has the power to remove the supreme leader, he can make a move against Khamenei. That has never been done in the history of the Islamic republic. Therefore, it is unclear whether Rafsanjani is ready to escalate matters to such a level. The split amongst the political leadership is also manifesting itself in the country’s security apparatus with reports of arrests of several IRGC commanders who do not agree with Ahmadinejad.
The stage is now set for a major confrontation, but it is unclear who will emerge victorious. Regardless of which political faction wins, Khamenei has decided that it is worth the risk to bring in the IRGC. Though the Iranian state security apparatus is adept at extinguishing protests, it is still a risky gamble that will further fuel the fire of discontent.
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June 20, 2009, 6:00 a.m.
Neutrality Isn’t an Option
You always have a dog in the fight, whether you know it or not.
By Mark Steyn
The polite explanation for Barack Obama’s diffidence on Iran is that he doesn’t want to give the mullahs the excuse to say the Great Satan is meddling in Tehran’s affairs. So the president’s official position is that he’s modestly encouraged by the regime’s supposed interest in investigating some of the allegations of fraud. Also, he’s heartened to hear that OJ is looking for the real killers. “You've seen in Iran,” explained President Obama, “some initial reaction from the Supreme Leader that indicates he understands the Iranian people have deep concerns about the election . . . ”
“Supreme Leader”? I thought that was official house style for Barack Obama at Newsweek and MSNBC. But no. It’s also the title held by Ayatollah Khamenei for the last couple of decades. If it sounds odd from the lips of an American president, that’s because none has ever been as deferential in observing the Islamic republic’s dictatorial protocol. Like President Obama’s deep, ostentatious bow to the king of Saudi Arabia, it signals a fresh start in our relations with the Muslim world, “mutually respectful” and unilaterally fawning.
And how did it go down? At Friday prayers in Tehran, Ayotollah Khamenei attacked “dirty Zionists” and “bad British radio” (presumably a reference to the BBC’s Farsi news service rather than the non-stop Herman’s Hermits marathon on Supergold Oldies FM). “The most evil of them all is the British government,” added the supreme leader, warming to his theme. The crowd, including President Ahmadinelandslide and his cabinet, chanted, “Death to the U.K.”
Her Majesty’s Government brought this on themselves by allowing their shoot-from-the-lip prime minister to issue saber-rattling threats like: “The regime must address the serious questions which have been asked about the conduct of the Iranian elections.”
Fortunately, President Obama was far more judicious. And in return, instead of denouncing him as “evil” and deploring the quality of his radio programming, Ayatollah Khamenei said Obama’s “agents” had been behind the protests: “They started to cause riots in the street, they caused destruction, they burnt houses.” But that wasn’t all the Great Satin did. “What is the worst thing to me in all this,” sighed the supreme leader, “are comments made in the name of human rights and freedom and liberty by American officials . . . What? Are you serious? Do you know what human rights are?”
And then he got into specifics: “During the time of the Democrats, the time of Clinton, 80 people were burned alive in Waco. Now you are talking about human rights?”
It’s unclear whether the “Death to the U.K.” chanters switched at this point to “Democrats lied, people fried.” But you get the gist. The President of the United States can make nice to His Hunkalicious Munificence the Supremely Supreme Leader of Leaders (Peace Be Upon Him) all he wants, but it isn’t going to be reciprocated.
There’s a very basic lesson here: For great powers, studied neutrality isn’t an option. Even if you’re genuinely neutral. In the early nineties, the attitude of much of the west to the disintegrating Yugoslavia was summed up in the brute dismissal of James Baker that America didn’t have a dog in this fight. Fair enough. But over in the Balkans junkyard the various mangy old pooches saw it rather differently. And so did the Muslim world, which regarded British and European “neutrality” as a form of complicity in mass murder. As Osama bin Laden put it:
The British are responsible for destroying the Caliphate system. They are the ones who created the Palestinian problem. They are the ones who created the Kashmiri problem. They are the ones who put the arms embargo on the Muslims of Bosnia so that two million Muslims were killed.
How come a catalogue of imperial interventions wound up with that bit of scrupulous non-imperial non-intervention? Because great-power “even-handedness” will invariably be received as a form of one-handedness by the time its effects are felt on the other side of the world. Western “even-handedness” on Bosnia was the biggest single factor in the radicalization of European Muslims. They swarmed to the Balkans to support their coreligionists and ran into a bunch of Wahhabi imams moving into the neighborhood with lots of Saudi money and anxious to fill their Rolodex with useful contacts in the west. Among the alumni of that conflict was the hitherto impeccably assimilated English public (ie, private) schoolboy and London School of Economics student who went on to behead the Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Pearl. You always have a dog in the fight, whether you know it or not.
For the Obama administration, this presents a particular challenge — because the president’s preferred rhetorical tic is to stake out the two sides and present himself as a dispassionate, disinterested soul of moderation: “There are those who would argue . . . ” on the one hand, whereas “there are those who insist . . . ” on the other, whereas he is beyond such petty dogmatic positions. That was pretty much his shtick on abortion at Notre Dame. Of course, such studied moderation is usually a crock: Obama is an abortion absolutist, supporting partial-birth infanticide, and even laws that prevent any baby so inconsiderate as to survive the abortion from receiving medical treatment.
So in his recent speech in Cairo he applied the same technique. Among his many unique qualities, the 44th president is the first to give the impression that the job is beneath him — that he is too big and too gifted to be confined to the humdrum interests of one nation state. As my former National Review colleague David Frum put it, the Obama address offered “the amazing spectacle of an American president taking an equidistant position between the country he leads and its detractors and enemies.”
What would you make of that “equidistance” if you were back in the palace watching it on CNN International? Maybe you’d know that, on domestic policy, Obama uses the veneer of disinterested arbiter as a feint. Or maybe you’d just figure that no serious world leader can ever be neutral on vital issues. So you’d start combing the speech for what lies underneath the usual Obama straw men — and women: “I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal.” Very brave of you, I’m sure. But what about the Muslim women who choose not to cover themselves and wind up as the victims of honor killings in Germany and Scandinavia and Toronto and Dallas? Ah, but that would have required real courage, not audience flattery masquerading as such.
And so, when the analysts had finished combing the speech, they would have concluded that the meta-message of his “equidistance” was a prostration before “stability” — an acceptance of the region’s worst pathologies as a permanent feature of life.
The mullahs stole this election on a grander scale than ever before primarily for reasons of internal security and regional strategy. But Obama’s speech told them that, in the “post-American world,” they could do so with impunity. Blaming his “agents” for the protests is merely a bonus: Offered the world’s biggest carrot, Khamenei took it and used it as a stick.
He won’t be the last to read Obama this way.
— Mark Steyn, a National Review columnist, is author of America Alone. © 2009 Mark Steyn
National Review Online - http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MDlhMmZmY2I1MjI0MTZlNDBhZmI3N2Y3ZDk2ZGZlYjA=
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- Works and Days - http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson -
“This Is the Moment”?
Posted By Victor Davis Hanson On June 20, 2009 @ 4:10 pm In Uncategorized | 95 Comments
Let Me Count the Ways Why Obama Should at Last Speak Out ( —I write this at around noon on Saturday, and suspect the pressure of public outrage will soon get to Obama, and he soon will recant and start sounding Reaganesque)
(As in something like this:
“Hundreds of thousands of gallant Iranians are now engaged in a non-violent moral struggle against tyranny in Iran-one of the great examples of bravery in our times. All free peoples of the world watch their ordeal, and can only wish them success, while owing them a great deal of gratitude for risking their lives for the innate and shared notion of human freedom and dignity. We in the United States ask the government of Iran—as well as its military and security forces — to recognize the universal appeal of freedom that flourishes among its own remarkable people, to stand down and renounce its serial use of violence and coercion-and to ensure a truly free election where the voices of all can be at last fully heard, so that Iran can once more properly reenter the family of law-biding nations”.)
So why speak out louder? (Does not Obama see that the world has been given a rare chance, thanks to brave Iranians—as if the German people had risen up in 1938 in fear of what was on the horizon)
1) It is the moral and right thing to do to support the brave and idealistic (the Congressional Democrats mostly get this. And, after a week of embarrassment, the “I worship whoever runs the White House” pundits are not far behind and scrambling to retract and revise last week’s obsequious columns.). The dissidents in fact can win in this new age of private instant communications, in which global news is not predicated on elite correspondents and news desks editors, but can flow globally and instantaneously, unfiltered, with unforeseen consequences.)
2) The theocracy is a fiendish regime that hides behind third-world victimhood while it murders and promotes terror abroad. When it totters, the world sighs relief from Iraq to Lebanon; when it chest-thumps, thousands die at home and abroad.
3) Of the three ways to stop a nuclear theocracy-(regime change, preemption, embargo), supporting the opponents of the regime is the most logical, peaceful, and cost-effective-and has the best chance of success. (Ask the worried surrounding Arab frontline countries).
4) There is a long bipartisan American history of supporting dissidents who were fighting for election fairness abroad in Poland, Serbia, Latin America, and South Africa. (Does Obama think Mandela did not wish words of support from America? Why then would he think the Iranians being shot at in the streets would not wish moral clarity from the prophet of Cairo?). The Europeans (and even the Arab world) are way ahead of us.
5) Obama’s realpolitik is flawed: 1) if the mullahs win, they will have greater contempt for our timidity; 2) if the dissidents win, they will not forget our realistic fence-sitting; 3) you can never believe (ever) anything the mullahs say or do. Negotiating with them is like signing a pact with Hitler. They are afraid of US voiced support for the dissidents, not the dissidents themselves who ask for our solidarity. If anything, the theocrats grasp that their own do not want a nuclear confrontation with Israel in which the people would be sacrificial pawns. Again and again, the dissidents have repeated that they are tired of being hated in the world as Ahmadinejad’s Iranians, not that they wanted Obama’s America to be less critical of Ahmadinejad.
…. And Why He Has Not:
1) Our President has always been a trimmer-voting present serially in Illinois; proclaiming broad new positions on the campaign trail only to disown them while President; rhetorically always splitting the difference with ‘on the one hand, on the other’, ’some, they, others say’, ‘I don’t accept false choices…’ etc. So now he waits to see who wins. And then will provide the soaring rhetoric postfacto to suggest that he was either the careful realist all along who foresaw the dissidents’ failure-or the enthusiastic moralist who always really did cheer on the mullahs’ demise. Robert Gibbs has both scripts already fed into the bookend A and B teleprompters.
OR
2) It’s a personal thing that interferes with Obama’s ego, and messianic personal diplomacy. Obama himself is not comfortable with those abroad who emulate American values and seek to have the freedoms and rights we take for granted. The post-colonial industry mandates that the Other is a perpetual victim of colonialism, imperialism, capitalism, and racism with justified grievances. Only elite American intellectuals of singular insight and empathy understand the calculus of the oppressed, and so, through apologies, accommodations, and concessions, they alone on our behalf can deal with an Ahmadinejad, Chavez, Ortega, Castro, Morales, Nasrallah, etc. But when we see a purple-finger election, a statue of liberty at Tiananmen, or the current Levi-clad, cell-phoning, English-placard-carrying Iranian grassroots resistance, all the above is rendered null and void. Obama wants to rise above his country; but when his country is not held in disrepute (as is true among the Iranian people), he is an actor without a role.
People abroad really do prefer freedom and true constitutional government to autocratic grievance mongers who loot their country and brutalize the free. In such conditions, old-fashioned Americans, often inarticulate and perhaps clumsy, but honest in their belief in the universal appeal of human freedom, do better than all the nuanced Kennedy School intellectuals (e.g. They laughed at the reductionist “Tear Down This Wall” and “Evil Empire” and apparently preferred “No Inordinate Fear of Communism”). So a deer-in-the-headlights Obama wonders, ‘Wait, why aren’t they shouting the boilerplate ‘Death to America!’ and invoking, like I did, 1953 and the CIA crimes? Don’t they know the things that we did to them and I apologized for? Don’t they see that I am as separate from the US of the 1950s as they are? What’s this grass-roots rejection of an anti-Western, anti-colonialist indigenous Iranian government all about? (cf. his moral equivalent comparison of Mousavi to Ahmadinejad as equally anti-American).
OR
3) Obama is clueless. Hillary knows more, but not that much more (Bill knows less as his 2005 Davos disastrous encomium of Iran proved). Biden, well, is Biden. The brighter like Holbrooke serve on the second tier. In short, no one knows now to whom do you apologize? And if to no one, what then do you do? We’re back to sorta, sorta not shoot the pirates, kinda, kinda not stop the Koreans, maybe, maybe not keep renditions, tribunals, wiretaps, intercepts, and drone attacks-or why didn’t someone brief me on the problems with closing Guantanamo before I promised the world at end to our American Gulag?
OR
4) He’s addicted to the ossified Iraqi paradigm of “Bush intervened and caused a mess” (Free Iraq is apparently still equivalent to Saddam’s Iraq), so “I don’t want to follow his lead” (as if vocal support now is the same as shock and awe then). Somewhere in stone a lie is chiseled “Iraq made Iran stronger”. He doesn’t see the footnote: “But if Iraqi democracy survives, it fuels emulation in neighboring Iran and does more to undermine the theocracy than all the F-22s in the world”. Who knows-if Iranian freedom spreads, some nut might praise Bush’s commitment to Middle East freedom in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Lebanon, and not Obama’s apologetics at Cairo? (Free Shiites in Iraq are far better for Iran than either oppressed minorities under Saddam, or Saddam’s opportunistic dictatorship). Bottom line again: Obama needs to forget Ahmadinejad and talk daily with Maliki.
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5) His entire anti-Bush foreign policy is then in trouble. We’ve heard for eight years a cheap slur of “neo-cons” did it, not that in the dangerous world abroad there are no good choices, but supporting freedom is usually the better alternative if one must choose. If a peaceful democratic revolution succeeds in Iran, then what happens with “outreach” to Putin, Chavez, and Hamas? The new liberal realpolitik insisted that we don’t offer moral judgment, and was framed instead by winning the hearts and minds of tyrants through humbling ourselves and meae culpae. But if these democracies in Afghanistan, Iraq, and an Iran (?) were to succeed, then what? You would not go to Chavez and promise first to talk about shared colonial racist oppression, but rather say to the Venezuelan people, “We stand with you in your struggle to achieve freedom and dignity and to join the other democracies of Latin America”? That is not just in the cards, and so Iran, is well, a monkey-wrench.
For now, watch the Iranian army and police. If one battalion bolts, then . . .
Article printed from Works and Days: http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson
URL to article: http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/this-is-the-moment/
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By George Friedman
Related Link
The Geopolitics of Iran: Holding the Center of a Mountain Fortress
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Ongoing Coverage and Updates
Successful revolutions have three phases. First, a strategically located single or limited segment of society begins vocally to express resentment, asserting itself in the streets of a major city, usually the capital. This segment is joined by other segments in the city and by segments elsewhere as the demonstration spreads to other cities and becomes more assertive, disruptive and potentially violent. As resistance to the regime spreads, the regime deploys its military and security forces. These forces, drawn from resisting social segments and isolated from the rest of society, turn on the regime, and stop following the regime’s orders. This is what happened to the Shah of Iran in 1979; it is also what happened in Russia in 1917 or in Romania in 1989.
Revolutions fail when no one joins the initial segment, meaning the initial demonstrators are the ones who find themselves socially isolated. When the demonstrations do not spread to other cities, the demonstrations either peter out or the regime brings in the security and military forces — who remain loyal to the regime and frequently personally hostile to the demonstrators — and use force to suppress the rising to the extent necessary. This is what happened in Tiananmen Square in China: The students who rose up were not joined by others. Military forces who were not only loyal to the regime but hostile to the students were brought in, and the students were crushed.
A Question of Support
This is also what happened in Iran this week. The global media, obsessively focused on the initial demonstrators — who were supporters of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s opponents — failed to notice that while large, the demonstrations primarily consisted of the same type of people demonstrating. Amid the breathless reporting on the demonstrations, reporters failed to notice that the uprising was not spreading to other classes and to other areas. In constantly interviewing English-speaking demonstrators, they failed to note just how many of the demonstrators spoke English and had smartphones. The media thus did not recognize these as the signs of a failing revolution.
Later, when Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spoke Friday and called out the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, they failed to understand that the troops — definitely not drawn from what we might call the “Twittering classes,” would remain loyal to the regime for ideological and social reasons. The troops had about as much sympathy for the demonstrators as a small-town boy from Alabama might have for a Harvard postdoc. Failing to understand the social tensions in Iran, the reporters deluded themselves into thinking they were witnessing a general uprising. But this was not St. Petersburg in 1917 or Bucharest in 1989 — it was Tiananmen Square.
In the global discussion last week outside Iran, there was a great deal of confusion about basic facts. For example, it is said that the urban-rural distinction in Iran is not critical any longer because according to the United Nations, 68 percent of Iranians are urbanized. This is an important point because it implies Iran is homogeneous and the demonstrators representative of the country. The problem is the Iranian definition of urban — and this is quite common around the world — includes very small communities (some with only a few thousand people) as “urban.” But the social difference between someone living in a town with 10,000 people and someone living in Tehran is the difference between someone living in Bastrop, Texas and someone living in New York. We can assure you that that difference is not only vast, but that most of the good people of Bastrop and the fine people of New York would probably not see the world the same way. The failure to understand the dramatic diversity of Iranian society led observers to assume that students at Iran’s elite university somehow spoke for the rest of the country.
Tehran proper has about 8 million inhabitants; its suburbs bring it to about 13 million people out of Iran’s total population of 70.5 million. Tehran accounts for about 20 percent of Iran, but as we know, the cab driver and the construction worker are not socially linked to students at elite universities. There are six cities with populations between 1 million and 2.4 million people and 11 with populations of about 500,000. Including Tehran proper, 15.5 million people live in cities with more than 1 million and 19.7 million in cities greater than 500,000. Iran has 80 cities with more than 100,000. But given that Waco, Texas, has more than 100,000 people, inferences of social similarities between cities with 100,000 and 5 million are tenuous. And with metro Oklahoma City having more than a million people, it becomes plain that urbanization has many faces.
Winning the Election With or Without Fraud
We continue to believe two things: that vote fraud occurred, and that Ahmadinejad likely would have won without it. Very little direct evidence has emerged to establish vote fraud, but several things seem suspect.
For example, the speed of the vote count has been taken as a sign of fraud, as it should have been impossible to count votes that fast. The polls originally were to have closed at 7 p.m. local time, but voting hours were extended until 10 p.m. because of the number of voters in line. By 11:45 p.m. about 20 percent of the vote had been counted. By 5:20 a.m. the next day, with almost all votes counted, the election commission declared Ahmadinejad the winner. The vote count thus took about seven hours. (Remember there were no senators, congressmen, city council members or school board members being counted — just the presidential race.) Intriguingly, this is about the same time in took in 2005, though reformists that claimed fraud back then did not stress the counting time in their allegations.
The counting mechanism is simple: Iran has 47,000 voting stations, plus 14,000 roaming stations that travel from tiny village to tiny village, staying there for a short time before moving on. That creates 61,000 ballot boxes designed to receive roughly the same number of votes. That would mean that each station would have been counting about 500 ballots, or about 70 votes per hour. With counting beginning at 10 p.m., concluding seven hours later does not necessarily indicate fraud or anything else. The Iranian presidential election system is designed for simplicity: one race to count in one time zone, and all counting beginning at the same time in all regions, we would expect the numbers to come in a somewhat linear fashion as rural and urban voting patterns would balance each other out — explaining why voting percentages didn’t change much during the night.
It has been pointed out that some of the candidates didn’t even carry their own provinces or districts. We remember that Al Gore didn’t carry Tennessee in 2000. We also remember Ralph Nader, who also didn’t carry his home precinct in part because people didn’t want to spend their vote on someone unlikely to win — an effect probably felt by the two smaller candidates in the Iranian election.
That Mousavi didn’t carry his own province is more interesting. Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett writing in Politico make some interesting points on this. As an ethnic Azeri, it was assumed that Mousavi would carry his Azeri-named and -dominated home province. But they also point out that Ahmadinejad also speaks Azeri, and made multiple campaign appearances in the district. They also point out that Khamenei is Azeri. In sum, winning that district was by no means certain for Mousavi, so losing it does not automatically signal fraud. It raised suspicions, but by no means was a smoking gun.
We do not doubt that fraud occurred during Iranian election. For example, 99.4 percent of potential voters voted in Mazandaran province, a mostly secular area home to the shah’s family. Ahmadinejad carried the province by a 2.2 to 1 ratio. That is one heck of a turnout and level of support for a province that lost everything when the mullahs took over 30 years ago. But even if you take all of the suspect cases and added them together, it would not have changed the outcome. The fact is that Ahmadinejad’s vote in 2009 was extremely close to his victory percentage in 2005. And while the Western media portrayed Ahmadinejad’s performance in the presidential debates ahead of the election as dismal, embarrassing and indicative of an imminent electoral defeat, many Iranians who viewed those debates — including some of the most hardcore Mousavi supporters — acknowledge that Ahmadinejad outperformed his opponents by a landslide.
Mousavi persuasively detailed his fraud claims Sunday, and they have yet to be rebutted. But if his claims of the extent of fraud were true, the protests should have spread rapidly by social segment and geography to the millions of people who even the central government asserts voted for him. Certainly, Mousavi supporters believed they would win the election based in part on highly flawed polls, and when they didn’t, they assumed they were robbed and took to the streets.
But critically, the protesters were not joined by any of the millions whose votes the protesters alleged were stolen. In a complete hijacking of the election by some 13 million votes by an extremely unpopular candidate, we would have expected to see the core of Mousavi’s supporters joined by others who had been disenfranchised. On last Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, when the demonstrations were at their height, the millions of Mousavi voters should have made their appearance. They didn’t. We might assume that the security apparatus intimidated some, but surely more than just the Tehran professional and student classes posses civic courage. While appearing large, the demonstrations actually comprised a small fraction of society.
Tensions Among the Political Elite
All of this not to say there are not tremendous tensions within the Iranian political elite. That no revolution broke out does not mean there isn’t a crisis in the political elite, particularly among the clerics. But that crisis does not cut the way Western common sense would have it. Many of Iran’s religious leaders see Ahmadinejad as hostile to their interests, as threatening their financial prerogatives, and as taking international risks they don’t want to take. Ahmadinejad’s political popularity in fact rests on his populist hostility to what he sees as the corruption of the clerics and their families and his strong stand on Iranian national security issues.
The clerics are divided among themselves, but many wanted to see Ahmadinejad lose to protect their own interests. Khamenei, the supreme leader, faced a difficult choice last Friday. He could demand a major recount or even new elections, or he could validate what happened. Khamenei speaks for a sizable chunk of the ruling elite, but also has had to rule by consensus among both clerical and non-clerical forces. Many powerful clerics like Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani wanted Khamenei to reverse the election, and we suspect Khamenei wished he could have found a way to do it. But as the defender of the regime, he was afraid to. Mousavi supporters’ demonstrations would have been nothing compared to the firestorm among Ahmadinejad supporters — both voters and the security forces — had their candidate been denied. Khamenei wasn’t going to flirt with disaster, so he endorsed the outcome.
The Western media misunderstood this because they didn’t understand that Ahmadinejad does not speak for the clerics but against them, that many of the clerics were working for his defeat, and that Ahmadinejad has enormous pull in the country’s security apparatus. The reason Western media missed this is because they bought into the concept of the stolen election, therefore failing to see Ahmadinejad’s support and the widespread dissatisfaction with the old clerical elite. The Western media simply didn’t understand that the most traditional and pious segments of Iranian society support Ahmadinejad because he opposes the old ruling elite. Instead, they assumed this was like Prague or Budapest in 1989, with a broad-based uprising in favor of liberalism against an unpopular regime.
Tehran in 2009, however, was a struggle between two main factions, both of which supported the Islamic republic as it was. There were the clerics, who have dominated the regime since 1979 and had grown wealthy in the process. And there was Ahmadinejad, who felt the ruling clerical elite had betrayed the revolution with their personal excesses. And there also was the small faction the BBC and CNN kept focusing on — the demonstrators in the streets who want to dramatically liberalize the Islamic republic. This faction never stood a chance of taking power, whether by election or revolution. The two main factions used the third smaller faction in various ways, however. Ahmadinejad used it to make his case that the clerics who supported them, like Rafsanjani, would risk the revolution and play into the hands of the Americans and British to protect their own wealth. Meanwhile, Rafsanjani argued behind the scenes that the unrest was the tip of the iceberg, and that Ahmadinejad had to be replaced. Khamenei, an astute politician, examined the data and supported Ahmadinejad.
Now, as we saw after Tiananmen Square, we will see a reshuffling among the elite. Those who backed Mousavi will be on the defensive. By contrast, those who supported Ahmadinejad are in a powerful position. There is a massive crisis in the elite, but this crisis has nothing to do with liberalization: It has to do with power and prerogatives among the elite. Having been forced by the election and Khamenei to live with Ahmadinejad, some will make deals while some will fight — but Ahmadinejad is well-positioned to win this battle.
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Geopolitical Diary: Iran's Battles on the Streets and Behind the Scenes
June 22, 2009
Over the past 72 hours, the city of Tehran has become a glass house. The windows are a bit dirty due to media censorship, but through Web sites like YouTube and Twitter — and simply by word of mouth — the world has gotten a decent glimpse of threats to the Islamic Republic being met with an iron fist.
Most of the Western media coverage of the demonstrations in Tehran has been emotion-driven and focused on a segment of the Iranian population — dominated by educated, young urban elites — that has dared to cross a line by shouting “death to the dictator” against the president and supreme leader, and in calling for a Green Revolution to bring down the system established by the Islamic Revolution. This somewhat distorted coverage not only fails to seriously consider Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s significant and legitimate popularity in the country, but also spreads a perception that a mass revolution has taken root. However, evidence points to the contrary.
A good measure of a revolution is its response to repression. As the weekend progressed, the state’s tools of repression were put to work, and the demonstrations dwindled in size. Just as important, the people protesting on Sunday were from the same social group as those protesting from the beginning. In other words, the bazaar merchants, the socially and religiously conservative lower classes, the labor groups and others lacked a reason for or interest in joining a movement of urban youths.
The world may not be witnessing an overnight revolution, but there is no doubt that the regime is greatly unnerved by the demonstrations. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued an ultimatum at Friday prayers, calling for protesters to end the demonstrations and accept Ahmadinejad as president. That demand was openly defied and only increased the protesters’ fervor. In the longer term, it will become increasingly difficult for the regime to keep a lid on this dissent, but the state has all the tools it needs to put down such uprisings for now.
What is far more concerning for Khamenei is what is happening behind the scenes, among the clerical and military elite. Ahmadinejad has been the catalyst for a political brawl among highly influential figures in the clerical establishment, including Assembly of Experts Chairman Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani. These prominent politicians and clerics, among others who hail from the holy city of Qom, view Ahmadinejad — a non-clerical, firebrand president who happens to have the backing of the supreme leader — as a major threat not only to their own political careers, but also to the unity and power of the wealthy clerical establishment.
Each of these figures has battled Ahmadinejad in his own way: Mir Hossein Mousavi, a member of the Expediency Council, has had (relatively speaking) the least to lose as a branded reformist, and therefore put a lot on the line by assuming leadership of the demonstrations on Saturday. Now, Mousavi is nowhere to be found. Rafsanjani has stayed out of sight, but has been extremely active in pressuring Khamenei and using as leverage his position in the Assembly of Experts — an institution that has the power to dismiss the supreme leader. Larijani has moved much more carefully. With visible reluctance, he sat next to Ahmadinejad during last Friday’s sermon, in a demonstration of solidarity requested by the supreme leader himself. However, he has not backed down from demanding probes into violence committed by Basij militiamen against protesters, and on Sunday, he accused the Guardians Council outright of being biased toward Ahmadinejad in this election. Meanwhile, senior cleric Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri (who long was expected to be the successor to Islamic Republic founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini) has been trying to energize demonstrators and is rumored to be calling for a national strike.
This power struggle also appears to be nipping at the non-clerical security establishment. Figures like defeated presidential candidate Mohsen Rezaie — who was head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) for 16 years — and Yayha Rahim Safavi, who commanded the IRGC for 10 years and is now military adviser to Khamenei, are staunch opponents of Ahmadinejad. Given their tenures, they also wield a great deal of influence among those whose duty it is to defend the Islamic Republic. STRATFOR is also getting some indications that fissures are emerging within the military over the election fallout, though the degree of the tension remains unclear.
Altogether, this battle — taking place far from the world of Twitter — is the more immediate threat to Iran’s stability. The level of infighting in the regime’s upper levels is unprecedented and represents a litmus test for a supreme leader who, for two decades, has attempted to rule by consensus among the clerics and military elite. Ahmadinejad looks to have shaken things up more than Khamenei anticipated, and there is no guarantee that Khamenei’s clout will be enough to subdue this growing anti-Ahmadinejad coalition.
Things are looking rocky for the supreme leader, but political warfare among elites is not unique to Iran by any means. Such infighting is part and parcel of any politically competitive environment. Still, the Islamic Republic has never witnessed such deep schisms in the institutions that are designed to safeguard the Islamic Revolution. Khamenei has made a conscious choice in defending Ahmadinejad, but the price of that choice is creeping upward by the day.
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By EDWARD N. LUTTWAK
At this point, only the short-term future of Iran's clerical regime remains in doubt. The current protests could be repressed, but the unelected institutions of priestly rule have been fatally undermined. Though each aspect of the Islamic Republic has its own dynamic, this is not a regime that can last many more years.
When it comes to repression, Iran has a spectrum of security instruments that can be used synergistically. The national police can take care of routine crowd control; riot-police units can beat some demonstrators in order to discourage others; the much more brutal, underclass Basij militiamen enjoy striking and shooting affluent Iranians; and the technical arm of the regime can block cellular service to disrupt demonstrations, as well as stall Internet services.
If the protests were to seriously escalate, the Revolutionary Guard troops with their armored vehicles might also be called in, though at some risk to the regime, given that reformist presidential candidate Mohsen Rezai was their longtime commander. The alternative -- calling in the regular army -- would be much more risky since the loyalty of the generals is unknown. So far the regime has required neither.
What has undermined the very structure of the Islamic Republic is the fracturing of its ruling elite. It was the unity established by Ayatollah Khomeini that allowed the regime to dominate the Iranian people for almost 30 years. Now that unity has been shattered: The very people who created the institutions of priestly rule are destroying their authority.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's leading rival for the presidency, Mir Hossein Mousavi, was prime minister from 1981-89 when the Islamic Republic acquired its administrative structure, including its unelected head, the supreme leader. Though the supreme leader must be obeyed in all things, Mr. Mousavi now flatly rejects the orders of Ali Khamenei to accept Ahmadinejad's re-election. In this, Mr. Mousavi is joined by another presidential candidate, former parliament speaker and pillar of the establishment Mehdi Karroubi, and a yet more senior founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Rafsanjani. President from 1989-97, Mr. Rafsanjani is also chairman of the Assembly of Experts, whose 86 members choose the supreme leader and can ostensibly remove him.
During the campaign, Ahmadinejad accused Mr. Rafsanjani and his children of corruption on live television. So if Ahmadinejad's re-election is to be "definitive" and even "divine," as Supreme Leader Khamenei has declared, Mr. Rafsanjani would have to resign from all his posts and his children would have to leave Iran. Instead, he is reportedly trying to recruit a majority of the Assembly of Experts to remove Khamenei, or at least force him to order new elections.
The other key undemocratic institution of the Islamic Republic, founded in part by Messrs. Mousavi and Rafsanjani, is the 12-member Council of Guardians that can veto any laws passed by the elected parliament and any candidate for the parliament or the presidency. In recent years, the Council has persistently sided with extremists and Ahmadinejad, using its veto powers aggressively. Supreme Leader Khamenei logically chose the Council to deal with the election dispute.
Last week, the Council of Guardians announced that it might recount 10% of the ballots and summoned Messrs. Mousavi, Karroubi and Rezai. All three rejected the recount offer, and only Mr. Rezai showed up before the Council. Messrs. Mousavi and Karroubi simply refused to appear, explicitly denying the Council's authority as well as that of the supreme leader.
This is highly significant. Were it not for the office of the supreme leader and the Council, Iran would be a normal democratic republic.
In theory, if Ahmadinejad, Khamenei and the extremists of the Council of Guardians were all replaced by consensus figures, the Islamic Republic could continue as before. But in practice, that is impossible. Huge numbers of Iranians haven't been demonstrating at risk of beatings and worse for the uncharismatic and only marginally moderate Mr. Mousavi. His courage under pressure has certainly raised his popularity, but he is still no more than the accidental symbol of an emerging political revolution.
What's clear is that after years of humiliating social repression and gross economic mismanagement, the more educated and the more productive citizens of Iran have mostly turned their backs on the regime. Even if personally religious, they now reject the entire post-1979 structure of politicized Shiite Islam with its powerful ayatollahs, officious priests, strutting Revolutionary Guards and low-life Basij militiamen. Many Iranians once inclined to respect clerics now view them as generally corrupt -- including the Ahmadinejad supporters who applauded his attacks on Mr. Rafsanjani.
Had Mr. Mousavi won the election, modest steps to liberalize the system -- he would have allowed women to go out with uncovered heads, for example -- would only have triggered demands for more change, eventually bringing down the entire system of clerical rule. In the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev's very cautious reforms designed to perpetuate the Communist regime ended up destroying it in less than five years. In Iran, the system is much newer, and the process would likely have been faster.
Some important clerics have long suggested that men of religion should strive to regain popular respect by voluntarily giving up political power. That may provide a way out eventually. But for now, Supreme Leader Khamenei is in the impossible position of having to support a president whose authority is not accepted by much of the governing structure itself. Even the extremist Parliament Speaker Ali Larjani has declared that the vote count was biased.
Therefore, even if he remains in office, Ahmadinejad cannot really function as president. For one thing, the parliament is unlikely to confirm his ministerial appointments, and he cannot govern without them. If Khamenei is not removed by the Assembly of Experts and Ahmadinejad is not removed by Khamenei, the government will continue to be paralyzed.
The great news is that, below the eroding machinery of priestly rule, the essential democratic institutions in Iran are up and running and need only new elections for the presidency and the parliament.
Mr. Luttwak, a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is the author of "Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace" (Belknap, 2002).
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Who'd have thought it? A thoughtful piece from Pat Buchanon:
Ten Days That Shook Tehran
Given its monopoly of guns, bet on the Iranian regime. But, in the long run, the ayatollahs have to see the handwriting on the wall.
Let us assume what they insist upon -- that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the June 12 election; that, even if fraud occurred, it did not decide the outcome. As Ayatollah Khamenei said to loud laughter in his Friday sermon declaring the election valid, "Perhaps 100,000, or 500,000, but how can anyone tamper with 11 million votes?"
Still, the ayatollah and Ahmadinejad must hear the roar of the rapids ahead. Millions of Iranians, perhaps a majority of the professional class and educated young, who shouted, "Death to the Dictatorship," oppose or detest them. How can the regime maintain its present domestic course or foreign policy with its people so visibly divided?
Where do the ayatollah and Ahmadinejad go from here?
If they adopt a harder line, defy Barack Obama and refuse to negotiate their nuclear program, they can continue to enrich uranium, as harsher sanctions are imposed. But to what end adding 1,000 more kilograms?
If they do not intend to build a bomb, why enrich more? And if they do intend to build a bomb, what exactly would that achieve?
For an Iranian bomb would trigger a regional arms race with Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia seeking nuclear weapons. Israel would put its nuclear arsenal on a hair trigger. America would retarget missiles on Tehran. And if a terrorist anywhere detonated a nuclear bomb, Iran would risk annihilation, for everyone would assume Tehran was behind it.
Rather than make Iran more secure, an Iranian bomb would seem to permanently isolate her and possibly subject her to pre-emptive attack.
And how can the Iranians survive continued isolation?
According to U.S. sources, Iran produced 6 million barrels of crude a day in 1974 under the shah. She has not been able to match that since the revolution. War, limited investment, sanctions and a high rate of natural decline of mature oil fields, estimated at 8 percent onshore and 11 percent offshore, are the causes. A 2007 National Academy of Sciences study reported that if the decline rates continue, Iran's exports, which in 2007 averaged 2.4 million barrels per day, could decrease to zero by 2015.
You cannot make up for oil and gas exports with carpets and pistachio nuts.
If Tehran cannot effect a lifting of sanctions and new investments in oil and gas production, she is headed for an economic crisis that will cause an exodus of her brightest young and quadrennial reruns of the 2009 election.
And there are not only deep divisions in Iran between modernists and religious traditionalists, the affluent and the poor, but among ethnic groups. Half of Iran's population is Arab, Kurd, Azeri or Baluchi. In the Kurdish northwest and Baluchi south, secessionists have launched attacks the ayatollah blames on the United States and Israel.
As they look about the region, how can the ayatollahs be optimistic?
Syria, their major ally, wants to deal with the Americans to retrieve the Golan. Saudi Arabia and Egypt are hostile, with the latter having uncovered a Hezbollah plot against President Hosni Mubarak.
Hamas is laser-focused on Gaza, the West Bank and a Palestinian state, and showing interest in working with the Obama administration.
Where is the Islamic revolution going? Where is the state in the Muslim world that has embraced Islamism and created a successful nation?
Sudan? Taliban Afghanistan? Somalia is now in final passage from warlordism to Islamism. Does anyone believe the Al-Shahab will create a successful nation?
As for the ayatollahs, after 30 years, they are deep in crisis -- and what have they produced that the world admires?
Even if the "green revolution" in Iran triggers revolts in the Gulf states, Saudi Arabia or Egypt, can Iran believe Sunni revolutionary regimes will follow the lead of a Shia Islamic state? How long did it take Mao's China to renounce its elder brother in the faith, Khrushchev's Russia?
When one looks at the Asian tigers -- South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia -- or at the China or India of recent decades, one sees nations that impress the world with their progress.
Iran under the mullahs has gone sideways or backward. Now, with this suspect election and millions having shown their revulsion of the regime, the legitimacy and integrity of the ayatollahs have been called into question.
Obama offers the regime a way out.
They may exercise their right to peaceful nuclear power, have sanctions lifted and receive security guarantees, if they can prove they have no nuclear weapons program and will cease subverting through their Hezbollah-Hamas proxies the peace process Obama is pursuing between Israel and Palestine.
If Iran refuses Obama's offer, she will start down a road at the end of which are severe sanctions, escalation and a war that Obama does not want and Iran cannot want -- for the winner will not be Iran.
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Iranian diplomats disinvited from Canada Day ceremonies
Iranian diplomats disinvited from Canada Day ceremonies
Updated Thu. Jun. 25 2009 4:12 PM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
The Harper government has disinvited Iranian diplomats from attending Canada Day ceremonies in Ottawa to express its displeasure with the Iranian government's bloody crackdown against opposition supporters.
The move follows a similar one by the U.S. for its July 4th celebrations.
Reporting from Ottawa, CTV's Graham Richardson said the government is "trying to send a signal in a very strong way they are not pleased with what's going on in Iran" following disputed presidential elections.
Richardson said a senior government source told him that part of Canada Day "is celebrating Canadian liberties," and that the government "doesn't see a role for Iran to play on that day given what happened in Iran over the last few weeks."
Traditionally the prime minister invites representatives of foreign governments to celebrate Canada Day on Parliament Hill.
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ROBERT MCFARLANE
One casualty of the Iraq war has been the confusion among politicians about the proper place of democracy promotion in American foreign policy. Iran's recent election -- which evoked a very vocal, frustrated opposition -- brings into sharp focus the urgent need for clarity concerning this issue. Do we support those seeking freedom from oppression? And if so, how? It may do well to recall how we got into this confused state.
Sixteen or so years ago a small circle of cold warriors, flush with victory, concluded that with the dissolution of the Soviet Union democracy and free enterprise had been vindicated. To these neoconservatives, the task of future American presidents would be to spread the gospel of democracy -- using force if necessary -- so that governments everywhere would become accountable to their people and thus less likely to wage war. In 2003, it was arguably democracy promotion, rather than the threat of weapons of mass destruction, which triggered the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Throughout his two terms in office, President George W. Bush was an indefatigable advocate of democracy, even when it resulted in the victories of such un-Jeffersonian parties as Hezbollah and Hamas. Thus began the neocon versus realist battle. The current situation in Iran offers an opportunity to turn this debate in a less doctrinaire, more coherent direction.
To oversimplify, in Iran, the wrong man may have won. Yet a strong, vibrant opposition exists there that ought to be nurtured. Ilan Berman, a vice president at the American Foreign Policy Council, is one the best analysts of Iranian politics today. Mr. Berman explains the reasons for this opposition:
"Iran is a country in the grip of massive socio-economic malaise. Inflation . . . stands at nearly 30 percent. Unemployment is rampant, officially pegged at over 10 percent but unofficially estimated to be as much as two-and-a-half times that figure. Nearly a quarter of the Iranian population now lives under the poverty line, and both prostitution and drug addiction are rampant. Add to these Ahmadinejad's gross mismanagement of the national economy over the past four years, and it is easy to see why Iran's leaders fear that outrage over a stolen election could spiral into something more."
But will it? What is to become of the aspirations and lives of the hundreds of thousands of Iranian dissidents who are braving police brutality in the name of freedom and accountability? The reason we should care goes well beyond perpetuating Wilsonian principles. It involves upholding realist principles too.
Iran poses a formidable threat to U.S. and allied interests for three principal reasons. Tehran's illegal drive to become a nuclear-weapons state is well underway. The country's 7,000 centrifuges are enriching uranium that could produce enough weapons-grade material for one or more bombs within a year. If Iran continues down that path, whether successfully or not, other Middle Eastern nations will be eager to move forward with their own deterrent nuclear programs. A proliferation cascade would then ensue among countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and perhaps Jordan. Before long, matters will have gone beyond the ability of institutions or statecraft to control.
The very existence of Iran's nuclear program is seen to pose an existential threat to Israel. Even an undeclared yet plausible Iranian nuclear threat gives the country an enormous amount of political leverage in its relationships throughout the region. Its ability to coerce neighbors over any disagreement would rise exponentially.
Another issue is Iran's sponsorship and support of terrorist groups -- Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestinian areas, and less prominently, Islamic Jihad and the Muslim Brotherhood. Unless Iran ends its support for these organizations, they will ultimately destroy Israel, not to mention their own host countries.
Denying Israel's very right to exist, while openly arming terrorist groups bent on destroying Israel, constitutes aggression by any standard of international law. These deeds ought to be a matter of formal sanction.
President Barack Obama has made clear his wish to engage Iran's government. But he ignores a fundamental question. What, beyond conversation, does engagement mean?
Dealing with Iran, the president needs to use all the tools of diplomacy at his disposal. First, the president needs to strengthen our position by adding partners. Mr. Obama should sit down with moderate Arab states. He should listen to their views and forge an agreed regional security strategy. Such a strategy should include a vigorous program of support for the Iranian opposition, based on a well-funded program of broadcasts and other communications into Iran. This would help the opposition become better organized and grow. Recent surveys reflect that Iran is the most "wired" nation in the Middle East. Nearly 35% of its population is connected to the Internet.
Further, Mr. Obama must raise awareness among our European and Asian allies of how serious a threat to regional peace Iran has become. He should then launch an effort at the United Nations Security Council to impose strong sanctions on anyone supplying gasoline to Iran. This will underline what should be our commitment to defang Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Barack Obama is seeking to craft a doctrine of effective realism, a doctrine that advances our own interests and those of democratic aspirants throughout the world. It will stand or fall on his actions toward Iran in the weeks and months ahead.
Mr. McFarlane, who served as President Ronald Reagan's national security adviser (1983-85), is a senior adviser to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
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This point was already mentioned but glossed over in Tom Frieman's NY Times piece recently and made again in the piece copied below.
The unrest, demonstrations, protests and public outcry in Iran comes directly from the fact that immediately across their borders they are acutely aware that the totalitarian regime is gone, the murderous bloody dictator was hanged, and in its place is an old fashioned (new fashioned?) electoral system out of an obscure and ridiculed idea from George Bush and Dick Cheney where politicians must campaign and compete for voter approval and citizens receive a basic human right called 'consent of the governed'. Who knew that such a ridiculed idea could try to spread to other oppressed people in the region??
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From Powerline 6/24:
Paul Rahe is the distinguished intellectual historian and professor of history at Hillsdale College. Professor Rahe is the author, most recently, of Soft Despotism, Democracy's Drift: Montesquieu, Rousseau, Tocqueville, and the Modern Prospect. If any scholarly study in the history of political thought was ever timely, Soft Despotism is it.
Professor Rahe's new book has inspired much witty and learned commentary. Mark Steyn freely draws on the book in the lead article featured in the current issue of the New Criterion. The reviews by Professor Harvey Mansfield in the Weekly Standard and by William Voegeli in NR are must reading.
Professor Rahe has forwarded us his thoughts on the events in Iran:
I spent the mid-1980s -- when the Iranian Revolution was young, when Hossein Mousavi was the Islamic Republic's Prime Minister, and the Iran-Iraq war underway -- in Istanbul as a fellow of the Institute of Current World Affairs, writing about Turkey primarily and also about Greece and Cyprus (which I visited with some frequency). In previous years, I had closely followed events in Iran, and I continued to do so while residing nearby. I was at the time haphazardly working on a book that would bear the title Republics Ancient and Modern: Classical Republicanism and the American Revolution, and I was fascinated by the progress of a revolution that was at the time same theocratic and republican.
I can remember thinking that the combination was likely to be unstable. The nascent regime might be led by a Supreme Leader drawn from the Shiite clergy and respected for his understanding of the Koran, and the Council of Guardians, whom he appointed, might veto legislation and carefully vet candidates for office with an eye to protecting the clerical regime, silencing its critics, and suppressing opposition. But the fact that the voters had a choice, that the candidates had to campaign, and that they had to tailor their campaigns with an eye to popular sentiment allowed in a fashion hard to circumscribe for the more or less free formation of public opinion.
Something of the sort had taken place in ancient Athens under the rule of Peisistratus and his sons -- when the regime had been in form a republic and in reality a tyranny -- and, after the death of its founder, form asserted itself and reshaped political reality. In such a polity, semi-free elections may be necessary for the purpose of rallying popular support, but they also have the effect of confering a measure of authority on the populace and of suggesting to ordinary citizens that they have a role to play in public deliberation and in setting the polity's course. What began as a theocratic republic might easily evolve into something else. So I thought.
In March, 2002, while on a visit to Istanbul, I had an opportunity to question an Iranian journalist as to the validity of my hypothesis. I had not been in Turkey for some years; I wanted to get a sense of what 9/11 meant in the one Muslim country I knew well; and I had been invited by another former fellow of the Institute of Current World Affairs to a dinner to which he had also invited a number of Turkish journalists.
Michael Ledeen had been suggesting in articles published hither and yon that Iran might be on the verge of a revolution, and I began by asking my Iranian acquaintance what he thought of the likelihood. He responded that many of the men who ran the Islamic Republic had been graduate students in eastern Europe. "They know how to control a population, but they do not know how to control their own children," he observed. "There will some day be a revolution--but not any time soon. Iran will change in the manner in which China did--when a new generation comes to power."
As I have tracked events over the last few days, I have come back to that conversation again and again. I have no idea whether my Iranian acquaintance was accurate in describing the educational background of many of the Iranian leaders, but I have long suspected that he was correct in his estimation of their ability to keep the population in line and of their inability to control their own progeny. Five things are nonetheless clear.
First, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did not win anything like 63 percent of the vote in the recent election. Over the last four years, he has brought Iran to the edge of economic disaster; many Iranians are fully aware of their plight; and the authorities, fearful that he would go down to defeat, rigged the entire process from the start. Second, the ruling order in Iran is bitterly split over what amounts to a coup d'état. Third, the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has put his prestige and that of the regime itself on the line. Fourth, the people of Iran are aware that they have been hoodwinked, and the Islamic Republic is now without a shred of legitimacy. And, finally, if the police and the militia should prove unable to control the crowds in Teheran, and if the Revolutionary Guard is called out and the guardsmen refuse to fire on their fellow citizens, things really will come apart.
If the authorities manage to restore order (as, I suspect, they will), the pot will nonetheless continue to boil -- unless they resort to severe repression and purge those within their own ranks who lent support, open or tacit, to the demonstrators. But if they do this, they will at the same time seriously narrow the base of the regime's support, and that will only hasten the day of reckoning. As Reuel Marc Gerecht argues in a trenchant piece in the Weekly Standard, we are witnessing a game-changing moment.
From all of this, the supporters of George W. Bush's policy in Iraq should draw consolation, for the elections that took place in that country under the American aegis contributed mightily to the discontent in Iran. The people of Iran were witness to the emergence within Iraq of a secular republic sponsored by an Iranian cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, possessed of an erudition and an authority rivalling and arguably surpassing that of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran. They were witness to elections that were really free and to public debate open in ways that debate within the Islamic Republic is not. Morever, in Quom, the stronghold of the Shiite clergy, the clerics who most fully command respect have long rejected, as contrary to Shiite tradition and the interest of Islam, the path of direct clerical rule pursued by Khomeini.
Iran today looks something like England in the wake of Oliver Cromwell's death. There has been a religious revolution; it never commanded full popular support; it is now seen, even by many of its most ardent supporters, to be a failure; and there will be a scramble to attempt to sustain the polity it produced. Ordinarily, American leverage does not amount to much. In this situation, it could nonetheless be considerable. Economically Iran is on the ropes. If we keep the pressure on, following the policy of the Bush administration, the regime may in fact collapse. If, however, in the interests of stability, in the manner of the so-called "realists," the Obama administration opts to take the pressure off and, in effect, bails out Iran's bankrupt regime, it may stumble on for some years to come.
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Thomas Friedman said this?
The Friedman who usually ridicules W?
NYTs too? Wow.....
I would assume this was on page 500.
I was wondering too if these events in Iran would be happening if Saddam was still there oppressing his people.
*History may yet judge W. (and the neocons) as being correct all along.*
Although as Morris, or was it Bernie Goldberg (I think) said to Hannity on this exact point,
The problem is all the historians are liberal so they will NEVER give credit to W.
Hannity's response, "checkmate!".
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Time for an Israeli Strike?
By John R. Bolton
Thursday, July 2, 2009
With Iran's hard-line mullahs and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps unmistakably back in control, Israel's decision of whether to use military force against Tehran's nuclear weapons program is more urgent than ever.
Iran's nuclear threat was never in doubt during its presidential campaign, but the post-election resistance raised the possibility of some sort of regime change. That prospect seems lost for the near future or for at least as long as it will take Iran to finalize a deliverable nuclear weapons capability.
Accordingly, with no other timely option, the already compelling logic for an Israeli strike is nearly inexorable. Israel is undoubtedly ratcheting forward its decision-making process. President Obama is almost certainly not.
He still wants "engagement" (a particularly evocative term now) with Iran's current regime. Last Thursday, the State Department confirmed that Secretary Hillary Clinton spoke to her Russian and Chinese counterparts about "getting Iran back to negotiating on some of these concerns that the international community has." This is precisely the view of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, reflected in the Group of Eight communique the next day. Sen. John Kerry thinks the recent election unpleasantness in Tehran will delay negotiations for only a few weeks.
Obama administration sources have opined (anonymously) that Iran will be more eager to negotiate than it was before its election in order to find "acceptance" by the "international community." Some leaks indicated that negotiations had to produce results by the U.N. General Assembly's opening in late September, while others projected that they had until the end of 2009 to show progress. These gauzy scenarios assume that the Tehran regime cares about "acceptance" or is somehow embarrassed by eliminating its enemies. Both propositions are dubious.
Obama will nonetheless attempt to jump-start bilateral negotiations with Iran, though time is running out even under the timetables leaked to the media. There are two problems with this approach. First, Tehran isn't going to negotiate in good faith. It hasn't for the past six years with the European Union as our surrogates, and it won't start now. As Clinton said on Tuesday, Iran has "a huge credibility gap" because of its electoral fraud. Second, given Iran's nuclear progress, even if the stronger sanctions Obama has threatened could be agreed upon, they would not prevent Iran from fabricating weapons and delivery systems when it chooses, as it has been striving to do for the past 20 years. Time is too short, and sanctions failed long ago.
Only those most theologically committed to negotiation still believe Iran will fully renounce its nuclear program. Unfortunately, the Obama administration has a "Plan B," which would allow Iran to have a "peaceful" civil nuclear power program while publicly "renouncing" the objective of nuclear weapons. Obama would define such an outcome as "success," even though in reality it would hardly be different from what Iran is doing and saying now. A "peaceful" uranium enrichment program, "peaceful" reactors such as Bushehr and "peaceful" heavy-water projects like that under construction at Arak leave Iran with an enormous breakout capability to produce nuclear weapons in very short order. And anyone who believes the Revolutionary Guard Corps will abandon its weaponization and ballistic missile programs probably believes that there was no fraud in Iran's June 12 election. See "huge credibility gap," supra.
In short, the stolen election and its tumultuous aftermath have dramatically highlighted the strategic and tactical flaws in Obama's game plan. With regime change off the table for the coming critical period in Iran's nuclear program, Israel's decision on using force is both easier and more urgent. Since there is no likelihood that diplomacy will start or finish in time, or even progress far enough to make any real difference, there is no point waiting for negotiations to play out. In fact, given the near certainty of Obama changing his definition of "success," negotiations represent an even more dangerous trap for Israel.
Those who oppose Iran acquiring nuclear weapons are left in the near term with only the option of targeted military force against its weapons facilities. Significantly, the uprising in Iran also makes it more likely that an effective public diplomacy campaign could be waged in the country to explain to Iranians that such an attack is directed against the regime, not against the Iranian people. This was always true, but it has become even more important to make this case emphatically, when the gulf between the Islamic revolution of 1979 and the citizens of Iran has never been clearer or wider. Military action against Iran's nuclear program and the ultimate goal of regime change can be worked together consistently.
Otherwise, be prepared for an Iran with nuclear weapons, which some, including Obama advisers, believe could be contained and deterred. That is not a hypothesis we should seek to test in the real world. The cost of error could be fatal.
The writer, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from August 2005 to December 2006 and is the author of "Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/01/AR2009070103020.html
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Well, I guess it was long feared the next use of nuclear weapons would be the middle east.
How sad the world has sat back and let Israel be in the position of having to do this.
I can think it through countless ways but the conclusion is always the same - not to do it risks annihilation for Jews in Israel.
It always comes down to this.
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At Friday prayers July 17 at Tehran University, the influential cleric and former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani gave his first sermon since Iran’s disputed presidential election and the subsequent demonstrations. The crowd listening to Rafsanjani inside the mosque was filled with Ahmadinejad supporters who chanted, among other things, “Death to America” and “Death to China.” Outside the university common grounds, anti-Ahmadinejad elements — many of whom were blocked by Basij militiamen and police from entering the mosque — persistently chanted “Death to Russia.”
Death to America is an old staple in Iran. Death to China had to do with the demonstrations in Xinjiang and the death of Uighurs at the hands of the Chinese. Death to Russia, however, stood out. Clearly, its use was planned before the protesters took to the streets. The meaning of this must be uncovered. To begin to do that, we must consider the political configuration in Iran at the moment.
The Iranian Political Configuration
There are two factions claiming to speak for the people. Rafsanjani represents the first faction. During his sermon, he spoke for the tradition of the founder of the Islamic republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who took power during the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Rafjsanjani argued that Khomeini wanted an Islamic republic faithful to the will of the people, albeit within the confines of Islamic law. Rafsanjani argued that he was the true heir to the Islamic revolution. He added that Khomeini’s successor — the current supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — had violated the principles of the revolution when he accepted that Rafsanjani’s archenemy, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, had won Iran’s recent presidential election. (There is enormous irony in foreigners describing Rafsanjani as a moderate reformer who supports greater liberalization. Though he has long cultivated this image in the West, in 30 years of public political life it is hard to see a time when has supported Western-style liberal democracy.)
The other faction is led by Ahmadinejad, who takes the position that Rafsanjani in particular — along with the generation of leaders who ascended to power during the first phase of the Islamic republic — has betrayed the Iranian people. Rather than serving the people, Ahmadinejad claims they have used their positions to become so wealthy that they dominate the Iranian economy and have made the reforms needed to revitalize the Iranian economy impossible. According to Ahmadinejad’s charges, these elements now blame Ahmadinejad for Iran’s economic failings when the root of these failings is their own corruption. Ahmadinejad claims that the recent presidential election represents a national rejection of the status quo. He adds that claims of fraud represent attempts by Rafsanjani — who he portrays as defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi’s sponsor — and his ilk to protect their positions from Ahmadinejad.
Iran is therefore experiencing a generational dispute, with each side claiming to speak both for the people and for the Khomeini tradition. There is the older generation — symbolized by Rafsanjani — that has prospered during the last 30 years. Having worked with Khomeini, this generation sees itself as his true heir. Then, there is the younger generation. Known as “students” during the revolution, this group did the demonstrating and bore the brunt of the shah’s security force counterattacks. It argues that Khomeini would be appalled at what Rafsanjani and his generation have done to Iran.
This debate is, of course, more complex than this. Khamenei, a key associate of Khomeini, appears to support Ahmadinejad’s position. And Ahmadinejad hardly speaks for all of the poor as he would like to claim. The lines of political disputes are never drawn as neatly as we would like. Ultimately, Rafsanjani’s opposition to the recent election did not have as much to do with concerns (valid or not) over voter fraud. It had everything to do with the fact that the outcome threatened his personal position. Which brings us back to the question of why Rafsanjani’s followers were chanting “Death to Russia”?
Examining the Anomalous Chant
For months prior to the election, Ahmadinejad’s allies warned that the United States was planning a “color” revolution. Color revolutions, like the one in Ukraine, occurred widely in the former Soviet Union after its collapse, and these revolutions followed certain steps. An opposition political party was organized to mount an electoral challenge the establishment. Then, an election occurred that was either fraudulent or claimed by the opposition as having been fraudulent. Next, widespread peaceful protests against the regime (all using a national color as the symbol of the revolution) took place, followed by the collapse of the government through a variety of paths. Ultimately, the opposition — which was invariably pro-Western and particularly pro-American — took power.
Moscow openly claimed that Western intelligence agencies, particularly the CIA, organized and funded the 2004-2005 Orange Revolution in Ukraine. These agencies allegedly used nongovernmental organizations (human rights groups, pro-democracy groups, etc.) to delegitimize the existing regime, repudiate the outcome of the election regardless of its validity and impose what the Russians regarded as a pro-American puppet regime. The Russians saw Ukraine’s Orange Revolution as the break point in their relationship with the West, with the creation of a pro-American, pro-NATO regime in Ukraine representing a direct attack on Russian national security. The Americans argued that to the contrary, they had done nothing but facilitate a democratic movement that opposed the existing regime for its own reasons, demanding that rigged elections be repudiated.
In warning that the United States was planning a color revolution in Iran, Ahmadinejad took the Russian position. Namely, he was arguing that behind the cover of national self-determination, human rights and commitment to democratic institutions, the United States was funding an Iranian opposition movement on the order of those active in the former Soviet Union. Regardless of whether the opposition actually had more votes, this opposition movement would immediately regard an Ahmadinejad win as the result of fraud. Large demonstrations would ensue, and if they were left unopposed the Islamic republic would come under threat.
In doing this, Ahmadinejad’s faction positioned itself against the actuality that such a rising would occur. If it did, Ahmadinejad could claim that the demonstrators were — wittingly or not — operating on behalf of the United States, thus delegitimizing the demonstrators. In so doing, he could discredit supporters of the demonstrators as not tough enough on the United States, a useful charge against Rafsanjani, whom the West long has held up as an Iranian moderate.
Interestingly, while demonstrations were at their height, Ahmadinejad chose to attend — albeit a day late — a multinational Shanghai Cooperation Organization conference in Moscow on the Tuesday after the election. It was very odd that he would leave Iran during the greatest postelection unrest; we assumed he had decided to demonstrate to Iranians that he didn’t take the demonstrations seriously.
The charge that seems to be emerging on the Rafsanjani side is that Ahmadinejad’s fears of a color revolution were not simply political, but were encouraged by the Russians. It was the Russians who had been talking to Ahmadinejad and his lieutenants on a host of issues, who warned him about the possibility of a color revolution. More important, the Russians helped prepare Ahmadinejad for the unrest that would come — and given the Russian experience, how to manage it. Though we speculate here, if this theory is correct, it could explain some of the efficiency with which Ahmadinejad shut down cell phone and other communications during the postelection unrest, as he may have had Russian advisers.
Rafsanjani’s followers were not shouting “Death to Russia” without a reason, at least in their own minds. They are certainly charging that Ahmadinejad took advice from the Russians, and went to Russia in the midst of political unrest for consultations. Rafsanjani’s charge may or may not be true. Either way, there is no question that Ahmadinejad did claim that the United States was planning a color revolution in Iran. If he believed that charge, it would have been irrational not to reach out to the Russians. But whether or not the CIA was involved, the Russians might well have provided Ahmadinejad with intelligence of such a plot and helped shape his response, and thereby may have created a closer relationship with him.
How Iran’s internal struggle will work itself out remains unclear. But one dimension is shaping up: Ahmadinejad is trying to position Rafsanjani as leading a pro-American faction intent on a color revolution, while Rafsanjani is trying to position Ahmadinejad as part of a pro-Russian faction. In this argument, the claim that Ahmadinejad had some degree of advice or collaboration with the Russians is credible, just as the claim that Rafsanjani maintained some channels with the Americans is credible. And this makes an internal dispute geopolitically significant.
The Iranian Struggle in a Geopolitical Context
At the moment, Ahmadinejad appears to have the upper hand. Khamenei has certified his re-election. The crowds have dissipated; nothing even close to the numbers of the first few days has since materialized. For Ahmadinejad to lose, Rafsanjani would have to mobilize much of the clergy — many of whom are seemingly content to let Rafsanjani be the brunt of Ahmadinejad’s attacks — in return for leaving their own interests and fortunes intact. There are things that could bring Ahmadinejad down and put Rafsanjani in control, but all of them would require Khamenei to endorse social and political instability, which he will not do.
If the Russians have in fact intervened in Iran to the extent of providing intelligence to Ahmadinejad and advice to him during his visit on how to handle the postelection unrest (as the chants suggest), then Russian influence in Iran is not surging — it has surged. In some measure, Ahmadinejad would owe his position to Russian warnings and advice. There is little gratitude in the world of international affairs, but Ahmadinejad has enemies, and the Russians would have proved their utility in helping contain those enemies.
From the Russian point of view, Ahmadinejad would be a superb asset — even if not truly under their control. His very existence focuses American attention on Iran, not on Russia. It follows, then, that Russia would have made a strategic decision to involve itself in the postelection unrest, and that for the purposes of its own negotiations with Washington, Moscow will follow through to protect the Iranian state to the extent possible. The Russians have already denied U.S. requests for assistance on Iran. But if Moscow has intervened in Iran to help safeguard Ahmadinejad’s position, then the potential increases for Russia to provide Iran with the S-300 strategic air defense systems that it has been dangling in front of Tehran for more than a decade.
If the United States perceives an entente between Moscow and Tehran emerging, then the entire dynamic of the region shifts and the United States must change its game. The threat to Washington’s interests becomes more intense as the potential of a Russian S-300 sale to Iran increases, and the need to disrupt the Russian-Iranian entente would become all the more important. U.S. influence in Iran already has declined substantially, and Ahmadinejad is more distrustful and hostile than ever of the United States after having to deal with the postelection unrest. If a Russian-Iranian entente emerges out of all this — which at the moment is merely a possibility, not an imminent reality — then the United States would have some serious strategic problems on its hands.
Revisiting Assumptions on Iran
For the past few years, STRATFOR has assumed that a U.S. or Israeli strike on Iran was unlikely. Iran was not as advanced in its nuclear program as some claimed, and the complexities of any attack were greater than assumed. The threat of an attack was thus a U.S. bargaining chip, much as Iran’s nuclear program itself was an Iranian bargaining chip for use in achieving Tehran’s objectives in Iraq and the wider region. To this point, our net assessment has been accurate.
At this point, however, we need to stop and reconsider. If Iran and Russia begin serious cooperation, Washington’s existing dilemma with Iran’s nuclear ambitions and its ongoing standoff with the Russians would fuse to become a single, integrated problem. This is something the United States would find difficult to manage. Washington’s primary goal would become preventing this from happening.
Ahmadinejad has long argued that the United States was never about to attack Iran, and that charges by Rafsanjani and others that he has pursued a reckless foreign policy were groundless. But with the “Death to Russia” chants and signaling of increased Russian support for Iran, the United States may begin to reconsider its approach to the region.
Iran’s clerical elite does not want to go to war. They therefore can only view with alarm the recent ostentatious transiting of the Suez Canal into the Red Sea by Israeli submarines and corvettes. This transiting did not happen without U.S. approval. Moreover, in spite of U.S. opposition to expanded Israeli settlements and Israeli refusals to comply with this opposition, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will be visiting Israel in two weeks. The Israelis have said that there must be a deadline on negotiations with Iran over the nuclear program when the next G-8 meeting takes place in September; a deadline that the G-8 has already approved. The consequences if Iran ignores the deadline were left open-ended.
All of this can fit into our old model of psychological warfare, as representing a bid to manipulate Iranian politics by making Ahmadinejad’s leadership look too risky. It could also be the United States signaling the Russians that stakes in the region are rising. It is not clear that the United States has reconsidered its strategy on Iran in the wake of the postelection demonstrations. But if Rafsanjani’s claim of Russian support for Ahmadinejad is true, a massive re-evaluation of U.S. policy could ensue, assuming one hasn’t already started — prompting a reconsideration of the military option.
All of this assumes that there is substance behind a mob chanting “Death to Russia.” There appears to be, but of course, Ahmadinejad’s enemies would want to magnify that substance to its limits and beyond. This is why we are not ready to simply abandon our previous net assessment of Iran, even though it is definitely time to rethink it.
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FYI-- This was picked up by Salon's Broadsheet
'I wed Iranian girls before execution'
Jul. 19, 2009
SABINA AMIDI, Special to The Jerusalem Post , THE JERUSALEM POST
In a shocking and unprecedented interview, directly exposing the inhumanity of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's religious regime in Iran, a serving member of the paramilitary Basiji militia has told this reporter of his role in suppressing opposition street protests in recent weeks.
He has also detailed aspects of his earlier service in the force, including his enforced participation in the rape of young Iranian girls prior to their execution.
The interview took place by telephone, and on condition of anonymity. It was arranged by a reliable source whose identity can also not be revealed.
Founded by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979 as a "people's militia," the volunteer Basiji force is subordinate to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and intensely loyal to Khomeini's successor, Khamenei.
The Basiji member, who is married with children, spoke soon after his release by the Iranian authorities from detention. He had been held for the "crime" of having set free two Iranian teenagers - a 13-year-old boy and a 15-year-old girl - who had been arrested during the disturbances that have followed the disputed June presidential elections.
"There have been many other police and members of the security forces arrested because they have shown leniency toward the protesters out on the streets, or released them from custody without consulting our superiors," he said.
He pinned the blame for much of the most ruthless violence employed by the Iranian security apparatus against opposition protesters on what he called "imported security forces" - recruits, as young as 14 and 15, he said, who have been brought from small villages into the bigger cities where the protests have been centered.
"Fourteen and 15-year old boys are given so much power, which I am sorry to say they have abused," he said. "These kids do anything they please - forcing people to empty out their wallets, taking whatever they want from stores without paying, and touching young women inappropriately. The girls are so frightened that they remain quiet and let them do what they want."
These youngsters, and other "plainclothes vigilantes," were committing most of the crimes in the names of the regime, he said.
Asked about his own role in the brutal crackdowns on the protesters, whether he had been beaten demonstrators and whether he regretted his actions, he answered evasively.
"I did not attack any of the rioters - and even if I had, it is my duty to follow orders," he began. "I don't have any regrets," he went on, "except for when I worked as a prison guard during my adolescence."
Explaining how he had come to join the volunteer Basiji forces, he said his mother had taken him to them.
When he was 16, "my mother took me to a Basiji station and begged them to take me under their wing because I had no one and nothing foreseeable in my future. My father was martyred during the war in Iraq and she did not want me to get hooked on drugs and become a street thug. I had no choice," he said.
He said he had been a highly regarded member of the force, and had so "impressed my superiors" that, at 18, "I was given the 'honor' to temporarily marry young girls before they were sentenced to death."
In the Islamic Republic it is illegal to execute a young woman, regardless of her crime, if she is a virgin, he explained. Therefore a "wedding" ceremony is conducted the night before the execution: The young girl is forced to have sexual intercourse with a prison guard - essentially raped by her "husband."
"I regret that, even though the marriages were legal," he said.
Why the regret, if the marriages were "legal?"
"Because," he went on, "I could tell that the girls were more afraid of their 'wedding' night than of the execution that awaited them in the morning. And they would always fight back, so we would have to put sleeping pills in their food. By morning the girls would have an empty expression; it seemed like they were ready or wanted to die.
"I remember hearing them cry and scream after [the rape] was over," he said. "I will never forget how this one girl clawed at her own face and neck with her finger nails afterwards. She had deep scratches all over her."
Returning to the events of the last few weeks, and his decision to set free the two teenage detainees, he said he "honestly" did not know why he had released them, a decision that led to his own arrest, "but I think it was because they were so young. They looked like children and I knew what would happen to them if they weren't released."
He said that while a man is deemed "responsible for his own actions at 13, for a woman it is 9," and that it was freeing the 15-year-old girl that "really got me in trouble.
"I was not mistreated or really interrogated while being detained," he said. "I was put in a tiny room and left alone. It was hard being isolated, so I spent most of my time praying and thinking about my wife and kids."
This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1246443842931&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull
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Iran’s plummeting birth rates
Despite its fundamentalist Islamic reputation Iran has experimented with birth control with some unexpected, and unwelcome, consequences.
If demography is destiny, the family of Farzaneh Roudi is a snapshot of Iran’s past, present and future. A program director at the Population Reference Bureau in Washington DC, Ms Roudi was born in Iran. Her grandmother had 11 children, her father had 6 and she has 2.
Her profile is not unusual in Iran, where women give birth to fewer than 2 children, on average. This is one of the most remarkable demographic shifts in world history. Its fertility rate has declined from 7 children per woman in 1980 to 1.9 today – a decline of 70 percent in the space of a single generation. And about 80 percent of married women in Iran use contraception -- the highest rate among all the countries in the Middle East.
These staggering statistics confound stereotypes about Iran. Even though the Western media depicts this nation of 70 million as a teeming cauldron of Islamic fundamentalism and social and moral conservatism, the trend to lower birthrates began long ago. In 1967 Mohammad Reza Shah signed the Tehran Declaration. This acknowledged family planning as a human right and programs were quickly established. After the 1979 Islamic Revolution which booted out the Shah, they were dismantled for being pro-Western. But contraceptive use was not totally banned and Imam Khomeini and other Ayatollahs did grant fatwas allowing it as a health measure.
Then came the calamitous eight-year between Iran and Iraq, in which Iran suffered as many as a million casualties. In these drastic circumstances, a large population was regarded as an asset and the government promoted large families.
But after the war, there was a 180-degree turn. Shocked by the rapidly growing population, the government vigorously promoted family planning as a path to economic development. Women were encouraged to space births and to stop at three. Although there was no overt coercion, a 1993 social engineering law penalised large families by terminating family allowances, health benefits and maternity leave for families with four or more children.
The result was unprecedented. Iran’s fertility figures skidded dramatically. The fertility rate for women in rural areas dropped from 8 children per woman in 1977 to 2 children in 2006. According to the leading expert on Iranian demography, Professor Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi, of the University of Teheran, simultaneously young couples were delaying having children, married women were spacing births further apart, and older women stopped bearing children.
Even the Shi’ite clergy supported this massive social change. Imam Khomeini and other ayatollahs granted fatwas allowing contraceptive use.
In fact, nowadays there seems to be a national consensus that small families are good families. Back in 2006 President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had called for a baby boom. "I am against saying that two children are enough. Our country has a lot of capacity. It has the capacity for many children to grow in it. It even has the capacity for 120 million people," he declared. "Westerners have got problems. Because their population growth is negative, they are worried and fear that if our population increases, we will triumph over them."
But this fizzled. His advisors had a quiet word with him and Ahmadinejad turned his mind to other ways of threatening the West.
In any case, Iranian families nowadays resemble the despised Westerners, Ms Roudi told MercatorNet. "Life is not easy nowadays. A lot of the time in the cities both husband and wife work. Their kids have piano classes or karate classes. It’s very normal for families to have only 1 or 2 kids. If you see a young family with 3 children -– that’s a big family."
As a result, Iran’s population profile looks remarkably like a Christmas tree, with a huge bulge between the ages of 15 and 30. Ms Roudi believes that this may help to explain the upheaval in Tehran after the recent disputed election. Most of the protesters were young people.
"Unemployment and high costs of living, coupled with social and political restrictions, have made it increasingly difficult for young Iranians. The sudden uprising that erupted following the disputed presidential election of June 12 is a manifestation of all the underlying frustrations," she writes in the PRB’s population blog.
Paradoxically, they may be frustrated by Iran’s extraordinary achievement in educating its youth. "The successful Iranian uphill battle to improve education in spite of exploding numbers of youngsters and without international assistance must be viewed as a major achievement in human development," writes Professor Abbasi in a recent report. And to further shake Western preconceptions, 65 percent of students admitted to government universities in 2007 were women.
Appalling repression and electoral manipulation after the recent election has entrenched the hold of President Ahmadinejad and his conservative allies on power. But eventually the extraordinary bulge of educated youth will transform Iran, Professor Abbasi, who also teaches at Australian National University, told MercatorNet. "The rapid improvement of education in Iran is likely to generate powerful forces toward more democratic rights," he feels. "There is a high probability that over the coming years, Iran will transform naturally into a modern democracy."
The youth bulge could benefit Iran’s economy. Demographers speak of a "demographic dividend" -– a not-to-be-repeated large number of energetic, well-educated young workers who can contribute to economic growth. Unfortunately unemployment amongst 18 to 30-year-olds is running at about 25 percent. This means that the regime is squandering its opportunity.
There are other shadows, as well. One is drug addiction amongst youth.
Even though it sends drug dealers to the gallows, Iran could have as many as 2 million addicts – nearly 3% of the total population. No other country in the world even comes close to that figure.
"Drug addiction is going up by a horrible rate," a doctor told the Los Angeles Times. "When I was young, in a village or a poor neighborhood you'd hear people say, 'I know an addict.' But now drugs are so pervasive, people say, 'I know somebody who is not an addict.' You criminalise beer, you criminalise girlfriends. You close everything to the young, but the young need a way open, an outlet. We doctors are so angry and frustrated at the government."
And then there is the ticking time-bomb of population ageing. By mid-century, these youthful protesters will be frail and elderly as the bulge works its way to the top of the population pyramid. As in Western Europe and other countries with below-replacement fertility, there will be a relatively small working-age population to support them. The question is how Iran’s government will finance their old age. "I’m sure they will not be prepared," sighed Professor Abbasi.
Iran, like many other countries, is discovering that reducing fertility brings unexpected changes.
Michael Cook is editor of MercatorNet. For more about demography on MercatorNet, visit our Demography is Destiny blog.
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The Torturers and the Secretary
Posted By Michael Ledeen On August 14, 2009 @ 6:07 pm In Uncategorized | 20 Comments
By now, most people know that the Iranian regime treats its dissidents with unrestrained barbarity. Even the leading dead tree media have reported anecdotally on the torture of prisoners and the bashing, beating, axing and stabbing of protestors in the streets of the major cities. But it is not easy to get a clear picture of the dimensions of the savagery. It’s hard to get the real numbers on the bloody repression the mullahs have unleashed on their people, and one reason–perhaps the most important one–is that the regime is doing everything in its power to conceal the facts, typically using the same cruel methods that filled the prisons in the first place.
Officially, the regime claims only 37 dead since the demonstrations began on the 12th of June, but about 1800 persons remain unaccounted for. The real figure is very close to five hundred known dead. And, according to reliable sources, the morgues still have a stockpiles of about 400 corpses. Each day three to four corpses are released to relatives.
The release of the cadavers follows a singularly macabre procedure. Close relatives, such as mothers, are ordered to report to a particular prison. Upon arrival they are immediately – and totally unexpectedly – jailed for two days. After these two days they are told that they can be released but that they first have to sign a secrecy pledge about their treatment and a declaration that their loved one had died of “innocent causes,” such as a car crash. The regime uses several other non-torture related death causes, such as brain injury, heart surgery, etc.
After signing the papers the relative can receive the corpse. Upon receipt of the corpse of the [mainly young] man or woman, the real cause of death–brutal torture–becomes obvious. They see their loved one totally beaten up, nails pulled out, evidence of rape, bodies covered with so many burns that it is difficult to recognize the dead person, and the like.
Despite the secrecy pledge, these horrendous details are now emerging and even members of the usually very loyal part of the clergy are now disgusted and upset. Indeed, there is so much disgust with the supreme leader and his men, that the country is inundated by leaks from the highest level of the regime.
The most famous of these leaks were contained in a letter written by one of the leaders of the opposition Green Movement, Mehdi Karroubi, to his sometime ally, Hashemi Rafsanjani, who still sits in the country’s two most powerful “legislative” bodies, the Guardian Council and the Council of Experts.
Karroubi’s letter was published on August 9th in a newspaper close to his group, and then reprinted on the reformist Norooz web site. The principal accusation was the sexual torture of prisoners. Citing “people who hold sensitive positions in the regime,” Karroubi wrote:
Some of the detainees say that [certain] people [in the prisons] are raping girls who have been arrested, causing them vaginal tearing and injuries. They are also raping young boys, causing them depression and severe physical and emotional harm… so that [after their release] they hide in the corners of their homes.
In light of the gravity of [these allegations], I expect you, as head of the Assembly of Experts, [to form] a committee to will investigate and deal with this matter objectively and transparently…
Although the rape of prisoners is a longstanding practice in the Islamic Republic, the letter produced a considerable outcry. The Parliament appointed a special investigator, who said he could not digest the horrible details (or perhaps face the consequences to himself if he submitted an accurate report), and promptly resigned. But his resignation was rejected. Meanwhile Karroubi himself has left Tehran for his native Lorestan, where he can count on the protection of his people.
Iranian Prosecutor-General Ayatollah Qorban Ali Dori Najafabadi acknowledged that some detainees have been tortured in prison, saying: “Mistakes have led to some unfortunate and indefensible incidents, and those involved will have to be punished.” This includes many reported incidents at Kahrizak prison, where prisoners were killed, and which has [since] been closed on Khamenei’s orders. According to an August 9th article in Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), Mr. Hamid-Reza Katouzian, a member of a Majlis committee formed to monitor the situation of the protest detainees, said that Iranian Police Chief Esmail Ahmadi-Moqaddam received daily reports about torture at this prison, contrary to his public claims that he had known nothing and that he had believed the prisoners had died of natural causes.
Despite all this, Parliamentary Speaker Ali Larijani (the West’s favorite Iranian diplomat) announced yesterday (the thirteenth) that a Parliamentary investigation had found Karroubi’s claims to be false, and demanded that he present his evidence.
These horrible events, all in the name of preserving the pure faith, suggest a system that has gone berserk. The rape of virgin women is justified by a deranged appeal to sharia law, according to which virgins will go to heaven. Ergo, according to the warped logic of the torturers, it is necessary to ensure that women guilty of capital offenses not be virgins, so that they will go elsewhere in the afterlife. But, notwithstanding Ahmadinezhad’s celebrated claim in New York that there are no gay people in Iran, homosexual acts carry the death penalty. Do not hold your breath waiting for the public execution of the rapists Even many supporters of the regime are now beginning to wonder what has gone wrong with the revolution, and some of them are providing the details to people outside the inner circles.
The Western world, in the face of these outrages, maintains near-total silence. Well, except when they choose to pretend that things are not what they clearly are. I just learned that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was on CNN last weekend [1], and, when asked about our Iran policy, made an amazing statement.
“We did not want to get between the legitimate protests and demonstrations of the Iranian people and the leadership,” Clinton said in an interview with CNN broadcast on Sunday.
“And we knew that if we stepped in too soon, too hard… the leadership would try to use us to unify the country against the protesters.”
“Now, behind the scenes, we were doing a lot,” Clinton said. “We were doing a lot to really empower the protesters without getting in the way. And we’re continuing to speak out and support the opposition.”
This is the same secretary of state who equated electoral fraud in Nigeria with the presidential elections in the United States in 2000, thereby demonstrating either consummate ignorance of, or a hyperactive fantasy life about, the real world. Her statement about Iran is cut from the same tapestry. Let’s parse it, shall we?
“We did not want to get between…the Iranian people and the leadership.” That is, we didn’t want to take sides. We didn’t want to get involved. Because we feared that it might wreck our grand strategy of making a deal, any deal, with the mullahs.
“We knew that if we stepped in…the leadership would try to use us to unify the country against the protesters.” And just how would the regime “unify the country,” when the vast majority of Iranians hate Khamenei et. al.? Those nightly chants of “Death to the Dictator” do not continue, “unless the Americans help us, in which case we’ll rally behind the Dictator.” And here again, as so often with this administration, we have the undergraduate beer party-type pop lefty history, the kind that says the Iranians would be simply furious if we helped them gain their freedom. The sort of phony blame-America-first history that presumes the Iranian people think it’s better to be raped than supported, I suppose.
“Behind the scenes…we were doing a lot to really empower the protesters without getting in the way. And we’re continuing to…support the opposition.”
Prove it. So far as I know, we did–and still do–nothing to help the protesters, and we are certainly not supporting the opposition. Have you heard a single word from State or the White House in support of Mousavi? For that matter, have you heard a single word from Hillary decrying mass rape in Iran? I haven’t. I’ve heard her denounce rape in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but not in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
As for Obama, the curtain has fallen over Iran. He’s going to wait, hoping that the regime kills off the leaders of the Green Movement and silences the Iranian people, so that the glorious deal can be consummated.
He and Hillary had a choice between dishonor and war. They chose dishonor. And they have war. IEDs, many of them from Iran, are the biggest cause of American casualties in Afghanistan, aka Obama’s War. And he hasn’t heard the last from the Quds Force in Iraq, either, even though our soldiers are now locked in offsite bases. Iran’s been at war with us for thirty years, and the mullahs are not enchanted by his “special gift.” They intend to defeat us and eventually dominate us. We have yet to fight back effectively, and Hillary’s misrepresentations prove we have no intention of doing so.
It’s embarrassing. And for those of us who have children on the battlefield, as for the Iranians who have children in the nightmare prisons of the regime, it’s awful.
UPDATE: More details [2], from one of the best blogs on things Iranian. h/t Banafsheh.
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URL to article: http://pajamasmedia.com/michaelledeen/2009/08/14/the-torturers-and-the-secretary/
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[1] Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was on CNN last weekend: http://www.mererhetoric.com/archives/11275828.html
[2] More details: http://azarmehr.blogspot.com/2009/08/fath-ol-mobin-codename-for-rape.html
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Iran and the Question of Sanctions
GERMAN CHANCELLOR ANGELA MERKEL and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met in Berlin on Thursday, warning Iran that it will face a new round of “crippling” sanctions if it does not back away from its nuclear program. Their admonishments came after French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s call on Wednesday for similarly tough new sanctions. The harsh words point toward the international pressure coming to bear on Iran as Washington’s September deadline for nuclear negotiations approaches.
While it is not yet clear how international sanctions would play out if Iran disregards the deadline, it is worth considering the general nature of sanctions. Sanctions are a tricky policy to enact effectively on anything other than a long-term time frame, and ultimately require one of two things.
First, they require unanimity. Everyone — and we really do mean everyone — must cooperate. As South Africa discovered during the apartheid years, every major country in the world can declare crippling sanctions — even energy sanctions — against another country, but unless they are willing to cooperate on enforcement there is nothing to stop the odd supertanker from dropping off crude oil on its trip around the Cape of Good Hope.
Or, second, the sanctions must take aim at an array of critical goods and services that immediately impact the behavior or stability of the target country. It does no good, for example, for the EU states to place travel sanctions on the leader of Belarus over human rights abuses when he vacations in Sochi, Russia. Nor is it useful to slap sanctions on a government like Myanmar’s, which is hardly a single entity and, lacking in coherence, has no nerve center or bull’s-eye to strike.
“Iran is a tough nut to crack with sanctions from either the export or import side.”
We use the word “or” at the beginning of the previous paragraph for a reason. Sanctions do not necessarily have to have everyone on board if they target a critical commodity. The Arab oil embargo is a great example of how a non-unanimous sanction policy still can have immediate and massive, far-reaching effects. Conversely, a successful sanctions campaign does not have to shut off a critical commodity entirely if it has uniform application: While it did not deprive South Africans of vital necessities, the decision by most states to stop accepting South African passports did go some way toward cracking the foundation of apartheid.
Iran is a tough nut to crack with sanctions from either the export or import side. More than 90 percent of its export revenues come from oil; therefore, universally adopted sanctions would crack it wide open — yet Iran is the world’s fourth-largest oil exporter, so the rest of the world would feel the pain right along with Tehran. Unanimity would be next to impossible to achieve. Global support for such actions would be dubious at best. Iran’s only other exports of note are carpets and pistachios — and action against either wouldn’t exactly turn the screws on the mullahs. Here it is possible to achieve unanimity, but not criticality.
On the import side, the situation is equally frustrating for those seeking a change of face. Food sanctions achieve criticality, but not unanimity. Nothing is more damning to social stability than a break in food supplies. But actively pursuing a policy of national starvation is a tough sell in the modern age — and Iran imports only about one-fifth of its food.
For Iran, that leaves only gasoline. Experts estimate that Iran imports roughly 40 percent of its gasoline needs. A total shutdown could grind much of the country to a halt — and thus criticality would be achieved. The problem here — again — is coming up with unanimity. In this case, it would be undermined not only by politics, but also by the nature of the product itself.
Sanctions against gasoline are hard to maintain, for the same reason that it is preferred as a fuel source. It is fungible, compact and full of energy (translation: easy to transport). So it can be shipped cost-effectively over water from any number of states to any number of ports via any number of third parties. When you add in politics, it becomes even trickier, since you involve powerful corporations — such as France’s Total or India’s Reliance — that are integrally entwined with governments that would be expected to comply with the sanctions. Moreover, this assumes that Russia — a long-time guardian of Iran whenever an international coalition is mustered against it — is not clandestinely shipping supplies via road or rail from the north, where Russia’s influence is pervasive and an international cordon would be impossible.
So though France, Germany, Israel and the United States do not wish their deadline to be made into a mockery, the limitations of sanctions are difficult to conceal.
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By JOHN BOLTON
Last week, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Mohamed elBaradei attempted to whitewash Iran's nuclear weapons program by issuing a report ignoring substantial information about weaponization activities and downplaying continued noncooperation.
Even the Obama administration apparently now understands that resuming the long-stalled "Permanent-Five plus-one" negotiations (the U.N. Security Council's permanent members plus Germany) with Iran is highly unlikely to halt Tehran's nuclear ambitions.
Accordingly, President Obama is readying two alternatives. One is to characterize "freezing" Iran's nuclear program at existing levels as a "success." However, this less than complete termination of Iran's nuclear program would run contrary to years of determined clandestine efforts. Such a freeze is utterly unverifiable and amounts to surrender. This will result in a nuclear-armed Iran.
The other Obama administration ploy is "strong sanctions" imposed by the United States and other countries. This will also be a "success" only in the sense that it will allow the administration to claim a win. It won't actually prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons.
One idea for robust sanctions now before Congress is to prohibit exports of refined petroleum products—such as gasoline—to Iran. Today, Iran imports 40% of its daily refined petroleum consumption. Other proposals include international financial and insurance-related sanctions.
View Full Image
Associated Press
A Tehran oil refinery
.These ideas are well-intentioned and worth pursuing. If imposed, they will create shortages that will likely increase internal dissatisfaction with Iran's regime, thereby hopefully contributing to its ultimate demise. But no one should believe that tighter sanctions will, in the foreseeable future, have any impact on Iran's nuclear weapons program.
Six years ago more stringent measures against Iran might have worked, but today they are an idea whose time has come and gone. Their inadequacy stems from several causes.
First, the U.N. Security Council is no more likely now to approve strict sanctions against Iran than in the past. The prospects for Russian and Chinese support are between slim and none, since endorsing sanctions would harm their own economic and political interests in Iran. The most to expect from the council is a fourth sanctions resolution, as weak and ineffective as its predecessors, and only after weeks or months of agonizing negotiations.
Second, for those who understand the Security Council reality, most talk of enhanced sanctions envisages a coalition of the willing, consisting essentially of America, Japan and the European Union. But the EU's record to date, and Japan's likely policy under its new government (soon to be run by the Democratic Party of Japan), are hardly likely to produce a stiff, serious and sustained effort. Iran itself will offer countless reasons why sanctions should be suspended, reduced or ignored, and a disquieting amalgam of Western governments, businesses and commentators will agree at every step. It is very likely that EU resolve will fracture and Japan will follow suit. Moreover, many other countries will use the lack of a Security Council imprimatur to conduct business with Tehran, shredding the coalition's sanctions, and thereby weakening EU resolve still further.
Third, Iran is hardly standing idly by while sanctions that target its refined petroleum products are debated by the U.S. and other countries. Tehran's leaders are acutely aware of their vulnerability and are moving to address it. Iran, with extensive Chinese involvement, has already begun building new refineries and expanding existing facilities with the aim of approximately doubling domestic capacity by 2012. This will more than compensate for its current refining shortfall. Whether Iran can complete these projects on schedule remains to be seen, but the level of effort is intense and serious.
Tehran is also eliminating government subsidies that make retail gasoline cheaper than it otherwise would be. This will raise prices and thereby reduce consumption. Slashing consumer benefits is rarely popular, but this step alone will substantially reduce the pressure on Iran's refineries to produce. One can also be sure that the Revolutionary Guards' access to gasoline will not be diminished. Iran claims to have substantially increased its strategic gasoline reserves over the past year (though that increase has not been confirmed).
Most significantly, Iran's estimated natural gas reserves (948 trillion cubic feet in 2008) are second only to Russia's, and more than quadruple the U.S.'s. Here is "energy independence" for Iran that would make T. Boone Pickens envious, since relatively small capital expenditures can refit large motor-vehicle fleets (such as Iran's military and security services) to run on compressed natural gas. Iran also plans to increase subsidies for natural gas, thus diminishing consumer anger over lost gasoline subsidies.
For Washington, the question should not be whether "strict sanctions" will cause some economic harm despite Iran's multifarious, accelerating efforts to mitigate them. Instead, we must ask whether that harm will be sufficient to dissuade Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons. Objectively, there is no reason to believe that it will.
Adopting tougher economic sanctions is simply another detour away from hard decisions on whether to accept a nuclear Iran or support using force to prevent it.
Mr. Bolton, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, is the author of "Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad" (Simon & Schuster, 2007).
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We've Been Talking to Iran for 30 Years
The seizure of the U.S. embassy followed the failure of Carter administration talks with Ayatollah Khomeini's regime..
By MICHAEL LEDEEN
The Obama administration's talks with Iran—set to take place tomorrow in Geneva—are accompanied by an almost universally accepted misconception: that previous American administrations refused to negotiate with Iranian leaders. The truth, as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said last October at the National Defense University, is that "every administration since 1979 has reached out to the Iranians in one way or another and all have failed."
After the fall of the shah in February 1979, the Carter administration attempted to establish good relations with the revolutionary regime. We offered aid, arms and understanding. The Iranians demanded that the United States honor all arms deals with the shah, remain silent about human-rights abuses carried out by the new regime, and hand over Iranian "criminals" who had taken refuge in America. The talks ended with the seizure of the American Embassy in November.
President Jimmy Carter announces that the U.S. will seek economic sanctions against Iran, Dec. 21, 1979. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance looks on.
.The Reagan administration—driven by a desire to gain the release of the American hostages—famously sought a modus vivendi with Iran in the midst of the Iran-Iraq War during the mid-1980s. To that end, the U.S. sold weapons to Iran and provided military intelligence about Iraqi forces. High-level American officials such as Robert McFarlane met secretly with Iranian government representatives to discuss the future of the relationship. This effort ended when the Iran-Contra scandal erupted in late 1986.
The Clinton administration lifted sanctions that had been imposed by Messrs. Carter and Reagan. During the 1990s, Iranians (including the national wrestling team) entered the U.S. for the first time since the '70s. The U.S. also hosted Iranian cultural events and unfroze Iranian bank accounts. President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright publicly apologized to Iran for purported past sins, including the overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh's government by the CIA and British intelligence in August 1953. But it all came to nothing when Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei proclaimed that we were their enemies in March 1999.
Most recently, the administration of George W. Bush—invariably and falsely described as being totally unwilling to talk to the mullahs—negotiated extensively with Tehran. There were scores of publicly reported meetings, and at least one very secret series of negotiations. These negotiations have rarely been described in the American press, even though they are the subject of a BBC documentary titled "Iran and the West."
At the urging of British Foreign Minister Jack Straw, the U.S. negotiated extensively with Ali Larijani, then-secretary of Iran's National Security Council. By September 2006, an agreement had seemingly been reached. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Nicholas Burns, her top Middle East aide, flew to New York to await the promised arrival of an Iranian delegation, for whom some 300 visas had been issued over the preceding weekend. Mr. Larijani was supposed to announce the suspension of Iranian nuclear enrichment. In exchange, we would lift sanctions. But Mr. Larijani and his delegation never arrived, as the BBC documentary reported.
Negotiations have always been accompanied by sanctions. But neither has produced any change in Iranian behavior.
Until the end of 2006—and despite appeals for international support, notably from Mr. Clinton—sanctions were almost exclusively imposed by the U.S. alone. Mr. Carter issued an executive order forbidding the sale of anything to Tehran except food and medical supplies. Mr. Reagan banned the importation of virtually all Iranian goods and services in October 1987. Mr. Clinton issued an executive order in March 1995 prohibiting any American involvement with petroleum development. The following May he issued an additional order tightening those sanctions. Five years later, Secretary of State Albright eased some of the sanctions by allowing Americans to buy and import carpets and some food products, such as dried fruits, nuts and caviar.
Mr. Bush took spare parts for commercial aircraft off the embargo list in the fall of 2006. On the other hand, in 2008 he revoked authorization of so-called U-turn transfers, making it illegal for any American bank to process transactions involving Iran—even if non-Iranian banks were at each end.
Throughout this period, our allies advocated for further diplomacy instead of sanctions. But beginning in late 2006, the United Nations started passing sanctions of its own. In December of that year, the Security Council blocked the import or export of "sensitive nuclear material and equipment" and called on member states to freeze the assets of anyone involved with Iran's nuclear program.
In 2007, the Security Council banned all arms exports from Iran, froze Iranian assets, and restricted the travel of anyone involved in the Iranian nuclear program. The following year, it called for investigations of Iranian banks, and authorized member countries to start searching planes and ships coming or going from or to Iran. All to no avail.
Thirty years of negotiations and sanctions have failed to end the Iranian nuclear program and its war against the West. Why should anyone think they will work now? A change in Iran requires a change in government. Common sense and moral vision suggest we should support the courageous opposition movement, whose leaders have promised to end support for terrorism and provide total transparency regarding the nuclear program.
Mr. Ledeen, a scholar at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, is the author, most recently, of "Accomplice to Evil: Iran and the War Against the West," out next month from St. Martin's Press.
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BEIJING — Leaders of the House Foreign Affairs Committee swept into Beijing last month to meet with Chinese officials, carrying a plea from Washington: if Iran were to be kept from developing nuclear weapons, China would have to throw more diplomatic weight behind the cause.
In fact, the appeal had been largely answered even before the legislators arrived.
In June, China National Petroleum signed a $5 billion deal to develop the South Pars natural gas field in Iran. In July, Iran invited Chinese companies to join a $42.8 billion project to build seven oil refineries and a 1,019-mile trans-Iran pipeline. And in August, almost as the Americans arrived in China, Tehran and Beijing struck another deal, this time for $3 billion, that will pave the way for China to help Iran expand two more oil refineries.
The string of energy deals appalled the Democratic chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Representative Howard L. Berman of California, who called them “exactly the wrong message” to send to an Iran that seemed determined to flout international nuclear rules.
But some analysts see another message: as the United States issues new calls to punish Iran for secretly expanding its nuclear program, it is not at all clear that Washington’s interests are the same as Beijing’s.
That will make it doubly difficult, these analysts say, to push meaningful sanctions against Iran through the United Nations Security Council, where China not only holds a veto but has also been one of Iran’s more reliable defenders.
“Their threat perception on this issue is different from ours,” said Zalmay Khalilzad, who as the American ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush helped persuade China to approve limited sanctions against Iran. “They don’t see Iran in the same way as we do.”
François Godement, a prominent China scholar and the president of the Paris-based Asia Center, put it more bluntly. “Basically,” he said, “the rise of Iran is not bad news for China.”
To be sure, China and the United States, leading members of the club of nuclear nations, share a practical interest in halting the spread of nuclear weapons to volatile areas like the Middle East. And it is in China’s interest to avoid alienating the United States, its economic and, increasingly, diplomatic partner on matters of global importance.
But beyond that, many experts say, their differences over Iran are not only economic but also ideological and strategic.
The United States has almost no financial ties with Iran, regards its government as a threat to global stability and worries that a rising Tehran would threaten American alliances and energy agreements in the Persian Gulf.
In contrast, China’s economic links to Tehran are growing rapidly, and China’s leaders see Iran not as a threat but as a potential ally. Nor would the Chinese be distressed, the reasoning goes, should a nuclear-armed Iran sap American influence in the region and drain the Pentagon’s resources in more Middle East maneuvering.
“Chinese leaders view Iran as a country of great potential power, perhaps already the economic and, maybe, militarily dominant power in that region,” said John W. Garver, a professor of international relations at Georgia Tech and the author of “China and Iran: Ancient Partners in a Post-Imperial World.”
An alliance with Tehran, he said, would be a bulwark against what China suspects is an American plan to maintain global dominance by controlling Middle Eastern energy supplies.
Beyond that, China relies heavily on Iran’s vast energy reserves — perhaps 15 percent of the world’s natural gas deposits and a tenth of its oil — to offset its own shortages. The Chinese are estimated to have $120 billion committed to Iranian gas and oil projects, and China has been Iran’s biggest oil export market for the past five years. In return, Iran has loaded up on imported Chinese machine tools, factory equipment, locomotives and other heavy goods, building China into one of its largest trading partners.
China scholars say that the relationship is anything but one-sided. Iran has skillfully parceled out its oil and gas reserves to Chinese companies, holding exploration and development as a sort of insurance policy to retain Chinese diplomatic backing in the United Nations.
For its part, China has opposed stiff sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program, acceding mostly to restrictions on trade in nuclear-related materials and orders to freeze the overseas assets of some Iranian companies.
Many experts question how much more punishment Beijing would agree to support. Iran has already been cited three times by the Security Council, with Beijing’s backing, for flouting prohibitions against its nuclear program.
In each case, Beijing agreed to measures only after stronger American proposals had been watered down and after Russia, the Council’s other critic of stiff sanctions and a close ally of Iran, had signed off on the proposal.
One noted Chinese analyst, Shi Yinhong of People’s University in Beijing, said in a telephone interview this week that China would probably follow much the same course should a new sanctions proposal reach the Security Council.
“China will do its utmost to find a balance” between Iran and the United States, Mr. Shi said. If Russia joins the other Council members in supporting a new sanctions resolution, he said, “China will do its best to try to dilute it, to make it limited, rather than veto it.”
But it is unlikely to do so happily. Supporting stronger sanctions might elevate China’s image as a global diplomatic leader, but the United States, not China, would reap the real benefits.
“China is not anxious to jump on this American train,” said one Chinese analyst, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to freely assess China’s foreign policy.
Li Bibo contributed research.
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Iran and the Strait of Hormuz, Part 3: The Psychology of Naval Mines
Stratfor Today » October 7, 2009 | 1240 GMT
Summary
Relatively cheap, cost effective and easy to deploy, mines are the improvised explosive devices of naval warfare, and the potential variations in the Iranian mine arsenal are practically limitless. Could Iran close the Strait of Hormuz with an impenetrable field of naval mines? Probably not, but it wouldn’t have to. In mine warfare, the ultimate objective is often psychological.
Editor’s Note: This is part three in a three-part series examining Iran’s ability to close the Strait of Hormuz.
Analysis
Perhaps even less clear than the composition of Iran’s anti-ship missile arsenal is its stockpile of naval mines. Over the years, Tehran has amassed thousands of mines, largely from Russia and China. Many are old free-floating and moored contact mines, which must physically make contact with a ship’s hull in order to detonate. But Iran has also acquired more advanced naval mines that have complex and sensitive triggers — some can be detonated by acoustic noise, others by magnetic influence from the metal of a ship’s hull. When deployed, many of these mines rest on the sea floor (for better concealment) and are designed to release what is essentially a small torpedo, either guided or unguided.
Iran also is thought to manufacture naval mines indigenously, and this is the real problem for mine-clearing operations in the Strait of Hormuz. Naval mines need not be particularly complex or difficult to build to be effective (though a long shelf life ashore and longevity in the maritime environment are important considerations and require a detailed understanding of naval mine design). Relatively cheap, cost effective and easy to deploy, mines are the improvised explosive devices of naval warfare, and the potential variations in the Iranian mine arsenal are practically limitless. The question is not how many modern mines Iran has acquired but what Iran has improvised and cobbled together within its own borders and manufactured in numbers. Although old, poorly maintained naval mines and poor storage conditions can be a recipe for disaster, many of Iran’s mines may have been modified or purpose-built to suit Iran’s needs and methods of deployment.
These methods of deployment extend far beyond Iran’s small number of larger, purpose-built mine-warfare ships. Not only have fishing dhows and trawlers been modified for mine-warfare purposes, but the naval arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is known to have a fleet of small boats not just for swarming and suicide attacks but also to be employed to sow naval mines.
Because of the uncertainty surrounding Iran’s mine-laying capability as well as its naval mine stockpile, it is as impossible to estimate the effort it would take to clear Iranian mines from the strait. It all depends on what plays out, and there are many scenarios. One envisions Iran surreptitiously sowing mines for several days before the U.S. military detects the effort. Another has Iran deploying mines after an initial American strike, in which case Iran’s mine-laying capability would be severely degraded. The question of which side moves first is a critical one for almost any scenario.
But it is reasonably clear that Iran lacks both the arsenal and the capability for a “worst-case” scenario: sowing a full offensive field across the Strait of Hormuz composed of tens of thousands of mines that would effectively prevent any ship from entering the waterway. Though the IRGC and other forces that could be involved in mine-laying operations certainly practice their craft, their proficiency is not at all clear. And though the Iranians have a variety of mine-laying vessels at their disposal, their ability to perform the precise navigation and coordination required to lay a large-scale minefield with its hodgepodge of purpose-built minelayers, modified dhows and barges and small boats is questionable.
Most important — and most problematic for the Iranians — is the fact that the United States has a considerable presence near the strait and maintains close situational awareness in the region. Iran does not have the luxury of time when it comes to sowing mines. Some limited, covert mine laying cannot be ruled out, but Tehran cannot exclude the possibility of being caught — and the consequences of being caught would be significant, almost certainly involving a U.S. military strike. In any Iranian attempt to close the strait, it must balance the need to deploy as many mines as possible as quickly as possible with the need to do so surreptitiously. The former attempt could be quickly spotted, while the latter may fail to sow a sufficient number of mines to create the desired effect.
In addition, the damage that even a significant number of mines can physically do may be limited. Most naval mines — especially the older variety — can inflict only minor damage to a modern tanker or warship. During the “Tanker Wars,” the Kuwaiti tanker MV Bridgeton and the guided missile frigate USS Samuel B Roberts (FFG 58) were struck by crude Iranian mines in 1987 and 1988, respectively. Though both were damaged, neither sank.
But in mine warfare, the ultimate objective is often psychological. The uncertainty of a threat can instill as much fear as the certainty of it, and Iran need not sow a particularly coherent field of mines to impede traffic through the strait. A single ship striking a naval mine (or even a serious Iranian move to sow mines) could quickly and dramatically drive up global oil prices and maritime insurance rates. This combination is bad enough in the best of times. But the Iranian threat to the Strait of Hormuz could not be more effective than at this moment, with the world just starting to show signs of economic recovery. The shock wave of a spike in energy prices — not to mention the wider threat of a conflagration in the Persian Gulf — could leave the global economy in even worse straits than it was a year ago.
We will not delve here into the calculations of maritime insurers other than to say that, when it comes to supertankers and their cargo, an immense amount of money is at stake
— and this cuts both ways. Even damage to a supertanker can quickly run into the millions of dollars — not to mention the opportunity cost of having the ship out of commission. On the other hand, especially at a time when the strait is dangerous and oil prices are through the roof, there would be windfall profits to be made from a successful transit to open waters.
The initial shock to the global economy of a supertanker hitting a mine in the strait would be profound, but its severity and longevity would depend in large part on the extent of the mining, Iran’s ability to continue laying mines and the speed of mine-clearing operations. And, as always, it would all hinge on the quality of intelligence. While some military targets — major naval installations, for example — are large, fixed and well known, Iran’s mine-laying capability is more dispersed (like its nuclear program). That, along with Iran’s armada of small boats along the Persian Gulf coast, suggests it may not be possible to bring Iran’s mine-laying efforts to an immediate halt. Barring a cease-fire, limited, low-level mining operations could well continue.
Given the variables involved, it is difficult to describe exactly what a U.S. mine-clearing operation might look like in the strait, although enough is known about the U.S. naval presence in the region and other mine-clearing operations to suggest a rough scenario. The United States keeps four mine countermeasures ships forward deployed in the Persian Gulf. A handful of allied minesweepers are also generally on station, as well as MH-53E Sea Dragon helicopters, which are used in such operations. This available force in the region approaches the size of the mine-clearing squadron employed during Operation Iraqi Freedom to clear the waterway leading to the port of Umm Qasr, although it does not include a mine countermeasures command ship and represents a different clearing scenario.
The clearing of the Strait of Hormuz would begin with the clearing of a “Q-route,” a lane calculated to entail less than a 10 percent chance of a mine strike. While there may be considerable uncertainty in this calculation, the route would be used for essential naval traffic and also would play a role in the ongoing clearing operation. The time it would take to clear such a route would vary considerably, based on a wide variety of factors, but it could be a week or more. And a Q-route suitable for large supertankers could take longer to clear than the initial route.
The sooner maritime commerce can resume transiting the strait (perhaps escorted at first by naval vessels), the shorter the crisis would be. The more time that passes without a mine strike, the faster confidence would return. But another mine strike could cause another shock to the global economy, even after clearing operations have been under way for some time.
The fact is, the United States and its allies have the capability to clear naval mines from the Strait of Hormuz, technically speaking. But mine countermeasures work is notoriously under-resourced — it is neither the sexiest nor the most career-enhancing job in the U.S. Navy. So while even a sizable mine-clearing operation in the strait would have historical precedent in other locations, it would be wrong to assume that such an operation would go smoothly and efficiently, even under the best of circumstances.
The efficiency of a mine-clearing effort in the strait would be subject to any number of variables. One thing is clear, however: Any Iranian mining effort could quickly have profound and far-reaching consequences — including an impact on the global economy far out of proportion to the actual threat. Naval mines laid by Iran would take a considerable amount of time — weeks or months — to clear from the strait, and their effect would be felt long after an American air campaign ended. Indeed, should hostilities continue for some time, having small boats continue to seed mines may be the most survivable of Iran’s asymmetric naval capabilities.
Ultimately, Iran’s military capabilities should not be understood as tools that can only be used independently. If it attempted to close the strait, Iran would draw on the full spectrum of its capabilities in order to be as disruptive as possible. For example, Iran could hold its anti-ship missiles in reserve and launch them at smaller mine countermeasures ships conducting clearing operations in the strait, since these vessels have nowhere near the defensive capabilities of surface combatants. It would also take a considerable amount of time for Washington to send more countermeasures ships to the area from the continental United States above what would likely be deployed ahead of a crisis (if Washington had the luxury of enough warning).
The bottom line is that there is considerable uncertainty and substantial risk for both sides. But while Iran’s capability to actually “close” the strait is questionable, there is little doubt that it could quickly wreak havoc on the global economy by doing much less.
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I do not see a long term downside for Iran if they do mine the straight. If they mined it to make political waves, to force the west's hand, the west does not have the political will to react in a long term damaging way. There will be gnashing of teeth and rattling of sabers but that is about as bad as it will get. Iran's weakness is its economy. The population is young and there is a large number of well educated people. They are very dissatisfied with the repressive nature of the government. The way through, assuming we are not drawn in to war by Israel going after nukes, is to blockade and send in humit assets to topple the government. Of coarse this assumes the will to do so and we are back to the lack of it. We also lack humit assets thanks to Clinton moving the intell community away from them. I think we are boinked until the economy gets bad enough or there is a nuke detonated for the west to grow some.
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"Over the years, Tehran has amassed thousands of mines, largely from Russia and China."
For all the billions invested and bullsh*t exchanged in all these multilateral diplomacies, is there no international law or UN resolution prohibiting China and Russia from conspiring with a terrorist nation to mine international waters for random, massive destruction?
Perhaps the west should detonate one Chinese ship in international waters for each oil vessel damaged until they bring their own central party swimmers in to round up each and every explosive until the waters are clear.
More likely we will have another multilateral commission look blindly into the matter and get back to us with no solution at some later date yet to be determined.
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For the record the US is by far the world's largest arms merchant and we are not always very careful about to whom we sell.
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If one does a search for US arms sales by country there is a lot that comes up. Israel near the top for two years. Poland fell out of first place. Iraq and Pakistan now moving up. Both banned from US arms sales - not too long ago - presumable before Saddan toppled and before 911 and the flight Osama to Pahhhhkistan.
A sample:
http://fas.org/programs/ssp/asmp/publications/ASMP_Publications_2009/FAS_Obtains_Key_Arms_Export_Report_July17.pdf
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"For the record the US is by far the world's largest arms merchant and we are not always very careful about to whom we sell."
Can you give an example as egregious as selling mines to Iran for them to terrorize a crucial shipping lane in international waters?
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If you were to take the time (because I am not going to) I am sure you could find that we have sold to egregious actors many, many times. I am quite confident of this.
BTW IIRC we sold the raw materials to SH for his WMD attacks on Iran (and the Kurds?)
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This is from the Heritage Foundation:
Iranian Official Promises a Diplomatic Slowdown and Gloats: “Time is on our side”Share
Yesterday at 10:22pm
Hopes for a quick diplomatic breakthrough in the long-running stalemate over Iran’s nuclear weapons program have been dimmed by Iranian backtracking on a tentative agreement reached on October 1 in Geneva and Iran’s foot-dragging on future negotiations. Reuters today quoted an anonymous senior Iranian official as saying “Time is on our side” and declaring that Iran plans to slow-walk the diplomatic negotiations that will resume on October 19 by sending junior officials who do not have the authority to make firm commitments.
This confirms previous suspicions that Tehran will exploit the P5+1 talks to engage in a diplomatic filibuster that will defuse momentum for further international sanctions while Iran continues to move forward on its nuclear program.
The value of the “agreement in principle” reached in Geneva on October 1 also has been substantially downgraded by a blockbuster revelation publicized today in a Washington Post column by David Ignatius. Ignatius cited an article in Nucleonics Week that reported that Iran’s supplies of low-enriched uranium appear to be contaminated by impurities that could wreck centrifuges if Tehran tries to boost it to weapons grade fissile material. Ignatius wrote:
You’ve got to hand it to the Iranians, though, for making the best of what might be a bad situation: In the proposal embraced in Geneva, they have gotten the West to agree to decontaminate fuel that would otherwise be useful only for the low-enriched civilian nuclear power they have always claimed is their only goal.
Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal today reported that U.S. intelligence officials are considering whether to rewrite the controversial 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear activities. The findings of that NIE, which concluded that Iran had suspended its nuclear weapons program in 2003, have been disputed by intelligence agencies from Britain, France, Germany and Israel. Even IAEA officials, who have long treated Iran with kid gloves and accorded it the benefit of the doubt, have been critical of the NIE’s findings. The recent revelation of Iran’s secret uranium enrichment facility hidden inside a mountain near Qom also has cast further doubt on the NIE.
Congressional pressure is building to review the flawed 2007 NIE. Last week Rep. Pete Hoekstra, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, urged Congress to establish an independent “red team” of outside experts to review the 2007 NIE in light of disturbing recent revelations about the Iranian nuclear program. Rep. Hoekstra is right: a re-evaluation of the NIE is long overdue.
For more on the 2007 NIE, see: The Iran National Intelligence Estimate: A Comprehensive Guide to What Is Wrong with the NIE
For more information on the Iran nuclear program see: Iran Briefing Room
Boyo
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The US has no sanctions card without the Russians and the Chinese and we have neither of them in favor of sanctions-- so of course the Iranians continue to do what has worked for several years now (which most certainly includes the Bush era)
What are we to do?
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Well there are 2 obvious courses of action .The first being unleash the Isrealis the second being act like we got a pair.They are simplistic yes but the simplest answer is usually the correct one.the chinese and the Russians are never going to help willingly and now that the obama has shown just how far over his head /naive he is I think the Isrealis are all alone.they are going to have to act and in my opinion the sooner the better.I bet they act or the Iranians have some kind of "accident" before the new year.Or I could be talking out my ass.It wouldn't be the first time. :-D
Boyo
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Unleash the Isrealis?
As a practical matter, Iran is a long reach for them. There are rumors that the Sauds have cleared use of their airspace, and there are rumors of the capabilities of Israeli subs. The Iranian program is spread out and dug in. Will the Israelis be able to access and destroy it? To ensure success, do nukes become part of the equation? Have not the Iranians built in populaution centers?
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The only other hope has been regime change since we keep hearing how so many "ordinary" Iranians don't like the Mullahs and prefer a more Western style government though I am not clear they love Jews.
Thanks to the One's ridiculously foolish premise that engagement with despots is better than previous tacts we may have missed an opportunity. Of course when one is a radical, US hating President who surrounds himself with like minded people this is what we get.
OTOH it is not so foolish since in His opinion We are the despots NOT the Mullahs (or whatever they call themselves).
In any case here is Jonah explaining the opinion of a legitimate Nobel Peace prize winner and how the One screwed up an opportunity in her much more expert and "in the know" opinion:
Goldberg: Regime Is Iran’s Disease; Nukes Are Just a Symptom
the government actually promised to stop its nuclear program tomorrow,” Ebadi told the Post. “Would you trust this government not to start another secret nuclear program somewhere else?”
It’s a profound and fundamental point. We’ve gotten many such promises from the North Koreans. They are worthless. Promises from oppressive regimes cannot be trusted any more than promises from Tony Soprano could be. If a government is willing to betray its own people on a daily basis, what makes anyone think that it won’t betray its geopolitical adversaries?
A democratic Iran, Ebadi says, would be unlikely to pursue a nuclear program. The Iranian people fear sanctions more than the country’s corrupt, economically insulated rulers do. Moreover, the Iranian regime needs nukes for its own survival. The Iranian people may like the prestige of being a member of the nuclear club, but they aren’t eager to pay any price to join. More important, the Iranian people aren’t interested in preserving the current regime, as has been demonstrated by the historic protests this summer.
But even if Iran did go nuclear, who really cares as long as the nutty, messianic, totalitarian leadership is gone? A stable, democratic regime concerned with economic growth and normalcy might not be perfect, but which sort of government would you rather see in charge of nuclear weapons?
Democracy is not necessarily a cure-all. Palestinians in Gaza held elections and swept Hamas to power. But the Iranians aren’t Gazans. And while America is despised by most nations in the region, the U.S. is actually popular with the Iranian people.
Ebadi doesn’t want America to topple the Iranian regime the way it toppled Saddam Hussein’s. Or, if she does, she’s certainly smart enough not to say so outright, given that her family is under constant surveillance by Iranian authorities. What she wants is for America to get its priorities straight. Iran, which has been sponsoring terror for 30 years, is a threat because the Iranian regime is a threat. Change the regime and the threat diminishes or vanishes instantaneously. We had a golden opportunity to accelerate regime change in June, but Obama blinked.
Enamored with the idea that “engagement” with evil will produce good, and convinced that a brutal, undemocratic regime is the legitimate representative of the Iranian people, Obama was slow to recognize the moral authority of the democracy movement. By the time he did say what he should have said at the outset, it was clear that his grudging and qualified support for the protesters had no steel to it. The Iranian regime recognized that it would have a free hand to murder and intimidate its own people in order to reconsolidate power after it stole the election. This was a sad moment for the leader of the free world. “Mr. Obama has extended the hand of friendship to a man who has blood on his hands,” Ebadi told the Post. “He can at least avoid shaking the hand of friendship with him.”
There are rumors — unconfirmed at this point — that the Supreme Leader of Iran, the Ayatollah Khamenei, is either dead or in a coma. If true, the resulting power vacuum might give Obama the chance for a do-over. That is, if he’s interested in earning a peace prize, not just winning one.
— Jonah Goldberg is editor-at-large of National Review Online and the author of Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning. © 2009 Tribune Media Services, Inc.
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Guro
You are correct when you say Iran is a long reach for them. but if an accident does occur then did the Isrealis really do it? Now the ideal is a regime change like CCP stated that would be in every ones best interest.However that ship may have set sail already and the obama intentionally missed the boat by not backing the protesters in Iran when he had the chance.It would be unfortunate to have an accident happen in a population center but should Iran get nukes and "blow the heart out of Isreal", to qoute the Iranian president , which would be worse in Isreals eyes? :|
Boyo
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Summary
Two blasts in Sistan-Balochistan province killed several prominent members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, as well as dozens of others Oct. 18, and Iran has accused Western powers of aiding the rebel group that has claimed responsibility. While there is currently no evidence of outside involvement in the attacks, a number of parties may view the rebel group as a useful proxy against Tehran, and the attacks have the potential to hamper U.S.-Iranian negotiations on Tehran’s nuclear program.
Analysis
Two coordinated bombings occurred in Iran’s southeastern Sistan-Balochistan province the morning of Oct. 18, killing and injuring dozens of people, including high-level commanders of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
The first attack was an alleged suicide bombing that targeted a meeting of Sunni and Shiite tribal leaders in Pishin district, close to the Iranian border with Pakistan. Several provincial IRGC commanders were in attendance. When the meeting was about to adjourn, the suicide bomber reportedly detonated his vest. Provincial IRGC commanders Brig. Gen. Nour-Ali Shoushtari, the IRGC’s lieutenant commander of ground forces, and Brig. Gen. Rajab-Ali Mohammadzadeh were among those killed in the attack.
The second bombing went off close to the same time in the same Pishin region along the border. A convoy of IRGC commanders was targeted with a suspected roadside improvised explosive device when the convoy was turning at an intersection between the towns of Sarbaz and Chabahar. The commanders of Sistan-Balochistan province, the Iranshahr Corps, the Sarbaz Corps and the Amiralmomenin Brigade were killed in the blast.
Sistan-Balochistan is a resource-poor, mostly lawless region of Iran that borders Pakistan and Afghanistan. Sunni Baloch tribesmen make up the dominant ethnic group in the province, and are consistently at odds with the Shiite-controlled government in Tehran. Many of these tribesmen make their living off smuggling, drug trafficking and banditry in the lawless border region, making this a particularly troublesome spot for Iran’s security apparatus. Of most concern for Tehran is a Baloch rebel group by the name of Jundallah led by a young man named Abdolmalek Rigi.
According to Iranian state television, Jundallah has claimed responsibility for the attack on the tribal gathering. The group has also claimed responsibility for a series of other bombings, kidnappings and attacks targeting the Iranian security apparatus over the past several years, including a December 2006 kidnapping of seven Iranian soldiers, a February 2007 car bombing that killed 11 IRGC members near Zahedan and more recently, a May suicide bombing at a Shiite mosque in Zahedan that killed 25 people. In light of the deteriorating security situation in the province, the Iranian government boosted the IRGC presence in the area in an attempt to clamp down on the low-level insurgency. However, the increased IRGC presence so far appears to have only provided Jundallah with a larger target set.
The Iranians have long accused U.S. and British intelligence of providing military and financial support to Jundallah from positions across the border in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Considering that only about half of Iran’s population is Persian, foreign support to ethnic minorities like the Baloch in the southeast, the Kurds in the northwest and the Ahvazi Arabs in the oil-rich southwest are all obvious levers for foreign intelligence agencies to prod the Iranian regime.
While the United States does not mind applying pressure on Tehran from time to time, the Oct. 18 bombings come at a particularly critical time in U.S.-Iranian negotiations. On Oct. 19, representatives from Iran, the International Atomic Energy Agency, France, Russia and the United States are to meet in Vienna to follow up the Oct. 1 negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program. The aim of the meeting is to reach a compromise among all parties in which Iran would receive the 20 percent enriched uranium it desires for a research reactor in Tehran.
The United States, not wanting to throw these talks off course, has been quick to deny a hand in the latest attacks. In response to Iranian parliament speaker Ali Larijani’s claim that the bombings were “the result of the U.S. actions,” U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said such allegations were “completely false” and said that the United States condemns the act of terrorism and mourns the loss of innocent lives.
The United States badly wants the negotiations with Iran to achieve enough tangible results to calm Israeli fears over Iran’s nuclear ambitions and thus stave off a military confrontation in the Persian Gulf. Though it remains unclear whether Jundallah was acting alone in carrying out these attacks, it is not a far stretch to assume that the group has received foreign backing in recent years that has allowed it to significantly escalate its militant campaign against the regime. At the same time, the United States is likely to be more cautious in this delicate stage of negotiations with Tehran. The last thing Washington wants is to give Tehran another excuse to walk away from these talks and Israel an excuse to demand more aggressive action against Iran.
There are, however, a number of third parties that could have an interest in derailing this latest U.S.-Iranian attempt at negotiations. Such parties include groups like al Qaeda and the Taliban, which are trying to divert U.S. attention away from themselves in neighboring Pakistan and Afghanistan, Russia, which is engaged in its own complex negotiating game with Washington, and even perhaps Israel, which does not have much faith in the current diplomatic process and would like to push the United States into taking a harder line against Iran. The possibilities are vast, but there is no evidence as of yet to suggest that any one of these players had a role in orchestrating the latest attacks. Still, the Baloch insurgency in Iran provides an opportunity for a number of foreign players to stir the pot according to their interests.
Iran has so far pointed the blame at the United States for the attacks, but has not given any indication yet that it is pulling out of the negotiations. The Iranians are on alert for U.S.-Israeli military maneuvers in the region and thus have an interest in handling these talks cautiously. After all, as long as Iran can appear diplomatically engaged, the better chances it will have in staving off a military crisis.
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Iran, N. Korea supplying weapons to Syria
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WASHINGTON, Oct. 23 (UPI) -- Iran has acted as mediator with North Korea to deliver weapons of mass destruction and missile technology to Syria, a congressional report said.
The U.S. Congressional Research Service said in a report released earlier this month that Iran is one of the biggest customers for North Korean arms, acting as a possible go-between for Syria's arsenal.
"Iran purportedly has acted as an intermediary with North Korea to supply Syria with various forms of WMD and missile technology," the report said.
The Israeli air force in 2007 struck a facility near al-Kibar, Syria, which intelligence officials claim was a nuclear reactor of North Korean design under construction since 2001.
A report from Jane's Intelligence Review in February says commercial satellite imagery of another Syrian site, al-Safir, depicts what are thought to be the defining characteristics of not only chemical weapons manufacturing, but also of heavy construction activity near a missile base.
Iranian officials, for their part, were thought to be on hand when North Korea tested a nuclear device in May and a long-range missile in April, reports South Korea's Yonhap News Agency.
The congressional report goes on to say Iran has "several" submarines with sonar-evading technology that were "possibly" connected to North Korea.
Iran this year unveiled several new lines of military
technology, including three stealth submarines and a rapid-fire 40mm anti-Cruise missile canon, dubbed Fath.
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/...0391256320186/
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http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2009/11/brave-iranians-hold-massive-protest-against-regime-chant-obama-obama-are-you-with-regime-or-with-us-video/
Sorry freedom seeking Iranians, Obama can only fight Fox News.
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Backs up GM's post. Has interesting take from Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi (PlanetIran.com)
http://www.pjtv.com/v/2691
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http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=global-wheat-crop-threatened-by-fungus (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=global-wheat-crop-threatened-by-fungus)
In 1999 agricultural researchers discovered in Uganda a new variety of stem rust—a fungus that infects wheat plants and wiped out 40 percent of U.S. wheat harvests in the 1950s. Millions of spores have spread from Uganda to neighboring Kenya and beyond to Ethiopia, Sudan and Yemen, wiping out as much as 80 percent of a country's harvest. In fact, the only thing that has stopped the rust from devastating the breadbaskets of China, India and Ukraine has been several years of drought in Iran.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Fungus+threat+hangs+over+world+wheat+production/1728850/story.html (http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Fungus+threat+hangs+over+world+wheat+production/1728850/story.html)
OTTAWA — Scientists in Canada and around the world are racing to find a way to stop a destructive fungus that threatens to wipe out 80 per cent of the world's wheat crop, causing widespread famine and pushing the cost of such staples as bread and pasta through the roof.
Canadian officials say that the airborne fungus, known as Ug99, has so far proved unstoppable, making its way out of eastern Africa and into the Middle East and Central Asia. It is now threatening areas that account for more than one-third of the world's wheat production and scientists in North America say it's only a matter of time before the pest hits the breadbasket regions of North America, Russia and China.
I do not know if this will greatly impact them to the point of serious blackmail, but consider the fact that we may need to take our own steps for when this stuff gets to us.
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Iranian weapons in Iraq and Gaza
PJTV Video: "EXCLUSIVE: Blogger Exposes How Iran Arms Terrorists in Iraq & Gaza" http://www.pjtv.com/v/2692
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Who's running our Iran policy?
Ed Lasky
John Limbert, Obama's new man who occupies the Iran chair at the State Department, is now subject to some controversy because of his ties to the National Iranian American Council -- which appears to be illegally serving as a lobby for Iran. Trita Parsi, who heads the NIAC, ridicules claims that Limbert might be amenable to the goals of Iran's regime by pointing out that Limbert was a hostage during the Iranian Embassy crisis and wonders how anyone could think that a hostage would show deference to the very regime that imprisoned him. (and many others).
Michael Goldfarb and others have speculated that Stockholm Syndrome may be in play -- that a hostage may come to respect his captors. This video clip, unwittingly provided to Andrew Sullivan by the NIAC, certainly lends some credence to those views.
This clip shows Limbert -- while he was being held "hostage" -- welcoming ( in a deferential and considerate manner) Ali Khamenei, then Iran's president and now its Supreme Leader.
Now some might consider this the appropriate and diplomatic approach; others might wonder otherwise. Andrew Sullivan writes of the clip:
It shows Amb. John Limbert, at the time a hostage in the US Embassy, speaking with Ali Khamenei, then Iran's president (and currently the Supreme Leader). [...] For non-Farsi speakers, the exchange between Limbert and Khamenei here is incredibly interesting. To paraphrase: Limbert politely welcomed Khamenei, who was being treated as a guest since he was visiting the hostages at their "residence" where they were being held. Limbert remarked about the Iranian cultural quirk known as "taarof," which characterizes the uniquely Iranian version of hospitality, saying: Iranians are too hospitable to guests in their country, when we insist that we must be going, you all tell us "no, no, you must stay."
I read the superb book Guests of the Ayatollah: The First Battle in America's War with Militant Islam a couple of years ago. The book provides an insider's view of what happened to the hostages during their 444 day captivity. Most resisted their captors; most had a defiant attitude. The few who did not were the exception, not the rule. Limbert seems to have been one of the exceptions -- and not in a good way.
Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/11/post_183.html at November 13, 2009 - 06:08:55 PM EST
The clip in question:
http://www.rferl.org/video/3853.html
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By FARNAZ FASSIHI
NEW YORK -- His first impulse was to dismiss the ominous email as a prank, says a young Iranian-American named Koosha. It warned the 29-year-old engineering student that his relatives in Tehran would be harmed if he didn't stop criticizing Iran on Facebook.
Green in Berlin
Rapper Jay-Z and U2 brightened Berlin's Brandenburg Gate with green lighting during a performance of "Sunday, Bloody Sunday," a U2 song inspired by a 1972 altercation between British troops and protesters in Northern Ireland. During the performance, Jay-Z rapped in support of the Iranian protesters. Watch the video on YouTube.
.Two days later, his mom called. Security agents had arrested his father in his home in Tehran and threatened him by saying his son could no longer safely return to Iran.
"When they arrested my father, I realized the email was no joke," said Koosha, who asked that his full name not be used.
Tehran's leadership faces its biggest crisis since it first came to power in 1979, as Iranians at home and abroad attack its legitimacy in the wake of June's allegedly rigged presidential vote. An opposition effort, the "Green Movement," is gaining a global following of regular Iranians who say they never previously considered themselves activists.
The regime has been cracking down hard at home. And now, a Wall Street Journal investigation shows, it is extending that crackdown to Iranians abroad as well.
In recent months, Iran has been conducting a campaign of harassing and intimidating members of its diaspora world-wide -- not just prominent dissidents -- who criticize the regime, according to former Iranian lawmakers and former members of Iran's elite security force, the Revolutionary Guard, with knowledge of the program.
Part of the effort involves tracking the Facebook, Twitter and YouTube activity of Iranians around the world, and identifying them at opposition protests abroad, these people say.
Interviews with roughly 90 ordinary Iranians abroad -- college students, housewives, doctors, lawyers, businesspeople -- in New York, London, Dubai, Sweden, Los Angeles and other places indicate that people who criticize Iran's regime online or in public demonstrations are facing threats intended to silence them.
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Vote: Will Iran quell opposition from Iranians living outside the country?
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Associated Press
Iranian artist Shirin Neshat, third from right, leads actors in expressing support for Iran's opposition movement at the Venice film festival in September.
.Although it wasn't possible to independently verify their claims, interviewees provided consistently similar descriptions of harassment techniques world-wide. Most asked that their full names not be published.
Today's crisis echoes the events of three decades ago, when Iran's Islamic revolution first bloomed. Back then, Iranians around the world pooled their energy and money to help oust Iran's monarch, the shah. This time, the global community is backing a similar effort, using new tools including Facebook and Twitter. YouTube videos providing step-by-step instructions for staging civil disobedience rack up thousands of views.
But now, unlike 30 years ago, Iran's leadership is striking back across national borders.
Dozens of individuals in the U.S. and Europe who criticized Iran on Facebook or Twitter said their relatives back in Iran were questioned or temporarily detained because of their postings. About three dozen individuals interviewed said that, when traveling this summer back to Iran, they were questioned about whether they hold a foreign passport, whether they possess Facebook accounts and why they were visiting Iran. The questioning, they said, took place at passport control upon their arrival at Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport.
Five interviewees who traveled to Iran in recent months said they were forced by police at Tehran's airport to log in to their Facebook accounts. Several reported having their passports confiscated because of harsh criticism they had posted online about the way the Iranian government had handled its controversial elections earlier this year.
Before this past summer, "If anyone asked me, 'Does the government threaten Iranians abroad or their families at home,' I would say, 'Not at all,'" says Nasrin Sotoudeh, a prominent lawyer inside Iran. "But now the cases are too many to count. Every day I get phone calls and visits from people who are being harassed and threatened" because of relatives' activities abroad.
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.In November, the deputy commander of Iran's armed forces, Gen. Massoud Jazayeri, wrote an editorial in the conservative newspaper Kayhan that "protesters inside and outside Iran have been identified and will be dealt with at the right time."
In Germany, a national intelligence report indicates that Iranian intelligence operatives are monitoring about 900 critics of the Iranian regime within Germany. One German intelligence official, Manfred Murch, said last month that his staff has identified "Iranian intelligence agents" trying to intimidate protesters in Germany by videotaping them. A German foreign-ministry official said Germany rejected requests from Iran to restrict anti-Iranian protests there.
Mohammad Reza Bak Sahraei, a diplomat at Iran's mission to the United Nations in New York, didn't respond to written questions about Iran's intelligence activities abroad. "The allegation that the Islamic Republic of Iran has created limitations and problems for Iranians who are visiting Iran from abroad is false," Mr. Sahraei said.
In recent months, he said, "Many Iranians have returned to Iran and visited their family members. Until now we have no reports of any limitations being imposed on them. Representatives of Iran abroad are doing their utmost to facilitate traveling for Iranians to Iran."
The crisis in Iran started with June's controversial re-election of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Claims of vote fraud spawned massive street protests, and a bloody crackdown.
The post-election violence has turned Iran's relationship with overseas Iranians on its head. Previously, Iran generally enjoyed good relations with its diaspora. Most opposition movements were on the fringe -- for instance, royalists calling for the shah's return. But the violent suppression of street protests "showed people the true nature of Iran's regime," says Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran analyst for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
There are approximately four million Iranians abroad. The U.S. is home to the largest number, totaling at least several hundred thousand. They rank among the nation's best educated and most affluent immigrant groups.
At first, many protesters inside Iran and abroad simply wanted a vote recount. But after the violence, they began calling for a complete overhaul of Iran's Islamic system, up to and including change that would remove Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei from power. Around the world, Iranians took to the streets to march in protest against the events in Iran.
Associated Press
Iranian police in June chase protesters after the controversial election.
.An Iranian engineer in his 30s who lives in a German-speaking area of Europe, and who attended protests there this year, described having his passport, cellphone and laptop confiscated when he later traveled to Tehran. He said he was called in for questioning several times, blindfolded, kicked and physically abused, and asked to hand over his email and Facebook passwords.
Interrogators showed him images of himself participating in protests in Europe, he said, and pressed him to identify other people in the images.
"I was very scared. My knees were trembling the whole time and I kept thinking, 'How did this happen to me?'" he said recently. "I only went to a few demonstrations, and I don't even live in Iran."
He said he was told he was guilty of charges including attending antiregime protests abroad, participating in online activities on Facebook and Twitter that harmed Iran's national security and leaving comments on opposition Web sites. He said he was given a choice: Face trial in Iran, or sign a document promising to act as an informant in Europe.
He says he signed the paper, took his passport and left Iran after a month. He says he has received follow-up emails and phone calls but hasn't responded to them.
Other Iranians abroad report receiving email threats tied to their online activities. In Los Angeles in June, an Iranian-American graduate student named Hamid said he received an email that read in part: "Stop spreading lies about Iran on Facebook." He said he received it after he changed his Facebook profile picture to a "V" symbol, for victory, dripping with blood to protest the Iran violence, along with a message about wanting to travel to Iran to support the opposition.
The email, written in Farsi, read in part, "We know your home address in Los Angeles. Watch out, we will come after you," according to Hamid.
There is no way to identify the email's anonymous sender, who signed it "Spider." Other Iranians interviewed in the U.S. and Europe reported receiving similar emails in recent months. Some emails were signed "Spider," they said, while others were signed "Revolutionary Hossein," a possible reference to one of the most revered saints in Shiite Islam.
No matter how widespread, the worries are sowing panic in the overseas community. Concerns about the safety of friends and family are so prevalent among younger Iranians that a number have changed their surnames on Facebook to "Irani" (which means simply "from Iran") to be harder to single out.
Omid Habibinia, a dissident Iranian who left Iran seven years ago for Europe, says he has always been harassed, but the pressure has grown this year. He claims Iranian security services early this year created a fake Facebook account for him and tried to "friend" people on his behalf and ask them questions. Other Iranian dissidents, along with some journalists, described similar experiences.
Officials at Facebook said the company often gets reports of fake profiles and will remove them after a review. A spokeswoman declined to comment on specific profiles that have been removed, including the one Mr. Habibinia described. She said deleted profiles no longer reside on Facebook's servers, making it impossible to trace their origins. She said she wasn't aware of complaints of harassment on Facebook at the hands of Iranian security services.
One 28-year-old physician who lives in Dubai said that in July he was asked to log on to his Facebook account by a security guard upon arrival in Tehran's airport. At first, he says, he lied and said he didn't have one. So the guard took him to a small room with a laptop and did a Google search for his name. His Facebook account turned up, he says, and his passport was confiscated.
After a month and several rounds of interrogations, he says, he was allowed to exit the country.
During Iran's historic 1979 Islamic revolution, Iranians abroad played an instrumental role in transforming the movement from a fringe idea led by a frail cleric, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, into a global force that eventually toppled the monarchy of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Iranians abroad flocked to Mr. Khomeini's side, lending his movement language skills, money and, ultimately, global legitimacy.
In the current crisis, Iran is eager to prevent a similar scenario.
To cut communication between Iranians inside and outside the country, Iran slowed Internet speeds so that accessing an online email account could take close to a half-hour. It blocked access to Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. For a while, an automated message warned people making international phone calls not to give information to outsiders.
Tracking Internet crimes -- from political dissent to pornography -- has long been a priority of the regime. Iran's local media openly report on Internet-monitoring centers inside the country's judiciary and armed forces that are staffed with English-speaking, tech-savvy young people.
Late last month, at a military parade in Tehran, intelligence minister Heydar Moslehi announced the training of "senior Internet lieutenants" to confront Iran's "virtual enemies online." This month Iran announced a 12-member unit within the armed forces called the Internet Crime Unit to track individuals "spreading lies and insults" about the regime.
Iran's elite security force, the Revolutionary Guard Corps, along with the intelligence ministry each have their own, separate Internet-monitoring units that track prominent political figures and activists, according to dissidents including Mohsen Sazegara, one of the original founders of the Revolutionary Guard who is now in exile in the U.S. After the June election crisis, these Internet-monitoring units expanded their work to include the online activity of Iranians abroad, these people say.
In the U.S., Koosha, the young engineering student whose father was briefly arrested in Tehran, says he was never politically active before. But this past summer, he said, he watched the turmoil in Iran and "I couldn't just sit and do nothing, I felt too guilty." He watched "people my age getting beaten and killed in the streets for expressing their opinion," he said. "The least I could do was to show my solidarity."
That's when he took steps that attracted the unwelcome attention. He attended a few rallies organized by opposition supporters near where he lives in the U.S. And then, when a prominent human-rights lawyer was jailed in Iran, Koosha created an online petition.
After his father was detained, Koosha took down his petition. "I was terrified and furious," he said. And he doesn't talk politics anymore when he calls his parents in Tehran.
But he's still finding ways to express his views. In September, he biked from Toronto to New York with his brother as part of the group Bicycling for Human Rights in Iran. "They want to control even Iranians who don't live under their rule," he says.
—Jeanne Whalen in London, David Crawford in Berlin and Christopher Rhoads in New York contributed to this article.
Write to Farnaz Fassihi at farnaz.fassihi@wsj.com
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By AMIR TAHERI
A month ago, Gen. Muhammad-Ali Aziz Jaafari, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, vowed to stop further antiregime demonstrations in Iran and break what he termed "this chain of conspiracies." But this week the "chain" appeared to be as strong as ever: Students across the nation defied the general and his political masters by organizing numerous demonstrations on and off campus.
The various opposition groups that constitute the pro-democracy movement have already called for another series of demonstrations on Dec. 27, a holy day on the Muslim Shiite calendar. Meanwhile, the official calendar of the Islamic Republic includes 22 days during which the regime organizes massive public demonstrations to flex its muscles. Since the controversial presidential election last June, the pro-democracy movement, in a jujitsu-style move, has used the official days to undermine the regime.
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Getty Images
Antigovernment demonstrators at Tehran University, Dec. 7.
.On Jerusalem Day, Sept. 18, officially intended to express anti-Semitism, the opposition showed that Iranians have no hostility toward Jews or Israel. One popular slogan was "Neither Hamas nor Hezbollah! I give my life for Iran!" Another was "Forget about Palestine! Think about our Iran!"
On Nov. 4, the anniversary of the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979, the opposition distanced itself from the regime's anti-American rhetoric. The democrats instead expressed anger against Russia and China, which are perceived as allies of the Islamic Republic. One slogan was "The Russian Embassy is a nest of spies!"
Most significantly, the movement that started as a protest against the alleged rigging of the election that gave a second term to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been evolving. The crowds' initial slogan was "Where Is My Vote?" and the movement's accidental leaders, including former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, tried hard to keep the protest confined to demands such as a recount of the votes and, ultimately, a runoff in accordance with the law.
The slogans of the protestors are no longer about election fraud. Today they include "Death to the Dictator," "Freedom Now," and "Iranian Republic, Not Islamic Republic!" One slogan is a direct message to President Barack Obama: "Obama, Are You With Us or With Them?"
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.In short, the protestors no longer regard the present regime as the legitimate government of the country.
Both Mr. Mousavi and Ayatollah Mahdi Karroubi, another defeated presidential candidate, tried to prevent attacks on the "Supreme Guide" Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the hope of eventually making a deal with him. As part of such a deal, they promised to defend the Islamic Republic's nuclear program, according to sources close to the opposition. The crowds have rejected that by shouting: "Abandon uranium enrichment! Do something about the poor!"
It is clear the democracy movement is in no mood for deals with Mr. Khamenei, who they castigate for having betrayed his constitutional role of arbiter by siding with Mr. Ahmadinejad even before the official results of the election were declared. The demonstrators now burn his effigies, tear up posters showing his image, and chant violent slogans against him. One popular slogan goes: "Khamenei is a murderer! His guardianship is invalid!"
By cracking down ruthlessly on the protestors, the regime has only radicalized the movement. Even such notorious dealmakers as Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president now opposed to Mr. Ahmadinejad, have made it clear they would not accept any formula that would leave the "landslide winner" in place.
Last week, Mr. Rafsanjani refused to attend a much-publicized "reconciliation event" concocted by Ali Ardeshir Larijani, the speaker of Iran's ersatz parliament. The reason? Mr. Rafsanjani did not wish to be seen under the same roof as Mr. Ahmadinejad. Later, in a speech in Mash'had, Mr. Rafsanjani spoke of the regime's "long, deep and, potentially lethal crisis."
To judge by their most popular slogans, demonstrators across Iran are bent on regime change. Even rumors that the regime is working on scenarios for ditching Mr. Ahmadinejad—ostensibly on "health grounds"—after the Iranian New Year in March, have failed to halt the spread of regime-change sentiments.
Given the nation's mood, Messrs. Mousavi and Karroubi have abandoned their earlier talk of "realizing the full potentials of the existing constitution." An adviser to Mr. Mousavi tells me that "They wanted to make an omelet without breaking eggs. They now realize that [the people] have moved faster than imagined." More significantly, perhaps, Mr. Mousavi appears to have put his plans for an ill-defined "green organization" on the backburner. He is beginning to understand that the antiregime movement is too wide to fit into a centrally controlled framework.
Over the past six months, thousands of people have been arrested and hundreds killed in the streets. And yet, despite promises to squash the movement by Gen. Jaafari, it persists. To make matters worse for the regime, the Shiite clergy, often regarded as the backbone of the Islamic Republic, is beginning to distance itself from the Khamenei-Ahmadinejad tandem. Some ayatollahs, such as Messrs. Montazeri, Bayat, San'ei, Borujerdi and Zanjani, are especially annoyed at Mr. Ahmadinejad's claim of being in contact with the "Hidden Imam"—a messiah-like figure of Shiism whose second coming is supposed to occur at the end of times.
Mr. Ahmadinejad claims that the "return" is imminent and that he, as one of the "pegs" designated by the Hidden Imam to prepare the ground for the advent, has a mission of chasing the "Infidel" out of Muslim lands and liberating Palestine from "Zionist occupiers." In a speech in Isfahan last week, Mr. Ahmadinejad claimed that the pro-democracy movement was created by the Americans to sabotage his mission and thus prevent the return of the "Hidden Imam."
In response, a mid-ranking cleric in Qom tells me: "The way Ahmadinejad talks, he must be a sick man . . . by backing such a man, Khamenei has doomed the regime."
The Ahmadinejad-Khamenei tandem is also coming under attack for its alleged incompetence. The regime is now plagued by double-digit inflation, a massive flight of capital, and unprecedented levels of unemployment. Divisions within the ruling clique mean that the president has been unable to fill scores of key posts at middle levels of government. Rapidly losing its popular base, the regime is becoming increasingly dependent on its coercive forces, especially the Islamic Revolutionary Guard.
Revolutionary Guard commanders appear on TV almost every night, presenting themselves as "guardians of the system." Gen. Jaafari himself says he is attracted by the "Turkish model" in which the army acts as a bulwark of the republic.
However, the general may not have all the time in the world to ponder his next move. The pro-democracy movement is deepening and growing. Much work is under way to connect it to independent trade unions and hundreds of formal and informal associations that lead the civil society's fight against the evil of the Islamic Republic.
Iran has entered one of those hinge moments in history. What is certain is that the status quo has become untenable.
Mr. Taheri's new book, "The Persian Night: Iran Under the Khomeinist Revolution," is published by Encounter Books.
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The foundation stones of Iran's Islamic Republic were shaken again yesterday, showing that the largest antigovernment movement in its 30 years may be one of the biggest stories of next year as well. Now imagine the possibilities if the Obama Administration began to support Iran's democrats.
The perseverance of the so-called Green Movement is something to behold. Millions of Iranians mobilized against the outcome of June's fraudulent presidential election, and their protests were violently repressed. But the cause has only grown in scope, with the aim of many becoming nothing less than the death of a hated system.
Yesterday offered a glimpse into the regime's crisis of legitimacy. As in the waning days of the Shah in the late 1970s, Iranians merely need an excuse to show what they think of their rulers. The funeral of a leading Shiite cleric who'd inspired and guided the opposition brought out tens to hundreds of thousands to Iran's religious capital of Qom. Media coverage is severely restricted, but the demonstration's size was impossible to deny.
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Associated Press
Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri
.Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, who died Sunday, was no ordinary religious figure. He stood alongside the leader of the Islamic Revolution, his mentor Ayatollah Khomeini, and he was handpicked to replace him. But Montazeri broke with the ruling mullahs in the late 1980s, criticizing their violence and repression. And in recent months, he became a spiritual leader to the opposition.
He knew the regime intimately: "A political system based on force, oppression, changing people's votes, killing, closure, arresting and using Stalinist and medieval torture, creating repression, censorship of newspapers, interruption of the means of mass communications, jailing the enlightened and the elite of society for false reasons, and forcing them to make false confessions in jail, is condemned and illegitimate," he wrote.
Ailing at his death, Montazeri leaves behind a legacy Iranian modernizers can build on. Like the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in Iraq, he believed that the Shiite clergy should stay out of democratic politics. He also helped shape views on Iran's nuclear program. In October, Montazeri issued a fatwa against developing an Iranian bomb. His statement confirmed the view among Green Movement figures who believe an atomic weapon will only consolidate the regime's hold on power and isolate Iran.
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.Absent religious legitimacy for the so-called Islamic Republic, the current rulers must rely on blunt means of preservation, such as the elite Revolutionary Guards and the Basiji militias. Thus Iran seems to be morphing into a military dictatorship, not unlike the Poland of Wojciech Jaruzelski after the "workers"—the supposed communist vanguard—turned against that regime.
Relying on thugs carries risks. During the summer protests, many protestors were killed, tortured and raped in the regime's jails. Among the dead is the son of a prominent conservative parliamentarian. Supreme leader Ali Khamenei sought to damp public outrage by closing the most notorious prison at Kahrizak, but pressure has continued to build. Reversing months of denials, the government on Saturday acknowledged the abuses, bringing charges against 12 military officials for the murder of three young protestors this summer.
Previously a neutral broker in Iranian politics, Khamenei undermined himself by siding so openly with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad after June's elections. The decision to prosecute, which he would have had to sign off on, may be another miscalculation. A trial could help expose the corruption at the heart of this system.
(Another Polish parallel comes to mind: The 1984 trial of the secret policemen who murdered the pro-Solidarity priest, Father Jerzy Popieluszko, that further hurt that government's credibility.)
Which brings us to President Obama. Throughout this turbulent year in Iran, the White House has been behind the democratic curve. When the demonstrations started, Mr. Obama abdicated his moral authority by refusing to take sides, while pushing ahead with plans to negotiate a grand diplomatic bargain with Mr. Ahmadinejad that trades recognition for suspending the nuclear program.
Mr. Obama has since moved at least to embrace "universal values," and in his Nobel address this month he mentioned the democracy protestors by name. The White House yesterday sent condolences to Montazeri's friends and family, which is what passes for democratic daring in this Administration.
But the White House is also still pleading for talks even as its December deadline passes without any concession from Tehran. Meantime, the Iranian opposition virtually begs Washington not to confer any legitimacy on the regime, and the democracy demonstrators crave American support. Iran's civil society clock may now be ticking faster than its nuclear clock. However hard it may be to achieve, a new regime in Tehran offers the best peaceful way to halt Iran's atomic program. Shouldn't American policy be directed toward realizing that goal?
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Roll in with our bombs and help the grass root Iranians stage a Coup d'etat using our fire support? Hmmmmmmm. :evil:
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Intelligence Guidance (Special Edition): Watching Iran for a Breakpoint
Stratfor Today » December 23, 2009 | 2344 GMT
Iranian opposition supporters demonstrate at Tehran University on Dec. 7Editor’s Note: The following is an internal STRATFOR document produced to provide high-level guidance to our analysts. This document is not a forecast, but rather a series of guidelines for understanding and evaluating events, as well as suggestions on areas for focus.
Events in Iran will dominate the next several days. We’d like to take a step back and examine the multiple Iran-related crises we see building in parallel to each other, despite the numerous unknowns that remain.
Domestic turmoil in Iran appears to be nearing a breakpoint. Clearly, the Iranian opposition protests that grew out of the June presidential election debacle have not lost their steam. The 10-day Shiite commemoration of Muharram has now provided the anti-regime protesters with an occasion to exploit the religious fervor associated with the martyrdom of Imam Husayn ibn Ali at the Battle of Karbala in A.D. 680, a potent symbol for those who view themselves as martyrs in resisting the regime. The recent death of Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, one of the rare clerical opponents to the regime, has only added more fuel to the fire.
Sporadic clashes have broken out in Qom and Isfahan provinces, with reports of the homes of senior dissident ayatollahs being targeted and their supporters being tear gassed and beaten by Basij militiamen and plainclothes security personnel. These clashes are escalating in the lead-up to Ashura, the 10th and final day of Muharram which falls on Dec. 27 this year. Emotions will be running high on Ashura, and opposition protesters are planning to hold demonstrations in major cities across Iran, a classic example of the lethal cocktail of religion and politics.
The demonstrations already are reaching unacceptable levels for the regime. Thus far, the regime has used a variety of intimidation tactics to try and shut the protests down, but it also has exercised restraint to avoid triggering a greater backlash. In essence, the regime has done enough to enrage the opposition but not enough yet to terrify the opposition into standing down.
Typically, when regimes reach this point, they lay the groundwork for the imposition of martial law. Doors are kicked in, purges ensue, media blackouts are enforced and dissidents are silenced. The regime has done many of these things already but not yet to the degree that would successfully intimidate the opposition. There is, of course, a great risk of backlash in imposing such a crackdown, especially during such a sensitive religious holiday. The regime has thus far been careful not to exacerbate rifts within the regime and security apparatus. While a martial law situation would carry substantial risk of blowback, it would be designed to suppress those rifts through brute force.
When government officials impose martial law it is almost always because there is a split in the regime. The split becomes dangerous to the rival faction. When that faction realizes accommodation is impossible, it has three choices. First, it can accept the split and its consequences. Second, it can turn over power. Third, it can crush opponents. From Burma to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq to Argentina, this is a common process. When the pressures become overwhelming, the faction controlling the largest force changes the discussion from political to security. Men who were once enormously powerful are killed, imprisoned, “disappeared” or exiled. The most prominent leader, facing death, can choose capitulation. Such coups have better chances of success when one faction has powerful military support.
While STRATFOR does not have any clear indication yet that the regime is intending to impose some form of martial law, we are keeping the possibility in mind. In examining this possibility, we keep coming back to a statement by Iranian Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi on Dec. 22 that the regime has identified “80 foreign institutes, foundations, and funds that are active” in the opposition protests, including one with a $1.7 billion budget. The Iranian government regularly claims a foreign hand is behind domestic unrest, but this is different. By claiming it has identified specific foreign institutions underwriting the opposition, the regime is providing itself with the justification to declare any member of the opposition an enemy of the state in a martial law-type scenario.
As the internal unrest escalates within Iran, pressures also are building on the external front. The U.S. administration already has signaled that it may extend the deadline for Iran to negotiate over its nuclear program to at least mid-January 2010. U.S. and Iranian sources have reported a surge in backchannels between Washington and Tehran, with rumors circulating of Sen. John Kerry attempting to work out some sort of compromise behind the scenes. At the same time, Iran is sending holiday greetings to U.S. President Barack Obama while throwing out proposal after proposal after proposal to resolve the nuclear dispute.
Even as Iran is playing to its domestic constituency by flatly rejecting the notion of U.S.-set deadlines, it is doing enough both publicly and through backchannels to provide cover to the Russians, Chinese, Japanese, Germans and anyone else opposed to sanctions to make the argument for continued diplomacy. As long as Iran shows that it’s not walking away from negotiations, the harder it will be for the United States to build and a coalition against Iran. U.N Security Council members have announced that they will push any discussion on Iran to at least mid-January 2010 and were careful to avoid specifying whether that discussion would entail sanctions, indicating that Iran’s moves on the diplomatic front are thus far bearing fruit.
But Iran also cannot afford to take its eyes of Israel, which intends to hold the U.S. administration to its December deadline and its promise to take meaningful action in neutralizing Iran’s nuclear capabilities. Sanctions are not considered meaningful action by Israel, especially without the Russians and Chinese on board. At the same time, Iran may be calculating for now that the United States will restrain Israel if Israel can’t carry out a successful military strike on its own. The Iranians therefore want the United States to think long and hard about the Iranian reaction to such a strike. In addition to mine warfare in the Strait of Hormuz and terrorist attacks by Hezbollah and Hamas, the United States has been served a recent reminder of the damage Iran can do in Iraq. The Iran-Iraq spat over the Dec. 18 Iranian incursion and occupation of an Iraqi oil well is far from over, and now appears to be escalating as Iraq’s sectarian government is fragmenting over how to deal with the provocation.
Between the internal unrest in Iran, tensions escalating over the nuclear program and the ongoing border dispute with Iraq, the Iranian regime has its hands full in maneuvering between these building crises. A number of oddities linking these three issues also have begun surfacing in the past 36 hours in Iran and Iraq that warrant greater scrutiny in this tension-filled environment. STRATFOR will be watching developments closely in the coming days for any triggers that could signal a breakpoint.
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What is in Iraq, where are the carriers and the Gator group? New Years could be interesting.
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With a different President, these questions would be relevant. My prediction is that this one will dither further.
Also, I haven't read it yet, but an article in today's POTH says that apparently the democractic opposition is just as hard line on developing nukes.
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Ah yes, just as hardline on nukes, but with the regime change that just happened as an example, how hardline will they stay? I think Obama will dither too, or look like he is, and that will not help credibility any which will affect other issues.
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Astounding and graphic video of townspeople storming an execution in the hope of rescuing the condemned. Irani goons soon show up and start shooting.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ygi3p4WQpkw&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
More info and photos here:
http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2009/12/amazing-iranian-protesters-save-prisoners-from-hanging-in-sirjan-attack-police-truck-video/
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Iranis stop a police car to free arrested protesters inside:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0b1_1261943462
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2nd post:
Pic heavy piece on citizens resisting regime thugs:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1238717/Thousands-Iranian-protesters-clash-riot-police-bloody-pitched-battle-streets-Tehran.html
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Clashes between security forces and opposition supporters have increased as sundown approaches in Tehran. The violence appears to be propagated by both sides, with footage showing security forces and protesters attacking each other. Reports from opposition sources claim that between four and 16 people have died thus far, including one Basij militiamen. Iran’s state-run media denies that any deaths have occurred.
The Iranian regime’s intimidation tactics in the lead-up to Ashura have evidently not succeeded in keeping protesters off the streets. Protests have thus far been reported in the cities of Tehran (in Vanak, Mohseni, Enqelab and Tajrish squares), Najafabad, Isfahan, Shiraz and Zanjan. Notably, there have been no reports of protests on Dec. 27 emanating from the Shiite holy city of Qom, where large opposition protests occurred earlier in the week for the mourning of Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri. In the days leading up to Ashura, STRATFOR received several indications that Iran’s security apparatus would place a great deal of attention on preventing demonstrations in Qom, the seat of the Islamic republic’s clerical establishment and thus a critical city for the regime to protect.
Judging from the rough video footage of the demonstrations and from source reports on the ground, the opposition protests are not as large as anticipated, but are still significant. It appears that the security forces have been somewhat successful in dispersing the crowds. The more dispersed the protesters, the less protection they have as a group and the easier it is for the security forces to crack down.
Opposition sources have been claiming that there is dissent in the security ranks, asserting that some riot police have refused orders to shoot at the protesters and are shooting in the air. Similarly, dissidents claim there have been desertions among the police. These are, of course, partisan claims benefiting the dissidents, and therefore cannot be confirmed. Rumors have been spread in the past about dissent in the security apparatus. This is possible but the security forces have appeared to be effective.
Security on the streets is still being primarily handled by riot police and Basiji militiamen wielding tear gas and batons. Though preparations were made for reinforcements in the lead-up to Ashura, regular army troops and elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps units have not been called in. This suggests that the protests have not yet breached the regime’s tolerance level. Though the security forces have cracked down on protesters with greater ferocity in recent days, the regime still appears wary of using extreme violence on a religious occasion as sensitive as Ashura.
As sunset approaches in Iran, many of the protesters should begin to head home. The younger protesters will likely attempt to hold out for longer. The Ashura protests have not yet produced an unmanageable crisis for the regime, but tensions are mounting, and there is word that the protests may spill over into the next day. At that time, however, the protesters will not have the religious cover of Ashura to protect them from what would likely be a much more aggressive crackdown.
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Regime Change for Iran?
By the Editors
Iran has come to a test of strength between the regime and the people. At this point, the outcome is uncertain. All sorts of unquantifiable factors like the character and will of leaders are in play, as well as unforeseeable interventions, for instance from the military or the Revolutionary Guards, plain accident, perhaps an atrocity. And not least, what President Obama says, in the event that he stops sitting on the fence.
What’s been happening is a textbook lesson in politics. The mullahs had put in place an ideological regime. This meant that they were able to run the country only so long as they remained united. Rigged elections last June revealed that the mullahs were fighting for power among themselves and would go to any lengths to win. Under their turbans and robes, the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and those who do the dirty work for him were evidently careerists and not the devout Muslims they claimed to be. Those who were cheated in that election also wore robes and turbans, but the blatant openness of the cheating created exactly the sort of factionalism that destroyed the Soviet Union and is fatal to any ideological regime.
Hundreds of thousands of people are now out on the streets. On the face of it, the protesters and the regime are unevenly matched. The regime controls the Basij, the paramilitary force that is above the law. The choice facing the regime is how much violence to exert. This is the key to the future. Too little violence, and the protesters are likely to feel encouraged to make more demands. People are already taking to imaginative peaceful protests on the widest scale. Too much violence, and the protesters become enraged, in all likelihood turning violent themselves. The shooting of Nada Sultan and others, including the nephew of one of the opposition mullahs, is the kind of brutality for which an ideological regime has to pay a high price. The arrest of large numbers of demonstrators is always a standing provocation. Members of the Basij have been attacked and stripped of their uniforms, weapons, and motorcycles. There are reports of policemen refusing to fire on the crowd, taking off their helmets and going home.
Regime change is in the air, and a consummation devoutly to be wished, for it might spare the world the prospect of nuclear weapons in the hands of power-maniacs ready to use them for ideologically driven mass murder and geopolitical extortion. It is clear that the ideology of the Islamic Republic is over and done with. That fact should be acknowledged. We owe that much already to the people out on the streets.
National Review Online - http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MTEwZmM4N2RlY2JiMDlhMTUxNGJkZTQzN2EwYzBiY2U=
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http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/day_of_reckoning_hHNtbO7IbHnphV3rxxYZ8N
I bet the mullahs are losing sleep. :roll:
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By GOLI AMERI
The Obama Administration and its European allies are currently looking at a menu of "focused sanctions" on Iran and its leadership. A month ago they were obsessing over China and Russia's cooperation on indubitably innocuous U.N. Security Council sanctions. In both cases, they have the wrong target in mind. Security Council resolutions and focused sanctions serve as public relations window-dressing. Europe is the key to any meaningful behavior-modifying sanctions on Iran. The continued focus on Russia and China's intransigence is allowing Europe to stay under the radar.
Iran has been under three Security Council sanctions in the past decade, while the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has prospered and the plight of the average Iranian has deteriorated. The IRGC, which in 2007 was designated by the U.S. Congress as a terrorist organization, planned and instigated a coup during the recent Iranian elections and bear responsibility for the murder, rape, and oppression of the Iranian people.
According to Mohsen Sazegara, one of the co-founders of the IRGC and current researcher and democracy activist residing in the U.S., the IRGC controls the fundamentals of Iran's economy, with over 800 companies involved in shipping and ship-building, banking, energy, chemicals, heavy construction and machinery, electricity, transport equipment, and import of tear gas for oppressing mass demonstrations. The IRCG's most recent foray into Iran's business activities was the purchase of a 51% share in the Iranian Telecommunications Company for $8 billion, effectively gaining control of all Iranian communications with the outside world.
Who is Iran's main business partner? In 2008 the EU was—in its own words—the "first trade partner of Iran," with imports and exports totalling €25.4 billion ($36.4 billion) followed by China, Japan, and South Korea. The €14.1 billion in European exports to Iran last year, up 1.5% from 2007, included mainly machinery and transport equipment, manufactured goods, chemicals and even dual-use telecommunications equipment responsible for tracking and imprisoning protesters. Of the €11.3 billion in European imports from Iran, 90% is energy-related. Germany, France and Italy top the list, the former two also members of the team involved in nuclear negotiations with Iran.
Yet despite the IRGC's deep involvement in the Iranian economy, the Associated Press reported shortly after the June elections that Daniel Bernbeck, head of the German-Iranian Industry Group, said that "doing business in Iran is a far cry from doing business with the government itself....I see no moral question here at all. We are not doing business with Iran, but with Iranian companies. We are not supporting the government."
In the past two decades Europe's refrain has been that trade keeps the doors of communications open and allows them to openly discuss the nuclear issue and human rights violations. In a 2007 interview with Deutsche Welle magazine, Mechtild Rothe, vice president of the European Parliament, said that "relations with Iran have not reached a point where economic interests should need to suffer. I think it would be much better to negotiate—to speak with each other."
The people of Iran have now spoken loud and clear about their democratic aspirations. The EU, however, continues to pursue its economic interests, save for a range of toothless feel-good statements. As recently as October, the National Iranian Oil Company announced that "negotiations [on the South Pars Gas field] with Shell and Repsol [Spanish firm] in recent weeks have gone in the desired direction and efforts are being made to take action as quickly as possible given the mutual interests in this field." France's Total has also resumed discussions with the Iranian government on another phase of the South Pars Gas field. The AP also reported that, when asked if France would recommend that French businesses scale back trade with Iran, foreign ministry spokesman Frederic Desagneaux "wouldn't say yes or no".
Since the post-election crackdown discredited Europe's so-called "open doors of communications" strategy, Europeans are now hiding behind the slogan that scaling back business with the IRGC hurts average Iranians. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told the New York Times after the elections that "sanctions weigh in particular on the middle levels of society, but especially on the disadvantaged ones."
In 1968, Archbishop Desmond Tutu responded poignantly to similar criticism on sanctioning South Africa and its impact on the poor: "Moral Humbug," he said. "There is no room for neutrality. Are you on the side of oppression or liberation? Are you on the side of death or life? Are you on the side of good or evil?"
The Europeans and the Obama Administration should finally recognize that their interest in deterring a nuclear Iran coincides with the Iranian people's democratic aspirations. The perpetrator in common is the IRGC. Yet the AP also reported Mr. Desagneaux as saying in June that "the current election crisis shouldn't be lumped in with the standoff over Iran's nuclear program." The IRGC is Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's and the Iranian government's power base, and European trade is enhancing the growth of IRGC's web of companies. Flush with cash, the IRGC has taken over the development of the country's nuclear program, support for insurgencies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Gaza and Lebanon, as well as systematic oppression of the Iranian people. Mr. Sazegara indicates that the Iranian government spent $15 million just to assemble demonstrators on the 30th anniversary of the U.S. hostage crisis.
Why is Washington not more forceful in restraining European trade with Iran? After the passing of the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act in 2007, which legally penalizes companies investing more than $20 million in Iran's energy sector, the EU countries (according to the Congressional Research Service) threatened formal counter-action in the World Trade Organization. A New York Times op-ed by John Vinocur quoted German business newspaper Handelsblatt as saying: "What's needed concerning Iran trade isn't giving in to United States and Israeli pressure."
Despite other valiant efforts by the U.S. Treasury Department, Stratfor Intelligence reports that "no company has ever been officially sanctioned by the United States for dealing with Iran. More often than not the U.S. executive branch will sign waivers for foreign firms… to avoid a serious spat with a firm's country of origin." Under Section 4c and 9c of ILSA, the president may waive sanctions if the violating company's country of origin agrees to impose economic sanctions on Iran, or if it is deemed in the national interest of the U.S.
The prevailing wisdom is that Europe needs Iran for its energy needs and is unable to cut off trade in a recessionary environment. The German-Iranian Chamber of Commerce has been quoted as saying that sanctions on Iran could result in the loss of 10,000 German jobs. Iran ranks as EU's fifth supplier of crude oil after Russia, Norway, Libya, and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has already stood up to Iran by supporting Saad Hariri's election in Lebanon at the expense of the Iran-supported Hezbollah. It was also the only Arab country to vote in favor of the recent U.N. Resolution blasting the human rights situation in Iran. Saudi Arabia can step in, as it has done at least once in the past, to fill the oil vacuum created by sanctioning the IRGC.
The IRGC needs nuclear weapons technology to survive and firmly anchor its regional influence. To peacefully weaken the IRGC's muscle, Europe has no choice but to act now and cut off their source of capital. If Europe waits too long, it will be faced with an irreversible regional conflict in the Middle East, further exacerbating the current economic crisis. Furthermore, the Iranian blogosphere is buzzing about firms trading with the IRGC, and Mr. Sazegara and his colleagues are compiling a list of companies for mass boycotts. Europe should note that Iranians won't fast forget countries that thwart their march toward democracy and freedom.
Ms. Ameri is the former U.S. assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs, U.S. representative to the 60th U.N. General Assembly and the U.S. public delegate to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights.
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By TIMOTHY J. GERAGHTY
The nagging question of the nuclear age has been what if a madman gets hold of an atomic bomb? That question is about to be answered as Iran's defiance puts it on a collision course with the West.
On Nov. 4, 2009, Israeli commandos intercepted an Antiguan-flagged ship 100 miles off the Israeli coast. It was carrying hundreds of tons of weapons from Iran and bound for Hezbollah in Lebanon. Since the 2006 Israeli-Hezbollah war, Iran has rearmed Hezbollah with 40,000 rockets and missiles that will likely rain on Israeli cities—and even European cities and U.S. military bases in the Middle East—if Iran is attacked. Our 200,000 troops in 33 bases are vulnerable. Shortly before this weapons seizure, Hamas test-fired a missile capable of striking Israel's largest city, Tel Aviv.
Iran is capable of disrupting Persian Gulf shipping lanes, which could cause the price of oil to surge above $300 a barrel. Iran could also create mayhem in oil markets by attacking Saudi oil refineries. Moreover, Iran possesses Soviet made SS-N-22 "Sunburn" supersonic antiship missiles that it could use to contest a naval blockade.
Iran could unleash suicide bombers in Iraq and Afghanistan or, more ominously, activate Hezbollah sleeper cells in the U.S. to carry out coordinated attacks nationwide. FBI, CIA and other U.S. officials have acknowledged in congressional testimony that Hezbollah has a working partnership with Mexican drug cartels and has been using cartel smuggling routes to get personnel and contraband into the U.S.
While Iranian centrifuges continue to produce low-enriched uranium, the mullahs and their henchmen have been carrying out a campaign of deception. In October 2009, Iran rejected a plan to ship its low-enriched uranium out of country, primarily to Russia and France, to be highly enriched and then sent back to Iran for "peaceful medical purposes."
On Nov. 28, 2009, reacting to increased pressure from the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran warned it may pull out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This would seriously undermine international attempts to stop Iran's nuclear weapons program. Two days later, Iran announced plans to build 10 new nuclear plants within six years.
In another sphere, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez are openly cooperating to "oppose world hegemony," as Mr. Ahmadinejan has said, while weekly flights between Iran and Venezuela are not monitored for personnel and cargo. Meanwhile, Russia is building an arms plant in Venezuela to produce AK-103 automatic rifles and finalizing contracts to send 53 military helicopters to the country.
I have seen this play before. In 1983, I was the Marine commander of the U.S. Multinational Peacekeeping Force in Beirut, Lebanon. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' (IRGC) Lebanon contingent trained and equipped Hezbollah to execute attacks that killed 241 of my men and 58 French Peacekeepers on Oct. 23, 1983.
Today, Hezbollah directly threatens Israel, destabilizes Lebanon, and undercuts the Israeli-Palestinian peace accords. Something similar is underway in Venezuela. Remember Hezbollah used the Beirut truck-bomb model for the attack on the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires on March 17, 1992 and the July 18, 1994 attack on the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association that killed 85 and wounded 200.
The man directly responsible for those bombings was the commander of the IRGC's Quds Force, Gen. Ahmad Vahidi. He is listed on Interpol's most wanted list and was a key operative in the 1983 attacks on peacekeepers in Lebanon. In August 2009, he was named Iran's minister of defense. He succeeded Gen. Mostafa Mohammad Najjar, who was the commander of the IRGC Lebanon contingent and the chief organizer of the 1983 Beirut bombings. Both have Beirut peacekeepers' blood on their hands and are the same key leaders who today are orchestrating Iranian deception and defiance as they march lock-step toward their ultimate goal—nuclear weapons.
Col. Geraghty, USMC (Ret.), is the author of "Peacekeepers at War; Beirut 1983—The Marine Commander Tells His Story" (Potomac Books, 2009).
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Do we stomp on these before they become serious? Venezuela, Iran? Afganistan is unwinnable given their TOTALLY tribal outlook. Each Valley there is a country.
Iran is starting to gain traction with other borderline countries, and that is bad. Obamas issued and then not followed up ultimatum will give even more traction. Is Venezuela within SCUD range of the southern USA?
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Tehran Imbroglio: No Green Revolution
THE IRANIAN GOVERNMENT LASHED OUT today against the West’s perceived support of anti-government protests by arresting foreign nationals allegedly involved in the Dec. 27 Ashura protests, and publishing a list of 60 organizations waging “soft war” against Tehran. Meanwhile, Shirin Ebadi — an Iranian lawyer, human rights activist and 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner — argued in her interview Monday with CNN that the Iranian government’s efforts to suppress demonstrations were failing and would only increase and radicalize the opposition, thus sowing seeds for the government’s downfall. This largely conforms to the analysis of most Western media and policy analysts, who see the ingredients for the downfall of the clerical regime in Iran as clearly arrayed; most believe it is only a matter of time before Tehran sees a regime change.
The picture painted by Western media and governments is, however, one that STRATFOR has refused to complacently accept.
The imbroglio on the ground in Tehran is perceived as a continuation of the “color revolutions” that began in the former Soviet Union, of which the Ukrainian 2004 “Orange Revolution” is a prime example. All the elements of a “color revolution” seem to be in play in Iran: a pariah regime maintains power despite what appears to be voter fraud while a supposedly liberal/pro-Western opposition launches a series of protests and marches that only accentuate the regime’s instability and unpopularity. Keeping with the latest fashion, the Iranian movement has even picked a color: green.
Western commentators who think they are witnessing regime change in Tehran could make an even more prescient parallel with the toppling of Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic in the so-called “Bulldozer Revolution” in October 2000. In late 2000, Milosevic’s Serbia was a pariah state that refused to budge over its crackdown in Kosovo in much the same way that Tehran refuses to budge on the issue of its nuclear program.
But if Iran today is to be compared to Serbia in 2000, then the regime change would have happened immediately following the June elections when protests reached their greatest numbers and the government was caught off guard by the virulence of the disturbance. Instead, a much more realistic (and poignant) analogy would be Serbia in 1991, when Milosevic faced his first serious threat — one he deftly avoided with a mix of brutality and co-option.
“The Western media confused liberal, educated, pro-Western university students in the streets of Belgrade for a mass movement against Milosevic…much like they do with Iran today.”
The March 1991 protests against Milosevic focused on the regime’s control of the country’s media. Opposition leader Vuk Draskovic — a moderate nationalist writer turned politician — was still smarting over his defeat in the presidential elections in December 1990, in which his party received no media access to Milosevic-controlled television. The March 9 protests quickly took on a life of their own. The assembly of nearly 150,000 people in Belgrade’s main square turned into a full-scale anti-Milosevic riot, prompting a brutal police crackdown that led to the Serbian military being called to secure the city’s streets. The next day Belgrade university students took their turn, but were again suppressed by the police.
Milosevic’s crackdown dampened enthusiasm for further violent challenges to his rule. Each time he was challenged, Milosevic retained power through a mix of restrictions (which were most severe in 1991) and piecemeal concessions that only marginally eroded his power. Meanwhile, Western media throughout the 1990s confused liberal, educated, pro-Western university students in the streets of Belgrade for a mass movement against Milosevic, much like they did with the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 and with Iran today.
But ultimately Milosevic stayed in power for two main reasons: he had ample domestic, popular support in Serbia outside of Belgrade, and he had the full loyalty of security forces in Serbia at the time: interior ministry troops and their various paramilitary organizations.
Serbian opposition eventually employed two strategies that toppled Milosevic: co-option and compromise with elements of Milosevic’s regime. Co-option meant convincing the industrial workers and miners of Central Serbia, as well as ardent Serbian nationalists, that protesting against Milosevic meant more than being a university student who discussed Plato in the morning and marched against the government in the evening. Highly organized student opposition group Otpor (“Resistance” in Serb) made it their central mission to co-opt everyone from labor union members to nationalist soccer hooligans to the cause. This also meant fielding a candidate in 2000 elections — firmly nationalist Vojislav Kostunica — that could appeal to more than just liberal Belgrade and European-oriented northern Serbia (the Vojvodina region).
Meanwhile, compromise meant negotiating with pseudo security forces — essentially organized crime elements running Milosevic’s paramilitaries such as the notorious “Red Brigades” — and promising them a place in the future pro-Democratic and pro-Western Serbia. These compromises ultimately came to haunt the nascent pro-Western Belgrade, but they worked in October 2000.
These Serbian opposition successes stand in stark contrast to Iran today. In Iran, we have seen no concrete evidence that the opposition is willing or able to co-opt Iranians of different ideological leanings. As long as this aspect is missing, security elements will refuse to negotiate with the opposition since they will perceive the regime as still having an upper hand. Furthermore, security elements will ultimately not switch sides if they don’t have assurances that in the post-clerical Iran they will retain their prominent place or at least will escape persecution. This was the “deal with the Devil” that the Serbian opposition was ready to make in October 2000. But in Iran, at this moment, a deal with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and their paramilitary Basij forces is not possible.
Ultimately, Serbia in 2000 was also surrounded by a different geopolitical situation. Isolated in the Balkans with no allies — not even Russia, which at the time was weak and dealing with the aftershocks of the 1998 economic crisis — Western pressure exerted on Belgrade was inordinately greater than the pressure the United States and its allies can exert on Iran today. It is further highly unlikely that a military strike against Iran would have the same effect that NATO’s three-month air campaign against Serbia did in 1999. The scale of the two efforts is vastly different. Serbia was an easy target surrounded by NATO states, while Iran can retaliate in a number of ways against the United States and its allies, particularly by threatening global energy trade.
Evidence from the ground in Iran indicates that the ruling regime may undergo a certain level of calibration — especially as different factions within the clerical regime maneuver to profit from the imbroglio — but it is hardly near its end. The continuation of protests is not evidence of their success, much as the continuation of protests against Milosevic throughout the 1990s was not evidence that he was losing power. Milosevic not only held out for nearly 10 years after the initial 1991 protests, but he also managed to be quite a thorn in the side of the West, taking charge in numerous regional conflicts and going toe-to-toe with NATO.
We may later come to see in the Iranian protests of June and December 2009 the seeds of what might eventually topple the regime. But if we learn anything from the Serbian example, it is that a regime that survives a challenge — as Milosevic did in 1991 — lives to tough out a number of fights down the road.
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AFP/Getty Images
Iranian security guards, firemen and municipal workers outside the home of Massoud Ali-Mohammadi on Jan. 12An improvised explosive device (IED) detonated in the Qeyterieh district of Tehran at approximately 8:05 a.m. on Jan. 12, killing University of Tehran physics professor Massoud Ali-Mohammadi in front of his home. Ali-Mohammadi’s association with the Iranian opposition movement and possible participation in the country’s nuclear program have led to a host of possible suspects in the attack, but details remain murky, and who was behind the attack remains unclear. However, a close examination of photographs and video of the blast scene reveals the sequence of events and clues to the type of IED employed in this attack.
The IED detonated as Ali-Mohammadi exited the driveway of his gated home and turned left on the street in front of the residence. Several reports have stated that the IED was remotely detonated, and the precision timing involved in this attack supports these reports and indicates that there was at least one spotter that had a line of sight to the target. There would have been an approximately two- to three-second window as Ali-Mohammadi exited his driveway for this attack to have been successful. A timing device would not be dynamic enough to detonate the IED at the specific time or account for possible delays. A remotely detonated device and an eyes-on spotter would provide the precision needed for this type of attack to be successful, and the largely residential area where the attack took place offers ample places for a spotter to hide in wait.
The photos and video of the site also demonstrate that the IED was located to the left of the exit of Ali-Mohammadi’s driveway along the street in front of his home, either placed in a garbage can or on a motorcycle parked along the road. The damage to the left side of Ali-Mohammadi’s vehicle and to the motorcycle indicates the IED was located outside the vehicle, as does the pattern of fragmentation at the scene.
The damage caused by the IED appears to be consistent with that of a low-velocity explosive packed with a form of shrapnel (perhaps something like ball bearings) — similar to a shotgun blast. Low explosives, like gunpowder or perchlorate mixtures, tend to heave and propel objects, while high explosives, such as RDX and PETN, tend to shatter and cut objects. The IED was located only a few feet from Ali-Mohammadi’s vehicle, but the metal frames of the vehicle and the motorcycle and Ali-Mohammadi’s body were intact – noticeably absent the type of blast effects normally associated with high explosives. There also was consistent 1-inch to 1.5-inch fragmentation damage all around the blast scene, indicative of some form of shrapnel being packed into the IED to make the device more lethal.
The use of a low-explosive device does not fit the typical modus operandi of a national intelligence agency. If an intelligence agency was involved, it is possible that such a device was used in order to conceal the author of the attack, or the attack could have been subcontracted out to a local organization. The materials used in this device likely were readily available and procured locally in Tehran. The fact that the device functioned as planned shows a degree of expertise, but that is not necessarily indicative of the involvement of a national intelligence agency.
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I guess Iran just became an "active sector"? I guess some of the people in Iran are starting to think of the usual solution for govts that get to stuck on themselves.
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I wonder how you say Mossad in Farsi.
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Stratfor says the guy published regularly as an academic, but did not seem to be involved in nuke production , , , AND that he was supporting the opposition?
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Mossad (plus some unprintables as well). Wouldn't surprise me in the least, but I do wish the Iranians would DO more than just cry for a change.
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Stratfor says the guy published regularly as an academic, but did not seem to be involved in nuke production , , , AND that he was supporting the opposition?
I'd think the mullahs would be better off with an arrest and show trial in that situation rather than stage a bombing. :?
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I'd think the mullahs would be better off with an arrest and show trial in that situation rather than stage a bombing. :?
You could say the same about the protestors they are shooting, but they are shooting them nonetheless. My suspicion is that they are trying to succinctly communicate there are few depths to which they will not stoop, so Iranians ought best toe the line.
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Or, if defection was in the cards, (and it wouldn't be the first defection btw) then this too makes a clear point to others similarly situated.
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Makes a point in a proper Persian manner too. There is a legend about what a Persian king did to a gold thief...........His final meal was hot gold.
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Iranian Attack Complicates Nuclear Negotiations
MASSOUD ALI-MOHAMMADI, an Iranian physics professor at Tehran University, died early Tuesday when an improvised explosive device detonated outside his home as he pulled out of the driveway to go to work.
Ali-Mohammadi had been described by most media as a nuclear physicist. Since bombings in Tehran are quite rare and Iranian nuclear physicists are a bit of a hot commodity in the Islamic Republic, speculation quickly spread that the attack was the work of a foreign intelligence organization –- like the Israeli Mossad — to decapitate Iran’s nuclear program. Reports from the Iranian state press and Iranian officials propagated this idea, claiming that the Iranian Foreign Ministry had evidence that the bomb was planted by “Zionist and American agents.”
But upon further investigation, we found quite a few holes in that theory. For one thing, Israel would only target Ali-Mohammadi if he were a major figure in the Iranian nuclear establishment. From what we were able to discern, Ali-Mohammadi did not appear to be more than an academic who wrote frequently on theoretical physics, an area that has little direct applicability to the development of a weapons program. His apparently marginal role in Iranian nuclear affairs, along with the fact that he was a supporter of the Green Movement and was not living under the type of strict security one would expect of a nuclear scientist working on a sensitive operation for the state, led us to doubt claims that this was a Mossad operation.
“There are no clear answers as to who murdered Ali-Mohammadi, but the implications of the attack are easier to discern.”
Obscure Iranian dissident groups have thrown out other highly dubious claims, while some of our sources indicate that the attack was orchestrated by the regime itself to strengthen its position at home. There are no clear answers as to who murdered Ali-Mohammadi and for what purpose, but the implications of the attack are easier to discern.
Regardless of whether this attack was committed by Israel, a hard-line faction of the Iranian regime or a dissident group, Iran has portrayed the incident as an attack by a foreign intelligence organization on Iranian soil. That is a claim that resonates deeply inside the Islamic Republic. It also puts on the spot many of the opposition figures who don’t want to be accused of acting as enemies of the state when the state is claiming it is under siege by foreign rivals.
The attack consequently spells trouble for negotiations between the West and Iran over the latter’s nuclear program. Whether or not this result was intended by the regime, it will now be difficult –- at least in the short term — for Iran to publicly engage with the United States over the nuclear issue without losing face at home. Iran — by claiming its own scientists are under attack — now has added political justification to become more obstinate in those negotiations.
That could present an opportunity for Israel. Israel has kept quiet in recent weeks as yet another U.S. deadline has come and gone for Iran to respond to the West’s nuclear proposal to ship the bulk of Iran’s low-enriched uranium abroad for further enrichment. Iran has been increasingly cooperative in the past several days in entertaining the proposal and demonstrating its interest in the diplomatic track, while maintaining its own demand to swap the nuclear fuel in batches. The U.S. administration has continued resisting this demand, but has been making a concerted effort to demonstrate that it is making real progress with the Iranians to fend off an Israeli push for military action.
Israel, however, doesn’t have much faith in the current diplomatic process, which it sees as another Iranian maneuver to keep the West talking while Tehran buys time in developing its nuclear capability. As a result, Israel has made clear to the United States that it will not tolerate another string of broken deadlines. If Iran becomes more inflexible in the nuclear negotiations, Israel will have a stronger argument to make to the United States that the diplomatic course with Iran has expired. And should the United States be driven by the Israelis to admit the futility of the diplomatic course, the menu of choices in dealing with Iran could narrow considerably.
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Israel is on it's own. Barry ain't doing shiite to the mullahs.
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Obama Silent on Iran, Merkel Picks up the Slack
U.S. PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA presented the nation with his first ever State of the Union address on Wednesday. The speech focused almost entirely on domestic affairs, revealing the world’s sole superpower to be wholly engrossed in domestic politics and economic concerns. Barely one out of the approximately 16 and a half pages of the address looked beyond U.S. shores. There were no profound challenges to U.S. rivals as we have seen in previous speeches.
Geopolitically speaking, a global hegemon preoccupied with domestic concerns is significant in and of itself. Simply put, it means that its challengers can take note of the acrimonious political debates on the home front and hope to catch America distracted on a number of global issues. One such front is Iran, where the United States is engaged with its Western allies in trying to prevent Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon. There was barely a mention of Iran in Obama’s State of the Union, aside from a fleeting reference to “growing consequences.” But this does not mean that Wednesday carried no developments on the issue of Iranian nuclear ambition; it just means that they did not occur in Washington.
We therefore turn to Berlin where German Chancellor Angela Merkel made her most forceful statement to date on the question of sanctions against the Iranian regime. Standing next to Israeli President Shimon Peres on Tuesday, Merkel said, “Iran’s time is up. It is now time to discuss widespread international sanctions. We have shown much patience and that patience is up.”
Tehran responded to the change in tone almost immediately, issuing a statement through the Iranian Deputy Minister of Intelligence on Wednesday that claimed that two German diplomats were involved in the December Ashura anti-government protests in Iran and were promptly arrested. The statement further alluded that “Western intelligence networks” were responsible for the protests. This leads one to wonder if Tehran was publicly linking the protests and covert activity on the part of the German government.
The spat between Iran and Germany makes for some interesting geopolitical drama. First, Germany’s relationship with Iran is not a recent phenomenon. Historically, Germany has always felt more comfortable expanding via the continental route. For example, it attempted to use the Berlin-Istanbul-Baghdad-Tehran path to compensate for its inability to break through the Skagerrak Strait and into the Atlantic due to the presence of the British navy. Furthermore, arriving late to the colonial game, Germany looked to expand its influence in the Ottoman and Persian territories where local rulers saw Berlin as a benign European power due to its status as the challenger nation.
“The spat between Iran and Germany makes for some interesting geopolitical drama.”
Fast forward to today. Tehran has relied on Germany as one of its most consistent supporters in the West. German businesses, particularly in the heavy industrial sector, exported nearly $6 billion worth of goods in 2008, a marked increase from barely $1 billion in 2000, especially considering the worsening relations between Tehran and the rest of the West’s powers. While trade with Iran only makes up around 0.4 percent of total German exports — on par with Berlin’s exports to Slovenia — industrial giants such as ThyssenKrupp and Siemens do a lot of business with Tehran, particularly in the steel pipe sector. Exports of steel pipe to Iran make up a sizable 18 percent of total global German exports of that particular sector and are valued at around $400 million, a sum Germany cannot ignore amidst rising unemployment and uncertain economic times.
As such, Germany has repeatedly looked to avoid cracking down on Tehran, keeping sanctions language constrained to the United Nations arena where it is clear that no progress can be made without a change in Russian and Chinese positions. However, Merkel’s comments seem to suggest that change may actually be afoot. This is particularly true when one puts them in the context of the announcement from Siemens on Wednesday that it plans to cut future trade relations with Iran, and by Hamburg-based ports company HHLA that it will cancel its planned agreement to modernize Iran’s Bandar-Abbas port. It should be noted that both companies have close ties to the German state.
To explain Germany’s change in tone we can point to two factors. One is increased pressure from the United States. STRATFOR sources have reported that German banks were facing up to $1 billion in fines from the United States for doing business with Iran. German banks — which are already hurting from the economic crisis and are almost certain to experience more pain in 2010 — are key in financing German exporters. A crackdown on their operations would have effectively forced them to stop providing credit to any business intending to export to Tehran. The second pressure came from Israel, whose intelligence services have close ties to German intelligence services, and whose entire Cabinet held a joint session with German intelligence officials last week. President Peres also came to Berlin to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, not the time for Berlin to eschew cracking down on Tehran’s Holocaust-denying government. The image of modern Germany being a friend to the state of Israel is very important to Berlin.
Merkel may have ultimately decided that with the elections in Germany behind her, the time to protect businesses in the face of American and Israeli pressure was over. On the other hand, she may have calculated that changing her tone on Iran would save German businesses that export to Tehran because the United States would then not crack down on banks that deal with export financing.
Whatever Berlin’s reasoning may be, it is important for us to determine whether it is merely a change in tone or a concrete change of policy. It is therefore going to require a careful study of Berlin’s moves in the coming weeks as the approaching February deadline — set by the international community for Tehran to comply with demands on its nuclear program — reveals just how serious Merkel is and whether she is willing to impose sanctions against Iran without a U.N. agreement. If Germany is serious about enforcing sanctions against Iran, it will place concrete pressure on Tehran, the kind of pressure that an entire U.S. State of the Union address dedicated to the Iranian nuclear program would not have been able to bear.
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second post
Iran’s To-Do List
WITH JUST A LITTLE UNDER TWO MONTHS to go before post-Baathist Iraq holds its second round of elections, Iraq’s Sunnis are being pushed into an all-too-familiar corner by Iran’s political allies in Baghdad. A Shiite-led government commission in Iraq is currently examining a list of 511 Sunni politicians who, depending on the commission’s final decision, could be deemed too Baathist to be considered eligible to participate in the elections. Meanwhile, in the Iraqi Shiite holy city of Najaf, the provincial council has ordered the expulsion of Sunni Baathists from the city. Any remaining Baathists, according to the local council, would face “an iron hand.”
This is quite disconcerting for the United States. The last time Iraq’s Shiite faction attempted to cut Iraq’s Sunnis out of the political process was in 2003 under a highly controversial debaathification policy that essentially drove the Sunnis toward insurgency as a means of regaining political power. At that time, the Iranians had a golden opportunity at hand: the fall of Saddam Hussein meant the door was wide open for Iran to establish a Shiite foothold in the heart of the Arab world. After initially facilitating the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Tehran spent the next several years working on locking down Shiite influence in Baghdad. Iran did so with the help of its political, intelligence, economic and militant assets, but was also greatly aided by the nuclear bogeyman.
Throughout the Iraq war, STRATFOR watched as Iran used its nuclear program as a bargaining chip with the United States to consolidate influence over Iraq. This isn’t to say that the Iranians were never seriously interested in a nuclear weapons program. Indeed, such a program would be a welcome insurance policy and status symbol for the Iranian regime. But Iran’s nuclear ambitions ranked second on its priority list. Iran’s primary goal was always Iraq, Iran’s historic rival.
“By creating a nightmare scenario for the United States in Iraq, Iran effectively multiplies the value of its cooperation to Washington.”
Roughly seven years later, Iran is now ready to move down that list of priorities. In the weeks leading up to the Iraqi elections, STRATFOR has seen our forecast of Iran’s power consolidation in Iraq come to fruition. The Iranian incursion and seizure of the al Fakkah oil well in southern Iraq was the first warning shot to the United States, followed by some very obvious signs that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki — long known for keeping his distance from Tehran -– was beginning to align with Iran’s political allies in Baghdad. In a diplomatic slap to Washington’s face, al Maliki’s spokesman Ali al Dabbagh said Tuesday that U.S. attempts to intervene in the Iraqi political process to save a place for the Sunnis in the government would “not achieve anything.” The message Tehran is telegraphing to Washington is clear: Iran –- not the United States — holds the upper hand in Iraq.
With Iraq under its belt, Iran can now afford to focus on its next objective: nuclear weapons. But this particular agenda item carries a load of complications for Tehran, the most obvious of which is the threat of a pre-emptive U.S./Israeli strike on its nuclear facilities.
In a shifting of priorities, Iran is now effectively using Iraq as a bargaining chip with the United States in its nuclear negotiations. Iran can see how desperately the United States needs to disengage from Iraq to tend to other issues. The threat of a major Sunni insurgency revival could run a good chance of throwing those withdrawal plans off course. Iran can also see how the United States, with its military focus now on Afghanistan, is no longer in a position to provide the same security guarantees to the Sunnis as it could at the height of the 2007 surge. Therefore, by creating a nightmare scenario for the United States in Iraq, Iran effectively multiplies the value of its cooperation to Washington.
As intended, this leverage will prove quite useful to Tehran in its current nuclear tango with the United States. If the United States wants to avoid a major conflagration in Iraq, then, according to Iran’s agenda, Washington is going to have to meet Tehran’s terms on the nuclear issue and give serious pause to any plans for military action. Iran has already made this clear by officially rejecting the West’s latest proposal to remove the bulk of its low-enriched uranium abroad. Some might call this defiance, others might call it overconfidence, but at its core, this is a negotiation and Iran still holds a lot of cards.
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Iranian Proxies: An Intricate and Active Web
February 3, 2010
By Scott Stewart
For the past few years, STRATFOR has been carefully following the imbroglio over the Iranian nuclear weapons program and efforts by the United States and others to scuttle the program. This situation has led to threats by both sides, with the United States and Israel discussing plans to destroy Iranian weapons sites with airstrikes and the Iranians holding well-publicized missile launches and military exercises in the Persian Gulf.
Much attention has been paid to the Iranian deterrents to an attack on its nuclear program, such as the ballistic missile threat and the potential to block the Strait of Hormuz, but these are not the only deterrents Iran possesses. Indeed, over the past several years, Iran has consistently reminded the world about the network of proxy groups that the country can call upon to cause trouble for any country that would attack its nuclear weapons program.
Over the past several weeks, interesting new threads of information about Iranian proxies have come to light, and when the individual strands are tied together they make for a very interesting story.
Iran’s Proxies
From almost the very beginning of the Islamic republic, Iran’s clerical regime has sought to export its Islamic revolution to other parts of the Muslim world. This was done not only for ideological purposes — to continue the revolution — but also for practical reasons, as a way to combat regional adversaries by means of proxy warfare. Among the first groups targeted for this expansion were the Shiite populations in Iraq, the Persian Gulf and, of course, Lebanon. The withdrawal of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from Lebanon in 1982 left behind a cadre of trained Shiite militants who were quickly recruited by agents of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). These early Lebanese recruits included hardened PLO fighters from the slums of South Beirut such as Imad Mughniyah. These fighters formed the backbone of Iran’s militant proxy force in Lebanon, Hezbollah, which, in the ensuing decades, would evolve from a shadowy terrorist group into a powerful political entity with a significant military capability.
One of the most impressive things about these early proxy efforts in Lebanon is that the IRGC and the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security were both very young institutions at the time, and they were heavily pressured by the 1980 invasion of Iran by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, which was backed by the Gulf states and the United States. The Iranians also had to compete with the Amal movement, which was backed by Libya and Syria and which dominated the Lebanese Shiite landscape at the time. Projecting power into Lebanon under such conditions was quite an amazing feat, one that many more mature intelligence organizations have not been able to match.
Though these institutions were young, the Iranians were not without experience in intelligence tradecraft. The years of operating against the Shah’s intelligence service, a brutal and efficient organization known as the SAVAK, taught the Iranian revolutionaries many hard-learned lessons about operational security and clandestine operations, and they incorporated many of these lessons into their handling of proxy operations. For example, it was very difficult for the U.S. government to prove that the Iranians, through their proxies, were behind the bombings of the U.S. Embassy (twice) and Marine barracks in Beirut or the kidnapping of Westerners in Lebanon. The use of different names in public statements such as the Islamic Jihad Organization, Revolutionary Justice Organization and the Organization of the Oppressed on Earth, when combined with very good Iranian operational security, served to further muddy the already murky waters of Lebanon’s militant landscape. Iran has also done a fairly good job at hiding its hand in places like Kuwait and Bahrain.
While Iran has invested a lot of effort to build up Shiite proxy groups such as Hezbollah and assorted other groups in Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, the Iranians do not exclusively work with Shiite proxies. As we discussed last week, the Iranians also have a pragmatic streak and will work with Marxist groups like the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, Sunni groups like Hamas in Gaza and various militant groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan (they sought to undermine the Taliban while that group was in power in Afghanistan but are currently aiding some Taliban groups in an effort to thwart the U.S. effort there). In an extremely complex game, the Iranians are also working with various Sunni and Kurdish groups in Iraq, in addition to their Shiite proxies, as they seek to shape their once-feared neighbor into something they can more-easily influence and control.
More than Foot Stomping
For several years now, every time there is talk of a possible attack on Iran there is a corresponding threat by Iran to use its proxy groups in response to such an attack. Iran has also been busy pushing intelligence reports to anybody who will listen (including STRATFOR) that it will activate its militant proxy groups if attacked and, to back that up, will periodically send operatives or proxies out to conduct not-so-subtle surveillance of potential targets. Hezbollah and Hamas have both stated publicly that they will attack Israel if Israel launches an attack against Iran’s nuclear program, and such threats are far more than mere rhetorical devices. Iran has taken many concrete steps to prepare and arm its various proxy groups:
On Dec. 11, 2009, authorities seized an Ilyushin-76 cargo plane in Bangkok that contained 35 tons of North Korean-produced military weapons that were destined for Iran (though Iran, naturally, denies the report). The weapons, which included man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS), were either equivalent to, or less advanced than, weapons Iran produces on its own. This fact raised the real possibility that the Iranians had purchased the North Korean weapons in order to distribute them to proxies and hide Iran’s hand if those arms were recovered after an attack.
In November 2009, Israeli naval commandos seized a ship off the coast of Cyprus that was loaded with hundreds of tons of weapons that were apparently being sent from Iran to Hezbollah. The seizure, which was the largest in Israel’s history, included artillery shells, rockets, grenades and small-arms ammunition.
In August 2009, authorities in the United Arab Emirates seized a ship carrying 10 containers of North Korean weapons disguised as oil equipment. The seized cache included weapons that Iran produces itself, like rockets and rocket-propelled grenade rounds, again raising the probability that the arms were intended for Iran’s militant proxies.
In April 2009, Egyptian authorities announced that they had arrested a large network of Hezbollah operatives who were planning attacks against Israeli targets inside Egypt. It is likely, however, that the network was involved in arms smuggling and the charges of planning attacks may have been leveled against the smugglers to up the ante and provide a warning message to anyone considering smuggling in the future.
In January 2009, a convoy of suspected arms smugglers in northern Sudan near the Egyptian border was attacked by an apparent Israeli air strike. The arms were reportedly destined for Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and were tied to an Iranian network that, according to STRATFOR sources in the region, had been purchasing arms in Sudan and shipping them across the Sinai to Gaza.
As illustrated by most of the above incidents (and several others we did not include for the sake of brevity), Israeli intelligence has been actively attempting to interdict the flow of weapons to Iran and Iranian proxy groups. Such Israeli efforts may explain the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, whose body was discovered Jan. 20 in his room at a five-star hotel in Dubai. Al-Mabhouh, a senior commander of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military wing, lived in exile in Damascus and was reportedly the Hamas official responsible for coordinating the transfer of weapons from Iran to Hamas forces in Gaza. A STRATFOR source advised us that, at the time of his death, al-Mabhouh was on his way to Tehran to meet with his IRGC handlers. The operation to kill al-Mabhouh also bears many similarities to past Israeli assassination operations. His status as an Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades commander involved in many past attacks against Israel would certainly make him an attractive target for the Israelis.
Of course, like anything involving the Iranians, there remains quite a bit of murkiness involving the totality of their meddling in the region. Hezbollah sources have told STRATFOR that they have troops actively engaged in combat in Yemen, with the al-Houthi rebels in the northern province of Saada along the Saudi border, and have lost several fighters there. Hezbollah also has claimed that its personnel have shot down several Yemeni aircraft using Iranian-manufactured Misagh-1 MANPADS.
The governments of Yemen and Saudi Arabia have very good reason to fear Iran’s plans to expand its influence in the Gulf region, and the Yemenis in particular have been very vocal about blaming Iran for stirring up the al-Houthi rebels. Because of this, if there truly were Hezbollah fighters being killed in Saada and signs of Iranian ordnance (like MANPADS) being used by Hezbollah fighters or al-Houthi rebels, we believe the government of Yemen would have been documenting the evidence and providing the documentation to the world (especially in light of Yemen’s long and unsuccessful attempt to gain U.S. assistance for its struggle against the al-Houthi insurgency). That said, while Hezbollah MANPADS teams are not likely to be running around Saada, there is evidence that the Iranians have been involved in smuggling weapons to the al-Houthi via Yemen’s rugged Red Sea coast. Indeed, such arms smuggling has resulted in a Saudi naval blockade of the Yemeni coast. Reports of al-Houthi militants being trained by the IRGC in Lebanon and Iran are also plausible.
Iran has long flirted with jihadist groups. This support has sporadically stretched from the early days of al Qaeda’s stay in Sudan, where Hezbollah bomb makers instructed al Qaeda militants in how to make large vehicle bombs, to more recent times, when the IRGC has provided arms to Iraqi Sunni militants and Taliban factions in Afghanistan. Iran has also provided weapons to the now-defunct Supreme Islamic Courts Council in Somalia and one of its offshoots, al Shabaab.
Over the past several months we have also heard from a variety of sources in different parts of the Middle East that the Iranians are assisting al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Some reports indicate that a jihadist training camp that had previously been operating in Syria to train and send international fighters to Iraq had been relocated to Iran, and that with Iranian assistance, the jihadists were funneling international militants from Iran to Yemen to fight with AQAP. Other reports say the Iranians are providing arms to the group. While some analysts downplay such reports, the fact that we have received similar information from a wide variety of sources in different countries and with varying ideological backgrounds suggests there is indeed something to these reports.
One last thing to consider while pondering Iran’s militant proxies is that, while Iranian missiles will be launched (and mines laid) only in the case of open hostilities, Iranian militant proxies have been busily at work across the region for many years now. With a web of connections that reaches all the way from Lebanon to Somalia to Afghanistan, Iran can cast a wide net over the Middle East. If the United States has truly begun to assume a defensive posture in the Gulf, it will have to guard not only against Iranian missile strikes but also against Iran’s sophisticated use of proxy militant groups.
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John Bolton a long time hawk on Iran finally just came out and said the only thing to stop Iran from obtaining the bomb is a US or Israeli strike.
I have the impression the US powers to be have already quietly accepted that Iran will be a nuclear power.
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Change US powers to Current Administration, and you probably hit the nail on the head.
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Bolton is right I fear. I would add that this , , , farce in which we are currently are engaged, what Krauthammer calls a "Kabuki Theater", is designed to pass the time until Iran has nukes.
Our deadline of September and then the "we are really serious this time deadline of 12/31" of have come and gone.
I saw SecDef Gates last night say our really big next move is to get a UN resolution :-o :roll: :cry: as if Iran's violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty which it signed were not enough. PATHETIC.
That said, I certainly am not hearing any eagerness from our military for a military solution and Iran is not an easy nut to crack as those who glibly envision an Osirak 2 seem to think. Are there non-nuclear solutions? Anyone? Anyone here calling for nukes?
It is more than worth noting that this farce began during the Bush administration and of the Euros that the Germans in particular bear the responsibility for the consequences for undercutting the economic pressures on Iran until it is now too late. Also worth noting is that the Chinese depend on Iran for much of their energy and now that we have given them such huge claims upon us and our resources that we are in no position to pressure them or blow them off.
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Yeah, people driving that block to the corner store instead of walking it, and politicians failing to actually do something when the bluff is called, have worked us into a nasty little corner. The irresponsibility of our businesses crossed with the "everyone gets a free house" by the government to ruin an economy we need during this instable period after the end of the cold war.
Then We The People fail to hold ourselves and government accountable for our mistakes, and looking for Bailout Balm to avoid or sothe the owwie that we earned? I am in one of those moods tonite............
Now there is an inability to deal with a real threat to us and our allies, I guess it is time to send a bill to Europe eh? due for empowering an agressively expansionist, religiosly fanatic regime. I wonder if Nostradamus' man in a blue turban has turned up yet? could it be the UN backed by what is developing in the middle east with Iran leading things?
Okay wild surmise, but what lynchpin is there that could reverse this situation?
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Iran, Beacon of Liberty?
By REUEL MARC GERECHT
Published: February 10, 2010
ON Thursday, the birthday of the Islamic Republic of Iran, we will see whether the democratic opposition movement has been driven underground by the increasingly brutal harassment from the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iranian society has become like molten rock under high pressure: more eruptions are inevitable. And if the dissidents can take to the streets, they will.
In any case, the fraudulent June 12 presidential elections and the subsequent internal tumult ought to make us wonder what would happen if Iran actually went democratic. President Obama and his advisers — still devoted to engagement and the hope that Iran’s nuclear-weapons program can be peacefully derailed (despite Tehran’s stepping up of its enrichment program this week), and probably skeptical that Ayatollah Khamenei and his Revolutionary Guards Corps could lose power — have likely spent little time envisioning a region where the Islamic Republic as we have known it no longer exists. At least, nobody from the administration’s foreign-policy brain trust has laid out any plans for that contingency.
But given the troubles facing Ayatollah Khamenei, the near certainty that the clerical regime is going to get a lot nastier soon and the momentous possibilities of a democratic Iran, the White House should give it some thought. Mr. Khamenei is confronting a democracy movement that has grown larger despite an almost total lack of organization and charismatic leadership.
Iran’s militarized theocracy will survive or perish depending on the strength of the Revolutionary Guards, the praetorian branch of the military that has become a self-sustaining fundamentalist conglomerate. Yet many guardsmen and their children, like the children of the clerical elite, are graduates of Iran’s best universities. And if there is one factor that has inclined Iranians toward the opposition, it has been higher education — a point the regime has surely noted when it comes to the probable loyalties of the country’s nuclear physicists.
In fact, many rank-and-file guardsmen voted for Mohammad Khatami, the reformist candidate, in the 1997 presidential election, even though their senior officers detested him. It’s likely this schism remains.
The funeral in December of the regime’s bête noire, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, where hundreds of thousands turned out, suggests the regime may also be encountering resistance from the clerical establishment.
The senior clergymen of the holy city of Qum have never had any regard for Ayatollah Khamenei’s religious credentials and political pretensions; their quiescence has been achieved through intimidation by the regime and their inability to see any political alternative. But part of Ayatollah Montazeri’s appealing dissent, which has been echoed by other Shiite clerics since his death, is that the Islamic Republic doesn’t have to change much for the differences to be telling. Just freeing the Parliament from unelected clerical oversight would be a revolutionary step.
We will likely know in the coming months if the opposition can draw into the streets larger numbers of the mostazafan, “the oppressed poor,” who have been the popular bedrock of the regime since the 1979 revolution. The economic “reforms” that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has planned will probably worsen Iran’s already debilitating inflation and unemployment. An opposition combining the young mullahs, college-educated bureaucrats within Iran’s bloated civil service and a significant slice of the urban poor could be too diverse for the guards, a partly conscripted force, to suppress.
The guards rose to prominence defending the homeland against an Iraqi invader; they have not yet shown that they have the fortitude to kill their countrymen like the Russian secret police or the Chinese Red Guards. Note how much time and effort the regime has spent to deflect blame for the killing of one young woman, Neda Agha-Soltan, in the post-election rioting last summer. A self-confident regime would have killed unapologetically. Senior guardsmen may want to unleash a bloodbath to preserve the status quo, but Ayatollah Khamenei, who lacks the cold-blooded will of the state’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, doesn’t seem to want to slaughter Iranians or make himself a hostage of his henchmen.
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When regimes start to crack, the unthinkable becomes thinkable. Ayatollah Khamenei’s supporters could start to wonder whether their influence could survive in a more open political system. Iranian journalists are reporting that former guardsmen who’ve joined the opposition are signaling their one-time brothers that they could have a soft landing in a new order. However much the regime has worked to brainwash its security force (“the bulwark against disbelief”), if more Iranians are killed, rank-and-file guardsmen may suspend their belief and choose not to shoot.
A democratic revolution in Tehran could well prove the most momentous Mideastern event since the fall of the Ottoman Empire. A politically freer Iran would bring front and center the great Islamic debate of our times: How can one be both a good Muslim and a democrat? How does one pay homage to Islamic law but give ultimate authority to the people’s elected representatives? How can a Muslim import the best of the West without suffering debilitating guilt?
To an extent seen in no other country, Iran’s intellectuals have battled and evolved over these questions. For a century, the country has been trying to develop constitutional government. For 30 years, dissident clerics and lay intellectuals have struggled to reassert the democratic promise in the revolution.
Especially for religious dissidents, democracy is now seen as a keystone of a more moral order, where the faith can no longer be used to countenance dictatorship. An operating assumption of President Obama’s speech to the Islamic world in Cairo last year is that Washington can work with authoritarian regimes against extremism — that Muslims don’t need to be politically free to tame religious militancy. But the evolution of Christianity, which never had Islam’s deep fusion of church and state, tells us something different: that it has been the West’s political evolution — from autocracy to democracy — which has, more than anything, depoliticized Christianity.
The same process is happening to Islam in Iran, but at a much faster pace than anything seen in the West. As a result, millions of Iranians — the sons and daughters of once faithful revolutionaries — have secularized. Whereas secularizing Westernized autocracies like the shah’s prompted upwellings of religious radicalism, Iran’s religious dictatorship has produced a softening secularization that is likely to last, since both nonreligious and faithful Iranians increasingly see representative government as indispensable to their values.
The impact of all this on Muslims everywhere is likely to be profound. In the Middle East, the Iranian Revolution catapulted Islamic fundamentalism into the foreground. An Iranian democratization couldn’t help but shake Sunni fundamentalists who, too, have wrestled with the tension between the Holy Law and voting. Sunni Arabs often like to pretend that they live in a different world from their Shiite Iranian cousins, but the truth is the opposite: cross-fertilization has been enormous. With Iranian democracy growing, liberal Arabs and Sunni Islamists would become much bolder in their demands.
Iran’s transformation would also remind Turkey’s ruling Islamist Justice and Development Party, whose commitment to democratic values has been increasingly shaky, that an authoritarian path creates revolt. And an Iranian democracy would powerfully affect Iraq, whose elected government has struggled with its own Tehran-backed demons. A democratic Iran would have little sympathy for Iraqis who prefer autocracy and religious militancy.
A democratic Tehran would also likely reduce its aid to Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Baathist dictatorship in Syria. Palestinian fundamentalists who now receive substantial Iranian financing would also likely be a subject of heavy debate in a free Parliament, as would aid to other radical Sunni groups throughout the Middle East and Tehran’s disconcerting contacts with Al Qaeda (which were detailed by the 9/11 commission report). Iran could easily become what Ayatollah Khomeini had wished — the model that transforms the Middle East — albeit not in the manner he hoped for.
Last, a democratic Iran would bring the reopening of the American Embassy, a symbolic measure of the highest significance that has long been popular among ordinary Iranians. The “Great Satan” would be no more.
President Obama has nothing to lose by moving away from engaging Ayatollah Khamenei and toward a vigorous engagement with the Iranian people’s quest for popular sovereignty. Rhetoric, sanctions aimed at cutting off Iran’s gasoline imports and intelligent covert aid to dissidents should be harnessed to the democratic cause. President Obama has an openly willing partner in the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, to make Iranian liberté a trans-Atlantic affair.
The administration should have no illusions: Ayatollah Khamenei’s regime is irretrievably paranoid. In its eyes, Western states, which have so far done next to nothing to help the democracy movement, are as culpable as the dissidents for Iran’s troubles. The supreme leader will seek ways to get even. And he isn’t going to give up his nukes. But a democratic Iran probably would.
Without the bogeyman of a Great Satan and the militant dream of regional hegemony, a Persian Parliament, overwhelmed with the people’s demands, would find much better things than enriched uranium to spend the nation’s money on. And if the clerical regime cracks, Mr. Obama will get credit. In no other endeavor, foreign or domestic, is the president likely to earn as much.
Reuel Marc Gerecht, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, is a former Middle Eastern specialist in the C.I.A.’s clandestine service.
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Good post.
Sounds a bit encouraging.
Last night while driving and listening to Marc Levin he was saying Bama should go all out supporting the opposition and putting ALL screws available on the Mullahs.
The one issue not addressed is that the guy who "lost" to Amedinjad (sp?) may not have had any different approach to Israel.
Is there any data how the average Iranian feels about sweeping the Jews into the Mediterranean?
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I am begining to suspect that the current adiministration is like the majority of others in recent years....... Lip service to Democracy only.
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And this A-hole is out there!.... First, the WW2 Holocaust was a lie and now this! somebody's in denial...
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Iran's Ahmadinejad: Sept. 11 attacks a 'big lie'
AP
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, speaks at the International Conference on AP – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, speaks at the International Conference on National and Islamic …
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer Ali Akbar Dareini, Associated Press Writer – Sat Mar 6, 1:50 pm ET
TEHRAN, Iran – Iran's hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Saturday called the official version of the Sept. 11 attacks a "big lie" used by the U.S. as an excuse for the war on terror, state media reported.
Ahmadinejad's comments, made during an address to Intelligence Ministry staff, come amid escalating tensions between the West and Tehran over its disputed nuclear program. They show that Iran has no intention of toning itself down even with tighter sanctions looming because of its refusal to halt uranium enrichment.
"September 11 was a big lie and a pretext for the war on terror and a prelude to invading Afghanistan," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by state TV. He called the attacks a "complicated intelligence scenario and act."
The Iranian president has questioned the official U.S. version of the Sept. 11 attacks before, but this is the first time he ventured to label it a "big lie."
In 2007, New York officials rejected Ahmadinejad's request to visit the World Trade Center site while he was in the city for a U.N. meeting. The president also sparked an uproar when he said during a lecture in New York that the causes and conditions that led to the attacks, as well as who orchestrated them, still need to be examined.
At the time, he also told Iranian state TV the attacks were "a result of mismanaging and inhumane managing of the world by the U.S," and that Washington was using Sept. 11 as an excuse to attack others.
He has also questioned the Sept. 11 death toll of around 3,000, claiming the Americans never published the victims' names.
On the 2007 anniversary of the attacks, the names of 2,750 victims killed in New York were read aloud at a memorial ceremony.
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Oy vey :roll:
Good thing we have such a coherent strategy to deal with all this , , ,
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Agreed. Now on Drudge Iran is reporting they have cruise missles now.
In my living room and in my amatuer opinion the only way Israel can stop them is to use nuclear weapons.
There is no reason not to take the Mullahs at their word that they mean what they say about wiping the Jews out of Israel.
Thinking it through the potential consequences are horrendous, and yes will lead to another 1000 years of Muslim revenge. That said the only other option is for the Jews in Israel to await their own deaths.
Because of inaction over the years the only way to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons by rogues is to use nuclear weapons.
And as noted before my impression, is that the US has already decided against such a move and is now thinking some sort of containment. But containment can't work. Isn't that obvious?
If I wasn't born a Jew would I actually think the US should bomb Iran with nucs or otherwise to save Israel?
Could I expect the goyam to do that for us?
I don't know.
I wonder what Clinton would have done. Hillary talks a bit tougher than the phoney One. Yet clearly she works for him and has to be constrained by his policies. Just wondering out loud. As much as I dislike Hill/Bill I don't beleive that either could have been nearly as bad as this guy.
The billboard sign out West that portrayed W with the words, "miss me yet" could (bite my tongue) even be applied by me for Bill.
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Ah yes, Bill Clinton who sent Johnny Chung to raise money in Taiwan in return for sailing a US aircrafty carrier through the straits? Bill Clinton who took money from the Red Chinese front of the Riady family? The same Riady's who paid Webster Hubbell $700,000 in psuedo consulting fees that really were to pay him doing time without implicating Hillary in the Rose firm's overbilling in AK? Bill Clinton who enabled technology to Red China by moving technology export decisions from the State Dept to the Commerce Dept in return for donations? Bill Clinton who let Saddam Hussein run the UN inspectors out of Iraq so that we were nearly totally blind four years later when it was time to decide whether SH had WMD?
That Bill Clinton?
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at least a-hole has been reading the internet this time. With internet facts to back him up this time he may be right :evil:
Maybe a MOAB reconfigured into a shaped charge weapon can reach deep enough? otherwise Israel will have to rely on the Barak, Patriot, and Ground based versions of the airforce airborne laser. :|
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"That Bill Clinton?"
Your riight. I guess it is natural that I used to think every time it can't get worse then the Clintons we now have the "Phoney ONE".
As much as Clinton was/is a total dishonest liberal I still never thought he was some sort of manifestion of an American hating Communist.
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Tuesday, March 9, 2010 STRATFOR.COM Diary Archives
U.S. Left With No Good Options in Iran
ISRAEL DEFENSE FORCES CHIEF OF STAFF Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi arrived in Washington on Monday for a visit in which he will meet with a series of U.S. officials, including White House National Security Advisor James Jones and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen. The topic of sanctions on Iran will inevitably come up, just as the White House has downgraded the once “crippling sanctions” package it has tried to compile. The downgrade follows months of failed attempts to bring on board all members of the P-5+1, most notably Russia and China.
The Americans have reportedly moved on to a more watered-down, weaker version of sanctions that target not Iran’s gasoline imports, but rather the country’s shipping, banking and insurance sectors after appearing to have resigned themselves to the fact that Russia and China were not going to come on board with the initial, more severe proposal. The latest deadline being considered by those drafting the new package is reportedly May, though with the way deadlines have been treated throughout the affair (remember the February deadline?), even that seems like a stretch.
The United States thus finds itself in a geopolitical bind, stuck with no good options and the still formidable task of convincing Russia and China to come on board with the rest of the P-5+1 in agreeing to a way to pressure Tehran into giving up its nuclear ambitions while avoiding a war in the Persian Gulf. But even with watered-down sanctions, Russia still has an interest in seeing the United States remain mired in this imbroglio. Every day of American distraction in the Middle East means another day of Russian resurgence in its former Soviet domain carried out with minimal interference from Washington. And China, which depends on Iran for a significant portion of the oil essential to greasing the wheels of its ever-expanding economy, is happy to push for more talks as long as it is not the only U.N. Security Council member that refuses to bow to Washington’s desires.
With U.S. President Barack Obama’s hopes for a change in the Russian and Chinese positions hinging on how Moscow and Beijing respond to the new draft, the world’s superpower finds itself in uncomfortable terrain. Washington knows that this latest version of sanctions –- labeled as “smart” sanctions due to the fact that they are not intended to target the Iranian people, but rather the country’s elite military force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps –- is only as good as its ability to appease the Israelis, who would want to be able to draw the United States into a fight with Tehran and utilize the strength of the American military as a way of setting back the Iranian nuclear program.
One of the United States’ main strategic imperatives is to prevent the formation of a dominant power on the Eurasian landmass. One of the tactics Washington has been known to employ to achieve this imperative is to wait as long as possible to join a fight as long as there are others present that can do the brunt of the dirty work. For example, the United States stood on the sidelines until 1917 before entering the Great War, and waited until 1944 to land on the beaches of Normandy, giving its Western European allies (as well as its Soviet friends on the Eastern Front) plenty of time to absorb casualties and weaken the Nazi war machine before putting any of its own soldiers into the line of fire.
“One of the United States’ main strategic imperatives is to prevent the formation of a dominant power on the Eurasian landmass.”
Another tried and true tactic, however, has been to utilize a third force –- whether that be a state actor or a non-state actor –- to do Washington’s bidding. Unleashing Islamist insurgents against the Soviets during the Russian invasion of Afghanistan (with financial support from Saudi Arabia and logistical assistance from Pakistan) is a well-known example, as is the use of Awakening Councils in Iraq’s Sunni provinces during the 2007 surge, which helped turn the tide of what then looked like an interminable war. And with the recent focus on the empowerment of the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police eerily mirroring the obsession with “Vietnamization” in the 1970’s, the last 100 years of American foreign policy show a country that operates according to the notion that it is easier to allow others to do something for you than it is to do it yourself.
When the United States surveys the current landscape in the Middle East, it does not see any good candidates for helping it to contain Iran. The historic counterweight to a strong Persia, Iraq finds itself weak and fractured, possibly even at the risk of becoming an Iranian satellite as a result of the 2003 American invasion, which toppled the government of Saddam Hussein. The Russian comeback in central Asia and the Caucasus has largely bottled up any possibility of taking that route to destabilize Tehran, short of enlisting the support of Moscow itself. The Persian Gulf states recognize that geography is king, and while the United States buys these countries’ oil, the Iranians are a permanent presence in the region that will not go away over time. Then there are the Saudis, who, despite the sophistication of its equipment, have a military with a very limited capability of operating beyond its borders. Turkey –- a strong country in the region that theoretically could pose a big help to the United States — is focused on other foreign policy agendas that likely outrank helping the Americans at the moment. Afghanistan has problems of its own — namely the fact that it has never existed as a coherent nation state — while Pakistan is currently battling a jihadist insurgency at home. Hopes for a revolution in Iran, through the much-publicized Green Movement, failed to materialize, while the few anti-regime domestic militant groups whose interests could possibly intersect with those of Washington -– Mujahideen-e-Khalq and Jundallah -– do not come close to having what it takes to take on Tehran.
There is, of course, the possibility of negotiations. But all sorts of Faustian bargains arise from this route as well, meaning that when it comes to Iran, the United States is left with no good options.
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Iran Lays Out Its Terms
IRANIAN PRESIDENT MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD said Tuesday he would be sending U.S. President Barack Obama a letter, the contents of which would be made public in the coming days. In a live interview on state television, Ahmadinejad said that Iran was the “only chance” for Obama to salvage his administration’s position in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Iranian president remarked, “The best way for him [Obama] is to accept and respect Iran and enter into cooperation. Many new opportunities will be created for him.”
This is not the first time Ahmadinejad has offered his American counterpart cooperation in an attempt to extract concessions. But he has never been so direct about telegraphing his view that the United States is in a difficult position in the Middle East and South Asia, nor has he offered Iran’s help so that the United States can extricate itself from the region. What is important is that the Iranian leader is pretty accurate in both his description and prescription.
Washington is indeed working toward a military drawdown in Iraq, and needs to make progress in Afghanistan within a very short time frame. Iran borders both these countries, where the Islamic republic has significant influence. Cognizant of Obama’s domestic political imperatives, Ahmadinejad said, “He [Obama] has but one chance to stay as head of the state and succeed. Obama cannot do anything in Palestine. He has no chance. What can he do in Iraq? Nothing. And Afghanistan is too complicated. The best way for him is to accept and respect Iran and enter into cooperation. Many new opportunities will be created for him.”
The Iranian president is correct in that a solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is extremely unlikely. In terms of Iraq, the Iranians recently signaled that they are prepared to accept a sizeable Sunni presence in the next Iraqi coalition government. This will facilitate the U.S. need for a balance of power in Iraq, thereby allowing Washington to exit the country. Similarly, the Americans cannot achieve the conditions for withdrawal in Afghanistan without reaching an understanding with the Iranians.
“In exchange for helping the United States, the Islamic republic first wants international recognition as a legitimate entity.”
Therefore, the maverick Iranian leader was not engaging in his usual rhetoric when he said, “Mr. Obama has only one chance and that is Iran. This is not emotional talk but scientific. He has but one place to say that ‘I made a change and I turned over the world equation’ and that is Iran.” So, what exactly does Ahmadinejad want in return for helping the leader of his country’s biggest foe?
The answer lies in the following comment by Ahmadinejad: “Acknowledging Iran would benefit both sides and as far as Iran is concerned, we are not after any confrontation.” The Iranians are trying to bring closure to their efforts of the last eight years in which they have been trying to exploit the U.S. wars being fought in their neighborhood to achieve their geopolitical objectives. Ahmadinejad is laying out his terms.
In exchange for helping the United States, the Islamic republic first wants international recognition as a legitimate entity. Second, the global community needs to recognize the Iranian sphere of influence in the Islamic world. Third, and most importantly, while it is prepared to normalize ties with the United States, Iran wants to retain its independent foreign policy.
Put another way, Iran wants to be treated by the Obama administration along the lines of how U.S. President Richard Nixon’s administration dealt with China during the early 1970s. The demand for respect is a critical one. Iran is not interested in rapprochement with the United States along the lines of what Libya did in 2003 when it gave up its nuclear weapons arsenal in exchange for normalized relations with the United States and its Western allies.
Iran is not close to crossing the nuclear threshold yet, but it wants to retain that as a future option as per any deal. Iran has been emboldened by the fact that the United States is neither in a position to exercise the military option to prevent the Persian state from going nuclear, nor is it able to put together an effective sanctions regime that could affect a change in Tehran’s behavior. It is therefore using the regional dynamic as leverage to try and extract the maximum possible concessions on the nuclear issue.
On a further note, an arrangement based on the concept of “accept us for who we are” is critical to the interests of the Iranian regime for two reasons. First, it gets rid of the external threat of regime change. Second, it allows the Iranian regime to demonstrate on the domestic front that its aggressive foreign policy has paid off, which completely undermines its Green movement opponents.
It is too early to predict whether Iran can achieve its goals or not. It has moved to the final round of its efforts to use American weakness to its advantage, and at this stage it does hold a strong deck of cards.
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Thursday, April 22, 2010 STRATFOR.COM Diary Archives
How Iran's Military Exercises Impact the U.S.
THE ISLAMIC REVOLUTIONARY GUARD CORPS (IRGC), Iran’s elite military force, will stage a three-day exercise involving land, air and sea forces beginning Thursday. The deputy commander of the IRGC, Brigadier General Hossein Salami, made the announcement on state television Wednesday. The Iranian maneuvers will specifically highlight Iran’s indigenous missile capability, allegedly testing new weapons. Meanwhile, in response to a widely publicized report from the U.S. Department of Defense that said an Iranian missile could strike the continental United States by 2015, Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi said Iran had no plans to build a ballistic missile that could do so.
The exercises come at a time when the United States is rethinking its Iranian strategy; it faces a number of considerations that have it backing away from the potential of a military strike. First and foremost is the fact that Washington is preparing to exit Iraq and needs a sufficiently firm political compromise there to avoid a reversion to widespread sectarian violence, and preserve the regional balance of power. The Iranians, through their Shiite proxies in Iraq, have the capability to shatter any such compromise (though for their own regional ambitions would only do so as a last resort). A similar situation exists in Afghanistan. The United States is aware that its eventual withdrawal from Afghanistan is only politically feasible if it and the major neighboring powers — including Iran — make arrangements to prevent the country from relapsing into a haven for militants and a battleground for internal and external forces vying for influence.
Second, the American realization has been that striking Iran’s clandestine nuclear program would require better intelligence about the location and vulnerabilities of nuclear sites and unattainable levels of confidence in penetrating deeply buried and hardened facilities. More importantly, it would require managing the aftermath. To further deter an American attack, Iran has publicized its most critical retaliatory maneuver: deploying a variety of military tools to damage and threaten the Straits of Hormuz, through which about 40 percent of the world’s seaborne oil supply passes.
“The exercises come at a time when the United States is rethinking its Iranian strategy.”
Oil shocks at a time of global economic fragility are not tolerable for the United States. While Washington continues to assess the complexities of an air campaign that could (with limited confidence in success) neutralize Iran’s threats to the Persian Gulf, Tehran maintains a spectrum of capabilities — including missiles, mines and swarms of small, fast attack craft — that could cause considerable damage to commercial traffic, and raise uncertainties to the point that oil prices would climb even if attacks on oil-carrying vessels were relatively ineffective. This in turn would negatively impact economies from Greece to Cambodia, and everywhere in between.
At the same time the United States is aware that Iran is a rational player. Tehran would not resort to an internecine option like attacking Hormuz (which would incidentally cut off Iran’s own imports, including gasoline) unless it was convinced that an American attack was inevitable and imminent. The Iranians also want to see U.S. forces withdraw from Iraq so that they can get on with the business of configuring Iraq’s political make-up to favor Tehran’s interests. By doing so, they would pre-empt the possible re-emergence of Persia’s historic fears of a powerful Mesopotamian foe.
At a time when the United States is debating Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities and urging unilateral and multilateral sanctions, and Iran is threatening to blast the global economic recovery, both sides have reasons to consider bargaining. Though Washington’s desire to leave the region and maintain a balance of power against Iran is contradictory, a deal could be struck in which the United States could get its withdrawal free of Iranian sabotage, and Iran could get greater regional influence — possibly even nuclear-armed status. But relations are fraught with distrust and neither side can afford to look weak. The Iranian exercises are meant to drive home the point for Washington that attacking Iran is a far too risky solution, and accommodation is a much better choice.
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What a U.S.-Iran Entente Would Look Like
AT STRATFOR WE TRY TO KEEP TRACK OF minute details related to global events. At the same time though, we do not allow ourselves to get bogged down in the proverbial weeds or trees. Instead we focus on the forest as a whole and what the forest will look like over a temporal horizon.
So, while everyone else Tuesday was obsessing over the latest U.S. plans for a fresh round of sanctions against Iran, we were trying to understand what the world would look like if the United States and Iran brought three decades of hostility to an end. Most people would deem the exercise as ludicrous given Tuesday’s events. But STRATFOR has long been saying that with no viable military options to attempt to curb Iranian behavior, and an inability to put together an effective sanctions regime, Washington has only one choice, and that is to negotiate with Tehran on the issues that matter most to both countries.
We are not just talking about the nuclear issue, but rather the key problem of the balance of power between a post-American Iraq and the entire Persian Gulf region. The agreement signed in Tehran by the leaders of Iran, Turkey and Brazil is the first public evidence that the two sides could agree to disagree in roughly the same way the United States and China did in the early 1970s.
While both Washington and Tehran have a lot to gain from a detente, an end to their hostile relationship — which at the moment is far from assured — would have immense implications for a number of players in the region and around the world. This is a subject that has been intensely discussed among our analysts who cover the various regions of the world. Rather than craft a flowing narrative on their ruminations, STRATFOR presents them here in raw form.
An Iran with normalized relations with the United States is a challenge for both Washington and Tehran. The former more so than the latter because it is about the United States according recognition upon a state not because it has accepted to align itself with U.S. foreign policy for the region, but because there are no other viable options for dealing with Tehran. The United States can live with Iran driving its own agenda because of geography, but geography becomes the very reason why many U.S. allies are worried about an internationally rehabilitated Tehran. These include the Arab states, particularly those on the southern shores of the Persian Gulf, and Israel. Iran already has the largest military force in the region — which will only grow more powerful once Tehran is no longer encumbered by sanctions. It will, however, be some time before Iran is able to meaningfully project or sustain conventional military force, though it already exercises considerable influence via regional proxies. Even now, despite all the restrictions, it is still able to finance its regional ambitions — a situation that would only improve once foreign investments pour into the Iranian energy sector.
“While both Washington and Tehran have a lot to gain from a detente, an end to their hostile relationship would have immense implications for a number of players in the region and around the world.”
For the Persian Gulf Arab states, Iran’s return to the global energy market is as much a threat as its military power. Israel is already dealing with the rise of hostile Arab non-state actors, an emergent Turkey and an Egypt in transition, so from its point of view a rehabilitated Iran only makes matters worse for Israel’s national security. To a lesser degree, the Turks and the Pakistanis are concerned about Iran returning to the comity of nations. Ankara wants to be the regional hegemon and does not want competition from anyone — certainly not its historic rival. The Pakistanis do not wish to see competition in Afghanistan, nor do they want their relationship with the United States affected.
The United States has been hobbled by the memories of the 1979 hostage crisis for a generation now, while the importance of oil to the global system makes security in the Persian Gulf an unavoidable commitment for American forces. During the Cold War, when the United States did not have to worry about Gulf security or Iranian ambition, the United States was emotionally, militarily and diplomatically free to encircle the Soviets, parlay with the Chinese, induce the Europeans to cooperate, dominate South America and use Israel to keep the Middle East in check. We are in a radically different world now. But once the United States lets go of the expensive and unwieldy security and emotional baggage caused by Iran, Washington’s ability to reshape the international system should not be underestimated. And that says nothing of what an Iran with a free hand would do to its backyard.
The trajectory of this hypothesized rapprochement coincides with the trajectory of increasing U.S. military capacity. Though U.S. ground combat forces remain heavily committed now, this will change in the years to come. This trajectory is already taking shape, but a U.S.-Iranian entente would accelerate the process. A United States with a battle-hardened military accustomed to a high deployment tempo without the commitments that defined the first decade of the 21st century will have immense capability to deploy multiple brigades to places like Poland, the Baltic states or Georgia. Its naval deployments will be able to spend less time in the Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf and more time loitering in places like the South China Sea. These capabilities will certainly create friction with states like Russia and China. The United States is on this trajectory with or without Iran, but with a U.S.-Iranian rapprochement, it is possible on a more rapid timetable and to a greater degree.
An Iranian-U.S. rapprochement would be a relief to Europe. The Europeans are exhausted by having to keep up with U.S.-Middle Eastern problems, and while the Iranian imbroglio has not forced the Europeans to commit any troops, they are worried that it may in the future. Europeans, especially the French and the Germans, would welcome a Tehran-Washington reconciliation from an economic perspective as well. Both want to use Iran as a market for high-tech products, and France has its sights set on the South Pars natural gas field in the Gulf. Iranian natural gas reserves, estimated to be the second largest in the world, would potentially fill the Nabucco pipeline and give Europe an alternative to Russian energy exports.
Russia has no interest in seeing the United States and Iran come to terms with each other. Iran may be a historic rival to Russia, but it’s a rivalry the Russians have been able to manipulate rather effectively in dealing with the United States. Building Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant and threatening to sell S300 strategic air defense systems to Iran are Russia’s way of capturing Washington’s attention in a region that has consumed U.S. power since the turn of the century. Moscow may be willing to give small concessions over Iran to the United States, but its overall interest is to keep Washington’s focus on Tehran. The more distracted the United States is, the more room Russia has to entrench itself in the former Soviet space and keep Europe under its thumb. If the United States manages to work out an understanding with Tehran and rely more heavily on an ally like Turkey to tend to issues in the Islamic world, then it can turn to the pressing geopolitical issue of how to undermine Russian leverage in Eurasia.
East Asia’s major powers would, in general, favor a U.S. rapprochement with Iran. Japan, China and South Korea, the world’s second, third and 13th biggest economies respectively are all major importers of oil and natural gas. If the United States were to lend its support to Iran as a preeminent power in the Middle East, it would not only open up Iran’s energy sector for greater opportunities in investment and production, but also relieve the Asian states of some of their anxiety about instability in the region as a whole, especially in the vulnerable Persian Gulf choke point through which their oil supplies are shipped. Moreover, these states would leap at new opportunities for their major industrial giants to get involved in construction, energy, finance and manufacturing in Iran, which would all be facilitated by American approval. A U.S.-Iranian entente would pose a problem only to China. Not only would it bring yet another of China’s major energy suppliers into the U.S. orbit and strengthen U.S. influence over the entire Middle East, it would also shrink China’s advantage as a non-U.S. aligned state when it comes to working with non-U.S. aligned Iran. Nevertheless, the economic possibilities of China working with Iran without provoking American aggression would likely outweigh the concerns over U.S.-Iranian vulnerabilities. That is unless an Iranian-facilitated withdrawal from Washington’s wars resulted in the United States putting more pressure on China.
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Iran: Converting Back to the Dollar
June 2, 2010 | 1952 GMT
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Iranian Finance Minister Seyed Shamseddin HosseiniThe Central Bank of Iran (CBI) announced a plan to convert 45 billion euros from its foreign exchange reserves into dollars and gold, Iran’s state-owned news channel Press TV reported June 2. Meanwhile, the Iranian daily Jaam-e Jam quoted unnamed sources as saying the new monetary policy would be carried out in three phases — the first of which had already begun.
From 2006 through much of 2009 a declining dollar motivated Tehran’s move toward the euro as its preferred currency for its foreign exchange reserves, a policy that dovetailed nicely with its anti-American foreign policy posture. Iran calculated that the dollar would remain in a state of decline while the United States dealt with the fallout from the financial crisis and global risk appetite returned. Even though they were paying transaction fees for converting dollars into euros, the increasing strength of the euro and the political benefits of reducing dollar-denominated holdings more than outweighed these costs.
(click here to enlarge image)
However, while the euro rose from the “conclusion” of the financial crisis, the unfolding European debt crisis is now pressuring the currency again. As a result, in the last six months the euro has lost about 20 percent of its value relative to the dollar. This is problematic for the Iranians, as they now have significant losses on the euro portion of their foreign exchange reserve holdings — last year Iran had claimed that its reserves amounted to about $100 billion (more than half of which it claimed was in euros), not far from other sources reporting $97 billion.
These losses are particularly painful for Iran, as its economy is already suffering from three decades of U.S.-led international sanctions that have led to the atrophy of its energy sector — Iran’s main revenue source. Further complicating this situation are the probability of additional sanctions, an aggressive Iranian foreign policy agenda, existing divisions within the ruling elite and the threat of domestic social unrest over poor economic conditions.
These circumstances would explain why Iran is deciding to alter its currency policy and revert to a largely dollar-denominated foreign exchange reserve. While such a move is indicative of a widening gap between Iran’s rhetoric and its actual behavior when it comes to doing business, narrowing that gap is a luxury Tehran neither can afford nor is too concerned with, given the pragmatic radicalism of the regime.
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Et Tu, Moscow?
ADAY AFTER RUSSIA JOINED ITS FELLOW permanent U.N. Security Council members in passing a fresh round of sanctions against Iran, Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, coolly told state-run Al Alam TV that “Iran has been under sanctions and economic, technological and political blockade for more than 30 years — we got used to it.”
Iran may be used to a lot of things, but it is having an exceptionally difficult time getting used to the idea of Russia — long considered Iran’s primary power patron — hanging Tehran out to dry. Iran made no secret of its displeasure with Moscow in the lead up to the sanctions vote, releasing statement after statement warning the Kremlin of the consequences of turning its back on Tehran. Now having received the sanctions slap in the face, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is showing his defiance by canceling his trip to the Russian and Chinese-led Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Tashkent on June 11, while Iran’s oil minister has postponed a June 22 visit to Russia.
This is by no means the first time Iran has been betrayed by its Russian ally. After all, Russia voted in the affirmative the previous six times the Security Council passed sanctions resolutions against Iran. Those previous sanctions were a symbolic show of force against Iran, and everyone, including Iran, knew they lacked real bite and suffered from the enforceability dilemma. This latest round of sanctions will face the same enforcement challenges and were careful to avoid touching Iran’s energy trade so as to get Russian and Chinese buy-in. That said, this did not end up being a fluff resolution.
The newest resolution expands travel and financial sanctions on Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps entities — a preponderant force in the Iranian economy. The sanctions also go beyond inspections of Iranian air cargo to the seizure and disposal of Iranian contraband traveling by air or sea that could be used for military purposes. Instead of calling on states to exercise vigilance and restraint in the supply, transfer or sale of offensive weapons to Iran, the new resolution bans all of the above. Like previous resolutions, this one bars Iran from all enrichment-related activity, but now also emphasizes the construction of new nuclear sites. In short, this sanctions round expands the list of things Iran supposedly cannot do, while it allows action by interested states to interfere with a broader range of Iranian activities.
“This is by no means the first time Iran has been betrayed by its Russian ally.”
No sanctions resolution would be complete, however, without its caveats. With no real legal mechanism to enforce across international boundaries, the level of adherence to the sanctions will be left for individual states to decide. A closer look at the sanctions text also reveals a number of loopholes by Russian design. For example, Iran may be banned from nuclear and enrichment activities, and other countries may be banned from making nuclear investments in Iran, but Russia contends that in projects like the Bushehr nuclear power plant (and even future projects), it is not making such an “investment” if Iran is the one paying for the construction and training, and if the project and training are taking place on Iranian soil. Russia was also careful to include enough fine print in the clause banning arms sales to Iran to exempt a long-threatened Russian sale of the S-300 air defense system to Iran.
With more holes than Swiss cheese, the sanctions are by no means a call to war. But Iran’s biggest fear goes beyond the actual text of the sanctions and into the meat of the negotiations currently taking place between Russia and the United States.
STRATFOR has been closely tracking a coming shift in Russia’s foreign policy, one that would emphasize pragmatism over belligerence in dealing with the United States over thorny issues like Iran. Russia hopes to obtain much-needed Western technology and investment to modernize its economy and ensure Moscow’s long-term competitiveness in the global system. While the United States and Russia have (for now) agreed to disagree on more contentious issues like U.S. military support for Poland and Georgia, the Russian decision to move against Iran with this sanctions resolution is quite telling of the progress made thus far in U.S.-Russia negotiations. And for those outstanding points of contention, Russia still has the S-300 and Bushehr levers to wave in Washington’s face should its negotiations with the United States take a turn for the worse. Meanwhile, Washington has just acquired a very useful tool to bolster its negotiating position vis-a-vis Iran: the prospect of Russia abandoning its premier Mideast ally.
The Iranians have long known that their alliance with Russia stood on shaky ground, but they also worked fastidiously to try to keep U.S.-Russian relations as agonizing as possible to avoid being put in this very position. This is not to say Iran would be coming to the negotiating table empty-handed when it faced Washington. After all, Iran still has very strong levers against the United States in Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan that it can use at a time of its choosing. The question, then, is whether that time may be approaching. As Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Thursday, “It is now the Islamic republic’s turn to make the next move.”
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IRAN'S NEXT MOVE
A senior Iranian official Thursday warned that Tehran would not tolerate the
inspection of vessels belonging to the Islamic republic in open seas under the
pretext of implementing the latest round of sanctions imposed on Iran by the U.N.
Security Council (UNSC). Kazem Jalali, rapporteur of Parliament's Foreign Policy and
National Security Committee, said one such response would be Iranian countermeasures
in the strategic Strait of Hormuz. This statement from the lawmaker is the latest in
a series of similar statements from senior Iranian civil and military officials in
recent days.
Iran making good on this threat hinges on a number of prerequisites. First, a
country must actually move to exercise the option of boarding an Iranian ship. If
that were to happen, the question then would be: Will Iran actually go as far as
retaliating in the Strait of Hormuz? After all, such an action carries the huge risk
of a countermove from the United States, which cannot allow Iran to tamper with the
free flow of oil through the strait.
At this point, it is unclear how Tehran will respond to one of its ships being
searched. What is certain is that this latest round of sanctions has created a
crisis for the Iranian leadership both on the foreign policy front and domestically,
where an intra-elite struggle has been publicly playing out for a year. Our readers
will recall that STRATFOR's view prior to the June 9 approval of the sanctions was
that the United States was not in a position to impose sanctions with enough teeth
to force Iran to change its behavior.
That view still stands because the latest round of sanctions are not strong enough
to trigger a capitulation on the part of the Iranians. But they have enough bite to
prevent Iran from doing business as usual, especially with the European Union and
the United States piling on additional unilateral sanctions. Perhaps the most
significant development is the Russian alignment with the United States, which made
the fourth round of sanctions possible.
"The latest round of sanctions has created a crisis for the Iranian leadership both
domestically and on the foreign policy front."
Russia is no longer protecting Iran in the UNSC. Furthermore, imposing sanctions on
Iran after it signed a uranium swap deal has been a major loss for Tehran. It has
created a very embarrassing situation for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at
home, where he has no shortage of opponents -- even among his own ultraconservative
camp. The U.S. move to allow the May 17 Turkish-Brazilian-Iranian uranium swap
agreement to go through, followed quickly by a move toward sanctions suggests that
Washington tried to exploit the intra-elite rift to its advantage and undermine the
position of relative strength that Tehran had been enjoying up to that point. The
U.S. move has not only exacerbated tensions between the warring factions in the
Iranian political establishment, it has also forced Iranian foreign policy
decision-makers to go back to the drawing board and re-evaluate Iran's strategy
vis-a-vis the United States.
Despite saying earlier this week that his country is ready to negotiate, there is no
way Ahmadinejad can come to the negotiating table just as the United States has
gained an upper hand in the bargaining process. He cannot be seen as caving in to
the pressure of the American-led UNSC sanctions. As it is, the Iranian president has
to deal with the domestic uproar that he is leading the Islamic republic to ruin,
which makes efforts to regain his position among the warring factions and formulate
a response to get the Islamic republic back in the driver's seat even more
difficult.
While it has a number of cards to play, (e.g., Iraq, Lebanon, and Afghanistan),
precisely how Iran will respond remains as opaque as the infighting within the
regime. But the next move has to come from Iran. This new situation has led STRATFOR
to engage in its own process of reassessing the situation on the Iranian domestic
and foreign policy fronts.
Copyright 2010 Stratfor.
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Just buying time until they can target Israel with nukes.
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http://pajamasmedia.com/michaelledeen/2010/06/17/the-fatal-follies-of-containment/?singlepage=true
It’s grim news that geopolitical “experts” are thinking deeply about what to do after Iran gets the bomb, both because it means that they have already accepted the inevitability of Iran-with-nukes, and because they continue to skim over the basic facts about the world and the war in which we are so deeply engaged. The debate about Iran should not revolve around nukes, but about the war Iran is waging against us right now.
There is an amazing unwillingness to grant that American soldiers are being killed every day by Iranian proxies and by Iranian fighters (mostly from the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force), mostly in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those killers are trained in Iran, funded by Iran, armed by Iran, and provided intelligence from Iran. They do not need nukes to kill us, but the experts obsessively focus their attention on the nuclear question.
Why do they refuse to talk about the real war? Why do they focus their attention on a problem that does not (yet) exist, rather than a terrible problem that does exist? To put the matter as brutally as possible, why don’t they — and our leaders — care about evil people who kill Americans?
Yes, from time to time a military leader will stand up and tell the press or the Congress about the ongoing attacks against American military personnel from the Islamic Republic of Iran. These are very short-lived episodes. Neither our journalists nor our elected representatives demand to know more, because they really do not want to know more. If they knew more, if they added up all these episodes over many years they would have to recognize the pattern, that is to say, the war that is being waged against us.
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Note the cautionary words at the bottom of the piece about reliability
http://www.philstockworld.com/2010/06/27/uss-carrier-harry-truman-now-officially-just-off-iran-as-israel-allegedly-plotting-an-imminent-tehran-raid/
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I find it very unlikely that Hussein is willing to pull the trigger on Iran. I'd love to be wrong, but I don't think so in this case. The most I see happening is the US suspects/was told an Israeli strike is in motion and is prepping to protect the oil tankers and gulf states from Iranian retaliation.
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If ANY ship is in the Arabian Gulf it can be claimed to be "just" off the coast of ..............6 countries I can think of off the top of my head. The Suez is a choke point, if you have to shut it down for security for some military ships, running a set of military ships thru in one batch makes sense. Is there any mention that they are ALL going to the same place......... I wish I had a sense of the regular deployment, a change there, would really indicate things are going on.
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GM:
That is my thought too.
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http://www.jpost.com/International/A...aspx?id=180693
UAE asks US to stop Iran by all means
By JPOST.COM STAFF
07/07/2010 11:30
Ambassador to US reportedly says "we cannot live with a nuclear Iran."
The United Arab Emirates ambassador to the United States said Tuesday that it would be difficult to co-exist with a nuclear Iran and that it would support any actions the US took to prevent such a possibility The Washington Times reported.
Ambassador Yousef al-Otaiba reportedly endorsed the military option if sanctions do not stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
"I think it's a cost-benefit analysis," Otaiba said to an audience in Aspen, Colorado. "I think despite the large amount of trade we do with Iran, which is close to $12 billion … there will be consequences, there will be a backlash and there will be problems with people protesting and rioting and very unhappy that there is an outside force attacking a Muslim country; that is going to happen no matter what."
"If you are asking me, 'Am I willing to live with that versus living with a nuclear Iran?,' my answer is still the same: 'We cannot live with a nuclear Iran.' I am willing to absorb what takes place at the expense of the security of the UAE," Otaiba reportedly said, in response to a question after a public interview with the Atlantic magazine. His remarks surprised many in the audience, The Washington Times reported.
John R. Bolton, former US ambassador to the United Nations, told The Washington Times that Otaiba's comments reflect the views of many Arab states that "recognize the threat posed by a nuclear Iran."
"They also know — and worry — that the Obama administration's policies will not stop Iran," he told The Times. Arab leaders, Mr. Bolton said, regard a pre-emptive strike as "the only alternative."
Otaiba "was thus only speaking the truth from his perspective," Mr. Bolton reportedly said.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/7896463/CIA-suspects-Iranian-nuclear-defector-who-returned-to-Tehran-was-a-double-agent.html
CIA suspects Iranian nuclear defector who returned to Tehran was a double agent
The CIA is investigating whether Shahram Amiri, the Iranian nuclear scientist who defected to the US but last week flew back to Tehran, was a double agent.
By Philip Sherwell in New York and William Lowther in Washington
Published: 5:04PM BST 17 Jul 2010
The strange case of Shahram Amiri has puzzled US intelligence chiefs who approved a $5 million payment to him for information about Iran's illicit nuclear programme.
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The Brothel Named Iran
Pajamas Media/Faster Please/ ^ | July 26, 2010 | Michael Ledeen
I’ll bet you haven’t seen very much news about Iran during the past week or 10 days, have you? And yet there’s lots of news:
–first of all, there is still no end to the bazaar strike, even though the regime has taken very violent action against the strikers. A large part of the beautiful bazaar in Kerman has been torched ( for that matter, regime thugs have taken to setting ablaze large sections of forest land in the region. Nor will the bazaar strikes end soon, since this week marks religious celebrations that traditionally close the bazaars all over the country;
– the major natural gas pipeline between Iran and Turkey was sabotaged. Enormous damage was done, and the authorities have no estimate as to how long it will be until repair work is finished. Meanwhile the two countries announced plans for a brand-new pipeline;
– Saturday – Sunday night there was a serious fire at the old petrochemical plant on Kharq island. That island is very important to Iran, because it is at once the central point from which Iranian crude oil is exported, and one end of the major pipeline that carries crude and refined products to the mainland. So anything that goes wrong there has immediate consequences both for the national economy and for daily life;
– you may recall that a bit over a week ago, amidst the continuing strikes at major bazaars around the country, there was a double suicide terrorist attack against the mosque in Zahedan, killing nearly 30 revolutionary guards. That unhappy city is still in a state of virtual military occupation, of the most brutal variety. Innocent civilians have been gunned down for the crime of walking at night, and plainclothes killers have gone door to door among the homes of bazaar shopkeepers, and killing anyone who answers the bell. Here’s an exceptionally well written report:
The IRI kills the Rigi brothers, a few weeks apart, without proper trial, without even considering the possibility that giving Rigi a death penalty together with a pardon and a life term in prison, will have served the country far better than his death. The IRI is behaving like a savage barbarian; one matching the rogue elements of Jundollah; primitive, uncultured, mercurial!
So Jundollah sends suicide bombers and IRI sends thugs to the streets of Zahedan, the city of kind people, open minded people, mountain and desert people, city of smuggled goodies, city of white Sunni mosques, and dusty parks. The thugs, (the) report says, have been kniving people. These knife thrusters would be of the same ilk that was unleashed on Tehranis in Ashura: they are most likely Ahmadinejad’s products from the “rehabilitation program” that found “convicted criminals” a useful job in the society.
According to local observers, these knife-pushers are the worst of all: they seem to target Balouchis randomly, and beat them up for no reason–further fueling the ethnic resentments and convictions that the Balouch are discriminated against.
– It has been a very hot summer, and the electrical grid in and around Tehran has given up the ghost many times, especially in recent weeks. Not only have citizens suddenly found their lights and air conditioning out-sometimes for half the day or night–but the two big automobile factories have already reduced production by one full shift a day. The president has publicly blamed the problem on foreigners, as is his wont, but his problems are local;
– as the regime increasingly wages war against itself, the comings and goings of seemingly powerful people have become almost impossible to sort out. There have been repeated purges in the ranks of the Revolutionary Guards, and the supreme commander, Gen. Jafari, has now publicly stated that many senior officers had actively sided with the opposition. Why then, the general was asked, had he not punished them properly (with torture and death)? His answer was telling: it’s better to convince them of the error of their ways.
This is a surprising answer, to be sure, but after all it is the same answer that the supreme leader has implicitly given to the much asked question: why have you not properly punished the leaders of the Green Movement, Mousavi and Karroubi? In both cases, the regime is afraid to move decisively against their opponents. Khamenei & Co. are real tough guys when it comes to torturing and killing students, political activists, homosexuals, Bahais, Christians and women. But even when it comes to their favorite targets — the women — they retreat in the face of strong protests, as in the recent case when they suspended the stoning of a poor woman unfairly accused of adultery. Her plight has attracted international attention, and the regime backed off.
Yeah, surprising answers abound in Iran these days, even when nobody asked the question. For example, Ahmadinejad seems to have lost his official theologian.
Hojattoleslam Mohammad Nasser Saghay Biria, President Ahmadinejad’s Advisor on Religious Affairs, has resigned his post in what his close associates are describing as a protest against Ahmadinejad’s alleged un-Islamic views on requirements for women to wear veil and conform to strict Islamic dress code. Ahmadinejad has not yet accepted Saghay’s resignation.
Saghay Biria is a disciple of Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi.
That last line should get your attention, because the Ayatollah in question is generally considered to be the leading light in the cult of the 12th Imam, the little boy who had been destined become the leader of Islam, but have to hide from his would-be killers some 900 years ago, and whose return would mark the End of Days. Mesbah Yazdi is said to be Ahmadinejad’s guru, so why is his disciple walking out on the president? Your guess is as good as mine, but whatever it means, it is another signpost along the death spiral of the Islamic Republic.
Rulers of the Islamic Republic are looking more and more like the gang that couldn’t shoot straight, and Banafsheh uncovered a document that should cause them considerable embarrassment. It’s a flyer, recruiting virgin women for prostitution in a brothel located in the holiest site of one of the two holiest cities in Iran: the Imam Reza Shrine in Mashad. You might wish to read the whole thing—it includes going rates—but here’s the essence of it:
In order to elevate the spiritual atmosphere, create proper psychological conditions and tranquility of mind, the Province of the Quds’eh-Razavi of Khorassan has created centers for temporary marriage (just next door to the shrine) for those brothers who are on pilgrimage to the shrine of our eighth Imam, Imam Reza, and who are far away from their spouses.
To that end, we call on all our sisters who are virgins, who are between the ages of 12 and 35 to cooperate with us.
It’s a religious thing, you see.
To me, this is a perfect symbol of the Islamic Republic: even the holiest places have been corrupted and turned into brothels and charnel houses. Degradation is the common denominator of Iranian life, and the women, starting at age 12, are its most common victims.
Faster, please
http://pajamasmedia.com/michaelledeen/2010/07/26/the-brothel-named-iran/
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It certainly seems that it is all political that we are starting to hear NOW rumors of war with Iran before the election with sagged poll numbers.
Better to change the subject when your domestic ideology is not popular before an election, eh?
This is not just cynical. It is just connecting the dots.
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Window to bomb Iran is nearly closed. Once the Iranians start the nuclear power plant they could get 50 bombs. Bombing after the plant is up and running would result in radiation leakage all over the place and an even greater PR and collateral damage disaster. Ballgame is almost over if he is right. Iran went nuc and we did nothing. We are weak and our enemies know it. :cry:
****War in the Mideast? Israel may be forced to strike Iran
By DonPublished: August 14, 2010
Posted in: Iran, Nuclear Weapons
Tags: Iran, Israel, Nuclear Weapons
Former United States Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolten told Fox News on Friday that Russia will be loading Iran’s Bushehr reactor with nuclear fuel rods on August 21st. This makes the window of opportunity for a military strike on that facility very narrow, for if attacked after the fuel rods are loaded, then radiation could spread in the air and into the Persian Gulf.
News that Russia will load nuclear fuel rods into an Iranian reactor has touched off a countdown to a point of no return, a deadline by which Israel would have to launch an attack on Iran’s Bushehr reactor before it becomes effectively “immune” to any assault, says former Bush administration U.N. Ambassador John R. Bolton.
Once the fuel rods are loaded, Bolton told Fox News on Friday afternoon, “it makes it essentially immune from attack by Israel. Because once the rods are in the reactor an attack on the reactor risks spreading radiation in the air, and perhaps into the water of the Persian Gulf.”
In March of this year, Russian President, Vladmir Putin announced that Russia would be fueling the Bushehr facility this summer. Understandably, this was big news in Israel, but the MSM in America predictably shied away from the story.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin declared in March that Russia would start the Bushehr reactor this summer. But the announcement from a spokesman for Russia’s state atomic agency to Reuters Friday sent international diplomats scrambling to head off a crisis.
The story immediately became front-page news in Israel, which has laid precise plans to carry out an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities while going along with President Obama’s plans to use international sanctions and diplomatic persuasion to convince Iran’s clerics not to go nuclear.
But as I said, the Israelis will have to take action before the facility is fueled.
Bolton made it clear that it is widely assumed that any Israeli attack on the Bushehr reactor must take place before the reactor is loaded with fuel rods.
“If they’re going to do it that’s the window that they have,” Bolton declared. “Otherwise as I said before, once the rods are in the reactor, if you attack the reactor you’re going to open it up and radiation will escape at least into the atmosphere and possibly into the waters of the Persian Gulf.
“So most people think that neither Israel nor the United States, come to that, would attack the reactor after it’s been fueled.”
Bolton cited the 1981 Israeli attack on Saddam Hussein’s Osirak reactor outside Baghdad and the September 2007 Israeli attack on a North Korean reactor being built in Syria. Both of those strikes came before fuel rods were loaded into those reactors.
“So if it’s going to happen in Bushehr it has to happen before the fuel rods go in,” Bolton said.
Even though the Iranians claim that Bushehr will be a nuclear energy facility, once it is operational, it will have the ability to produce the materials needed for nuclear weapons.
According to Bolton, once the reactor is operational, it is only a matter of time before it begins producing plutonium that could be used in a nuclear weapon.
“And in the normal operation of this reactor, in just a fairly short period of time, you could get substantial amounts of plutonium to use as nuclear weapons,” Bolton told Fox.
The Obama administration has been trying to use diplomacy and sanctions to keep the Iranians from going nuclear. This means that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s back is against the wall on this one. As John Bolten points out:
Russia, which is operating under a $1 billion contract with Iran, has spent more than a decade building the reactor. If Russia moves forward with its plan to fuel the reactor, it could be seen as a major setback to the Obama administration’s strategy of engaging Russian leaders in order to win their cooperation.
“The U.S. urged them not to send the Iranian’s fuel rods,” Bolton said. “They did that. The Obama administration has urged them not to insert the fuel rods in the reactors, but as they’ve just announced that will begin next week. What that does over time is help Iran get another route to nuclear weapons through the plutonium they could reprocess out of the spent fuel rods.”
The developments mean Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu soon may face a stark choice: Attack the Bushehr reactor in the next 8 days, or allow it to become operational despite the certainty it would greatly enhance Iran’s ability to create nuclear weapons.
This has been going on for the last decade, in fact in the Bush years no harsh steps were taken either in the mistaken idea that Iran should be allowed to have nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. The flaw in this theory is that Iran will not hesitate to use such “peaceful” nuclear energy to produce the materials for atomic weapons.
Bolton said the reactor has been “a hole” in American foreign policy for over a decade.
The failure to demand it be shut down began in the Bush years, he said, and continues with the Obama administration “under what I believe is the mistaken theory that Iran is entitled to the peaceful use of nuclear energy.”
“I don’t think Iran is entitled to that, or I don’t think we ought to allow it to happen, because they’re manifestly violating any number of obligations under the non-proliferation treaty not to seek nuclear weapons. But this has been a hole in American policy for some number of years, and Iran and Russia are obviously exploiting it,” Bolton said.
Russia’s move would put Iran “in a much better position overall,” he said, adding, “I think this is a very delicate point, as I say, it closes off to the Israelis one possible target for pre-emptive military action.
U.N. sanctions against Iran, he said, “have not had and will not have any material effect on Iran’s push to have deliverable nuclear weapons.”
In this humble contributor’s opinion, the time for half hearted sanctions and toothless diplomacy are over. The only thing that Iran will respect is strength and unfortunately this administration is not up to the task of showing any strength anytime soon.****
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Bolton's opinion made front of Drudge today. We all remember Amhadinajad saying how Israel's time is coming to an end.
I would like to hear Bamster's response,
and not BS like, "let me be clear", or "top priority".
To all my fellow liberal Jews who support Bamster,
"you may get what you asked for". Fools.
I can only hope Bolton is wrong, not privey to more information, there will be a strike, or a miracle like a regime change.
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"President Barack Obama's top adviser on nuclear issues, Gary Samore, told The New York Times that he thinks it would take Iran "roughly a year" to turn low-enriched uranium into weapons-grade material. The assessment was reportedly shared with Israel and could ease concerns over the possibility of an imminent Israeli military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities"
Well this certainly does not address John Bolten's concern about once the reactor is working, then to bomb it would result in release to atmosphere of radiation increasing collateral damage and making it even harder to justify bombing.
In truth the only answer for Israel is to use nucs and wipe out Iran period. Crazy? Yes and No.
Otherwise they will always just be delaying the inevitable or some sort of retaliation.
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Summary
The Iranian government has reversed its decision several times on whether to release Sarah Shourd, the U.S. woman being held in Iran on suspicion of espionage. The latest move is a demand for $500,000 bail to release Shourd — a decision that likely has more to do with the intensifying internal struggle within Iran’s political establishment than with U.S.-Iranian relations. In recent months, it has become unclear that Tehran is unified enough to negotiate meaningfully with Washington on key contentious subjects like the balance of power in Iraq after the U.S. withdrawal, Iran’s nuclear program and Afghanistan.
Analysis
The attorney for 32-year-old Sarah Shourd, one of three U.S. citizens who has been in Iranian custody for more than a year on suspicion of espionage, on Sept. 13 said her family is asking Tehran to drop a demand for $500,000 bail. The demand came after Iranian judicial authorities canceled plans to release her Sept. 11. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s conservative opponents have publicly opposed his government’s move to release Shourd — a gesture on Ahmadinejad’s part to facilitate talks with the United States ahead of his trip to New York later in September.
The Shourd issue is just the latest manifestation of the internal struggle within the Islamic republic’s political establishment. In recent weeks, the Iranian media have been replete with statements from pragmatists opposed to Ahmadinejad and even from his fellow ultraconservatives (who supported him until last year) criticizing several of his foreign policy decisions. These include the decision to appoint special envoys to various regions, his calls for negotiations with the United States and his willingness to compromise on swapping enriched uranium. Clearly, the infighting has reached the point where the president’s opponents are aggressively targeting his efforts to execute foreign policy.
STRATFOR has chronicled the growing intra-conservative rift in Tehran since before the presidential election in June 2009. Although the Ahmadinejad government and its allies within the clerical and security establishment effectively defeated the reformist challenge from the street, the Green Movement, the rifts among the conservatives have only worsened. The old dichotomy between the Ahmadinejad-led ultraconservatives and the pragmatic conservatives led by the regime’s second-most influential cleric, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani is inadequate to describe the growing complexity of the struggle.
A key reason for the growing rifts is that Ahmadinejad — despite his reputation as a hard-liner — has increasingly assumed the pragmatist mantle, especially with his calls to the Obama administration to negotiate a settlement with his government. This has turned many of his fellow hard-liners against him, giving the more moderate conservatives like Parliamentary Speaker Ali Larijani an opening to exploit and thus weaken the president. The situation is serious enough that it has offset the day-to-day balancing act among the various factions that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been engaged in for decades.
The situation is exemplified in the open disagreement between the executive and legislative branches. A special committee within the Guardian Council was formed in late August to mediate between the two sides. The Rafsanjani-led Expediency Council was created in 1989 to settle disputes among various state organs. That an ad hoc special committee was created under the supervision of the Guardian Council (which vets individuals for public office and has oversight over legislation) to mediate this dispute shows the extent of the problems the Iranians are having in mitigating internal disagreements.
Just as the disagreements in Tehran are no longer between two rival camps, they also are not limited to one institution disputing another, as elements from both sides are within each institution. Guardians Council chief Ahmad Jannati, a powerful cleric who played a key role in Ahmadinejad’s ability to secure a second term, criticized the president for trying to prevent security forces from enforcing the female dress code in public. Likewise, Maj. Gen. Hassan Firouzabadi, Chief of the Joint Staff Command of the Armed Forces — to whom Ahmadinejad is close — referred to a call by Ahmadinejad’s most trusted aide, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie, to promote Iranian nationalism over Islamic solidarity as “deviant.” In response, Mashaie threatened to sue the general sitting at the apex of Iran’s military establishment. Perhaps most damaging for Ahmadinejad is that his own ideological mentor, Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah Yazdi, also criticized the president’s top aide, warning about a “new sedition” on the part of “value-abiding” forces — a reference to the president and his supporters. Ahmadinejad, meanwhile, has strongly supported his chief of staff (who is also his closest friend and relative), saying he has complete trust in him.
In the midst of all this, the supreme leader is trying to arbitrate between the warring factions but fears that Ahmadinejad could be trying to undermine him. Thus, Khamenei cannot support Ahmadinejad as he did during the post-election crisis of 2009, yet he cannot act against the president because doing so would undermine the stability of Iran’s political system at a critical time for several foreign policy issues — Iraq, the nuclear dispute and Afghanistan, among others.
At this stage, then, the outcome of this increasing factionalization is unclear. What is clear is that the Shourd case is only one small disagreement in the midst of a much larger rift. The battling Iranian factions could reach a compromise on this particular matter, but the accelerating domestic disputes in Tehran make it very difficult for the United States to negotiate with Iran on the host of strategic issues the two are struggling over.
Ahmadinejad feels that if he is able to clinch a deal of sorts with the United States from a position of relative strength, it could help him deal effectively with the domestic challenge to his power. Conversely, his allies are determined to prevent that from happening, as is clear from the statements against negotiating with Washington. At the very least, this public struggle is helping the ultraconservatives, the military and those who are the most opposed to talks with the United States
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While listening to Savage yesterday he mentioned a computer attack may have already started closing down some of Irans nuclear sites. I looked this up. I never thought of possibly stopping them this way. :-D
***Is a Cyber Attack Targeting Iran's Nuclear Plant?
Published September 23, 2010
| FoxNews.com
The reactor building of Iran's Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant is silhouetted in this November 2009 photo released by the semi-official Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA).
A destructive cyber worm designed to bring down industrial complexes has Iran's new nuclear power plant in its sights. And a nation such as Israel or China -- or even the United States -- could be behind it, experts say.
The "Stuxnet" worm sparked both awe and alarm among digital security experts when first identified in June. Far more advanced than the mainstream malware often used for identity theft, Stuxnet is reportedly able to take over a computing system via nothing more than a USB memory stick, without any user intervention.
"This is the first direct example of weaponized software, highly customized and designed to find a particular target," said Michael Assante, former chief of industrial control systems cyber security research at the U.S. Department of Energy's Idaho National Laboratory.
Stuxnet targets industrial control systems, such as those that power Iran's Bushehr nuclear plant. And some experts speculate that it was written by a nation explicitly to take out Bushehr. But Sanjay Bavisi, president of the international cybersecurity research group EC-Council, thinks it's too early to be certain.
"It's too soon to rule out the power of the hacking underground" or terrorists, Bavisi told FoxNews.com. "Yes, the first impression is nation-states, organized states, and it points back to the U.S. and Israel," two of the most cyber-savvy countries. "But organized criminals have the power, and hackers for hire are very common too," he said.***
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See the recent posts in the CyberWar thread about Stuxnet.
In a possibly related vein here are some comments yesterday from Stratfor:
Ahmadinejad Reaches Out to Washington
While in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad worked the U.S. media circuit, spreading his views on subjects including the Holocaust, human rights and — of particular interest to STRATFOR — the potential for U.S.-Iranian negotiations.
Rumors are buzzing around Washington over what appears to be a fresh attempt by the Iranian president to establish a backchannel link to the U.S. administration. The latest communiques that we at STRATFOR have received from Iranian officials close to Ahmadinejad have been unusually pleasant in tone, highlighting the various areas where Tehran may be prone to a compromise with Washington. Even in commenting on an unusual bombing that took place Wednesday in the Kurdish-populated northwestern Iranian city of Mahabad, Iranian officials seemed to have focused their blame on Israel as opposed to the United States. Ahmadinejad and his associates appear to be making a concerted effort to create an atmosphere for a more substantial dialogue with the United States on everything from Iraq to the nuclear issue to Afghanistan.
Back in Tehran, Ahmadinejad’s rivals are fuming over what they view as a unilateral attempt by the president to pursue these negotiations. Some of the more hardline figures don’t feel current conditions are conducive to talks while others simply want to control the negotiations themselves and deny Ahmadinejad a claim to fame in the foreign policy sphere.
“Negotiating games aside, there seems to be a legitimate sense of urgency behind Iran’s latest appeal for talks.”
This has always been the United States’ biggest issue in trying to negotiate with the Islamic republic. Since the 1980s, it has been a labyrinthine and often futile process for most U.S. policymakers who have attempted to figure out whom to talk to in Tehran and whether the person they’re talking to actually has the clout to speak for the Iranian establishment. Can the United States be confident, for example, that any message carried by an Ahmadinejad emissary won’t be immediately shut down by the supreme leader? Will one faction be able to follow through with even the preliminary step of a negotiation without another faction scuttling the process? At the same time, Iran is notorious for obfuscating the negotiations to its advantage by dropping conciliatory hints along the way and then catching the United States off guard when it needs to make a more aggressive move.
Negotiating games aside, there seems to be a legitimate sense of urgency behind Iran’s latest appeal for talks. When else will Iran have the United States this militarily and politically constrained across the Islamic world (especially in countries where Iran carries substantial clout)? Meanwhile, with U.S. patience wearing thin in Afghanistan, countries like Russia and China are racing to reassert their influence in their respective peripheries before the window of opportunity closes and the United States recalibrates its threat priorities. These states will do whatever they can to keep that window of opportunity open (for example, by supplying Iran with gasoline at albeit hefty premiums to complicate the U.S. sanctions effort and by keeping open the threat of strategic weapons sales), but their time horizon is still hazy. None of these states want to wake up one day to find the haze cleared and the United States on their doorstep.
But for Iran, the United States is already on its doorstep and the main issue standing between them — Iraq and the broader Sunni-Shia balance in the Persian Gulf — will remain paralyzed until the two can reach some basic level of understanding. The will to reopen the dialogue may be there, but the United States is waiting to see whether Iran will be able to negotiate with one voice.
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Perhaps the Iranians see this as a ideal time to gain advantage from negotiations while dems still control congress. I'm sure China isn't the only nation-state to recognize the current state of US weakness.
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More on the Stux worm!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39357629/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets
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Iran Fights Malware Attacking ComputersBy DAVID E. SANGER
Published: September 25, 2010
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LinkedinDiggMixxMySpaceYahoo! BuzzPermalink. WASHINGTON — The Iranian government agency that runs the country’s nuclear facilities, including those the West suspects are part of a weapons program, has reported that its engineers are trying to protect their facilities from a sophisticated computer worm that has infected industrial plants across Iran.
Related
Bits: Malicious Software Program Attacks Industry (September 24, 2010) The agency, the Atomic Energy Organization, did not specify whether the worm had already infected any of its nuclear facilities, including Natanz, the underground enrichment site that for several years has been a main target of American and Israeli covert programs.
But the announcement raised suspicions, and new questions, about the origins and target of the worm, Stuxnet, which computer experts say is a far cry from common computer malware that has affected the Internet for years. A worm is a self-replicating malware computer program. A virus is malware that infects its target by attaching itself to programs or documents.
Stuxnet, which was first publicly identified several months ago, is aimed solely at industrial equipment made by Siemens that controls oil pipelines, electric utilities, nuclear facilities and other large industrial sites. While it is not clear that Iran was the main target — the infection has also been reported in Indonesia, Pakistan, India and elsewhere — a disproportionate number of computers inside Iran appear to have been struck, according to reports by computer security monitors.
Given the sophistication of the worm and its aim at specific industrial systems, many experts believe it is most probably the work of a state, rather than independent hackers. The worm is able to attack computers that are disconnected from the Internet, usually to protect them; in those cases an infected USB drive is plugged into a computer. The worm can then spread itself within a computer network, and possibly to other networks.
The semiofficial Mehr news agency in Iran on Saturday quoted Reza Taghipour, a top official of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, as saying that “the effect and damage of this spy worm in government systems is not serious” and that it had been “more or less” halted.
But another Iranian official, Mahmud Liai of the Ministry of Industry and Mines, was quoted as saying that 30,000 computers had been affected, and that the worm was “part of the electronic warfare against Iran.”
ISNA, another Iranian news agency, had reported Friday that officials from Iran’s atomic energy agency had been meeting in recent days to discuss how to remove the Stuxnet worm, which exploits some previously unknown weaknesses in Microsoft’s Windows software. Microsoft has said in recent days that it is fixing those vulnerabilities.
It is extraordinarily difficult to trace the source of any sophisticated computer worm, and nearly impossible to determine for certain its target.
But the Iranians have reason to suspect they are high on the target list: in the past, they have found evidence of sabotage of imported equipment, notably power supplies to run the centrifuges that are used to enrich uranium at Natanz. The New York Times reported in 2009 that President George W. Bush had authorized new efforts, including some that were experimental, to undermine electrical systems, computer systems and other networks that serve Iran’s nuclear program, according to current and former American officials.
The program is among the most secret in the United States government, and it has been accelerated since President Obama took office, according to some American officials. Iran’s enrichment program has run into considerable technical difficulties in the past year, but it is not clear whether that is because of the effects of sanctions against the country, poor design for its centrifuges, which it obtained from Pakistan, or sabotage.
“It is easy to look at what we know about Stuxnet and jump to the conclusion that it is of American origin and Iran is the target, but there is no proof of that,” said James Lewis, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington and one of the country’s leading experts on cyberwar intelligence. “We may not know the real answer for some time.”
Based on what he knows of Stuxnet, Mr. Lewis said, the United States is “one of four or five places that could have done it — the Israelis, the British and the Americans are the prime suspects, then the French and Germans, and you can’t rule out the Russians and the Chinese.”
President Obama has talked extensively about developing better cyberdefenses for the United States, to protect banks, power plants, telecommunications systems and other critical infrastructure. He has said almost nothing about the other side of the cybereffort, billions of dollars spent on offensive capability, much of it based inside the National Security Agency.
The fact that the worm is aimed at Siemens equipment is telling: the company’s control systems are used around the world, but have been spotted in many Iranian facilities, say officials and experts who have toured them. Those include the new Bushehr nuclear power plant, built with Russian help.
But Bushehr is considered by nuclear weapons experts to be virtually no help to Iran in its suspected weapons program; there is more concern about the low-enriched uranium produced at Natanz, which could, with a year or more of additional processing, be converted to bomb fuel.
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Stratfor:
Russia’s decision to ban the transfer of heavy military equipment to Iran falls under Russia’s agreement to the UNSC sanctions against Iran, signed in June. The decree also bans several Iranians involved in Iran’s nuclear activities from transiting Russian territory and prohibits Russian legal entities or individuals from rendering financial services to operations if there are reasons to believe the operations might be related to Iran’s nuclear activities. The ban on nuclear-related personnel and financial services is interesting because Russia built the bulk of Iran’s Bushehr nuclear facility and still has some 200 scientists in Iran running the plant.
Russia’s move is meant to make a statement: Moscow and Washington are coordinating on the Iran issue. Russia wavered on agreeing to the U.S.-designed sanctions for years in order to use its vote as leverage against the United States, as tensions were rising between Moscow and Washington. Iran traditionally was part of the game between the two countries; for example, when Washington pursued military agreements with Georgia, Moscow would do the same with Iran.
But in the past six months, Russia and the United States seemed to have evolved from this tenuous relationship and have come to a temporary agreement on a series of issues. Russia signed onto the Iran sanctions, agreed to allow increasing amounts of U.S. military supplies to transit its territory to Afghanistan, and agreed to upgrade and repair NATO members’ military equipment used in Afghanistan. In turn, Washington has agreed to a series of large modernization deals in Russia and has backed off its bilateral relationships with many former Soviet states (like Georgia and Ukraine), allowing Russia time to consolidate its power in the former Soviet sphere.
Medvedev’s decree comes as Washington is considering opening talks with Tehran. Iran was more able to stand up to the United States while Russia was its primary power patron. Russia’s apparent abandonment of Iran decreases Tehran’s leverage in any future talks with Washington.
But as with most of Russia’s concessions, there is a loophole in the decree. The document specifies that vehicles, vessels or aircraft under the Russian state flag will not transfer military equipment to Iran. This means Russia could deliver the equipment using other states’ territory or transportation methods. Russia also could fulfill its military contracts with Iran through its military industrial joint ventures with its neighbors, such as Kazakhstan and Belarus. In short, Russia has quite a bit of room to maneuver should it need to use Iran as leverage against the United States again.
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Wondering if the Russkis planted stuxnet at Bushehr? Word is that the common strand to stuxnet infected areas is that a certain Russian contractor was there , , ,
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Possible scenario. Russia has a cyberwar infrastructure. Of course, another nation-state could have covertly installed the virus in the Russian contractor's equipment.
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Iran's Subsidy Issue Adds to Domestic, International Tensions
The Iranian government withdrew energy subsidies without prior notice of the exact date the subsidies would end, leaving many Iranian consumers taken aback by hefty electricity bills, Reuters reported on Tuesday. According to the report, some households claimed their bills were as much as 1,000 percent higher than the previous month’s. This development follows a government move to hold off on cutting gasoline subsidies for at least one month.
The latest round of sanctions (from the United Nations, United States and European Union) has not led Tehran to capitulate to Western pressure. That said, Iran is ending subsidies on essential goods and services, and Tehran would not be carrying out such an initiative if it was not essential for the country’s economic health, especially given the significant risk of public backlash.
“It appears as though the Islamic republic has reached an impasse with itself.”
The manner in which the subsidies on power supplies were pulled after the delay in ending the subsidies on fuel shows that the regime is concerned about domestic unrest. It was only this past February that the regime was able to contain the eight-month upheaval created by the Green Movement following the controversial re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Though Iranian authorities put an end to street agitation, the regime continues to face a much more serious problem: infighting between Ahmadinejad and his opponents spread across the entire Iranian political establishment.
Officials representing both sides can be seen daily using Iran’s various official and semi-official media organs to attack each other. It appears as though the Islamic republic has reached an impasse with itself. What makes this even more significant is that Iran is also at a major crossroads internationally, given the controversy over its nuclear program, the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan and other regional matters.
Iran sees an historic opportunity to consolidate its influence in its immediate abroad, from where the United States is trying to withdraw militarily. In Iraq, Washington needs to be able to reach a settlement with Tehran on a balance of power in Baghdad that is acceptable to both sides. In Afghanistan, where the United States is trying to create the conditions for as early an exit as possible, Iran also holds significant influence.
Washington, for its part, wants to be able to reach an understanding with Iran so that it can withdraw from the countries to both the west and east of the Islamic republic. But it wants to be able to do so in such a way that Iranian ambitions for regional dominance are kept in check. As long as Tehran can negotiate from a position of relative strength this is not possible.
This is where both the intra-elite struggle in Tehran and the subsidies issue are of immense potential significance. Both issues are so complex that it is difficult to predict their outcome, but if either issue evolves unfavorably for Tehran, it could undermine the Islamic republic’s bargaining power and give the United States an opening to exploit.
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Possible scenario. Russia has a cyberwar infrastructure. Of course, another nation-state could have covertly installed the virus in the Russian contractor's equipment.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/30/world/middleeast/30worm.html?pagewanted=2&_r=2
Ralph Langner, a German computer security consultant who was the first independent expert to assert that the malware had been “weaponized” and designed to attack the Iranian centrifuge array, argues that the Stuxnet worm could have been brought into the Iranian nuclear complex by Russian contractors.
“It would be an absolute no-brainer to leave an infected USB stick near one of these guys,” he said, “and there would be more than a 50 percent chance of having him pick it up and infect his computer.”
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http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/10/29/state-dept-tweets-b-day-message-ahmadinejad-palin-responds?test=latestnews
State Dept Tweets B-Day Message to Ahmadinejad, Palin Responds
by Justin Fishel | October 29, 2010
WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's top spokesman, P.J. Crowley, sent a birthday message to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad via Twitter Friday, prompting a response by former Governor Sarah Palin who described the post as "mind boggling foreign policy."
Crowley posted two short messages directed at the Iranian president, who turned 54 this week.
"Happy birthday President Ahmadinejad," the first tweet reads. "Celebrate by sending Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer home. What a gift that would be."
Fattal and Bauer were arrested near the Iranian border with Iraq in July of 2009 and have been held in Iran since on charges of espionage." Crowley has called for their return on nearly a daily basis, insisting they are innocent.
The second tweets reads: "Your 54th year was full of lost opportunities. Hope in your 55th year you will open Iran to a different relationship with the world."
Sarah Palin took issue with the message. Shortly after Crowley's post appeared she wrote, "Happy B'day Ahmadinejad wish sent by US Govt. Mind boggling foreign policy: kowtow & coddle enemies; snub allies. Obama Doctrine is nonsense."
Her message continued in a separate tweet: "Americans awaken 2 bizarre natl security thinking of Obama Admn: Ahmadinejad b'day greeting after call 4 Israel's destruction speaks volumes."
Palin is known for delivering her messages over the social media outlets Facebook and Twitter. Crowley said he had no comment when asked about the Twitter exchange during a daily press briefing at the State Department.
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Stratfor
The United States placed Jundallah, a Sunni-Balochi Islamist group active in Iran, on its list of international terrorist entities Nov. 3. In its statement, the U.S. State Department said Jundallah was engaged in a variety of terrorist activities confirmed by the group’s leadership. In recent years, Jundallah has emerged as the most lethal rebel group fighting Iran via its use of suicide attacks targeting Shiite mosques and even the leadership of the country’s elite military force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Washington’s apparently sudden move to declare Jundallah a terrorist organization, which Tehran previously has accused Washington and its European and Arab allies of backing, represents a huge gesture toward Iran. Washington likely made the move in hopes of reaching an understanding on the balance of power in the Persian Gulf region after U.S. forces exit Iraq. The step follows a number of recent events. These included a preliminary understanding between Iran and the United States regarding a new power-sharing formula in Iraq in the form of a government led by incumbent Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Washington seeking Iranian input in the process toward a settlement in Iraq, Iranian cooperation in Afghanistan, and Iran not creating instability in Lebanon.
Declaring Jundallah a terrorist organization is also part of the Obama administration’s efforts to reach an overall bilateral understanding with Tehran. This has become especially urgent given the new Republican control of the U.S. House of Representatives, which will force Obama to show progress on the foreign policy front if he wants to be re-elected. All eyes will now be on Iran for its reaction and/or a reciprocal gesture, particularly on the nuclear issue — for which talks are scheduled for this month — and on the Sunni share of power in the Iraqi government.
Read more: The U.S. Reaches Out to Iran on Jundallah | STRATFOR
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If Obama has a second term, Israel will be designated a terrorist state as an outreach to Iran.
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The powerline link will save you from a signup and age check at youtube.
A very worthy cause, I admire these brave protesters and the work that they do.
"A group of feminists called Femen went topless at an event at the Iranian embassy to protest the sentence of death by stoning that Iran meted out to Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani. Few things attract attention like a group of topless women; you can see what happened in this brief, somewhat-explicit video:" http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/11/027685.php
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Tangent: I wonder if the Chinese can do stuff like this to us?
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Worm Was Perfect for Sabotaging Centrifuges
By WILLIAM J. BROAD and DAVID E. SANGER
Published: November 18, 2010
Experts dissecting the computer worm suspected of being aimed at Iran’s nuclear program have determined that it was precisely calibrated in a way that could send nuclear centrifuges wildly out of control.
Their conclusion, while not definitive, begins to clear some of the fog around the Stuxnet worm, a malicious program detected earlier this year on computers, primarily in Iran but also India, Indonesia and other countries.
The paternity of the worm is still in dispute, but in recent weeks officials from Israel have broken into wide smiles when asked whether Israel was behind the attack, or knew who was. American officials have suggested it originated abroad.
The new forensic work narrows the range of targets and deciphers the worm’s plan of attack. Computer analysts say Stuxnet does its damage by making quick changes in the rotational speed of motors, shifting them rapidly up and down.
Changing the speed “sabotages the normal operation of the industrial control process,” Eric Chien, a researcher at the computer security company Symantec, wrote in a blog post.
Those fluctuations, nuclear analysts said in response to the report, are a recipe for disaster among the thousands of centrifuges spinning in Iran to enrich uranium, which can fuel reactors or bombs. Rapid changes can cause them to blow apart. Reports issued by international inspectors reveal that Iran has experienced many problems keeping its centrifuges running, with hundreds removed from active service since summer 2009.
“We don’t see direct confirmation” that the attack was meant to slow Iran’s nuclear work, David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a private group in Washington that tracks nuclear proliferation, said in an interview Thursday. “But it sure is a plausible interpretation of the available facts.”
Intelligence officials have said they believe that a series of covert programs are responsible for at least some of that decline. So when Iran reported earlier this year that it was battling the Stuxnet worm, many experts immediately suspected that it was a state-sponsored cyberattack.
Until last week, analysts had said only that Stuxnet was designed to infect certain kinds of Siemens equipment used in a wide variety of industrial sites around the world.
But a study released Friday by Mr. Chien, Nicolas Falliere and Liam O. Murchu at Symantec, concluded that the program’s real target was to take over frequency converters, a type of power supply that changes its output frequency to control the speed of a motor.
The worm’s code was found to attack converters made by two companies, Fararo Paya in Iran and Vacon in Finland. A separate study conducted by the Department of Homeland Security confirmed that finding, a senior government official said in an interview on Thursday.
Then, on Wednesday, Mr. Albright and a colleague, Andrea Stricker, released a report saying that when the worm ramped up the frequency of the electrical current supplying the centrifuges, they would spin faster and faster. The worm eventually makes the current hit 1,410 Hertz, or cycles per second — just enough, they reported, to send the centrifuges flying apart.
In a spooky flourish, Mr. Albright said in the interview, the worm ends the attack with a command to restore the current to the perfect operating frequency for the centrifuges — which, by that time, would presumably be destroyed.
“It’s striking how close it is to the standard value,” he said.
The computer analysis, his Wednesday report concluded, “makes a legitimate case that Stuxnet could indeed disrupt or destroy” Iranian centrifuge plants.
The latest evidence does not prove Iran was the target, and there have been no confirmed reports of industrial damage linked to Stuxnet. Converters are used to control a number of different machines, including lathes, saws and turbines, and they can be found in gas pipelines and chemical plants. But converters are also essential for nuclear centrifuges.
On Wednesday, the chief of the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity center in Virginia, Sean McGurk, told a Senate committee that the worm was a “game changer” because of the skill with which it was composed and the care with which it was geared toward attacking specific types of equipment.
Meanwhile, the search for other clues in the Stuxnet program continues — and so do the theories about its origins.
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Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad faced an impeachment move in parliament.
.Iran's parliament revealed it planned to impeach President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but refrained under orders from the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, exposing a deepening division within the Iranian regime.
Lawmakers also launched a new petition to bring a debate on the president's impeachment, conservative newspapers reported Monday.
The reports of impeachment efforts came as a retort to a powerful body of clerics that urged Mr. Khamenei to curb the parliament's authority and give greater clout to the president.
In a report released Sunday and discussed in parliament Monday, four prominent lawmakers laid out the most extensive public criticism of Mr. Ahmadinejad to date.
They accused him and his government of 14 counts of violating the law, including illegally importing gasoline and oil, failing to provide budgetary transparency and withdrawing millions of dollars from Iran's foreign reserve fund.
"The president and his cabinet must be held accountable in front of the parliament," the report stated. "A lack of transparency and the accumulation of legal violations by the government is harming the regime."
The conservative lawmakers say the president is illegally operating beyond the checks and balances of the constitution by ignoring the legislature on economic and foreign policy.
Their ultraconservative foes—led by Mr. Khamenei, who has final say in all state matters—see the president as the main agent of the state. Mr. Ahmadinejad hails from this ultraconservative camp, favoring populist economic policies and taking a more defiant stance abroad, as opposed to mainstream conservatives' more pragmatic approach.
Conservative newspapers reported on Monday that lawmakers have started a motion to collect the 74 signatures needed to openly debate impeachment. Mousa Reza Servati, the head of the parliament's budgetary committee, was quoted as saying 40 lawmakers, including Mr. Servati, have signed the motion.
Grounds for Dismissal | Key charges against Iran President Ahmadinejad
Withdrawing $590 million from the Central Bank's foreign reserve fund.
Trading 76.5 million barrels of crude oil in exchange for gasoline imports in 2008.
Illegally importing gasoline, oil and natural gas at a value of about $9 billion since 2007.
Failing to provide transparency in budget spending and curbing parliamentary oversight.
Failing to provide transparency about the source of money for the president's domestic travels and about the allocation of money in Iran's provinces.
Failing to implement or notify ministries about 31 legislative items passed by the parliament in 2010.
Iran's Islamic Consultative Assembly
.The move to remove the president from office marks the first time in the history of the Islamic Republic that parliament has discussed impeachment of a president. Though the legislature is backed by the Iranian constitution, lawmakers can't drive Mr. Ahmadinejad from office without the supreme leader's agreement.
One issue on which both camps are broadly united is in supporting Iran's right to proceed with its nuclear program against the objections of the international community.
Mr. Ahmadinejad is likely to continue positioning himself on the international stage as the defiant voice of Iran's leadership, as Tehran prepares for a new round of nuclear talks, scheduled tentatively for Dec. 5.
The conservative camp also closed ranks behind Mr. Ahmadinejad after the turbulent 2009 presidential election and its violent aftermath—setting aside differences to support the regime. But a considerable portion of highly influential members of the conservative bloc, such as speaker of the parliament Ali Larijani, appear to have begun to view Mr. Ahmadinejad as a liability.
"The parliament is now openly questioning Ahmadinejad's credibility and his ability to run the country. If the tensions escalate, the conservatives will have no choice but to sack him in order to save the regime's reputation," said Ali Akbar Mousavi Khoeini, a political analyst in Washington and a former parliament member in Iran.
The next few months present a big challenge for Iran's government as it plans to gradually eliminate subsidies for fuel, food and utilities from an economy that is already strained by a string of tough international sanctions over is controversial nuclear program.
Economists have warned the subsidy cuts will drive up inflation, and authorities have tightened security to prevent riots and uprisings in response to the cuts.
Some of Mr. Ahmadinejad's alleged violations included withdrawing $590 million from the Central Bank's foreign reserve fund, trading 76.5 million barrels of crude oil in exchange for importing gasoline in 2008, and illegal imports of gasoline, oil and natural gas since 2007 at a value of about $9 billion.
On websites and blogs, the primary outlet for Iran's opposition, Iranians urged the parliament not to give in to Mr. Khamenei's orders and, as one blogger wrote, "act independently for the good of the public."
On Saturday, the Guardian Council, the appointed body of ultraconservative clerics that oversees legislation and acts as a mediator between the government and the parliament, said a "mediating committee" that included council members recommended that Mr. Khamenei curb the powers of the parliament in favor of giving the president a wider hand.
The remarks infuriated parliament members, who said they had made no such recommendation, leading to a heated open debate on the parliament floor on Monday.
Mr. Ahmadinejad has had an uneasy relationship with parliament since his election in 2006, but the differences escalated in his second term, when lawmakers refused to approve eight of his cabinet nominees.
Mr. Khamenei intervened, asking parliament members to compromise. In the end only three cabinet choices were refused.
The parliament also fought Mr. Ahmadinejad for a year over his economic plan and the cutting of subsidies. Mr. Ahmadinejad finally wrote a letter to Mr. Khamenei complaining of the parliament acting as an obstacle for his administration. The committee consists of four lawmakers, three representatives from the administration, three independent lawyers and three members of Guardian Council. The final report is to be sent to Khamenei for review.
Write to Farnaz Fassihi at farnaz.fassihi@wsj.com
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http://www.michaelyon-online.com/hostages-press-release.htm
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The Implications of Iranian Assertiveness Toward Pakistan
The Middle East and South Asia have no shortage of conflicts and on any given day there are developments on multiple issues. Monday, however, was different: Another fault line appeared to emerge. Iranian leaders used some very stern language in demanding that Pakistan act against the Sunni Baluchi Islamist militant group Jundallah, which recently staged suicide attacks against Shiite religious gatherings in the Iranian port city of Chahbahar.
The Islamic republic’s senior-most military leader, Chief of the Joint Staff Command of Iran’s Armed Forces Maj. Gen. Hassan Firouzabadi, threatened that Tehran would take unilateral action if Islamabad failed to prevent cross-border terrorism. Separately, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called his Pakistani counterpart, Asif Ali Zardari, and demanded that Pakistani security forces apprehend “known terrorists” and hand them over to Iranian authorities. This is not the first time that Jundallah has become a source of tension between the two neighbors. However, this time, the Iranian response was different: The apex leadership of Iran threatened to take matters into its own hands.
It’s even more interesting that the latest Jundallah attack was not that significant, especially compared to the attack from a little more than a year ago when as many as half a dozen senior generals from the ground forces of Iran’s elite military force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, were killed in a Jundallah attack in the border town of Pishin. At the time, however, Iran was much more mild in terms of pressing Pakistan to take action against Jundallah. Over the years, there has also been significant cooperation between Tehran and Islamabad leading to arrests of the group’s leaders and main operatives, including its founders.
“Tehran is likely concerned about how the deteriorating security situation in Pakistan will impact its own security and sees a situation in which it can enhance its influence in its southeastern neighbor.”
Why is Iran now escalating matters with Pakistan? The answer likely has to do with the Iranian government feeling confident in other foreign policy areas. It has been successful in having a Shiite-dominated government of its preference installed in Iraq. Also, for the first time, it appears to be negotiating from a position of relative strength on the nuclear issue.
Iran is also a major regional stakeholder in Afghanistan and a competitor of Pakistan there. It is therefore likely that Iran is now flexing its muscles on its eastern flank to showcase its regional rise. The Iranians have also been watching the fairly rapid destabilization that has taken place in Pakistan in recent years and sense both a threat and an opportunity. Tehran is likely concerned about how the deteriorating security situation in Pakistan will impact its own security and sees a situation in which it can enhance its influence in its southeastern neighbor.
It is too early to say anything about how Iran will go about projecting power across its frontier with Pakistan. However, there are geopolitical implications from this new Iranian assertiveness. The most serious one is obviously for Pakistan, which already has to deal with U.S. forces engaging in cross-border action along the country’s northwestern border with Afghanistan. Islamabad can’t afford pressures from Tehran on the southwestern extension of that border (an area where Pakistan is dealing with its own Baluchi rebellion). Any such move on the part of Iran could encourage India to increase pressure on its border with Pakistan. After all, India is a much bigger target of Pakistani-based militants than Iran, but has thus far not been able to get Pakistan to yield to its demands on cracking down on anti-India militants. New Delhi would love to take advantage of this new dynamic developing between Islamabad and Tehran.
At the very least, Monday’s Iranian statements reinforce perceptions that Pakistan is a state infested by Islamist militants of various stripes that threaten pretty much every country that shares a border with it (including Pakistan’s closest ally, China). Certainly, Pakistan doesn’t want to see problems on a third border and will try to address Iranian concerns. But the Pakistani situation is such that it is unlikely that Islamabad will be able to placate Tehran.
In terms of ramifications, Monday’s developments are actually not limited to only those countries that have a border with Pakistan. Iranian demands on Pakistan have likely set off alarm bells in Saudi Arabia, which is already terrified of Iran’s rise in the Persian Gulf region and the Levant. Pakistan constitutes a major Saudi sphere of influence and Riyadh is not about to let Tehran play in the South Asia country. Pakistan has been a Saudi-Iranian proxy battleground since the 1980s and the latest Iranian statements could intensify the Sunni-Shiite sectarian conflict in the country.
Increased sectarian conflict in Pakistan will only exacerbate the jihadist insurgency in the country, thereby further eroding internal stability. Such a situation is extremely problematic for the United States, which is already trying to contain a rising Iran and has a complex love-hate relationship with Pakistan. There is also the problem that the success of America’s Afghan strategy is contingent upon Washington establishing a balance of power between Iran and Pakistan in Afghanistan.
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Breaking News Alert
The New York Times
Thu, December 23, 2010 -- 5:20 PM ET
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U.S. Approves Business With Blacklisted Nations
A little-known office of the Treasury Department has
permitted American companies to do billions of dollars in
business with Iran and other countries blacklisted as state
sponsors of terrorism.
Read More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/24/world/24sanctions.html?emc=na
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Tuesday, December 28, 2010 STRATFOR.COM Diary Archives
Iran's Challenge: Keeping Domestic Stability While Managing International Pressures
Iranian Deputy Minister of Economy Mohammad Reza Farzin said on Monday that fuel consumption across the country had dropped since the government began implementing its plan to cut subsidies. Speaking to AFP, Farzin explained that after nine days, gasoline consumption dropped from 13.2 million to 12.1 million gallons a day. “We are spending $100 billion in subsidies every year from a gross domestic product of $400 billion. We have realized that low energy prices cannot deliver social welfare. It can’t reduce poverty. We are determined to use the resources for managing prices more efficiently,” the deputy economy minister stated.
It is not surprising that for decades, Iran has dedicated nearly a quarter of its gross domestic product to subsidize essentials. For any Tehran-based government to be able to maintain central rule over the large mountainous country, it must establish a complex political and security system. Thus, mass unrest has been contained through a massive security apparatus and with an extensive subsidy program.
What renders the subsidy program even more critical is that Iran is a chronically poor country with a significantly non-homogenous population, and the country has been under international sanctions for more than three decades. This would explain the high cost of maintaining domestic social placidity. Policymakers of the Persian Shiite polity, however, have long been divided over the merits of thwarting internal chaos at such a high cost.
“The challenge for Iran is two-fold: decreasing foreign dependency on gasoline imports … while containing a social backlash that could come from slashing subsidies.”
Cutting subsidies has been on the policy agenda of successive governments in the Islamic republic for at least two decades. Iran has been dependent upon imports to meet 40 percent of its domestic gasoline consumption needs. But it was not until last week that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s administration embarked upon the first-ever serious effort to address a key vulnerability in the Iranian system.
Gasoline acquired at international market rates has been available to the Iranian public for as low as 38 cents per gallon. The challenge for Iran is two-fold: how to decrease dependency on gasoline imports, especially in the wake of the latest round of sanctions, which have made it more difficult to import fuel, while containing a social backlash that could come from slashing subsidies. Ahmadinejad’s government deals with this situation by increasing the price of gasoline to curb domestic consumption while providing monthly cash handouts as a way to avoid the domestic backlash.
The hope is that this complex economic reform package will allow the state to deal with the growing challenges of securing much-needed fuel imports, sustain social placidity and free up resources that can be allocated to other areas. The past 10 days is not enough to gauge the effectiveness of the strategy, and the lack of transparency raises questions about the authenticity of the data made available by Iranian authorities. For now, the key is that Iran has embarked upon a measure that is a major break with its past behavior.
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BY FARNAZ FASSIHI IN BEIRUT AND MATT BRADLEY IN CAIRO
Iranian authorities have arrested dozens of Christians in the two weeks since Christmas, the latest challenge to the Mideast's small but vibrant Christian communities. The arrests around the country appear focused on individuals who have converted from Islam or sought to convert others from Islam—actions considered sins under Islamic law and punishable by death in Iran.
Tehran's governor, Morteza Tamadon, confirmed there have been detentions and said more arrests were on the way, state media reported. Mr. Tamadon suggested the roundup hadn't targeted the mainstream Armenian Christians or Catholics, which make up most of the small Christian population in Iran. ...
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I previously mentioned friendship with the family of one of the hikers going on 'trial' this week in Iran. Even Ahmadinejad seemed to admit they were nothing more than hikers upon confrontation while in America and promised to push for 'leniency'. My first reaction was something like what on earth were they thinking; they deserve what they get. That was 18 MONTHS ago. They DON'T deserve this. Young American adults living in Damascas, traveling in Iraq - during a war - and probably looking over a hillside saying wow, that is Iran - right there. Not dressed, trained or equipped for 'espionage'. It was a COMPLIMENT to the regime for them to underestimate the savagery of the regime. They have been held in isolation for a significant part of their young adult lives strictly as pawns for other prisoners of which they have absolutely no knowledge or control. Please pray for release and don't fall for the humanitarian, worldwide photo opp if they are lucky enough to be released. This has been a humanitarian nightmare for the captured and for their families.
Big wars start over small issues. There should be large consequences to the regime if they do further harm to innocent Americans.
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Don't go stupid places and do stupid things with stupid people.
I find it hard to muster up much sympathy for these individuals. No, they weren't spies, yes the mullahs are our enemies. We have much bigger and better reasons than them to wage war on Iran, but nothing but hugs will be forthcoming from this president.
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By FARNAZ FASSIHI
Iranian police used tear gas and electric prods to crack down on the country's biggest antigovernment protests in at least a year, as demonstrators buoyed by activism across the Middle East returned to the country's streets by the tens of thousands Monday.
The day of planned antigovernment rallies began largely peacefully, according to witnesses, with protesters marching silently or sitting and chanting. But as demonstrators' ranks swelled, police and antiriot forces lined the streets, ordered shops to shut down and responded at times with force, according to witnesses and opposition websites, in a repeat of the official crackdown that helped snuff out months of spirited opposition rallies a year ago.
By day's end, online videos showed garbage bins on fire, protesters throwing rocks at the police and crowds clashing with motorcycle-mounted members of the pro-regime Basij militia.
Thousands of Iranians gathered in several locations across Tehran Monday, heeding calls in recent days by opposition leaders to demonstrate in solidarity with Egyptian and Tunisian protesters. Farnaz Fassihi has details.
Monday's protests come as calls for regime change have led to the popular ousters of Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and Tunisia's Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. They mark a broadening from Iranian rallies that drew hundreds of thousands through 2009 and early 2010.
Those rallies targeted what opposition leaders said was a flawed presidential election that they say unfairly returned President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power. Monday's protests, by comparison, demanded that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the core of power in the Islamic Republic, step down.
"Mubarak! Ben Ali! It's now the turn for Seyed Ali!" people chanted, according to witnesses and videos, referring to the country's spiritual head.
In Tehran's Enghelab Avenue, the main route for the rally, a crowd of young men and women on Monday evening stomped on a giant banner depicting Mr. Khamenei and set it on fire, a sign of deepest disrespect in the Muslim world. Videos of the scene showed crowds cheering in response.
Iran's government and its opposition alike have sought to identify themselves with the mood of change sweeping the Middle East. Iranian officials sought to paint this year's Arab revolts as Islamic uprisings like the Iranian revolution that toppled the U.S.-backed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi more than 30 years ago.
Iran's opposition protesters, meanwhile, have renewed their challenge to the government, emboldened by rallies led by a similar cadre of educated, tech-savvy youth seeking better economic opportunity and more political freedoms.
Those who saw the rallies in Tehran placed the number of protesters in the capital in the tens of thousands. Witnesses in the cities of Mashad, Isfahan and Tabriz saw crowds they estimated at thousands of demonstrators each, with blog reports and other online dispatches placing overall participation in such cities at over 10,000 each.
Iranian officials have all but banned reporting on anti-regime protests, making it difficult to estimate not only the size of crowds, but the number of casualties, fatalities and arrests.
Iran's protests coincided with a visit Monday by Turkish President Abdullah Gul, who briefly addressed the unrest sweeping the Mideast at a joint press conference with Mr. Ahmadinejad. "We see that sometimes when the leaders and heads of countries do not pay attention to the nations' demands, the people themselves take action," Mr. Gul said. He didn't mention Iran.
Iranian officials didn't comment on Monday's protests. The Fars News Agency, affiliated with the country's Revolutionary Guards, reported that a "group of thugs" commissioned by the U.S. and Israel had taken to the streets to cause riots. Fars News said protestors had shot and killed one person and injured several others.
Iran's government "over the last three weeks has constantly hailed what went on in Egypt, and now, when given the opportunity to afford their people the same rights…once again illustrate their true nature," Mrs. Clinton told reporters in Washington. "We wish the opposition and the brave people in the streets across cities in Iran the same opportunity that they saw their Egyptian counterparts seize in the last week."
To support Iranian protestors, the State Department began using social media, particularly Twitter—sending its messages, for the first time, in Farsi—in calling on Iran's government to allow protestors to freely assemble and communicate.
Separately, an online collective known as "Anonymous" said it had launched so-called denial of service attacks on a number of high-profile Iranian government sites. In a DOS attack, computers flood a server to prevent it from displaying a web page.
The group, which has attacked a number of corporate and other websites in apparent retaliation for moves against the document-leaking organization WikiLeaks, targeted the websites of Iran's state news broadcaster and the website of President Ahmadinejad, among others. It is unclear how successful the attacks were, but those two sites weren't accessible late Monday.
This year's uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt have inspired populations across the Middle East, showing how rulers once thought invulnerable could be toppled in a wave of popular discontent. Iran's regime has so far provided a counterexample, as it has shown less reluctance to take a violent line against its people. Opposition groups and human-rights organizations say more than 100 people were killed and more than 5,000 jailed in Iran's demonstrations of late 2009 and early 2010.
Opposition leaders in Iran started with relatively modest goals after the 2009 election, including nullifying the election results, which they said were rigged. Iranian officials said the results reflected the will of the people.
Now, analysts say, revolts in Egypt and Tunisia have galvanized Iranian protesters around the goal of regime change. "It's very clear that we are now way beyond a post-election crisis," said Hamid Dabashi, professor of Iranian studies at Columbia University. "People are going after the regime."
Monday's protests began peacefully in the early afternoon as men and women streamed on foot along pre-designated routes in multiple cities such as Tehran, Isfahan, Mashad and Shiraz. Drivers honked in support. Shopkeepers waved the victory sign.
In response, the government deployed heavy security. Cellphone and text-messaging service was down along the protest routes, Iranians reported.
As the afternoon waned, crowd swelled and began chanting against Mr. Khamenei, according to eyewitnesses and reports posted on the Internet. Security forces attacked people with electric prods and tear gas. Protesters ran and hid, and then regrouped defiantly a few feet away.
One witness described a scene in which a flower-decorated car in a bridal convoy became stuck in the protests. With security forces in pursuit of demonstrators, a bride in full regalia stepped out of the car and helped shove protesters inside to protect them, this person said.
Witnesses said the plain-clothes Basij militia were dispatched on motorbikes and vans later in the evening. They took position in side streets and beat protesters with sticks and batons, witnesses said.
Various observers reported several injuries and arrests. Their accounts weren't possible to verify.
"I saw a young woman thrown to the sidewalk, her head split open and she was bleeding, but the guy kept kicking her," a young man from Tehran said via Internet chat.
A young female activist said by telephone from the city of Isfahan that plain-clothes Basij militia had attacked a group of young men and women and dragged them into a parking lot on Revolution Avenue. They locked the gate and began beating them with wooden sticks and electric batons as the protesters fell to the ground and screamed, the activist said.
"Everyone was terrified and we felt helpless. All we could do was shout 'Death to the Dictator,' but the police chased us," said the activist.
Opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi had called the protest and vowed to participate. But they were put under house arrest all day, according to opposition web sites. When Mr. Mousavi and his wife attempted to leave the house, security forces stopped them, and blocked their street with multiple police cars, according to the website.
As darkness fell on Tehran, the city was rocked again by the chants from residents on rooftops across the capital: "God is great," and "Death to the dictator," according to witnesses. The Facebook page of the protest, 25 Bahman, said it would soon announce further plans for demonstrations in the following days.
—Jay Solomon in Washington and Cassell Bryan-Low in London contributed to this article.
Write to Farnaz Fassihi at farnaz.fassihi@wsj.com
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I hope they win.
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I wonder if Baraq will support them this time around , , ,
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Of course not. Iran is an enemy to US. Why would Obama speak against the mullahs? It's only a democratic movement when it hurts America.
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By FARNAZ FASSIHI
The Iranian government threatened opposition leaders with execution and made a fresh wave of arrests, a day after the largest protests in a year prompted clashes in which at least two people were killed and dozens injured.
Tehran and other Iranian cities quieted down on Tuesday as the opposition regrouped and assessed the impact of the rallies that brought tens of thousands of people into the streets across the country.
A hard-line group of conservative members of the Iranian parliament, on the podium, called for the execution of opposition leaders on Tuesday, a day after protests across the country.
The protesters, buoyed by activism across the Middle East, were confronted forcefully by police and antiriot forces, which used guns, tear gas and electric prods to disperse them. The demonstrators had called for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to step down.
Two college students in their 20s, Sanah Jaleh and Mohamad Mokharti, were killed by gunshots, said the government and opposition. Dozens of people were injured and 1,500 people have been arrested in connection with the demonstrations, the government and protestors said.
Iranian government warns against U.S. meddling as it tries to quell opposition protests in support of Egypt. Video courtesy of Reuters and photo courtesy of AP.
Mr. Mokharti's last Facebook message on Monday morning, hours before he joined the protests, was "Happy Valentine's Day," next to the green ribbon that symbolizes the opposition.
Antigovernment activists said they planned to attend a funeral procession on Wednesday morning for Mr. Jaleh, who was a student activist as part of the pro-democracy Islamic Student Union and part of the minority Sunni Kurd community, his friends said on the student website Daneshjoo.
The funeral, which will take place in front of Tehran University, could become the next flashpoint between pro-government forces and the opposition. "We will not allow them to kill us and then shamelessly take advantage of our martyrs," said a student activist from Tehran.
Mr. Jaleh's friends said he was shot dead Monday by a member of Basij, a volunteer plainclothes militia. In his honor, students waved green banners at the campus of Tehran University, videos show.
Paradoxically, the government cast Mr. Jaleh as a Basij militiaman. The opposition tried to discredit that claim by circulating on websites and blogs a picture of Mr. Jaleh with the late reformist Islamic cleric Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, a spiritual guide for opposition Green Movement.
In the U.S., President Barack Obama spoke on Tuesday in support of the protesters in Iran and condemned the violence.
"I find it ironic that you've got the Iranian regime pretending to celebrate what happened in Egypt, when in fact they have acted in direct contrast to what happened in Egypt by gunning down and beating people who were trying to express themselves peacefully," Mr. Obama said at a White House news conference.
But Mr. Obama, whose administration has pushed for economic sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, said the U.S. "cannot ultimately dictate what happens inside of Iran."
It was too early to say whether the protests will gain momentum, analysts said. But Iran's leaders—who claimed they had quashed the movement that brought hundreds of thousands to the streets in 2009 and early 2010 to protest what they said was a flawed election that unfairly returned President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to office—seemed shaken by the rallies on Monday.
Mr. Ahmadinejad on Tuesday blamed the protests a day earlier on "enemies" of the government.
Ali Larijani, speaker of the parliament, on Tuesday accused the U.S. for fomenting the protests and said the legislative body must quickly form a panel "to investigate the antirevolutionary movement" brewing in Iran. The session turned rowdy when a group of hard-line conservatives began pumping their fists in the air and shouting that prominent opposition figures Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi "must be executed."
The two men have been under house arrest since Friday and were unable to attend the demonstrations, but had called for supporters to take to the streets Monday in solidarity with the movements in Egypt and Tunisia that had deposed their own leaders.
Mousavi adviser Ardeshir Amir Arjemand said the opposition wasn't surprised at the government's reaction to Monday's protests. "Their violence and brutal crackdowns against the public are not up for dispute, these officials have to be held accountable," he said, according to the website Kalame.
Write to Farnaz Fassihi at farnaz.fassihi@wsj.com
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Anne Jolis writing in the Journal's Political Diary e-newsletter, Feb. 23:
News of the mass protests—and government and military defections—that are threatening to topple the regime of Moammar Gadhafi in Libya has dominated headlines for days. But over the weekend, another defection from yet another Middle Eastern dictatorship went relatively unnoticed. Ahmad Maleki, head of Iran's consular office in Milan, resigned his post on Sunday to protest Tehran's "barbaric actions against the Iranian nation," Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports, adding that he now plans to join Iran's pro- democracy Green Movement.
Egypt's and Tunisia's uprisings have breathed new life into the Iranian resistance. . . . After a year of lying low, tens of thousands of Green Movement protesters marched through Iran's streets on Sunday and last Monday. Whereas in 2009 they called for fresh elections, they are now calling to overthrow their government and to end the country's "religious dictatorship."
Tehran has responded with swarms of armed guards, firing into the crowds and beating protesters with steel batons and chains, witnesses tell The Wall Street Journal. Opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi have been under house arrest for more than a week. . . . Mr. Maleki, who previously served Tehran in Portugal and Kenya, tells RFE/RL that there are "many others in the [Iranian Foreign Ministry] who are unhappy with the government." Mr. Maleki is the fourth Iranian diplomat to resign in the past year, after Iranian envoys stepped down in Norway, Finland and Brussels.
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http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/breaking-iran-has-several-military-bases-in-libya/
Breaking: Iran Has Several Military Bases in Libya
According to an inside source, the military collaborations between Iran's Revolutionary Guards and the Gaddafi government date back to 2006.
February 27, 2011 - by 'Reza Kahlili'
In an interview today on the Al Arabyia news network, an informed source within the Revolutionary Guards Corps revealed that Iran has several military bases in Libya.
The source, who requested anonymity due to his sensitive position within the Guards, elaborated further that the Iranian military bases are located mostly along Libya’s borders with the African countries of Chad and Niger. From there, he said, the Guards actively smuggle arms and supply logistical assistance to rebellious groups in the African countries.
According to this source, Guards enter Libya under the guise of oil company employees. Most of these companies are under the control of the Revolutionary Guards.
The source, who is a colonel in the Guards, added that Gaddafi and his government are quite aware of these activities and have even signed joint contracts with those Iranian oil companies so that the the Guards can enter Libya without any trouble.
The colonel stated that with the current unrest in Libya, over 500 Guards have been unable to evacuate and are under orders to destroy all documents.
According to this source, the military collaborations between the Revolutionary Guards and the Gaddafi government date back to 2006.
It is important to note that Nigerian officials recently confiscated an Iranian arms shipment destined for Gambia. The weapons included mortars, rockets, and shells for anti-aircraft guns and were hidden in containers marked building materials. Nigerian officials have accused a suspected member of the Guards and a Nigerian of illegally importing arms and have set the trial for later this year.
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Also read: “Endgame in Libya? Gaddafi’s ‘nurse’ to leave Tripoli”
Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for an ex-CIA spy who requires anonymity for safety reasons. A Time to Betray, his book about his double life as a CIA agent in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, was published by Simon & Schuster on April 6.
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Iran Contemplates Its Next Move
On a day when there was no shortage of significant geopolitical events from Libya to Japan to Bahrain, STRATFOR continued to forecast the importance of Iran’s historic opportunity to remake the balance of power in the Persian Gulf region.
As daylight broke in Bahrain on Wednesday morning, Bahraini security forces, reinforced by the Saudi-led Gulf Cooperation Council Joint Peninsula Shield Force mission, cleared protesters from Manama’s Pearl Roundabout. Forces used the usual volleys of tear gas on the crowds, but this time they also used live ammunition, leaving at least four demonstrators dead as black smoke hovered over the tent city at the square, which had gone up in flames. The crackdown included the Bahrain Financial Harbor and the Salmaniya Hospital, and also left two Bahraini security force members dead. By 4 p.m., when a curfew went into effect, Wednesday was the most violent day since the uprising in this small island nation began in mid-February.
“The more threatening the Iranians make themselves appear, particularly in Iraq, the more likely the United States is to reconsider its withdrawal plans and focus more heavily on militarily blocking Iran from further upsetting the regional balance of power.”
The fact that Saudi troops were involved only added to the anger felt by all sectors of the opposition. While the al-Khalifa (the Sunni minority) regime may have indeed requested the help, the protesters (predominately composed of Bahrain’s Shiite majority) did not, and view this as a foreign invasion. From the hard-line Shiite Coalition for a Republic, to the more moderate, Shiite mainstream opposition coalition led by Al Wefaq, the opposition was unified in condemnation of the security force methods. If ever there was an opportunity for the two Shiite camps in Bahrain to patch things up, this was it. But it became clear that a split remained when an Al Wefaq official released a statement that attempted to disassociate the movement from the demonstrations by denying it had called for further protests, and then urged its followers to stay home for their safety.
The major driver behind the GCC deployment was to counter Iran’s rising influence in the Persian Gulf. Tehran sees an opportunity to build on its successes in Iraq and shift the balance of power in eastern Arabia to favor the Shia. Iran’s best-case scenario in Bahrain is for the complete overthrow of the Sunni monarchy, and it’s focused primarily on that possibility. But that is not to say Iranians are not meddling elsewhere at the same time.
Saudi Arabia’s Shiite-dominated Eastern province is right across the causeway from Bahrain. The Eastern province also happens to be where the bulk of the Saudi kingdom’s oil fields are located, adding even more significance to the fact that there is a simmering protest movement there. It hasn’t led to much so far; last Friday’s “Day of Rage” was a rather modest affair compared to some of the other Friday prayer protests we’ve seen in the Arab world in recent months. But it has the Saudi regime on edge nonetheless, and no doubt played a factor in Riyadh’s decision to send troops to Bahrain.?
Iran does not have as much room to maneuver operationally in Saudi Arabia as it does in Bahrain, but that doesn’t mean Tehran hasn’t been trying. Indeed, one of the big reasons that Bahrain is such a critical proxy battleground is because of the potential for contagion to spread to the Arabian Peninsula should a revolution occur there. A few hundred protesters marching in Qatif and al-Hasa, the Saudis fear, could quickly transform into a few thousand. That is a scenario that the Saudi royals want to avoid at all costs, and so are resorting to extraordinary measures to clamp down in Bahrain, where key Shiite opposition figures (some of whom are known for their close ties to Tehran) are reportedly being arrested.
Iranians are much more comfortable in Iraq. Babylon is Persia’s true historic rival, and the competition between these two states long predates the emergence of Islam. The 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War was the most recent engagement between the two, and drove home (once again) in Tehran just how large a strategic threat Iraq is for Iran. As a result, the Iranians spent years trying to build up their contacts among the Iraqi Shia, who were living under the rule of Saddam Hussein. Developing political, business, religious and militant links with the Iraqi majority was all part of an Iranian strategy that was built around waiting to seize the opportunity to rid Iraq of Sunni domination and establish a Shiite stronghold in the heart of the Arab world. That opportunity presented itself in 2003, when the United States toppled Saddam. Eight years later, the Iranians are ready and waiting to fill a vacuum left by the United States once it completes its scheduled withdrawal by summer’s end.
With a need to sustain the momentum that it has built in the Bahrain conflict, which was branded in part as an instance of U.S. interference, Iran is looking for other proxy battlegrounds to raise Shiite ire. Iraq is one arena in the Persian Gulf region where Iran has considerable room to maneuver. On Wednesday, for example, an estimated 2,000 followers of Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr held demonstrations in Basra and Baghdad in solidarity with the Bahraini Shia, who were seen as being attacked by “Wahhabis,” as they view them, from Iran’s key rival, Saudi Arabia.
But there is still a cost-benefit analysis that Iran would have to make in deciding to meddle in Iraq on a significant level. The United States is not oriented to maintain a sufficient blocking force against Iran, and does not have the force structure in the region to effectively counter-balance the Iranians at a time when the Sunni Arab regimes are feeling under siege. The more threatening the Iranians make themselves out to be, particularly in Iraq, the more likely the United States is to reconsider its withdrawal plans and focus more heavily on militarily blocking Iran from further upsetting the regional balance of power. Tehran is thus left juggling between not doing enough (and therefore not sending the intended message to Washington and Riyadh that it is a powerful force in the region), and doing too much (which would risk forcing the Americans to stay in Iraq for longer than they had planned).
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http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2011/mar/16/report-iran-admits-cyber-attacks/
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WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama offered his strongest support to date for Iran's political opposition and youth, a sign of how the U.S. is seeking to use the democratic surge sweeping the Middle East to intensify pressure on Tehran's leadership.
Mr. Obama has addressed the Iranian people annually on the Persian New Year, known as Nowruz. His 2009 address was notable in that he called for political dialogue between the U.S. and Iran's clerical rulers, and referred to their country as the Islamic Republic of Iran, the first time an American president has used this moniker.
Mr. Obama's Nowruz speech this year, however, didn't renew his call for engagement with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government and, instead, sharply criticized Tehran's human-rights abuses. Mr. Obama also for the first time personally mentioned the names of dissidents detained in Iranian prisons—seen as increasing the pressure on Tehran not to harm them.
"So far, the Iranian government has responded by demonstrating that it cares more about preserving its own power than respecting the rights of the Iranian people," Mr. Obama said in a video message that was beamed into Iran and translated into Farsi. "These choices do not demonstrate strength, they show fear."
Mr. Obama threw his support behind Iran's protestors and youth population, noting that they will control the future of their country.
The U.S. president was widely criticized in 2009 for not backing more directly the Iranian opposition movement that emerged after disputed presidential elections, drawing hundreds of thousands Iranian protesters onto the streets. Critics said the Obama administration was more focused on securing a diplomatic track to end Iran's nuclear program than to promote democratic change inside Iran.
This year, Mr. Obama offered much stronger rhetorical support, especially for the 60% of Iran's population that was born after Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution. "Your talent, your hopes and your choices will shape the future of Iran, and help light the world," Mr. Obama said. "And though times may seem dark, I want you to know that I am with you," he added.
"I think the White House appears no longer interested in sending conciliatory overtures to a regime that is unwilling or incapable of reciprocating them," said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington think tank.
U.S. officials believe the spread of political unrest in the Mideast that has led to the overthrow of the governments in Tunisia and Egypt in recent months provides both opportunities and risks for the West in its conflict with Iran.
The administration has supported the democratic uprisings, up to a point. After the abrupt toppling of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, it has sought to push for change incrementally and from within existing regimes. With violence flaring in Yemen and Bahrain, the limits of that approach are becoming starker.
Iran's leadership has sought to define the protest movements as targeting pro-American governments and as a sign of Washington's waning influence in the region. Tehran has particularly provided moral support for opposition parties in Bahrain—largely Shiite organizations that are challenging the country's Sunni monarch, a close ally of Washington. And the U.S. has worried that Iran could take advantage of political instability as a means to spread its influence, as well the agendas of its chief allies: Syria and the Islamist militias and political parties, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories.
Still, Iranian protesters have responded to the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia and taken to the streets in recent weeks to renew their campaign against Mr. Ahmadinejad's government. In recent days, significant protests have emerged against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's rule, the first significant unrest in that country in decades.
U.S. officials have sought to highlight Iran's human-rights record as political unrest continues to grip the Middle East.
The U.S. Treasury Department for the first time last month imposed sanctions on Iranian officials solely for their alleged role in human-rights abuses and for playing a role in the crackdown on political dissidents. The Obama administration also is pushing to gain backing from the United Nations' Human Rights Council in Geneva to censure Iran for its political crackdown and establish the first U.N. human-rights investigator for the Islamic Republic in a decade.
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http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=mpg&mpid=174&load=5147
This video - translated and subtitled by Reza Kahlili - is an abbreviated version of a documentary produced by allies of the Iranian Islamic regime in response to recent crisis in the Middle East. Its intention is to show how these violent chaotic events indicate the imminent arrival of the Mahdi - the Shiite Islamic messiah - and the unification of the world under Islam.
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By REUEL MARC GERECHT AND MARK DUBOWITZ
If we buy oil from despotic states, are we somehow complicit in their crimes? Even after the Arab Spring has highlighted tyranny in the Middle East, Americans and Europeans still generally remove oil and natural gas from their moral calculations.
But what if we could do a lot of good by sanctioning Iranian oil? Is it possible, moreover, for Europeans to continue to buy Iranian crude but give the Iranian regime less money? And could China and India, major oil customers of Tehran who couldn't care less about the regime's behavior, purchase as much crude as they want and still hurt the mullahs' ability to translate oil wealth into nefarious actions?
The answer to all three questions is "yes." All buyers need is more incentive to shop ruthlessly whenever they buy from Tehran. Washington could provide it by declaring the United States an Iranian-oil-free zone. Any company that exports an oil-based product to America—gasoline, plastics, petrochemicals, synthetic fibers—would have to certify that no Iranian oil was involved in its manufacture.
In 2010, the U.S. imported approximately 5% of its finished (fully-refined) and unfinished daily gasoline consumption from Europe. Since Iranian oil is now freely blended into European stocks, the U.S. is certainly consuming Iranian crude. And Iran's petrochemical exports to China amount to roughly $2 billion, so imagine how much of that comes to the U.S. via Chinese-manufactured plastics.
Making the U.S. an Iranian-oil-free zone would make it a hassle to trade in and use Iranian crude, which would strongly encourage any importer to demand a discount from Tehran. The pressure on Iran to lower its price everywhere could become acute.
VThe U.S. is Europe's largest export market for gasoline, so Washington could give foreign refineries a six-month grace period to adjust their supplies, making it unlikely there would be any increase in the price of gasoline exported to the U.S. No refinery in Europe is dependent on Iranian crude: Even in a tight market, alternative oil supplies could quickly replace Iranian supplies for those refineries that prefer to avoid Iranian oil.
Even for countries that might try to cheat the system, like Venezuela, the incentive would be strong to take advantage of this American sanction and force a lower Iranian price. Moving oil from Iran to Venezuela isn't free—ideological fraternity would probably come at a price.
It's difficult to assess exactly, but it's reasonable to posit that aggressive oil traders would force Tehran to discount its oil by at least 10%. Currently, gasoline traders willing to defy U.S. sanctions on refined petroleum demand premiums of about 30% for the sale of petrol to the Islamic Republic.
Given the state of the Iranian economy—oil production is declining, investments in natural-gas production and distribution are lagging, state subsidies are still exploding, and unemployment and inflation are both rising—a small reduction in oil revenue could have a cascading effect.
It would be easy for European Union countries to adapt to a U.S. Iranian-oil free zone. Under current practices, all foreign oil coming into the EU is so designated by origin for customs purposes. When petroleum is in port, it is tagged as a "T1" (non-EU) good. The discharge of this oil is managed by a handful of highly reputable survey companies that must certify how much oil was unloaded, whether any was lost in shipment, and who now owns the crude. The oil is then processed, refined, and distilled, becoming "T2" (EU) petroleum.
Because of the nature of the refining business, refiners know exactly whose oil is entering into the system and what its properties are (heavy or light, sweet or sour) owing to the desired final product (gasoline, diesel, heating oil, petrochemicals, etc). Iranian crude could be clearly marked as it enters a refinery, placing the legal onus on the refinery and the end-user to certify that Iranian oil has not entered a stream that becomes, for example, Shell gasoline destined for the American market.
In India and China, where legal checks are poorer, it will be more demanding to monitor imports and exports. Still, American pressure could force certification. The objective wouldn't be to create a leak-proof system globally, but a mechanism that would encourage oil traders to demand discounts from Tehran.
On the American side, Congress can easily close a legal loophole that allows for the importation of refined petroleum and other petroleum-based products made from Iranian oil. (The direct importation of Iranian crude has long been illegal.) European refineries might at first bridle at the hassle of separating Iranian petroleum from everyone else's, but they would soon comply given the importance of the American market. Oil traders everywhere would realize their new advantage over Tehran.
Sanctions are too often ineffective because they run counter to our pecuniary motivations, but an Iranian-oil-free zone wouldn't be. It would bring cheaper Iranian oil to those who want it, and it would punish the Iranian regime—perhaps more so than any existing sanctions effort—for its transgressions. That's a win-win for everyone.
Mr. Gerecht, a former CIA officer, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the author of "The Wave: Man, God and the Ballot Box in the Middle East" (Hoover, 2011). Mr. Dubowitz is executive director of the foundation and heads its Iran Energy Project.
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The International Atomic Energy Agency last week presented a report to its board that laid out new information on what it calls “possible military dimensions” of Iran’s nuclear program, clarifying the central issue in the long clash between Tehran and the West over nuclear technology.
The nine-page report raised questions about whether Iran has sought to investigate seven different kinds of technology ranging from atomic triggers and detonators to uranium fuel. Together, the technologies could make a type of atom bomb known as an implosion device, which is what senior staff members of the I.A.E.A. have warned that Iran is able to build.
Weapons based on implosion are considered advanced models compared with the bomb that the United States dropped on Hiroshima. In these devices, the detonation of a sphere of conventional explosives creates a blast wave that compresses a central ball of bomb fuel into a supercritical mass, starting the chain reaction that ends in a nuclear explosion.
Implosion designs, compact and efficient by nature, are considered necessary for making nuclear warheads small and powerful enough to fit atop a missile.
Iran has dismissed charges that it is pursuing such technologies as lies based on fabricated documents or real ones taken out of context. It insists that its atomic program is meant exclusively for such peaceful objectives as producing medical isotopes and electric power. The result has been a tense standoff.
Last week’s report said the director general of the I.A.E.A., Yukiya Amano, recently wrote to Iranian officials to reiterate the agency’s concerns about the arms evidence and request “prompt access” to a wide range of Iranian facilities and individuals.
The report said Mr. Amano “urges Iran to respond positively” in order to establish “the exclusively peaceful nature” of its program.
Official doubts about Tehran’s ambitions emerged publicly in 2002 and have resulted in four rounds of United Nations sanctions. To date, the penalties have failed to stop Iran from enriching uranium, which can fuel both reactors and atom bombs.
In 2009, senior staff members of the I.A.E.A. concluded in a confidential analysis that “Iran has sufficient information to be able to design and produce a workable implosion nuclear device” based on highly enriched uranium.
The new report includes some of the technical evidence behind that charge. It describes the sources of the information as “many member states” as well as its own efforts. Nuclear experts assume that much intelligence comes from Israel, the United States and Western Europe, though the I.A.E.A. in total has 151 member states.
The report cites concerns about undisclosed nuclear activities “past or current,” implying that the agency believes the Iranian arms program may still be moving ahead despite reports of its onetime suspension.
The seven categories of technology all bear on what can be interpreted as warhead design: how to turn uranium into bomb fuel, make conventional explosives that can trigger a nuclear blast, generate neutrons to spur a chain reaction and design nose cones for missiles.
Two diplomats familiar with the evidence, both of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity under the usual protocol, emphasized that no single one of the technologies stood out as indicating bomb work. Some, they conceded, have peaceful uses.
But the totality of the evidence, they said, suggested that Iran has worked hard on multiple fronts to advance the design of nuclear arms.
“It’s the whole variety of information,” one of the diplomats said. “You have to look at the whole thing.”
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Certainly, it is just a matter of time. The US has already decided against anything other than diplomacy.
***Researcher: Iran can produce nuke within 2 months
Airstrikes can no longer stop nuclear program, US can do nothing short of military occupation, says report
The Iranian regime is closer than ever before to creating a nuclear bomb, according to RAND Corporation researcher Gregory S. Jones.
At its current rate of uranium enrichment, Tehran could have enough for its first bomb within eight weeks, Jones said in a report published this week.***
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Id bet Iran has at least one functional NorK nuke already.
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"Iran's elite military unit, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has transferred lethal new munitions to its allies in Iraq and Afghanistan in recent months, according to senior U.S. officials"
And the consequence for prosecuting two covert wars against a United States led by President Obama is ..... nothing??
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Iran Funnels New Weapons to Iraq and Afghanistan
By JAY SOLOMON
TEHRAN—Iran's elite military unit, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has transferred lethal new munitions to its allies in Iraq and Afghanistan in recent months, according to senior U.S. officials, in a bid to accelerate the U.S. withdrawals from these countries.
The Revolutionary Guard has smuggled rocket-assisted exploding projectiles to its militia allies in Iraq, weapons that have already resulted in the deaths of American troops, defense officials said. They said Iranians have also given long-range rockets to the Taliban in Afghanistan, increasing the insurgents' ability to hit U.S. and other coalition positions from a safer distance.
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Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
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Such arms shipments would escalate the shadow competition for influence playing out between Tehran and Washington across the Middle East and North Africa, fueled by U.S. preparations to draw down forces from two wars and the political rebellions that are sweeping the region.
The U.S. is wrestling with the aftermath of uprisings against longtime Arab allies from Tunisia to Bahrain, and trying to leave behind stable, friendly governments in Afghanistan and Iraq. Iran appears to be trying to gain political ground amid the turmoil and to make the U.S. withdrawals as quick and painful as possible.
"I think we are likely to see these Iranian-backed groups continue to maintain high attack levels" as the exit date nears, Maj. Gen. James Buchanan, the U.S. military's top spokesman in Iraq, said in an interview. "But they are not going to deter us from doing everything we can to help the Iraqi security forces."
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A security check in Baghdad on June 6, a day when attacks the U.S. links to Iranian arms killed six Americans.
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In June, 15 U.S. servicemen died in Iraq, the highest monthly casualty figure there in more than two years. The U.S. has attributed all the attacks to Shiite militias it says are are trained by the Revolutionary Guards, rather than al Qaeda or other Sunni groups that were the most lethal forces inside Iraq a few years ago.
In Afghanistan, the Pentagon has in recent months traced to Iran the Taliban's acquisition of rockets that give its fighters roughly double the range to attack North Atlantic Treaty Organization and U.S. targets. U.S. officials said the rockets' markings, and the location of their discovery, give them a "high degree" of confidence that they came from the Revolutionary Guard's overseas unit, the Qods Force.
U.S. defense officials are also increasingly concerned that Iran's stepped-up military activities in the Persian Gulf could inadvertently trigger a clash. A number of near misses involving Iranian and allied ships and planes in those waters in recent months have caused Navy officials to call for improved communication in the Gulf.
Iran's assertive foreign policy comes amid a growing power struggle between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Many of the president's closest aides have been detained on alleged corruption charges in recent weeks, raising questions as to whether Mr. Ahmadinejad will serve out his term.U.S. and European officials also say Iran has grown increasingly aggressive in trying to influence the political rebellions across the Middle East and North Africa. Tehran is alleged to have dispatched military advisers to Syria to help President Bashar al-Assad put down a popular uprising.
In recent months, according to U.S. officials, Iran has also increased its intelligence and propaganda activities in Egypt, Bahrain and Yemen, countries where pro-U.S. leaders have either fallen or come under intense pressure.
Iranian officials denied in interviews and briefings this week that the Revolutionary Guard played any role in arming militants in Iraq and Afghanistan. They charged the U.S. with concocting these stories to justify maintaining an American military presence in the region.
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ByJAY SOLOMON
WASHINGTON—More than 90 U.S. senators signed a letter to President Barack Obama pressing him to sanction Iran's central bank, with some threatening legislation to force the move, an outcome that would represent a stark escalation in tensions between the two countries.
Such a measure, if effectively implemented, could potentially freeze Iran out of the global financial system and make it nearly impossible for Tehran to clear billions of dollars in oil sales every month, said current and former U.S. officials.
Many American officials view the blacklisting of Bank Markazi as the "nuclear option" in Washington's financial war against Tehran. Some Iranian leaders have said they would view such a move by the Obama administration as an act of war.
The letter was co-sponsored by Sens. Mark Kirk (R., Ill.) and Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.) in a sign of the bipartisan support for tougher financial measures against Iran. The U.S. fears Iran is developing nuclear weapons, a charge Tehran denies.
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Read the senators' letter to Obama
."In our view, the United States should embark on a comprehensive strategy to pressure Iran's financial system by imposing sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran," said the letter that was viewed by The Wall Street Journal and will be delivered to the White House on Tuesday. "If our allies are willing to join, we believe this step can be even more effective."
A senior U.S. official said the Obama administration is studying all measures to increase pressure on Iran, including potential moves against Bank Markazi.
"We are working really hard on the Iran challenge and have made unprecedented progress in mobilizing international pressure and sanctions," the official said.
Last year, Congress passed legislation barring from the U.S. financial system any foreign firm doing business with sanctioned Iranian banks, Iran's energy sector, or the businesses of Tehran's elite military unit, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The law also has a provision allowing the White House to sanction Bank Markazi, a step that President Obama has so far decided not to take.
In an interview, Mr. Kirk said he would introduce a law by year's end to enforce sanctions on Bank Markazi if the White House doesn't move independently.
"The administration will face a choice of whether it wants to lead this effort or be forced to act," Mr. Kirk said.
Mr. Schumer said the White House needed to utilize current legislation.
"It's time for the administration to use the tools Congress has provided and choke off the money spigot," he said in a statement.
Both the Obama and George W. Bush administrations have discussed the merits of targeting Iran's central bank going back at least four years, according to current and former U.S. officials.
The U.S. and European governments believe Bank Markazi has facilitated trade for sanctioned Iranian banks and businesses by masking the names of the parties involved in international transactions.
U.S. officials also worry Iran's central bank has provided funds to organizations designated as terrorist groups by Washington, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories.
Iranian officials have said in recent interviews that they view all U.S. and United Nations sanctions as illegal and that their country is entitled to conduct international trade.
Current and former U.S. officials who have taken part in the sanctions debate said that targeting Bank Markazi presents significant hurdles.
In recent years, American allies in Europe and Asia have worried that any blacklisting of Iran's central bank will inhibit their ability to purchase Iranian oil and potentially lead to higher global energy prices. Iran is the third-largest oil exporter among the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
Nations including China, South Korea and India have experienced trouble purchasing Iranian oil.
New Delhi alone has been unable to pay Iran $5 billion for oil purchases, according to Indian officials.
U.S. officials have worried that unilateral Americans sanctions against Bank Markazi might not be respected by even some American allies. This could place Washington into the difficult position of either backing down or theoretically trying to ban important foreign companies and governments from using the U.S. financial system.
An American official involved in the discussions said any U.S. decision would require months of prior discussions with countries such as South Korea, Japan and Saudi Arabia in order to get their buy-in.
Congress and the Obama administration have tussled over the issue of Bank Markazi for a number of months. Senators placed holds on the confirmation of two key U.S. officials—Deputy Secretary of State William Burns and Under Secretary of Treasury David Cohen—seeking assurances the White House would take steps to sanction the bank.
Mr. Kirk said in the interview these holds were eventually lifted because both Messrs. Burns and Cohen offered assurances the issue was being seriously studied. "They cited an August to September point of action," Mr. Kirk said, acknowledging there were no promises made.
Officials at the State Department and Treasury Department said they couldn't comment on private conversations held with members of Congress.
Write to Jay Solomon at jay.solomon@wsj.com
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Yet another deadline has passed this week for the completion of Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant, which is staffed with Russian nuclear scientists. The Iranians continue to claim that everything is according to schedule and testing is proceeding. However, it’s much more likely that Russia will continue to string Iran along in this project, along with many others.
Over the past several days, Iran has been extremely vocal in expressing its displeasure against Russia. First, Iran announced that it was filing a lawsuit against Russia after the latter backed out of a deal to deliver the S-300 strategic air defense system to Iran. Then, Iran announced that it was kicking Russian energy firm Gazprom out of a major energy deal to develop the Azar oil field project near the Iraqi border.
So why all the bad air between Iran and Russia?
The first thing to understand about the Russian-Iranian relationship is that there’s very little love lost between these two allies. Iran doesn’t have many allies on its friends list to begin with, and it has to rely primarily on Russia for foreign backing. When it comes to political backing and the U.N. Security Council, help with sanctions must be military assistance, among other things. Russia, on the other hand, views Iran primarily as a bargaining chip with which to prod the United States. Russia is pursuing a broader agenda that’s focused on the main idea of consolidating Russian influence in the former Soviet periphery, amping up the Iran threat every now and then is a great way for Russia to add to Washington’s problems while capturing Washington’s attention on the issues that the Kremlin cares about, whether that entails lessening the U.S. military footprint in central Europe or bargaining for much-needed Western investment in Russia.
The problem that Russia is facing is that a lot of the usual cards it uses in trying to deal with Iran are actually losing their punch. Russia is preparing for a growing confrontation with the United States in the coming months as it seeks to further a new security arrangement in Europe that would be friendly to Russian interests. Russia would like to rebuild its Iran leverage in preparation for these negotiations.
Russia isn’t necessarily ready to overly provoke the West through something like the sale of the S-300s to Iran, but it has been ramping up or at least trying to ramp up nuclear negotiations with Iran, while dropping hints to Western intelligence that the Iranian nuclear program may be further along than they thought, all in a way to try to position Russia as a mediator in this wider dispute.
But the Iranians are understandably very distrustful of the Russians. The delays in the Bushehr nuclear power plant and the S-300 sales have become major embarrassments for the Iranians. Typically, Iran wouldn’t make such a public show of its displeasure with Russia, but right now it can afford to. The reason is because Iran is in a relatively strong position. The United States has its hands quite full in trying to manage domestic pressure over the economy and trying to bring closure to the war in Afghanistan and in trying to develop a coherent policy for the Arab world that is in great unease.
Meanwhile, Iran is in a very favorable position in Iraq, where the United States is struggling to maintain an effective blocking force against the Iranians. If Russia wants to regain its leverage with Iran to use in its dealings with the West, it may have to devise some new angles to entice Tehran while maintaining some plausible deniability with the West. This is why we are keeping an especially close eye on potential third party suppliers — countries such as Belarus, Kazakhstan and Venezuela — who could potentially facilitate deals between Russia and Iran while keeping the more controversial deals under the radar.
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VIENNA (AP) — The U.N. nuclear agency said Friday it is "increasingly concerned" about a stream of intelligence suggesting that Iran continues to work secretly on developing a nuclear payload for a missile and other components of a nuclear weapons program.
In its report, the International Atomic Energy Agency said "many member states" are providing evidence for that assessment, describing the information it is receiving as credible, "extensive and comprehensive."
The restricted 9-page report was made available Friday to The Associated Press, shortly after being shared internally with the 35 IAEA member nations and the U.N. Security Council. It also said Tehran has fulfilled a pledged made earlier this year and started installing equipment to enrich uranium at a new location — an underground bunker that is better protected from air attack than its present enrichment facilities.
Enrichment can produce both nuclear fuel and fissile warhead material, and Tehran — which says it wants only to produce fuel with the technology — is under four sets of U.N. Security Council sanctions for refusing to freeze enrichment, which it says it needs for fuel only.
It also denies secretly experimenting with a nuclear weapons program and has blocked a four-year attempt by the IAEA to follow up on intelligence that it secretly designed blueprints linked to a nuclear payload on a missile, experimented with exploding a nuclear charge, and conducted work on other components of a weapons program.
In a 2007 estimate, the U.S. intelligence community said that while Iran had worked on a weapons program such activities appeared to have ceased in 2003. But diplomats say a later intelligence summary avoided such specifics, and recent IAEA reports on the topic have expressed growing unease that such activities may be continuing.
The phrase "increasingly concerned" has not appeared in previous reports discussing Iran's alleged nuclear weapons work and reflects the frustration felt by IAEA chief Yukiya Amano over the lack of progress in his investigations.
His report said that choice of language is due to the "possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed nuclear related activities" linked to weapons work. In particular, said the report, the agency continues to receive new information about "activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile."
Acquired from "many" member states, the information possessed by the IAEA is "extensive and comprehensive ... (and) broadly consistent and credible," said the report.
Other findings of the report, prepared for a session of the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors starting Sept. 12 included:
— Confirmation of reports by diplomats to the AP that Iran has started setting up uranium enriching centrifuges at Fordow, a fortified facility dug into a mountain near the holy city of Qom. Iran intends to use Fordow to triple its 20-percent enrichment of uranium — a concern because that level is easier to turn into weapons grade uranium quickly than its main stockpile of low enriched uranium at 3.5 percent.
— Further accumulation of both low-enriched and higher enriched or 20 percent uranium. The report said Iran had now accumulated more than four tons of low enriched uranium and over 70 kilograms — more than 150 pounds — of higher enriched material. Those two stockpiles give it enough enriched uranium to make up to six nuclear warheads, should it choose to do so.
The report praised Iran for its decision earlier this month to allow IAEA Deputy Director General Herman Nackaerts to tour a facility where it is developing more efficient centrifuges, saying Iran "provided extensive information" on its development of such machines.
It, however was generally critical of Iran's record of secrecy and lack of cooperation, noting that without increased openness on the part of the Islamic Republic the IAEA is unable to "conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities."
P.C.
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Thursday, September 15, 2011 STRATFOR.COM Diary Archives
Internal Rifts Hamper Iran's Strong Negotiating Position
Iran’s judiciary said Wednesday that it was still reviewing the bail offer of two American hikers convicted of spying. The official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted the statement as saying that only the judiciary can provide information about the case. This statement from the judiciary essentially goes against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s previous claim that the pair would be released in a couple of days.
Clearly, this is the latest episode in the ongoing intra-elite power struggle within the Iranian political establishment. This latest development, however, has direct and critical implications for the Islamic Republic’s foreign policy. It comes at a time when the Ahmadinejad government has made positive gestures toward the United States and Western allies.
“Ahmadinejad and his allies are arguing that the time for negotiations is at hand, while his opponents are demanding a tougher stance, fearing that any compromise could undermine the Iranian position. “
In addition to the efforts to release the two U.S. citizens, Tehran has initiated a fresh attempt to restart stalled nuclear talks. In Iraq, Iran’s highest foreign-policy priority, Tehran has convinced its key Iraqi Shia proxy, the radical leader Muqtada al-Sadr, to say that his militiamen will halt all attacks against U.S. forces so that they can withdraw from the country by the end-of-the-year deadline.
Iran is not acting from a position of weakness. On the contrary, these moves stem from Iran’s confidence about its position, not just in Iraq, but in the wider region. It is unlikely that the United States will leave behind a force sufficient (both quantitatively and qualitatively) to allay Arab concerns over conventional Persian military forces.
Israel is preoccupied with far more pressing issues in its immediate surroundings, including an Egypt in flux, the Palestinian National Authority’s efforts toward unilateral statehood, unrest in Syria and an increasingly hostile Turkey. Finally, Europe is totally distracted by growing financial crises.
In other words, Iran feels that the current circumstances are conducive to negotiating with the United States from a position of relative strength. Thus far, the Americans are not entertaining Iranian gestures. Washington’s envoy to the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog dismissed Tehran’s offers as insufficient, labeling them a “charm offensive.” The American response is understandable as U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration does not wish to negotiate from a position of relative weakness.
More important, however, are the mixed signals from Tehran over the fate of the hikers and how they raise the question of whether Iran is in a position to negotiate as a single entity. The struggle between rival conservative factions and the various centers of power in Tehran that has been going on ever since Ahmadinejad came to power in the summer of 2005 has begun to undermine Tehran’s ability to conduct foreign policy.
The situation has become so convoluted that Ahmadinejad, for the longest time seen as a radical, has assumed a pragmatic position. The move has aligned forces to his right and left against him. Each of these forces has its respective motivations, but they share a common goal. They want to prevent Ahmadinejad from becoming the head of state of the Islamic Republic that reaches an accommodation with the United States.
Hence the effort to publicly embarrass the Iranian president days before he is due in New York for this year’s session of the United Nations General Assembly, where he and his top associates may try to further dialogue with the West. The way several key Iranian leaders have openly admonished Ahmadinejad on the hiker issue shows that there is a massive debate under way in Tehran over foreign policy toward the United States. Ahmadinejad and his allies are arguing that the time for negotiations is at hand, while his opponents are demanding a tougher stance, fearing that any compromise could undermine the Iranian position.
The outcome of this debate may soon become apparent. Release of the hikers will indicate that Ahmadinejad has the power to cut a deal with Washington. Conversely, if the hikers are not released, it will indicate that Ahmadinejad’s position has been severely weakened, that the Iranian state is not a singular coherent entity and that negotiations with Iran are not possible.
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Dispatch: Freed Hikers and Iran's Power Struggle
September 21, 2011 | 1941 GMT
Click on image below to watch video:
Analyst Reva Bhalla discusses what the hikers’ release reveals about the ongoing power struggle in Iran and whether this struggle could impede Iran’s goals in Iraq and the wider region.
Editor’s Note: Transcripts are generated using speech-recognition technology. Therefore, STRATFOR cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.
Related Links
Intelligence Guidance: U.S.-Taliban Talks, Iran’s Power Struggle, Greek Austerity
Internal Rifts Hamper Iran’s Strong Negotiating Position
Long-Term Consequences of Iran’s Intra-Elite Struggle
It was announced on Wednesday that after having spent 782 days in an Iranian prison, the two remaining American hikers were released on a $1 million bail. The delay over the hiker release exposed the depth of the Iranian power struggle, but the release may be one small sign that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad still carries a great deal of authority when it comes to driving Iran’s foreign policy.
The Iranian power struggle is often exaggerated by mostly Western commentators who often describe the constant bickering between the Iranian president and his rivals as a sign of the regime is cracking under pressure, and that it’s only a matter of time before pro-democracy protesters are able to overwhelm a weakening clerical regime.
At STRATFOR we see things a bit differently. There’s no denying that there is a serious power struggle in Iran, and signs of that can be seen every day. Most recently, when the Iranian judiciary, controlled by the president’s biggest rivals, basically embarrassed Ahmadinejad in delaying the hikers’ release after Ahmadinejad publicly announced that they would be released. But it’s important to understand the core dynamics underlying this power struggle. A rising political faction so far led by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad charges the corrupted clerical elite of betraying the revolution and for ignoring the demands of the poor. The most striking aspect of this power struggle is not that a firebrand leader is getting ganged up on by the country’s most senior clerics, but the fact that such a leader would not be attacking the clerical establishment in the first place, if that establishment wasn’t already seen as weakening and undergoing a crisis in legitimacy. Ahmadinejad after all is just a politician in the end. The far more important thing to understand is the faction that he represents and the growing delegitimization of the country’s corrupted clerical elite.
This is a long-term process though. The clerical establishment still has a great deal of institutional strength and they’ve used that strength to constrain Ahmadinejad quite well. However, with time the discrediting of the clerical elite is likely to create an opening for the military, as opposed to pro-democracy groups, to fill a vacuum within the regime. That’s why it’s extremely important to watch the evolution of the IRGC [Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps], already a major military and economic force in the state, and now an increasingly influential voice in Iranian politics.
The more immediate question that we’re asking ourselves is whether this Iranian power struggle is going to distract Iran from meeting its core geopolitical imperatives in Iraq. Clearly a power vacuum is opening in Iraq with the withdrawal of U.S. forces and this represents a historical opportunity for the Iranians. The next step for the Iran is not only to consolidate influence in Iraq but to shape a realignment of Arab interests in the region that, at least in the short-term, favor Iranian interests.
A big part of this effort will entail driving the United States toward an accommodation with Iran while Iran still feels like it has the upper hand. This is something that Ahmadinejad has actually tried to do but has been held back by his rivals as they have been trying to deny the president a major foreign policy coup. There is no guarantee of success for Iran in this wider initiative, as this is going to take a great deal of focus and strategy in the coming months. Given that we can also expect the level of internal turmoil in Iran to increase in the coming months, we’re going to have to watch very closely to see if Iran can contain its problems at home while it keeps its eye on the bigger prize in Iraq and the wider region.
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Geopolitical Journey: Iran at a Crossroads
September 27, 2011
STRATFORBy Kamran Bokhari
Geopolitically, a trip to Iran could not come at a better time. Iran is an emerging power seeking to exploit the vacuum created by the departure of U.S. troops from Iraq, which is scheduled to conclude in a little more than three months. Tehran also plays a major role along its eastern border, where Washington is seeking a political settlement with the Taliban to facilitate a U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The Islamic republic simultaneously is trying to steer popular unrest in the Arab world in its favor. That unrest in turn has significant implications for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, an issue in which Iran has successfully inserted itself over the years. The question of the U.S.-Iranian relationship also looms — does accommodation or confrontation lie ahead? At the same time, the Iranian state — a unique hybrid of Shiite theocracy and Western republicanism — is experiencing intense domestic power struggles.
This is the geopolitical context in which I arrived at Imam Khomeini International airport late Sept. 16. Along with several hundred foreign guests, I had been invited to attend a Sept. 17-18 event dubbed the “Islamic Awakening” conference, organized by the office of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Given the state of Iranian-Western ties and my position as a senior analyst with a leading U.S.-based private intelligence company, the invitation came as surprise.
With some justification, Tehran views foreign visitors as potential spies working to undermine Iranian national security. The case of the American hikers jailed in Iran (two of whom were released the day of my return to Canada) provided a sobering example of tourism devolving into accusations of espionage.
Fortunately for me, STRATFOR had not been placed on the list of some 60 Western organizations (mostly American and British think tanks and civil society groups) banned as seditious in early 2010 following the failed Green Movement uprising. Still, the Iranian regime is well aware of our views on Iranian geopolitics.
In addition to my concerns about how Iranian authorities would view me, I also worried about how attending a state-sponsored event designed to further Iranian geopolitical interests where many speakers heavily criticized the United States and Israel would look in the West. In the end, I set my trepidations aside and opted for the trip.
Geopolitical Observations in Tehran
STRATFOR CEO and founder George Friedman has written of geopolitical journeys, of how people from diverse national backgrounds visiting other countries see places in very different ways. In my case, my Pakistani heritage, American upbringing, Muslim religious identity and Canadian nationality allowed me to navigate a milieu of both locals and some 700 delegates of various Arab and Muslim backgrounds. But the key was in the way STRATFOR trains its analysts to avoid the pitfall that many succumb to — the blurring of what is really happening with what we may want to see happen.
The foreigner arriving in Iran immediately notices that despite 30 years of increasingly severe sanctions, the infrastructure and systems in the Islamic republic appear fairly solid. As a developing country and an international pariah, one would expect infrastructure along the lines of North Korea or Cuba. But Iran’s construction, transportation and communications infrastructure shares more in common with apartheid-era South Africa, and was largely developed indigenously.
Also notable was the absence of any visible evidence of a police state. Considering the state’s enormous security establishment and the recent unrest surrounding the Green Movement, I expected to see droves of elite security forces. I especially expected this in the northern districts of the capital, where the more Westernized segment of society lives and where I spent a good bit of time walking and sitting in cafes.
Granted, I didn’t stay for long and was only able to see a few areas of the city to be able to tell, but the only public display of opposition to the regime was “Death to Khamenei” graffiti scribbled in small letters on a few phone booths on Vali-e-Asr Avenue in the Saadabad area. I saw no sign of Basij or Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps personnel patrolling the streets, only the kind of police presence one will find in many countries.
This normal security arrangement gave support to STRATFOR’s view from the very beginning that the unrest in 2009 was not something the regime couldn’t contain. As we wrote then and I was able to see firsthand last week, Iran has enough people who — contrary to conventional wisdom — support the regime, or at the very least do not seek its downfall even if they disagree with its policies.
I saw another sign of support for the Islamic republic a day after the conference ended, when the organizers arranged a tour of the mausoleum of the republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. We visited the large complex off a main highway on the southern end of town on a weekday; even so, numerous people had come to the shrine to pay their respects — several with tears in their eyes as they prayed at the tomb.
Obviously, the intensity of religious feelings varies in Iran, but a significant stratum of the public remains deeply religious and still believes in the national narrative of the revolutionary republic. This fact does not get enough attention in the Western media and discourse, clouding foreigners’ understanding of Iran and leading to misperceptions of an autocratic clergy clinging to power only by virtue of a massive security apparatus.
In the same vein, I had expected to see stricter enforcement of religious attire on women in public after the suppression of the Green Movement. Instead, I saw a light-handed approach on the issue. Women obeyed the requirement to cover everything but their hands and faces in a variety of ways. Some women wore the traditional black chador. Others wore long shirts and pants and scarves covering their heads. Still others were dressed in Western attire save a scarf over their head, which was covering very little of their hair.
The dress code has become a political issue in Iran, especially in recent months in the context of the struggle between conservative factions. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has encountered growing opposition from both pragmatic and ultraconservative forces, has come under criticism from clerics and others for alleged moral laxity when it comes to female dress codes. Even so, the supreme leader has not moved to challenge Ahmadinejad on this point.
Ahmadinejad and the Clerical-Political Divide
In sharp contrast with his first term, Ahmadinejad — the most ambitious and assertive president since the founding of the Islamic republic in 1979 — has been trying to position himself as the pragmatist in his second term while his opponents come out looking like hard-liners. In recent months his statements have become less religiously informed, though they have retained their nationalist and radical anti-Western tone.
For example, his speech at the conclusion of the second day of the conference on the theme of the event, Islamic Awakening, was articulated in non-religious language. This stood in sharp contrast to almost every other speaker. Ahmadinejad spoke of recent Arab unrest in terms of a struggle for freedom, justice and emancipation for oppressed peoples, while his criticism of the United States and Israel was couched in terms of how the two countries’ policies were detrimental to global peace as opposed to the raw ideological vitriol that we have seen in the not too distant past.
But while Iran’s intra-elite political struggles complicate domestic and foreign policymaking, they are not about to bring down the Islamic republic — at least not anytime soon. In the longer term, the issue at the heart of all disputes — that of shared governance by clerics and politicians — does pose a significant challenge to the regime. This tension has existed throughout the nearly 32-year history of the Islamic republic, and it will continue to be an issue into the foreseeable future as Iran focuses heavily on the foreign policy front.
Iran’s Regional Ambitions
In fact, the conference was all about Iran’s foreign policy ambitions to assume intellectual and geopolitical leadership of the unrest in the Arab world. Iran is well aware that it is in competition with Turkey over leadership for the Middle East and that Ankara is in a far better position than Iran economically, diplomatically and religiously as a Sunni power. Nevertheless, Iran is trying to position itself as the champion of the Arab masses who have risen up in opposition to autocratic regimes. The Iranian view is that Turkey cannot lead the region while remaining aligned with Washington and that Saudi Arabia’s lack of enthusiasm for the uprisings works in Tehran’s favor.
The sheer number of Iranian officials who are bilingual (fluent in Persian and Arabic) highlights the efforts of Tehran to overcome the ethno-linguistic geopolitical constraints it faces as a Persian country trying to operate in a region where most Muslim countries are Arab. While its radical anti-U.S. and anti-Israeli position has allowed it to circumvent the ethnic factor and attract support in the Arab and Muslim worlds, its Shiite sectarian character has allowed its opponents in Riyadh and elsewhere to restrict Iranian regional influence. In fact, Saudi Arabia remains a major bulwark against Iranian attempts expand its influence across the Persian Gulf and into Arabian Peninsula, as has been clear by the success that the Saudis have had in containing the largely Shiite uprising in Bahrain against the country’s Sunni monarchy.
Even so, Iran has developed some close relations across the sectarian divide, something obvious from the foreign participants invited to the conference. Thus in addition to the many Shiite leaders from Lebanon and Iraq and other parts of the Islamic world, the guest list included deputy Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook; Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) chief Ramadan Abdullah Shallah; a number of Egyptian religious, political, intellectual and business notables; the chief adviser to Sudanese President Omar al Bashir as well as the leader of the country’s main opposition party, Sadiq al-Mahdi; a number of Sunni Islamist leaders from Pakistan and Afghanistan, including former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani whom I had the opportunity of speaking with only two days before he was assassinated in Kabul; and the head of Malaysia’s main Islamist group, PAS, which runs governments in a few states — just to name a few.
Tehran has had much less success in breaching the ideological chasm, something evidenced by the dearth of secular political actors at the conference. Its very name, Islamic Awakening, was hardly welcoming to secularists. It also did not accurately reflect the nature of the popular agitation in the Arab countries, which is not being led by forces that seek revival of religion. The Middle East could be described as experiencing a political awakening, but not a religious awakening given that Islamist forces are latecomers to the cause.
A number of my hosts asked me what I thought of the conference, prompting me to address this conceptual discrepancy. I told them that the name Islamic Awakening only made sense if one was referring the Islamic world, but that even this interpretation was flawed as the current unrest has been limited to Arab countries.
While speaker after speaker pressed for unity among Muslim countries and groups in the cause of revival and the need to support the Arab masses in their struggle against autocracy, one unmistakable tension was clear. This had to do with Syria, the only state in the Arab world allied with Iran. A number of speakers and members of the audience tried to criticize the Syrian regime’s efforts to crush popular dissent, but the discomfort this caused was plain. Syria has proven embarrassing for Iran and even groups like Hezbollah, Hamas and PIJ, which are having a hard time reconciling their support for the Arab unrest on one hand and supporting the Syrian regime against its dissidents on the other.
The Road Ahead
Attending this conference allowed me to meet and observe many top Iranian civil and military officials and the heads of Arab and other Muslim non-state actors with varying degree of relationships with Tehran. Analyzing them from a distance one tends to dismiss their ideology and statements as rhetoric and propaganda. Some of what they say is rhetoric, but beneath the rhetoric are also convictions.
We in the West often expect Iran to succumb to international pressure, seek rehabilitation in the international community and one day become friendly with the West. We often talk of a U.S.-Iranian rapprochement, but at a strategic level, the Iranian leadership has other plans.
While Iran would like normalized relations with Washington and the West, it is much more interested in maintaining its independence in foreign policy matters, not unlike China’s experience since establishing relations with the United States. As one Iranian official told me at the conference, when Iran re-establishes ties with the United States, it doesn’t want to behave like Saudi Arabia or to mimic Turkey under the Justice and Development Party.
Whether or not Iran will achieve its goals and to what extent remains unclear. The combination of geography, demography and resources means Iran will remain at the center of an intense geopolitical struggle, and I hope for further opportunities to observe these developments firsthand.
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Lets discuss Iran's planned hit on US soil. Some initial questions:
a) What consequences for Saudi strategy? Rapprochement with Baraq? Go for its own nuke program?
b) What should US do?
c) Krauthammer made what I thought was a powerful point. Should Iran have succeeded in a hit on our soil, then once it achieves going nuke, there is an implication that they can sneak a nuke onto US soil.
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Lets discuss Iran's planned hit on US soil. Some initial questions:
a) What consequences for Saudi strategy? Rapprochement with Baraq? Go for its own nuke program?
The Saudis will use whomever they can to further their strategy. I doubt they see Buraq as their savior, given his tepid response to what constitutes an act of war from Iran. The House of Saud has been pursuing nukes for a while now, and given the growing relationship with China, will have them at some point.
b) What should US do?
Well, back when the Iranian students were protesting in the streets, it would have been nice for Buraq to do something to support Iranian freedom, but I guess since it would have hurt an islamist gov't, he couldn't do that. What should we do? Kill some mullahs/Quods Force scumbags. What will we do? Give them the New Black Panther Party pass.
c) Krauthammer made what I thought was a powerful point. Should Iran have succeeded in a hit on our soil, then once it achieves going nuke, there is an implication that they can sneak a nuke onto US soil.
That's always been a concern, since 9/11 especially but we haven't secured the borders because of the various political agendas at play in this country.
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By REUEL MARC GERECHT
There is still much to learn about the Iranian-directed plot to blow up the Saudi ambassador in a Washington, D.C., restaurant. But if the Justice Department's information is correct, the conspiracy confirms a lethal fact about Iran's regime: It is becoming more dangerous, not less, as it ages.
Since the 1989 death of Iran's revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Western observers have hunted for signs of the end of the revolution's implacable hostility toward the United States. Signs have been abundant outside the ruling elite: Virtually the entire lay and much of the clerical intellectual class have damned theocracy as illegitimate, and college-educated youth (Iran has the best-educated public of any big Middle Eastern state) overwhelmingly threw themselves into the pro-democracy Green Movement that shook the regime in the summer of 2009.
But at the regime's apex—Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, his praetorian Revolutionary Guard Corps, and the clergy who've remained committed to theocracy—religious ideology and anti-Americanism have intensified.
The planned assassination in Washington was a bold act: The Islamic Republic's terrorism has struck all over the globe, and repeatedly in Europe, but it has spared the U.S. homeland because even under Khomeini Iran feared outraged American power.
What did Iran's top officials know about the Washington assassination plan? Was it just another in a series of half-baked plots by U.S. radicals led on by the FBI, or a bigger international incident? Evan Perez has details on The News Hub.
.Iran truck-bombed the U.S. Embassy and Marine barracks in Lebanon during Reagan's presidency, calculating correctly that the Lebanese operational cover deployed in that attack would be sufficient to confuse U.S. retaliation. But the accidental shoot-down of Iran-Air flight 655 in July 1988 by the USS Vincennes unquestionably contributed to Tehran's determination that the White House had allied itself with Saddam Hussein and therefore the Iran-Iraq war was lost. The perception of American power proved decisive.
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Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei
.One of the unintended benefits of America being at the center of Iran's conspiracies is that the U.S. is often depicted as devilishly powerful. Running against that fear, however, is another theme of the revolution: America's inability to stop faithful Iranians from liberating their homeland—the entire Muslim world—from Western hegemony and cultural debasement. American strength versus American weakness is a dangerous dance that plays out in the Islamist mind.
Within Iran, this interplay has led to cycles of terrorism of varying directness against the U.S. Khamenei, who many analysts have depicted as a cautious man in foreign affairs, has been a party—probably the decisive party—to every single terrorist operation Iran has conducted overseas since Khomeini's death.
The once-humble, unremarkable Khamenei—who was given the office of supreme leader in 1989 by the once-great Don Corleone of clerical politics, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (who assumed Iran's presidency that same year)—has become the undisputed ruler of Iran.
It was Khamenei who massively increased the military and economic power of the Revolutionary Guards Corps while often playing musical chairs with its leadership. The supreme leader has turned a fairly consensual theocracy into an autocracy where all fear the Guards and the Intelligence Ministry, which is also now under the supreme leader's control. He has squashed Rafsanjani, his vastly more intelligent, erstwhile ally. He has brutalized the pro-democracy Green Movement into quiescence. And he has so far outplayed his independent and stubborn president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose populist-nationalist-Islamist pretensions annoy the supreme leader and outrage many religious conservatives.
Khamenei's growing power and sense of mission have manifested themselves abroad. He has unleashed the Guards Corps against the U.S. and its allies in Iraq and Afghanistan. As the Treasury Department recently revealed, Tehran has ongoing ties to al Qaeda. These date back at least a decade, as the 9/11 Commission Report depicted Iranian complicity in the safe travel of al Qaeda operatives and chronicled al Qaeda contact with the Lebanese Hezbollah and Tehran's éminence grise to Arab Islamic radicals, the late Imad Mughniyeh.
Related Video
Matt Kaminski on Iranian plots to bomb the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Washington D.C.
..Many in Washington and Europe would like to believe that the assassination plot in Washington came from a "faction" within the Iranian government—that is, that Khamenei didn't order the killing and Washington should therefore be cautious in its response. But neither this analysis nor the policy recommendation is compelling.
Lord help Qasim Soleimani—the man who likely has control over the Revolutionary Guards' elite dark-arts Qods Force, which apparently orchestrated this assassination scheme—if he didn't clear the operation with Khamenei. He will lose his job and perhaps his life. For 20 years, Khamenei has been constructing a political system that is now more submissive to him than revolutionary Iran was to Khomeini.
And for 20 years the U.S. has sent mixed messages to the supreme leader. Under both Democratic and Republican presidents, the U.S. has tried to reach out to Iran, to engage it in dialogue that would lead away from confrontation. For Khamenei such attempts at engagement have been poisonous, feeding his profound fear of a Western cultural invasion and the destruction of Islamic values.
This deeply offensive message of peace has alternated with American-led wars against Iraq and Afghanistan. These wars spooked Tehran, radiating American strength for a time, but such visions ebbed.
Khamenei probably approved a strike in Washington because he no longer fears American military might. Iran's advancing nuclear-weapons program has undoubtedly fortified his spine, as American presidents have called it "unacceptable" yet done nothing about it. And neither George W. Bush nor Barack Obama retaliated against Iran's murderous missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
President Obama has clearly shown he wants no part—or any Israeli part—in a preventive military strike against Iran's nuclear sites. And Mr. Obama has pulled almost all U.S. troops out of Iraq and clearly wants to do the same in Afghanistan. Many Americans may view that as a blessing, but it is also clearly a sign that Washington no longer has the desire to maintain hegemony in the Middle East.
That's an invitation to someone like Khamenei to push further, to attack both America and Iran's most detested Middle Eastern rival, the virulently anti-Shiite Saudi Arabia. In the Islamic Republic's conspiracy-laden world, the Saudis are part of the anti-Iranian American Arab realm, which is currently trying to down Iran's close ally, Bashar al-Assad's Syria, and squash the Shiites of Bahrain. Blowing up the Saudi ambassador in Washington would be an appealing counterstroke against the two foreign forces that Khamenei detests most.
The Obama administration will be tempted to respond against Iran with further unilateral and multilateral sanctions. More sanctions aren't a bad idea—targeted sanctions against the Revolutionary Guards and the sale of gasoline made from Iranian crude can hurt Tehran financially. But they will not scare it. The White House needs to respond militarily to this outrage. If we don't, we are asking for it.
In the 1980s and '90s, the U.S. failed to take Secretary of State George Shultz's wise counsel after Khomeini's minions bombed us in Lebanon. We didn't make terrorism a casus belli, instead treating it as a crime, only lobbing a few missiles at Afghan rock huts and a Sudanese pharmaceutical plant. But we should treat it as a casus belli. The price we will pay now will surely be less than the price we will pay later.
Mr. Gerecht, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
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http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/one-way-war_595937.html?nopager=1
The One-Way War
Oct 24, 2011, Vol. 17, No. 06 • By LEE SMITH
Last week, federal authorities arrested Mansoor Arbabsiar for his involvement in a plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States and bomb the Saudi and Israeli embassies. Arbabsiar’s cousin, Gholam Shakuri, an official in the Quds Force, the military arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, was also indicted and remains at large in Iran. While the White House has been careful to suggest that the operations may have been plotted without the knowledge of the Iranian regime’s highest officials—namely, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei—it is highly improbable that a Quds Force project could go forward without sanction from the top.
It’s no wonder the Obama administration was reluctant at first to believe the evidence brought forth by the FBI and DEA. After all, engagement with the Islamic Republic has been Obama’s goal since before he assumed office. Even recently, Washington sought to establish a hotline with Tehran to prevent small episodes from blossoming into confrontation. Not surprisingly, the Iranians rejected the offer. Still, the notion that his potential dialogue partners plotted to kill an American ally in the nation’s capital, without any concern for American casualties, must be a bitter pill for the president to swallow.
Even as the administration has shown its evidence to U.S. lawmakers, foreign diplomats, and the press, however, a contrary theory has been building among former Western intelligence officials and policymakers as well as in various media and academic circles. It holds that the plot is too far-fetched to be true. The administration is playing wag the dog, say some. A tenured Ivy League academic hints that perhaps someone with an interest in seeing U.S.-Iranian relations deteriorate is behind the plot—by which he of course means Israel.
The Iranians, this perverse notion holds, are too “smart” to get tied up in a keystone cops scenario managed by a clumsy oaf with a prison record like Arbabsiar, a dual U.S.-Iranian national. Yet the belief that losers don’t run terrorist operations tends to ignore the evidence that those who employ terror as a political tool are by and large not the most clever or interesting people. And that belief is also based on a quasi-Orientalist fantasy that Iran’s leaders are way too skillful to get caught red-handed. After all, the Persians invented chess; as a culture of carpet weavers, they are the very exemplum of subtlety and patience, etc. And so, says one former U.S. intelligence official, Iran’s past terror projects “were very professional operations that used cutouts and had few Iranian fingerprints.”
Yet Iranian fingerprints were all over the arms shipments that the Israelis interdicted in 2002 when they stopped the Karine A from reaching Gaza, and in 2009 when they boarded the Syria and Hezbollah-bound Francorp. Most recently, it was the Turks who stopped passage of a plane loaded with Iranian weapons destined for Tehran’s allies. How “subtle” is that?
It is more accurate to say that many, including American intelligence officials, have tended to ignore the plentiful evidence of Iran’s handiwork. Happily, the authorities in Azerbaijan knew with whom they were dealing in 2008 when they captured Iranian and Hezbollah operatives before they were able to bomb the Israeli embassy in Baku. Same with the Turks and Egyptians, who in 2008 and 2009 rolled up Iranian and Hezbollah assets before they were able to avenge the assassination of Hezbollah’s liaison with the Quds Force, Imad Mugniyah.
Indeed the myth of the Islamic Republic’s genius has even lent its glow to Tehran’s allies, none more than Hezbollah. And yet over the span of some 30 years Iran has pumped billions of dollars into an organization now led by a man, Hassan Nasrallah, whose claims of a “divine victory” over Israel are belied by the fact that in the 2006 war Hezbollah lost perhaps a quarter of its frontline fighters, while the Shia community suffered so much damage that it fears nothing more than the prospect of another “divine victory.” Furthermore, by banking on Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, the Iranians are on the verge not only of losing their one Arab state ally, but also forfeiting Hezbollah’s supply line. Elsewhere in the region, the Iranians handed off a significant portion of their Iraq portfolio to Moktada al-Sadr, a man who has not served their interests well.
Nonetheless, those still inclined to believe that the terror plot against the United States sounds fishy because the Iranians can’t be this stupid can satisfy themselves by seeing it from the perspective of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Without having to resort to their most skillful operatives, the Quds Force took a shot at proving they have both the will and wherewithal to kill an American client in the U.S. capital without risking a thing. Let the skeptics doubt Iran’s hand if they like, the Revolutionary Guard must be thinking—is it any wonder these Americans will do nothing to protect their troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan from us?
It is one of the worst-kept secrets of post-9/11 U.S. Middle East policy that the Iranians and their proxies are responsible for many American casualties in the United States’ two regional wars. Both the Bush and Obama White Houses have been well aware of the camps across the Iranian border where Tehran’s Iraqi allies are trained in using the IEDs that have killed or maimed thousands of young Americans. And yet the last two administrations have shied away from taking the fight to the Iranians—who have shown no such hesitation in taking the fight to us.
Why would the Iranians fear American retaliation for plotting to attack the American homeland when all the evidence shows that Washington will look the other way no matter what Tehran does? The reality is that the Islamic regime is not clever or subtle and relies on nothing but brute force to ensure its rule domestically and project power externally. After oil, gas, and pistachios, all the Islamic Republic exports is terror.
The botched culture that the Islamic Republic has imposed on Iran does not produce deep thinkers and subtle strategists, but rather a nation in which drug addiction and alcoholism are rampant. The collapse of Iran’s birth rate over the last 20 years, from 7.0 to below replacement at 1.9, is the fastest decline ever recorded. The Islamic Republic is dying. And so is the supreme leader. We are witnessing a culture in its death throes, and its leaders mean to take as many people with it as possible—especially Americans. That’s why the Quds Force is zeroing in on the U.S. homeland.
For decades, U.S. officials have ignored every sign that the Islamic regime was making war against American citizens, diplomats, soldiers, interests, and allies. There was nothing subtle or clever about the regime-led chants of “Death to America.” Tehran’s campaign against us has always been out in the open. Last week it just got closer to home. If the Obama administration is going to prove reluctant to do anything about it in an election year, then Iran’s war against the United States should move to the top of any Republican candidate’s agenda. The Iranian regime’s 30-year war against us must end.
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Stratfor
Russia canceled the delivery of the S-300 missile system to Iran because of a secret Russian deal with the United States, Israel and some European countries, Iranian Ambassador to Russia Mahmoud Reza Sajjadi said, Mehr news agency reported Oct. 21, citing Sajjadi’s interview with Fars News Agency. Sajjadi said the West promised not to attack Russia’s Bushehr nuclear power plant in exchange for the missile deal’s cancellation.
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By FARNAZ FASSIHI
Iranian officials have delivered conflicting responses to U.S. allegations that Tehran plotted to assassinate Saudi Arabia's ambassador in Washington, in a new sign of a split among Iran's decision makers.
Washington has said all options are on the table to retaliate for the alleged plot, including military action and tougher sanctions on Iran's Central Bank—the only remaining conduit for the oil revenue that is the backbone of the Iranian regime's finances.
On Monday, a dual U.S.-Iranian citizen, Manssor Arbabsiar, pleaded not guilty in a U.S. District Court in Manhattan to criminal charges of hiring a U.S. undercover agent posing as a member of a Mexican drug cartel to murder the Saudi ambassador.
While senior Iranian officials have defiantly denied and ridiculed the U.S. allegations, Iranian diplomats have offered to help investigate, in a sign of concern that the fallout from the alleged plot could be worse for Tehran than longstanding accusations over its nuclear program.
How Iran weathers the allegations will depend in part on whether the faction advocating a confrontational tone wins over those supporting diplomacy.
Iran's conservatives, who now control the government, are divided between loyalists of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and supporters of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who favor less clerical control.
In the past, Iranian political factions have been able to unify against outside pressure, whereas internal cracks now make it difficult to present a consolidated front.
The first sign that Iran was struggling to devise an effective strategy to limit the damage from the accusation by U.S. officials on Oct. 11 came in the slow response by top officials.
It took six days for Iran's top two officials to comment on the alleged plot, an unusual lapse.
When they did respond, the two leaders ridiculed the charges with traditional revolutionary bombast.
Mr. Khamenei warned that Iran would respond harshly to any "illicit" actions by the U.S. Mr. Ahmadinejad, giggling and shrugging in an interview with al-Jazeera, refused any cooperation with U.S. investigators.
State-influenced Iranian news sources then followed the defensive effort by publishing accusations that the plot was cooked up by an opposition group.
But supporters of Mr. Ahmadinejad soon showed a more conciliatory tone. Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said Iran was prepared to carefully examine the U.S.'s evidence and would conduct a "serious and patient" investigation, even if the charges were fabricated.
The statement by Mr. Salehi, an Ahmadinejad ally, reflected a leaning by the president to show some willingness to negotiate—at odds with Mr. Khamenei.
Iran's judiciary chief, Ayatollah Sadeq Larijani, a critic of Mr. Ahmadinejad, said last week that he was appointing a special envoy to investigate alleged crimes against Muslims by the U.S.
This rupture is on display almost on a daily basis, in domestic and foreign policy. The conservative-dominated parliament voted on Sunday to impeach the finance minister, a close ally of Mr. Ahmadinejad, over a $2.6 billion bank fraud that has roiled Iranian politics. The president has denied any wrongdoing by himself or his administration.
That split has also been seen with regard to international pressure over Iran's nuclear program. Mr. Ahmadinejad offered publicly, while in New York for the United Nations General Assembly in September, to start talks with the U.S.
Mr. Khamenei immediately shot down the idea, according to Iranian news reports.
The contradiction in responses stems from disagreements over how to deal with the West, analysts said.
Now, the prospect that the U.S. could pursue sanctions at the U.N. Security Council against Iran's central bank is a particular concern, though China and Russia have opposed such action.
"Iran's response [to the plot allegations] shows that they are very worried," said Hossein Bastani, a political analyst based in France who worked for the administration of President Mohammad Khatami. "Many officials are secretly wondering, 'What if this true?' And even if it isn't, the damage is already done."
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Not to worry Baraq will give a speech on this, right after he gives one on the ongoing purge of the Coptic Christians in Egypt:
By FIRUZ KAZEMZADEH
In some 40 years as a university professor, I have been privileged to teach students who went on to serve their people as senators, ambassadors, prominent scholars and even U.S. president. None of this would have been possible had I lived in my family's homeland of Iran. As a member of the Bahai faith, I would have been barred from teaching freely—and I might even have been imprisoned, as seven Bahai educators now are.
While many Iranian citizens are targets of repression by the current regime, the treatment of Bahais, the country's largest non-Muslim religious community, is a special case. Unlike Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians, who have certain limited rights under the Islamic Constitution, Bahais were declared unprotected infidels immediately following the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
Bahais have faced persecution in Iran since their religion was founded more than a century and a half ago, but it was never as systematic as in the last 30 years. Since the Islamic Revolution, more than 200 Bahai leaders have been put to death. The regime has outlawed Bahai institutions, confiscated their properties, desecrated their cemeteries, demolished their holy places. Bahais are subject to constant state-sanctioned pressure to recant their faith.
To stamp out that faith, Iranian Supreme leader Ali Khamenei approved the so-called Golpaygani memorandum in 1991. Photo copies describing plans to slowly strangle Iran's Bahai community were made public by the United Nations in 1992. One measure was to deny Bahais entry to universities, thereby impoverishing them intellectually and economically.
Bahais had already begun educating their youth, founding what became known as the Bahai Institute for Higher Education in 1987. In Tehran and beyond, Bahai professors—unemployable elsewhere because of their membership in what the mullahs called "the deviant sect"—taught languages, biological sciences, civil engineering, literature and even music. Classes were held in private homes, labs were set up in garages, and the Internet eventually provided access to resources abroad.
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Members of the Bahai religion demonstrate in Rio de Janeiro in June for the release of seven Bahai prisoners.
.The institute avoided teaching about the Bahai faith or other religions, thus avoiding the possible accusation of proselytizing. It operated quietly but not secretly: No enterprise of such size—with thousands of students and hundreds of faculty—could be secret. No law prohibited instruction in languages, sciences, accounting and the like, so the institute didn't violate the letter or spirit of any law.
The institute's success frustrated the government. In spite of constant harassment, it achieved academic standards equal to or higher than those of state universities and was frequently recognized by foreign universities that admitted its students into masters and doctoral programs.
In 1996 and 1998, the regime raided homes where classes were held and confiscated equipment. In the second attack, agents of the Ministry of Information arrested 36 faculty and declared the institute closed. The regime demanded that the 36 sign a pledge not to cooperate with the institute. Not one complied.
The regime's latest assault began on May 22 with raids on 39 homes. Months later, widespread arrests and interrogations of faculty, staff and students continue.
This month, Branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran sentenced seven Bahai faculty members to a combined 30 years behind bars. Meanwhile, a senior lawyer of theirs, Abdolfattah Soltani, remains incarcerated under suspicious circumstances.
Such repression is extreme but not isolated—Iran's regime targets other minorities as well as women, intellectuals and others. This makes many Iranians feel solidarity with their Bahai fellow citizens.
In an eloquent open letter to the Bahai community in 2009, 243 academics, writers, artists and human rights activists proclaimed, "As Iranian human beings we are ashamed for what has been perpetrated upon the Bahais in the last century and a half in Iran." That year, demonstrators on the streets of Tehran shouted slogans supporting religious minorities, including Bahais. Even Grand Ayatollah Montazeri—once an enemy of the Bahais—issued a fatwa to the effect that Bahais have every right accorded to Iranian citizens.
The rights of Iran's Bahais cannot be separated from the human rights of the general population. That journalists, artists and activists languish in jails; that students are excluded from universities based on their religion; that seven Bahai leaders have been condemned to prison for 20 years and seven Bahai educators now face a similar fate; that all Bahais are virtual outlaws in their native land—it's all part of a single assault on human dignity. One hopes the rest of the world won't close its eyes.
Mr. Kazemzadeh is professor emeritus of history at Yale and a former commissioner on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
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After the assassination plot on US soil of the Saudi ambassador came to light, Team Baraq sounded very fierce.
Working from memory, near the top of the options was going after the Iranian central bank. This is was asserted would have serious, substantial, immediate consequences on the Iranian economy.
Well, I read to today that it turns out it would cause the price of oil to go up, , , , so, surprise!!! , , , we are going to do nothing.
:-P
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Interesting that if we produced our own energy we wouldn't have our hands tied trying to put sanctions on one of the world's worst terror supporting nations. At least up to the final nuclear fallout we can say that our air and water was the cleanest.
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Funny how Buraq the bloodthirsty gets weak when it's time to confront Iran.
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The International Atomic Energy Agency is expected to unveil a report Wednesday on what it knows about Iran's efforts to develop nuclear weapons, and the early word is that it contains a few bombshells. But let's not overstate its significance. There's no scarcity of reliable information about Iran's nuclear programs, licit and illicit. The only question is whether the report will do much to end the current scarcity of Western will to do something meaningful to check them.
Start with what we already know about Iran's nuclear programs. In September, the IAEA came out with its umpteenth report on Iran.
It noted that Iran had enriched 4.5 tons of low-enriched uranium—sufficient, with further enrichment, for three or four bombs—and that a third of the uranium had been enriched in the last year alone. So much for the miracle of digital deliverance that was supposed to be the Stuxnet computer virus.
It noted that Iran had begun to deploy more advanced centrifuges, capable of enriching uranium at a significantly faster rate than the ones that it had acquired from Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan. So much for the success of sanctions in shutting down Iran's underground network of nuclear-parts suppliers.
It noted that Iran had enriched 70.8 kilos of uranium to a 20% level, a significant step toward bomb-grade material, and that it was planning to triple production at its heavily fortified facility near the city of Qom. So much for the idea that Iran faces a critical shortage of 20% enriched uranium, or that a diplomatic overture by the West to supply it could check Tehran's nuclear efforts.
Finally, the report made reference to the agency's previous disclosures about the "possible military dimensions" of Iran's nuclear program, including "producing uranium metal . . . into components relevant to a nuclear device" and "missile re-entry vehicle redesign activities for a new payload assessed as being nuclear in nature." So much for the enabling fiction that was the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, which judged "with high confidence" that Iran "halted its nuclear weapons program" in the fall of 2003.
The 2007 NIE now joins a September 1962 NIE—which claimed, just a month before the Cuban Missile Crisis, that the Soviets were unlikely to station missiles on the island—in the intelligence community's long hall of infamy. But Wednesday's IAEA report should at least put to rest the intel debate about Iran's drive to build a bomb. What remains is the policy debate.
Such a debate needs to be clear about four things.
First, it needs to abandon the conceit that there is a third way between allowing Iran's nuclear drive to proceed effectively unhindered or to use military force to stop it. The Obama administration came to office seeking a diplomatic grand bargain with Tehran, only to be rebuffed by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. It then tried sanctions, which came up short in the way most sanctions efforts do. As for covert action, see above. A (bad) argument can be made that a nuclear Iran could be contained. But another round of diplomacy or sanctions guarantees failure, signals weakness, and emboldens the hardest of Iranian hardliners.
Second, the debate must recognize that time is no longer on the West's side: Further temporizing in the face of our choice of evils inevitably means that Iran will get to make the choice for us. Israel may soon have to forsake its own (conventional) military option as Iran moves its nuclear assets to hardened installations. The U.S. doesn't suffer from Israel's military limitations, but further delay only increases the complexity and uncertainties of any strike.
Third, a debate needs to weigh the inevitable unforeseen consequences of a military strike against the all-too-foreseeable consequences of a nuclear Iran. Among the former: more Iranian meddling in Iraq and Afghanistan (particularly as U.S. troops withdraw), efforts to shut down the Straits of Hormuz, and perhaps an opportunistic war with Israel. Among the latter: all of the above, except this time with the added security of a nuclear umbrella, as well as a nuclear proliferation death spiral involving Saudi Arabia, Turkey and soon-to-be Islamist Egypt. If you thought the Cold War was scary, imagine four or five nuclear adversaries in the world's must unstable region, each of them at daggers drawn with one another.
Finally, any debate must take into account what the West can do to hasten the regime's demise. Opponents of military strikes argue that they would help the regime consolidate power. Perhaps. But the regime seems to have succeeded in re-establishing its domestic grip without the alibi of foreign intervention. And it bears wondering what a nuclear Iran might do with its weapons if faced with a slow-motion revolt on the Syrian model. Gently into that good night is not this regime's way.
Those are the contours of a real debate. A final thought: What would a strike on Iran do for President Obama's re-election chances? Improve them, I should think. At least it would be one inarguable accomplishment on which to run.
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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2011 STRATFOR.COM Diary Archives
Iran's Nuclear Program and its Nuclear Option
Details and specifics of the forthcoming International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report on the Iranian nuclear program continued to leak out over the weekend, with the formal report expected later this week. The growing rhetoric about Iran — including talk from certain Israeli and American corners about an air campaign against Iran — had already begun to intensify in anticipation of the report, which will say more explicitly than previous IAEA assessments that Iran is indeed actively pursuing a nuclear weaponization program.
“The counterexamples are countries — specifically, North Korea and Iran — that already have a compelling, non-nuclear deterrent.”
There is a cyclical nature to this rhetoric, and the correlation with the most harsh IAEA report on Iran to date is hard to get past. But while the latest IAEA report is certainly set to contain new, specific information about Iran’s program, there has been little serious doubt in recent years that Iran has continued to actively pursue nuclear weapons. The impending IAEA report’s overarching tenor is not news to anyone — though it provides plenty of opportunity to talk about Iran’s program, point fingers at Tehran and once again raise the specter of war — something even those mostly looking to mount pressure for more aggressive sanctions may do.
Nuclear weaponization programs by their nature require large, fixed infrastructure that must be connected to significant sources of power. The development of such programs — particularly in countries operating without access to key, export-controlled materiel — demands considerable investment over many years. Any serious movement down this path is vulnerable to detection, which is likely to lead to an attack in short order as Iraq found out in 1981 and Syria found out in 2007. Essentially, if a country desires a nuclear deterrent because it lacks any deterrent at all, then it is unlikely to be allowed the uninterrupted space and time to develop one.
The counterexamples are countries — specifically, North Korea and Iran — that already have a compelling, non-nuclear deterrent. That existent, non-nuclear deterrent discourages pre-emptive attacks against the country while its nuclear development efforts are in their most vulnerable stages. In the case of North Korea, Pyongyang has demonstrated a very sophisticated ability to escalate and de-escalate crises year after year, keeping itself at the center of the international agenda but not inviting physical attack. One element of this is Pyongyang’s deliberate cultivation of a perception of unpredictability — the idea the North Korean dictator may not behave rationally — which convinces international actors to give the regime a wide berth. The other is continued ambiguity. North Korea has made a career out of crossing international “red lines” and has helped soften the blow of crossing those lines by doing so ambiguously, particularly with nuclear tests that are not overtly, demonstrably successful. Yet North Korea has a large but unknown number of conventional artillery and artillery rocket batteries within range of Seoul. North Korea’s real “nuclear” option is opening fire with those batteries before they can possibly all be destroyed. And that is what ultimately keeps the international response to North Korea’s nuclear program in check: the unwillingness to trade a difficult and uncertain military attempt to address a crude, nascent nuclear program in exchange for Seoul.
Tehran has three key deterrents. First, for years, the American troop presence in Iraq, particularly after post-surge quelling of violence, remained vulnerable to Iranian-instigated attack by Tehran’s proxies and with weapons provided by Tehran (something Iran demonstrated quite unambiguously that it had the capacity to do in the form of the explosively formed penetrator, a particularly deadly form of improvised explosive device). That dynamic will remain, after American troops depart, in the form of American diplomats and contractors, who will be protected by a small army of private security contractors. Second, Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal can target both American and Israeli targets across the region – and many missiles will likely be loosed before all their mobile launchers can be pinpointed and destroyed.
But the third deterrent is the critical factor. Iran has for decades cultivated the ability to essentially conduct guerrilla warfare in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. This is Iran’s real “nuclear” option. There are inherent vulnerabilities in such tight waters, in which Iran can bring to bear not just naval mines, but shore-based anti-ship missiles and small boat swarms. This threat might be manageable tactically (particularly if a massive U.S.-led air campaign surprised Iran), but even in the best-case scenario, no one can manage the markets’ reaction to even the hint of disruption to 40 percent of the world’s sea-borne crude.
This is the heart of the problem. Whether there are six key nuclear sites in Iran or 60 (and Iran presents a significant intelligence challenge in this regard), any attacker has to neutralize not just the nuclear targets and associated air defenses, but Iran’s dispersed and camouflaged military capabilities all along the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz. U.S. participation was decisive in a far less sophisticated air campaign against Libya. In an Iran scenario where so much must be hit so quickly, the United States is the only country capable of even attempting to bring the necessary military strike capacity against Iran.
But even the optimistic scenario must anticipate the potential for an outcome reminiscent of the 1980s Tanker Wars. While the United States and Europe are focused on the global economic crisis (and particularly the euro crisis in Europe), they will want to avoid at all costs video of burning oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, which could panic already skittish markets. As long as that is the case, the prospect of a military strike on Iran is dim. And in any event, surprise is a key element for a successful strike on Iran. The moment Iran should feel the most secure is when Israeli rhetoric about war is at its peak.
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http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4146150,00.html
Israeli officials: ElBaradei an Iranian agent
Senior state officials accuse former IAEA chairman of covering up for Islamic Republic during his term, allowing Iranians to move ahead with nuclear program while playing for time. 'He is a despicable person,' one of them says. El Baradei calls accusations 'false'; Iranian Foreign Ministry says Tehran ready to resume nuke talks 'with respect for our nation's rights'
Itamar Eichner
Senior Israeli officials said Tuesday night that the International Atomic Energy Agency report stating that Iran has been working on developing a nuclear weapon design proves that the former UN nuclear watchdog chairman "was an Iranian agent".
On Wednesday, ElBaradei rejected Israel's accusations and called them "false." His response was published on the website of the Egyptian daily al-Youm al-Saba'a.
The former IAEA chairman, Mohamed ElBaradei, is an Egyptian diplomat who even won the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize.
For years he defended the Iranian nuclear program, claiming that it was peaceful, thus allowing the Iranians to continue their activity with the nuclear watchdog's seal of approval.
According to one of the state officials, the new report published Tuesday proves "just how much he was working for the Iranians.
"He simply rescued Iran and was constantly busy covering up for them, causing serious damage by allowing the Iranians to fool the entire world and play for time. History may judge him as the person who helped Iran obtain a nuclear weapon.
"The things exposed now are not new. These are old things which were hidden and not published," the official added. "Now it turns out that ElBaradei led an active policy of concealment and disregard. This is very serious. He is a despicable person."
"ElBaradei didn't just mess us up, he messed up the entire sane world," added Uzi Eilam, former head of Israel's Atomic Energy Agency. "He was dishonest his entire term. He is the one who stopped the Security Council from imposing serious sanctions, providing the Iranians with precious time."
In an editorial published Wednesday, the British Daily Telegraph indirectly criticized ElBaradei. "Indeed, the IAEA has known for years that Tehran was building an atomic weapon, but has been reluctant to say so. This has made it more difficult to create a united front against the threat that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose to world peace," the article read.
Also on Wednesday, the Iranian Foreign Ministry said Tehran remains ready to engage in negotiations with world powers concerned about its nuclear program, but only if the other parties show it due respect.
"We have always announced that we are ready for positive and useful negotiations but, as we have mentioned repeatedly, the condition for those talks to be successful is that we enter those negotiations in a stance of equality and respect for nations' rights," Ramin Mehmanparast was quoted as saying by the website of Iran's Arabic language al-Alam television.
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A final thought: What would a strike on Iran do for President Obama's re-election chances? Improve them, I should think. At least it would be one inarguable accomplishment on which to run.
"With the next White House election 13 months away, an Israeli attack on Iran is Obama's nightmare. It would be hard for a president to sell another conflict to a war-weary American public on top of Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.
There might be a temporary rallying round the flag but Obama would lose the Democratic left, the base he needs to get out and campaign for him.
That would be problematic for a president facing a tight election. But there is an even bigger problem: the impact of rising oil prices – an almost certain consequence of conflict – on the faltering US recovery."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/02/us-heading-war-iran-obama
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A final thought: What would a strike on Iran do for President Obama's re-election chances? Improve them, I should think. At least it would be one inarguable accomplishment on which to run.
"With the next White House election 13 months away, an Israeli attack on Iran is Obama's nightmare. It would be hard for a president to sell another conflict to a war-weary American public on top of Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.
There might be a temporary rallying round the flag but Obama would lose the Democratic left, the base he needs to get out and campaign for him.
That would be problematic for a president facing a tight election. But there is an even bigger problem: the impact of rising oil prices – an almost certain consequence of conflict – on the faltering US recovery."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/02/us-heading-war-iran-obama
Agreed.
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Iran testing a nuke, or lobbing them at Israel won't go any better for Buraq.
I though he was going to have a meeting without preconditions with Ahmanutjob and smooth everything out......
No teleprompters that speak Farsi?
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Calculating Iran's Next Move
Three days after explosions at an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) base near Tehran killed 17 people — including senior commander Brig. Gen. Hassan Moghaddam, a key figure in Iran’s ballistic missile program — Iranian officials have publicly held to the official line that the blast was accidental. Privately, however, they appear to be contemplating whether the blast was an act of sabotage worthy of response. In a eulogy posted on Fardanews on Tuesday, Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said, “Moghaddam was unknown in the Revolutionary Guard. Our enemies knew him better than our friends. He is irreplaceable.”
“Though the geopolitical climate is working in Iran’s favor, Tehran has to be aware of possible pitfalls — especially in its covert battles against its adversaries. “
In an equally cryptic statement following the explosions, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Israeli military radio, “I don’t know the extent of the explosion, but it would be desirable if they multiply.” Regardless of whether it was involved in the incident, Israel has an interest in spreading the perception that the mountainous barriers of the Islamic republic are not impervious to Israeli covert operations. Though the circumstances of the blast leave open the possibility that it was accidental, there remains a strong chance that this was in fact a case of Israel pulling off a significant sabotage attack against the IRGC.
If so, we would expect to see Iran clamp down internally for a while to understand how such a significant failure in munitions handling could have occurred in the first place. At minimum this was a serious accident caused by the IRGC’s negligence; at most it was a breach of operational security by foreign infiltrators. The psychological impact of such a sabotage effort is just as critical as the physical elimination of the intended target. The worries caused over where along the line the breach occurred — and the time and resources spent trying to track that leak down while reinforcing security at other potential targets that may have been compromised — is a major drain on the victim and a major boon for the saboteur. This same type of impact could potentially be accomplished by a successful Israeli disinformation campaign to falsely claim credit for an accident and label it as an attack.
During Tehran’s period of introspection, Iran will also likely contemplate the much broader question of what barriers Iran could face as it pursues its strategic aims in the region. Iran’s strong position in Iraq is beyond doubt, as the United States is withdrawing its forces and leaving a power vacuum that Iran will fill. At the same time, Iran has maintained an effective deterrence strategy against a military strike — the most potent component of that strategy being Iran’s feared ability to disrupt 40 percent of the world’s seaborne crude through the Strait of Hormuz by unconventional military means. Simply put, there is little hiding the fact that the United States, Israel and the Gulf Cooperation Council states are struggling to develop an effective containment strategy against Iran.
Though the geopolitical climate is working in Iran’s favor, Tehran has to be aware of possible pitfalls — especially in its covert battles against its adversaries. The assassinations, kidnappings and defections of Iranian nuclear scientists in recent years help sketch the outlines of a U.S.-Israeli campaign designed to slow down Iran’s nuclear program. As part of that campaign, the United States and Israel appear to have focused much of their resources on developing cyberweapons like the Stuxnet worm. The political crisis in Syria further complicates matters for Iran by threatening Tehran’s strategic foothold in the Levant. As Turkey and the Arab League states watch Iran’s moves warily, they are more likely to view the crisis in Syria as an opportunity to break Iran’s arc of influence in the region — and will increasingly focus their efforts toward this end.
As Iran becomes more confident in the region and asserts its influence more boldly, more clandestine efforts against the country are likely to intensify. Iran’s leadership will likely consider this dynamic when contemplating a potential response to the Nov. 12 explosions. STRATFOR has already been receiving indications from Hezbollah that the Shiite militant organization is readying its artillery rocket arsenal under orders from Tehran. Though Hezbollah and its Iranian proxies have a strategic interest in spreading such information to create the perception that Iran has a potent retaliatory option to ward off further attacks, Hezbollah’s actions in and beyond the region should be watched in the coming weeks. Iran could also deploy its covert capabilities in places like Bahrain, Iraq, the Palestinian territories and northern Yemen, but Tehran faces limitations in all these arenas, particularly in Iraq, where Iran does not want to give the United States any reason to push back its timetable for withdrawal.
Iran is not likely to respond quickly or rashly to this situation — it may not even respond at all. Following the February 2008 assassination of Imad Mughniyah, one of Hezbollah’s top commanders, Iran’s adversaries braced for a response that never came. Iran likely calculated that such a response was not worth the campaign of mutual retaliation that would have ensued. It remains unclear just how shell-shocked Iran’s leaders are from the Nov. 12 explosion, but if the blast was indicative of Israel’s covert reach into Iran, we would expect Iran to be expending a lot of energy in the coming weeks trying to recover from and repair what could have been a significant breach in its internal security apparatus.
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till Iran has enough material for a nuclear "device". 1.5 years till it has several. As John Bolton said, if anyone wonders how dangerous Iran is now only wonder how dangerous they will be with nuclear weapons. I take this comment further to mock Erin Burnett's analysis the other night on the cable nanny network (CNN) about how much a war with Iran will cost per ground troop, bombs, etc.
(With of course her conclusion that any war with Iran vis a vis Israel is nuts because the costs would be too great.)
One must ask, "how much will it cost the US after nuclear war between Israel and Iran and the total closing of the oil rich gulf becomes a distinct reality and not some cynic's fanciful nightmare?"
For Israel there is only one answer - military action. The big and only question is will they need do it alone. I can only pray Nato will help. I refuse to hold my breath while doing so lest I lose it all.
****Israel squares up to Iran
That’s right, Iceman. I am dangerous
A game-changing report by the UN’s nuclear watchdog could be the prelude to a strike on Iran. Or maybe not.
Nov 12th 2011 | from the print edition
WESTERN governments have long been convinced that Iran is pursuing military objectives with its secretive nuclear programme. But until this week the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), jealous of its credibility as a non-political, science-led body, said it had no unambiguous proof of Iran’s intention to build a bomb. A report it published on November 8th still falls just short of that proof, but nonetheless marks a watershed.
The IAEA’s report says that it “has serious concerns regarding possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme. After assessing carefully and critically the extensive information available to it, the agency finds the information to be, overall, credible… that Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device.”
A 12-page annexe offers a convincing narrative of Iran’s progress towards becoming a nuclear-weapons power. It says that Iran created computer models of nuclear explosions in 2008 and 2009 and conducted experiments on nuclear triggers. It says that the simulations focused on how shock waves from conventional explosives could compress the spherical fuel at the core of a nuclear device, which starts the chain reaction that ends in an explosion. The report goes on to state that Iran went beyond such theoretical studies and built a large containment vessel at its Parchin military base, starting in 2000, to test the feasibility of such explosive compression. It calls such tests “strong indicators of possible weapon development.”
Western intelligence sources believe that Iran now has enough highly enriched uranium to build, should it choose to do so, at least one nuclear weapon within a year and that this could be rapidly followed by several more. It is less clear whether Iran is capable of putting a miniaturised warhead on one of its Shahab 3 ballistic missiles, which have a range of 1,200 miles (1,900 km), but the IAEA suggests it has conducted experiments to that end.
The report, predictably rejected by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s president, will give new impetus to Western diplomatic efforts to tighten the UN Security Council’s sanctions regime. However, with China and Russia already saying that they will oppose any attempt to impose more punitive sanctions on Iran, there has also been fresh talk of resorting to military action, particularly from Israel.
Over the past fortnight, a number of articles have appeared in Israeli newspapers claiming that the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and the defence minister, Ehud Barak, have dusted off long-standing plans for a pre-emptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Many Israeli analysts believe that the two men are capable of winning round more sceptical cabinet colleagues, and that once they have done so the leadership of the Israeli Defence Force will swallow its doubts, salute smartly and get on with an attack.
Those doubts are, however, well-grounded. Iran’s nuclear facilities are numerous and dispersed; several of them are sheltered underground and defended by modern short-range Russian missiles; there may even be some that the Israelis know nothing about. It is likely that an Israeli attack would concentrate on three fairly visible sites: the uranium-enrichment plant at Natanz (a hardened underground facility that would need to be hit several times); the heavy-water reactor at Arak; and the Russian-built light-water reactor at Bushehr.
By throwing in every military thing at its disposal, Israel might slow by a few years Iran’s progress towards acquiring the bomb. But there would be no guarantee of that, and it would be a near-certainty that Iran would react with missile attacks of its own, and by its well armed proxy forces: Hizbullah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
Why would Israel attack now when, for some of the reasons above, it has previously stayed its hand? There are several possible answers. The first is that Iran is rapidly moving centrifuges to its once-secret site at Fordow, buried deep inside a mountain and possibly invulnerable to attack by conventional weapons. Second, Syria’s internal chaos may take Iran’s most important regional ally out of the game. Third, the departure of American forces from Iraq removes both a focus for Iranian retaliation and a constraint on America. Fourth, if Messrs Netanyahu and Barak reckon that they need America’s military might to complete what they start, there may be no better combination to ensure that than a politically weak president whose Republican opponents have made unquestioning support for Israel a wedge issue a year before a presidential election.****
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"till Iran has enough material for a nuclear "device". 1.5 years till it has several."
These are SWAG estimates. Also, this assumes they don't have weapons grade material from the NorKs, Pakistan or some other source.
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Although nearly all public figures have been the same stupid fools. More equivicating, denials, and delays, excuses, grandstanding, senseless boring repetitive and laughable talk of we must make sanctions stronger, get China and Russia on board, make Iran into a pariah.... Did I hear Romney is the first national level politician to come out and make it clear military action IS on the table? Apparantly Iran has a system within a moutain (where was NORAD in Colorado?) that is beyond the reach conventional military means. Folks Iranian leaders cannot make their intentions any clearer. All I can say is Thank God Israel has leaders with real guts. Far more than any American politician all of whom have been denying, ignoring, and putting off any honest assesment of what is going on. That includes that charade of "smart power" Hillary Clinton. BTW, one cannot help notice the greater public visibility of Chelsea. Obvioulsy, this is for her eventual run for office. I don't know though, she couldn't possibly be as obnoxious as her parents, or could she?
****Nuclear Iran, anxious Israel
The world needs to be much tougher on Iran, but an Israeli attack would still be a disaster
Nov 12th 2011 | from the print edition
THE debate about timelines is almost over. This week’s report on Iran’s nuclear programme by the UN’s watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is its most alarming yet. Although no “smoking gun” proves beyond doubt that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, the evidence gathered in a 12-page annex is hard to interpret in any other way.
Concerted efforts by Western intelligence agencies and the Israelis to sabotage the Iranian programme have been less effective than was previously believed. Iran has already begun moving part of its uranium-enrichment capacity to Fordow, a facility buried deep within a mountain near Qom. Intelligence sources estimate that if Iran opted to “break out” from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), it could have at least one workable weapon within a year and a few more about six months after that. Iran’s leaders may not choose that path. But what happens next depends less on Iran’s technical or industrial capabilities than on politics. For the time being at least, ambiguity almost certainly serves Iran’s purposes better than a confrontation. But in Israel, talk of a pre-emptive attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities is increasing.
Publicly, Israel has stuck to its well-worn line that no option should be ruled out. But well-placed leaks suggest that the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and his defence minister, Ehud Barak, are exploring the possibility of a pre-emptive attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Their cabinet colleagues seem less persuaded and Israel’s powerful military and intelligence establishment is against a strike. Polls show that Israelis are split on the issue. But Mr Netanyahu is determined not to go down in history as the prime minister who allowed Israel to become threatened by a hostile, regional nuclear power.
Rising fear, rising danger
The Israelis’ anxiety is understandable. They fear a theocratic regime that embraces the Shia tradition of martyrdom may not be deterred by a nuclear balance of terror. For a country as small as Israel, even a small-scale nuclear attack could be an existential threat. Two of Mr Netanyahu’s predecessors took action, against Iraq in 1981 and Syria in 2007, to prevent just such a threat; and it worked. The opportunity to attack Iran is now, before it is too late—or so the argument goes in many Israeli households.
Yet the arguments against an attack are still overwhelming, even for Israel. A sustained bombing campaign would take weeks and set off a firestorm in the Middle East, with Iran counter-attacking Israel through its proxies. It would do nothing to help regime change in Tehran. The economic consequences could be catastrophic. And to what end? A successful campaign would still only delay Iran, not stop it. The technical difficulties for Israel’s armed forces of carrying out such a broad mission over such a long time are immense. Indeed, the suspicion is that Mr Netanyahu would be betting that what Israel started, America would feel forced to finish.
Barack Obama should make it very clear to Mr Netanyahu that he would not do that. At the same time, he should pursue two courses: pushing sanctions, on the one hand, and preparing for a nuclear-armed Iran on the other.
So far, attempts to impose punitive sanctions have fallen short. Russia and China (Iran’s biggest trading partner) have refused to support efforts at the UN Security Council to beef up the sanctions regime, for instance by limiting Iran’s imports of refined petroleum or targeting the activities of its central bank. Yet the West should not give up the effort: there is a (slim) possibility that, as the prospect of an Iranian bomb and an Israeli strike draw near, Russia and China might shift their positions.
If Iran does not halt its nuclear programme, its rulers should expect their country to be treated as an international pariah. That means not just pushing for more serious sanctions, but also stepping up the covert campaign to disrupt Iran’s nuclear facilities. It also means preparing for the day when Iran deploys nuclear weapons. To that end, America must demonstrate to its allies who feel threatened by Iran—not just Israel, but Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states too—that its commitment to extending nuclear deterrence to them is as firm as it was to Europe at the height of the cold war. America must also be willing to make available to its allies advanced ballistic missile defences.
Iran must be made to understand that owning nuclear weapons is a curse for it rather than a blessing. And Israel must be persuaded that striking Iran would be far more dangerous than living with its nuclear ambitions.****
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"Folks Iranian leaders cannot make their intentions any clearer. All I can say is Thank God Israel has leaders with real guts. Far more than any American politician all of whom have been denying, ignoring, and putting off any honest assesment of what is going on."
The problem with kicking the can down the road is eventually you run out of road. Israel doesn't want to hit Iran, but it's having to choose between the best of bad options. This is why you see Israel making obvious moves telegraphing a Iran strike, in hopes of making the feckless west move rather than leave Israel out in the cold.
Normally Israel makes no mention of military strikes until the target is smoking rubble. The fact that they are sending obvious signals shows how desperate things are.
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My understanding is that our military has VERY little enthusiasm for taking on Iran. While certainly the dubious qualities of the current CiC may have more than a little to do with that, simple military options do not exist.
As I have pointed out several times in the last few years, Iran now has some 50,000+ rockets on Israel's northern border; and Egypt's military might well be tempted to end-run its own domestic issues with a popular war on Israel's southern border at the same time.
As Stratfor has pointed out, the Iranians are not stupid and have been working asymetric options for the Gulf and the Straights of Hormuz. How happy do you think the world is going to be when 40% of the world's supply suddenly gets shut off? What lessons might China, which relies HEAVILY on Iran for its energy, take from the experience? What might be the response of the US electorate?
I'm not calling for doing nothing-- and I was glad to see a flash of testosterone from Mitt-- but let us not be glib here.
BTW I saw a report today that some new humongous bunder busters (35,000 pounds?!?) are being delivered to our military.
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There are no good, easy options here. It would have been nice to see a "Persian Spring" end the Mullahocracy, but Buraq couldn't be bothered with them at the time, so that train left the station years ago.
So now, we have a narrow range of ugly options. They all suck, so we get to decide what sucks the least. Or we wait until Iran uncorks the nukes or Israel decides they can wait no longer.
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It already may be too late for Israel. Iran's program is dispersed and dug in. As I mentioned Iran has the capability to strike hard at the Israeli homeland and the wrath that would be aimed Israel's way for getting 40% of the world's oil supply shut down would be massive-- including here in the US.
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It already may be too late for Israel. Iran's program is dispersed and dug in. As I mentioned Iran has the capability to strike hard at the Israeli homeland and the wrath that would be aimed Israel's way for getting 40% of the world's oil supply shut down would be massive-- including here in the US.
Yup. It would be Glenn Beck-worst case scenario bad.
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Everyone has been great at pointing out "no good options" for two decades. We all know this.
Of course there are no "good" options.
We are talking Jews in Israel need to go to war for their survival OR simply be forced into exile.
That IS the choice they will soon have to face.
The strategy of waiting and hoping for some unforseen event that was going to change the dynamic in some unexpected happy way has NOT occured. Time has run out. Waiting has allowed Iran to dig in and build a major conglomerate in the region.
Indeed time has simply worked against the Israel's interest - not for it as hoped.
Again as Bolton has said if we think Iran is a problem now just wait till they get the nukes.
Iran will not neccessarily kill all the Jews (though probably desired). They will give them an ultimatum. Go back to Europe, America, and whereever else you came from, or can escape to, or, we will drive you all to the same place the Minoan empire went.
We should have become energy independent by now. We could have been safe from the stranglehold Arab oil.
America has shown and lived weakness. Iran the whole time waited this out and stayed their course.
Instead we are a lousy country fighting over how early we can all retire, go on vacations earlier, see the sights, get onto diability, have the workers pay for all those who cannot work, choose not to work, etc. The greatest generation is now a bunch of old hags crying about their medicare and ss payments. The baby boomers are a bunch of 60s idiots talking peace and not war and giving this country away for ideals as one world government, cooperation and we are all part of the same family on one little tiny home called Earth. The millineums are too stupid - look they voted for Brock - do I need say more about them.
Israel has to decide to prepare for the very worst or essentially give up their country to avoid war.
Folks there is no other choice. It is here and now.
I will vote for Romney. His comments on this are the decisive factor for me. I don't want to see Israel wiped out.
(Unless Newt can come up with something better)
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I watched part of the interview. Zakaria asked Barak if he thought Obama has demonstrated a strong undeniable commitment to Israel's security and has proven he is doing EVERYTHING he can. Barak hesitated, but then diplomatically said yes. Zakaria could not control his obvious relief and glee that Ehud made the statement about the guy HE, Zakaria supports and advises. His Harvard minority buddy. For anyone to argue that Brock has demonstrated total commitment to Israel's security is ridiculous.
That said Ehud was surely trying not to offend the President by saying anything otherwise. And Zakaria's immediate smirk at the answer surely gave it away. There are many liberal Jews who will never stop suopporting their beloved Demcorat party.
In my opinion the time for action has already come AND GONE.
****The "time has come" to deal with Iran, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Sunday, refusing to rule out military action to curb the Islamic republic's nuclear ambitions.
Barak, speaking on CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS program, indicated that Israel's patience was wearing thin -- and provided an ominous response when asked about the growing speculation of an Israeli military strike.
"I don't think that that is a subject for public discussion," he said. "But I can tell you that the IAEA report has a sobering impact on many in the world, leaders as well as the publics, and people understand that the time has come."
The International Atomic Energy Agency published a report on November 8 saying there was "credible" information that Iran was carrying out "activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device."
On Friday the IAEA's board passed a resolution condemning Iran's nuclear activities, but stopped short of reporting Tehran to the United Nations and issuing no deadline for compliance.
"People understand now that Iran is determined to reach nuclear weapons," said Barak. There is "no other possible or conceivable explanation for what they have been actually doing. And that should be stopped."
The IAEA report -- based on "broadly, credible" intelligence, its own information and some input from Iran itself -- said that Iran had examined how to fit out a Shahab 3 missile, with a range capable of reaching Israel, with a nuclear warhead.
Tehran rejected the report "baseless," denies it is seeking nuclear weapons and maintains its nuclear activities are for civilian energy purposes.
Washington, Paris and London however jumped on the report as justification to increase pressure on Iran, already under four rounds of Security Council sanctions and additional US and European Union restrictions.****
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Pasting GM's post here as well:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/iran-showed-al-qaeda-how-bomb-embassies_610943.html?nopager=1
Iran Showed Al Qaeda How to Bomb Embassies
9:45 AM, Dec 3, 2011 • By THOMAS JOSCELYN
In a little noticed ruling on Monday, November 28, a Washington, D.C. district court found that both Iran and Sudan were culpable for al Qaeda’s 1998 embassy bombings. As is typical in state sponsorship of terrorism cases, neither Iran nor Sudan answered the plaintiffs’ accusations. But in a 45-page decision, Judge John D. Bates issued a default judgment. The court found that the “government of the Islamic Republic of Iran…has a long history of providing material aid and support to terrorist organizations including al Qaeda,” which “claimed responsibility for the August 7, 1998 embassy bombings.”
Judge Bates continued (citations omitted, emphasis added):
Iran had been the preeminent state sponsor of terrorism against United States interests for decades. Throughout the 1990s – at least – Iran regarded al Qaeda as a useful tool to destabilize U.S. interests. As discussed in detail below, the government of Iran aided, abetted and conspired with Hezbollah, Osama bin Laden, and al Qaeda to launch large-scale bombing attacks against the United States by utilizing the sophisticated delivery mechanism of powerful suicide truck bombs. Hezbollah, a terrorist organization based principally in Lebanon, had utilized this type of bomb in the devastating 1983 attacks on the U.S. embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. Prior to their meetings with Iranian officials and agents, Bin Laden and al Qaeda did not possess the technical expertise required to carry out the embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. The Iranian defendants, through Hezbollah, provided explosives training to Bin Laden and al Qaeda and rendered direct assistance to al Qaeda operatives. Hence, for the reasons discussed below the Iranian defendants provided material aid and support to al Qaeda for the 1998 embassy bombings and are liable for damages suffered by the plaintiffs.
The court further explained (citations omitted, emphasis added):
Following the meetings that took place between representatives of Hezbollah and al Qaeda in Sudan in the early to mid-1990s, Hezbollah and Iran agreed to provide advanced training to a number of al Qaeda members, including shura council members, at Hezbollah training camps in South Lebanon. Saif al-Adel, the head of al Qaeda security, trained in Hezbollah camps. During this time period, several other senior al Qaeda operatives trained in Iran and in Hezbollah training camps in Lebanon. After one of the training sessions at a Lebanese Hezbollah camp, al Qaeda operatives connected to the Nairobi bombing, including a financier and a bomb-maker, returned to Sudan with videotapes and manuals “specifically about how to blow up large buildings.”
None of this should come as a surprise. In Iran’s Proxy War Against America (PDF), I summarized the evidence demonstrating Iran’s and Hezbollah’s complicity in the 1998 embassy bombings.
Federal prosecutors in the Clinton administration found Iran’s hand in the embassy bombings as they prepared to try some of the terrorists responsible. They even included the relationship with Iran and Hezbollah in their original indictments of al Qaeda.
In his plea hearing before a New York court in 2000, Ali Mohamed – the al Qaeda operative who was responsible for performing surveillance used for the bombings – testified that he set up the security for a meeting between bin Laden and Hezbollah’s terror master, Imad Mugniyah. “I arranged security for a meeting in the Sudan between Mugniyah, Hezbollah’s chief, and bin Laden,” Mohamed told the court. (My profile of Mugniyah and his ties to al Qaeda, published after his death in 2008, can be read here.)
Mohamed also confirmed that Hezbollah and Iran provided explosives training to al Qaeda. “Hezbollah provided explosives training for al Qaeda and [Egyptian Islamic] Jihad,” Mohamed explained. “Iran supplied Egyptian Jihad with weapons.”
Mohamed was forthcoming about al Qaeda’s rationale for seeking Iran’s and Hezbollah’s assistance:
And the objective of all this, just to attack any Western target in the Middle East, to force the government of the Western countries just to pull out from the Middle East. . . .Based on the Marine explosion in Beirut in 1984 [sic: 1983] and the American pull-out from Beirut, they will be the same method, to force the United States to pull out from Saudi Arabia.
Jamal al Fadl, an al Qaeda operative who was privy to some of al Qaeda’s most sensitive secrets, conversed with his fellow al Qaeda members about Iran’s and Hezbollah’s explosives training, which included take-home videotapes so that al Qaeda’s operatives would not forget what they learned. Al Fadl told federal prosecutors, “I saw one of the tapes, and he [another al Qaeda operative] tell me they train about how to explosives big buildings.”
When the 9/11 Commission investigated the embassy bombings years later, it also found Iran’s and Hezbollah’s hands in the attack. See, in particular, pages 61 and 68 of the commission’s final report.
To recap: A D.C. district court, Clinton-era prosecutors, and the 9/11 Commission have all found that al Qaeda received assistance from Iran and Hezbollah in executing the 1998 embassy bombings. The bombings were al Qaeda’s most successful attack prior to September 11, 2001.
And yet, many in the foreign policy establishment pretend that Iran and al Qaeda are either incapable of collusion or opposed to one another in some meaningful sense. The truth is that they have long cooperated against America.
Thomas Joscelyn is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
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The Covert Intelligence War Against Iran
December 8, 2011
By Scott Stewart
There has been a lot of talk in the press lately about a “cold war” being waged by the United States, Israel and other U.S. allies against Iran. Such a struggle is certainly taking place, but in order to place recent developments in perspective, it is important to recognize that the covert intelligence war against Iran (and the Iranian response to this war) is clearly not a new phenomenon.
Indeed, STRATFOR has been chronicling this struggle since early 2007. Our coverage has included analyses of events such as the defection to the West of Iranian officials with knowledge of Tehran’s nuclear program; the Iranian seizure of British servicemen in the Shatt al Arab Waterway; the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists; the use of the Stuxnet worm to cripple Iranian uranium enrichment efforts; and Iranian efforts to arm its proxies and use them as a threat to counteract Western pressure. These proxies are most visible in Iraq and Lebanon, but they also exist in Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria, the Palestinian territories, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states.
While the covert intelligence war has been under way for many years, the tempo of events that can readily be identified as part of it has been increasing over the past few months. It is important to note that many of these events are the result of hidden processes begun months or even years previously, so while visible events may indeed be increasing, the efforts responsible for many of them began to increase much earlier. What the activities of recent months do tell us is that the covert war between Iran and its enemies will not be diminishing anytime soon. If anything, with the current withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and Iranian nuclear efforts continuing,we likely will see the results of additional covert operations — and evidence of the clandestine activity required to support those operations.
Ramping Up
All eyes were on this covert intelligence war after The New York Times published an article Jan. 15 reporting that the United States and Israel worked together to create and launch Stuxnet against the Iranian nuclear program. The visible events related to the intelligence war maintained a relatively steady pace until Oct. 11, when the U.S. Department of Justice announced that two men had been charged in New York with taking part in a plot by the Iranian Quds Force to kill Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States, Adel al-Jubeir, on U.S. soil.
In early November, a new International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report was issued detailing Iranian efforts toward a nuclear weapons program. While this report did not contain any major revelations, it did contain new specifics and was more explicit than previous IAEA reports in its conclusion that Iran was actively pursuing a nuclear weapons program. The IAEA report resulted in an Israeli-led diplomatic and public relations campaign urging more effective action against Iran, ranging from more stringent sanctions to military operations.
Then, in the early afternoon of Nov. 12, explosions occurred at an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) ballistic missile base near Tehran, killing 17 people, including a high-ranking IRGC commander who was a critical figure in Iran’s ballistic missile program. Iran has insisted the blast was accidental, but speculation has since spread that the explosion could have been part of a sabotage operation carried out by Israeli intelligence. Israeli intelligence officials also have undertaken not-so-subtle efforts to ensure that outside observers believe they were responsible for the blasts.
Later on Nov. 12, the Bahraini government went public with the discovery of an alleged plot involving at least five Bahrainis traveling through Syria and Qatar to carry out attacks against government and diplomatic targets in Bahrain. Iran vehemently denied it was involved and portrayed the plot as a fabrication, just as it responded to the alleged plot against the Saudi ambassador.
The next day, the Iranian press reported that Ahmad Rezai, the son of Mohsen Rezai — who is the secretary of Iran’s Expediency Council, a former IRGC commander and a presidential contender — was found dead at a hotel in Dubai. The deputy head of the Expediency Council told the Iranian press that the son’s death was suspicious and caused by electric shocks, while other reports portrayed the death as a suicide.
On Nov. 20, the Los Angeles Times reported that U.S. intelligence officials confirmed the CIA had suspended its operations in Lebanon following the arrest of several of its sources due to sloppy tradecraft on the part of CIA case officers assigned to Beirut. Following this report, the Iranian government announced that it had arrested 12 CIA sources due to tradecraft mistakes. We have been unable to determine if the reports regarding Lebanon are true, merely CIA disinformation or a little of both. Certainly, the CIA would like the Iranians to believe it is no longer active in Lebanon. Even if these reports are CIA spin, they are quite interesting in light of the Oct. 11 announcement of the thwarted assassination plot in the United States and the Nov. 12 announcement of the arrests in Bahrain.
On Nov. 21, the United States and the United Kingdom launched a new wave of sanctions against Iran based on the aforementioned IAEA report. The new sanctions were designed to impact Iran’s banking and energy sector. In fact, the United Kingdom took the unprecedented step of totally cutting off Iran’s Central Bank from the British financial sector. The Canadian government undertook similar action against the Central Bank of Iran.
On Nov. 28, there were unconfirmed press reports of an explosion in Esfahan, one of Iran’s largest cities. These reports were later echoed by a STRATFOR source in Israel, and U.S. sources have advised that explosions did occur in Esfahan and that they caused a significant amount of damage. Esfahan is home to numerous military and research and development facilities, including some relevant to Iran’s nuclear efforts. We are unsure which facilities at Esfahan were damaged by the blasts and are trying to identify them.
Elsewhere on Nov. 28, Iran’s Guardians Council, a clerical organization that provides oversight of legislation passed by Iran’s parliament, approved a bill to expel the British ambassador and downgrade diplomatic relations between the two countries. The next day, Iranian protesters stormed the British Embassy in Tehran, along with the British Embassy’s residential compound in the city. The angry — and well-orchestrated — mob was protesting the sanctions announced Nov. 21. Iranian authorities did not stop the mob from storming either facility.
On Dec. 1, the European Union approved new sanctions against some 180 Iranian individuals and companies over Iran’s support of terrorism and its continued nuclear weapons program. The European Union did not approve a French proposal to impose a full embargo on Iranian oil.
In the early hours of Dec. 4, a small improvised explosive device detonated under a van parked near the British Embassy building in Manama, Bahrain. The device, which was not very powerful, caused little structural damage to the vehicle and none to the building itself.
The next day, an unnamed U.S. official confirmed Dec. 4 reports from several Iranian news outlets that Iran had recovered an RQ-170 “Sentinel” unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in Iranian territory. The Iranian reports claimed that Iranian forces were responsible for bringing down the Sentinel — some even said the Iranians were able to hack into the UAV’s command link. U.S. officials have denied such reports, and it is highly unlikely that Iran was able to take control of a UAV and recover it intact.
Outlook
The United States is currently in the process of completing the withdrawal of its combat forces from Iraq. With the destruction of the Iraqi military in 2003, the U.S. military became the only force able to counter Iranian conventional military strength in the Persian Gulf region. Because of this, the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq will create a power vacuum that the Iranians are eager to exploit. The potential for Iran to control a sphere of influence from western Afghanistan to the Mediterranean is a prospect that not only frightens regional players such as Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey but also raises serious concerns in the United States.
As we have noted before, we don’t believe that a military attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities alone is the answer to the regional threat posed by Iran. Iran’s power comes from its ability to employ its conventional forces and not nuclear weapons. Therefore, strikes against its nuclear weapons program would not impact Iran’s conventional forces or its ability to interfere with the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz by using its conventional forces asymmetrically against U.S. naval power and commercial shipping. Indeed, any attack on Iran would have to be far broader than just a one-off attack like the June 1981 Israeli strike at Osirak, Iraq, that crippled Saddam Hussein’s nuclear weapons program.
Because of this difficulty, we have seen the Israelis, Americans and their allies attacking Iran through other means. First of all, they are seeking to curb Iran’s sphere of influence by working to overthrow the Syrian regime, limit Syria’s influence in Iraq and control Hezbollah in Lebanon. They are also seeking to attack Iran’s nuclear program by coercing officials to defect, assassinating scientists and deploying cyberwarfare weapons such as the Stuxnet worm.
It is also necessary to recognize that covert action does not occur in a vacuum. Each covert activity requires a tremendous amount of clandestine intelligence-gathering in order to plan and execute it. With so much covert action happening, the clandestine activity undertaken by all sides to support it is obviously tremendous. But as the frequency of this activity increases, so can sloppy tradecraft.
Finally, as we examine this campaign it is remarkable to note that not only are Iran’s enemies using covert methods to stage attacks on Iran’s nuclear program and military capabilities, they are also developing new and previously unknown methods to do so. And they have shown a willingness to allow these new covert attack capabilities to be unveiled by using them — which could render them useless for future attacks. This willingness to use, rather than safeguard, revolutionary new capabilities strongly underscores the importance of this covert campaign to Iran’s adversaries. It also indicates that we will likely see other new forms of covert warfare emerge in the coming months, along with revolutionary new tactical applications of older forms.
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By DENNIS ROSS
President Barack Obama, like President George W. Bush before him, has stated that it would be unacceptable for Iran to have nuclear weapons. Recently, Mr. Obama has taken this a step further by declaring that he is determined to prevent the Iranians from acquiring the bomb.
Does that mean that the use of force against the Iranian nuclear program is inevitable? No, nor should it be. I don't say this because I believe we can live with a nuclear-armed Iran; I do not. An Iran with nuclear weapons would confront the world with many dangers, including the very real danger that it will trigger a nuclear war in the Middle East.
Consider that once Iran has nuclear weapons, nearly all of its neighbors will seek them as well to counter Iranian power and coercion. Israel, given Iranian declarations that it should be wiped off the map, will feel it has no margin for error and cannot afford to strike second in the event of a war.
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Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, right, with high-ranking members of his armed forces.
.But Israel won't be the only country operating on a hair trigger. Each country, lacking the ability to absorb a nuclear strike, will adopt a launch-on-warning posture in a region that has many local triggers for conflict and enormous potential for miscalculation. Containment does not address that risk. Even the offer of a nuclear umbrella, with its implicit promise to obliterate the Iranians after a strike, can provide small comfort for any country in the Middle East, particularly Israel.
I do not doubt that the Iranians are making progress on their nuclear program. According to the most recent International Atomic Energy Agency report, released last month, the Iranians have accumulated roughly 4,900 kilograms of low enriched uranium (LEU), enough for three to four bombs if enriched further. They have 6,200 centrifuges operating at Natanz, with a production rate of about 125 kilograms a month, and have now installed 174 centrifuges in two tandem cascades and 64 in a third in their facility near Qom.
And, while the bulk of their LEU is enriched to 3.5%, the Iranians are now enriching some of their material to nearly 20%—a move that would shorten the time they would need to create weapons-grade highly enriched uranium (HEU).
Notwithstanding this very real progress, there are several reasons why we have the time and space needed to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear-weapons capability through nonmilitary means: First, Iran does not have HEU, and the IAEA inspectors at both Natanz and Qom would be able to spot the telltale signs of the repiping of centrifuges that would provide several months of warning that Iran was enriching to weapons grade.
Second, the Iranians continue to have problems developing the next generation of centrifuges they need to dramatically accelerate their production of enriched uranium. These problems stem from difficulties in obtaining specialized materials due to sanctions as well as the regime's technological inability to perfect the design of the more advanced centrifuges. Here again, IAEA inspectors would in the course of regular inspections detect if more advanced centrifuges were operating.
Third, Iran must also be able to turn HEU into a weapon. While the recent IAEA report makes it clear that the Iranians had a comprehensive and integrated program for developing such a weapon until 2003, Iran's efforts since that time have been more limited and less systematic. That could indicate an Iranian belief that they have already made sufficient progress to be able to develop a weapon quickly. But that is not the assessment of Meir Dagan, the former head of Israel's Mossad, who has no interest in downplaying the Iranian nuclear threat and has publicly said that Iran is a few years from being able to produce a nuclear bomb.
None of this argues for relaxing our guard. On the contrary, we need to be vigilant about the indicators that Iran is moving more quickly either on HEU or weaponizing. And we must use the time we have to apply greater pressure on the Iranians.
The history of the Islamic Republic reveals one thing clearly: pressure works. Iran's leaders make adjustments in their behavior when they feel they must. Ayatollah Khomeini, recognizing the high costs, ended the eight-year Iran-Iraq war in 1988, even though he likened doing so to being forced to drink poison from a chalice. The Iranian policy of assassinating dissidents in Europe stopped in the 1990s when it became clear that the price, including sanctions, made it too expensive to continue. The Iranians accepted a suspension of enrichment and even offered an interesting proposal for negotiations on their nuclear program and our other differences in 2003 when we defeated the Iraqi army in three weeks and they believed they could be next.
Today, Iranian leaders are again feeling real pain. They are discredited in the region both because they are out of step with the Arab Awakening, and because they support the Assad regime's killing of Syrian citizens. They are more isolated internationally than ever before—witness last month's vote in the U.N. General Assembly calling on Iran to protect diplomatic personnel. And they are suffering from international sanctions that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recently referred to as the most severe economic onslaught that any nation has experienced—clearly an exaggeration but a far cry from last year's rhetoric when he said Iran "sneezed" at the sanctions.
Iran is vulnerable, and over the next few months joint efforts with the Europeans to stop buying Iranian oil and doing business with the Iranian Central Bank would dramatically add to the pressure Iran's leaders are already feeling. These two steps would mean a loss of revenue and further destabilization of Iran's already shaky currency—consequences that Iran's leaders can ill afford. This could be achieved without a spike in oil prices if phased in as additional oil is coming on the market from Libya, Iraq and a limited increase in Saudi production.
With the Iranian regime reeling, an increase in pressure can once again put Iran's leaders in a position where they seek a way out. That way out must not leave the Iranians with the capability to produce nuclear weapons at a time of their choosing. They can have civil nuclear power. They cannot have the means to translate that into nuclear weapons.
Mr. Ross is a counselor at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Until recently, he served in the Obama administration as special assistant to the president and National Security Council senior director for the Central Region.
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Woof,
I wonder why Iran is so huffy here lately?
U.S. Fifth Fleet says won't allow disruption in Hormuz
DUBAI (Reuters) - The U.S. Fifth Fleet said on Wednesday it will not allow any disruption of traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, after Iran threatened to stop ships moving through the strategic oil route.
"The free flow of goods and services through the Strait of Hormuz is vital to regional and global prosperity," a spokesperson for the Bahrain-based fleet said in a written response to queries from Reuters about the possibility of Iran trying to close the waterway.
"Anyone who threatens to disrupt freedom of navigation in an international strait is clearly outside the community of nations; any disruption will not be tolerated."
Asked whether it was taking specific measures in response to the threat to close the Strait, the fleet said it "maintains a robust presence in the region to deter or counter destabilizing activities," without providing further detail.
(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk and Andrew Hammond; Writing by Joseph Logan; Editing by Louise Ireland)
P.C.
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WSJ:
By SHIRIN EBADI
The clerical regime that misrules Iran is imploding in slow-motion while intensifying its repression at home and threatening behavior abroad. But is the international community doing all it can to support the Iranian people and hold the regime to account?
It's clear that the leadership in Tehran is wracked by internal strife, with divisions deepening between Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his allies. Iran's economy is in tatters, with inflation and unemployment soaring thanks to decades of mismanagement. While popular discontent is not at a high pitch as it was after the June 2009 presidential election, the fundamental conflict between citizens and dictators continues to smolder. Externally, the regime's defiance of international norms—such as this week threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz—have left Iran more isolated than ever.
In response, the regime has created an atmosphere of fear and intimidation, renewing its crackdown against students, civil society leaders and human-rights defenders like my friend and colleague Nasrin Sotoudeh. Nasrin earned the enmity of Iran's rulers by accepting the cases of dissidents and challenging laws that deprive women and children of their fundamental rights. She was also involved in the "One Million Signatures Campaign" to abolish discriminatory laws against women in Iran.
On Sept. 4, 2010, Iranian authorities arrested Nasrin on charges of spreading propaganda against the state, acting against national security, donning improper hijab in a filmed speech, and membership in the Center for the Defense of Human Rights, the nongovernmental organization that I cofounded. She was denied bail, access to a lawyer and other procedural rights. Then, in January 2010, the regime sentenced her to 11 years in prison and barred her from practicing law for another 20.
Nasrin has spent the subsequent days in prison, most of them in solitary confinement. She has rarely been granted permission to receive visits from her family.
Her two young children have been traumatized by their mother's ordeal. On the few occasions when they have been allowed to see her, relatives report, the children have wailed inconsolably. Nasrin's husband was denied the right to see his wife several times. Nasrin has gone on two hunger strikes to protest her ill-treatment at the hands of the regime. Her health is of grave concern.
The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention concluded its investigation of Nasrin's case in May and has recently released its opinion. It found the Islamic Republic in violation of its obligations under both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. "The detention of Ms. Nasrin Sotoudeh follows from the exercise of [her] rights and freedoms and her work as a human rights defender," the Working Group found. "There are no grounds to justify restriction of those rights."
Perhaps anticipating an unfavorable outcome in an international legal forum, the Iranian judiciary recently reduced Nasrin's prison term to six years. But every single day in prison is one too many. Her unconditional release—and that of thousands of other political prisoners languishing in the Islamic Republic's jails—is long past due.
The Iranian regime will not observe the basic principles of human rights for its own citizens without outside pressure. Thus the international community must engage Iranian rights defenders and support them with concerted action. The U.N. Security Council should urgently take up the grave status of human rights in Iran. While the appointment of a special rapporteur on human rights in Iran earlier this year was a welcome first step, Tehran's intransigence and refusal to cooperate with him left the rapporteur unable to fulfill his mandate. Only the Security Council, with coercive levers at its disposal, can meaningfully pressure Iran's rulers to stop their violations of citizens' fundamental rights.
International sanctions against Iran's human-rights abusers should also be expanded and deepened. Policy makers in the U.S. and Europe deserve praise for sanctioning leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, agents of the intelligence ministry, and other top officials responsible for the violent crackdown that followed the 2009 uprising. But there is a second tier of less visible officials—including mid-ranking officers in the Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Basij paramilitary, and the regular police force—who bear similar responsibility and deserve punishment. The U.S. and EU should freeze their assets and impose visa bans on these officials and their families. The International Criminal Court would also have ample evidence to prosecute these offenders if empowered by the Security Council to do so.
Finally, the international community must more vigorously highlight the suffering of the Iranian people. To bring about the day when Nasrin and other Iranian dissidents can walk freely in the streets of Iran, we need a plan guided by moral vision. This requires the international community to act boldly in line with its highest ideals.
Ms. Ebadi, an Iranian human rights lawyer, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003. She serves as pro bono counsel to Nasrin Soutedeh in collaboration with Freedom Now, a nongovernmental organization.
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TEHRAN, Iran — Iran's army chief on Tuesday warned an American aircraft carrier not to return to the Persian Gulf in Tehran's latest tough rhetoric over the strategic waterway, part of a feud with the U.S. over new sanctions that has sparked a jump in oil prices.
Gen. Ataollah Salehi spoke as a 10-day Iranian naval exercise ended near the Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Gulf. Iranian officials have said the drill aimed to show that Iran could close the vital oil passage, as it has threatened to do if the U.S. enacts strong new sanctions over Iran's nuclear program.
The strait, leading into the Gulf of Oman and Arabian Sea, is the only possible route for tankers transporting crude from the oil-rich states of the Persian Gulf to markets. A sixth of the world's oil exports passes through it every day.
Iran threatens to take action if the U.S.Navy moves an aircraft carrier into the Persian Gulf after Tehran test fires long range missiles. Video: Reuters.
.Oil prices rose to over $101 a barrel Tuesday amid concerns that rising tensions between Western powers and Iran could lead to crude supply disruptions.
The jump came a day after Iran test-fired a surface-to-surface cruise missile as part of the maneuvers, prompting Iran's navy chief to coast that the strait is "completely under our control."
Gen. Salehi's warning for the U.S. aircraft carrier not to come back seemed aimed at further depicting the strait and the Gulf as under Iran's domination, though there was little way to enforce his warning without military action. The strait is divided between Iran and Oman's territorial waters, and international law requires them to allow free passage through it.
"We recommend to the American warship that passed through the Strait of Hormuz and went to Gulf of Oman not to return to the Persian Gulf," Gen. Salehi was quoted as saying by the state news agency IRNA.
He said Iran's enemies have understood the message of the naval exercises, saying, "We have no plan to begin any irrational act but we are ready against any threat."
The aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis and another vessel exited the Gulf through the Hormuz Strait a week ago, after a visit to Dubai's Jebel Ali port, according to the U.S. Navy's Bahrain-based 5th Fleet. The Fleet did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Gen. Salehi's warning.
Pentagon press secretary George Little issued a written statement Tuesday saying that the U.S. Navy presence in the Gulf is in compliance with international law. And he said it is intended to maintain what he called a "constant state of high vigilance" in order to ensure the flow of sea commerce.
Iran's sabre-rattling over the strait and the Gulf has come in response to U.S. preparations to impose tough new sanctions that would ban dealings with Iran's Central Bank. That would deeply hurt Iran's oil exports since most countries and companies use the bank to conduct purchases of Iranian crude. Iran relies on oil revenues for around 80% of its budget, meaning a cut-off would be devastating to its already weakening economy.
President Barack Obama has signed the sanctions into law but has not yet enacted them. The sanctions would be the strongest yet by the U.S., aimed at forcing Tehran to back of its nuclear program, which many in the West say is intended to produce a nuclear weapon. Iran denies the claim, saying its program is peaceful.
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppé said Tuesday that is country wants Europe to agree on similar sanctions against Iran by Jan. 30 to show its determination to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. He told the French television station i>TELE that there is "no doubt" that Iran is continuing with plans to build a bomb.
Iran's naval maneuvers took place over a 1,250-mile stretch of water beyond the Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, as well as parts of the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden, according to Iranian officials.
A leading Iranian lawmaker said Sunday the maneuvers served as practice for closing the strait if the West enacts sanctions blocking Iranian oil sales. Top Iranian officials made the same threat last week.
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If there were a diagnostic list for the symptoms of a regime gone rogue, Iran would tick off every box. Taking hostages? Check. Sponsoring terrorism? Check. Covertly pursuing nuclear weapons? Check. Under international sanctions? Check. Repressing its own people? Another check.
Then there is Iran's threat to the freedom of the seas. "We recommend to the American warship that passed through the Strait of Hormuz and went to the Gulf of Oman not to return to the Persian Gulf," Iranian army chief Ataollah Salehi said Tuesday, adding darkly that "The Islamic Republic of Iran will not repeat its warning." The Iranians have also been conducting naval exercises and test-firing ballistic and cruise missiles.
As Bradley S. Russell and Max Boot write nearby, the last time Tehran interfered with shipping in the Persian Gulf, during the so-called Tanker War of the 1980s, it didn't exactly come out the winner. The "American warship" that Tehran is now threatening, the USS John C. Stennis, is a Nimitz-class carrier whose air wing alone is more capable than the entire Iranian air force. If the mullahs are serious about carrying out their threats, they're dumber than we thought.
All this bluster is almost certainly a reaction to new U.S. sanctions that target Iran's oil trade—60% of the economy—via its central bank. These, finally, are sanctions with real bite, assuming President Obama doesn't use the waiver written into the law to dull their impact.
Meantime, the best response to Iran's threats would be to send an American aircraft carrier back through the Strait of Hormuz as soon as possible, with flags waving and guns at the ready. If it can't be the Stennis, the USS Eisenhower would drive home the message.
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second post of morning
By BRADLEY S. RUSSELL
AND MAX BOOT
Iran threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz last week, in response to U.S. and European Union moves to apply sanctions on its oil industry. Only 21 miles wide at its narrowest point, the strait sees the passage of roughly 28 tanker ships a day, half loaded, half empty. Some 17 million barrels of oil—20% of oil traded in the world—go through this chokepoint. If Iran really could close the strait, it would do great damage to the world economy. But it would also damage its own already shaky economy because Iran relies on the strait to deliver oil exports to China and other customers.
In any case, closing the strait is not nearly as easy as Adm. Habibollah Sayari, commander of the Iranian Navy, would have it. He said that closing the strait is "as easy as drinking a glass of water." Actually it would be about as easy as drinking an entire bucket of water in one gulp.
Iran tried this trick before and failed miserably. In 1984, during the Iran-Iraq War, Saddam Hussein attacked Iranian oil tankers and the Iranian oil-processing facility at Kharq Island. Iran struck back by attacking Kuwaiti tankers carrying Iraqi crude and then other tankers in the Persian Gulf. In 1987, after years of growing disruptions in this vital waterway, President Ronald Reagan responded by offering to reflag Kuwaiti tankers with the U.S. flag and provide U.S. naval escort. Iran shied away from direct attacks on U.S. warships but continued sowing mines, staging attacks with small patrol boats, and firing a variety of missiles at tankers.
On April 14, 1988, the guided-missile frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts struck an Iranian mine; no sailors were killed but several were injured and the ship nearly sank. The U.S. Navy responded by launching Operation Praying Mantis, its biggest surface combat action since World War II.
Half a dozen U.S. warships in two separate Surface Action Groups moved in to destroy two Iranian oil platforms. The Iranians responded by sending armed speedboats, frigates and F-4 aircraft to fire at the U.S. warships.
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The Iranian navy firing a missile in the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday.
.In defending themselves, the American vessels sank at least three Iranian speedboats, one gunboat and one frigate; other Iranian ships and aircraft were damaged. The only major U.S. loss occurred when a Marine Corps Sea Cobra helicopter crashed, apparently by accident, killing two crewmen.
The war all but ended less than three months later when the guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes mistakenly fired a surface-to-air missile at an Iranian passenger airliner that it had mistaken for a fighter jet. The plane was destroyed and 290 people killed. Although this was an accident, the Iranian regime was convinced that Washington was escalating the conflict and decided to reach a truce with Iraq.
The greatest loss suffered by U.S. forces during this whole conflict occurred in 1987 when an Iraqi aircraft fired an Exocet missile that hit the frigate USS Stark, killing 37 sailors and injuring 21. (Saddam Hussein claimed this was an accident.)
The Iranians had little to show for their efforts: Lloyd's of London estimated that the Tanker War resulted in damage to 546 commercial vessels and the deaths of 430 civilian mariners but many of those losses were caused by Iraq, not Iran. While these attacks temporarily disrupted the free passage of oil, they did not come close to closing the strait.
Despite the unveiling of a new antiship cruise missile called the Qader, Iran's conventional naval and air forces—on display during the Veleyat 90 naval exercises in the Persian Gulf which ended Monday— are still no match for the U.S. and its allies in the region. The U.S. alone has in the area two carrier strike groups, an expeditionary strike force (centered around an amphibious assault ship that is in essence a small aircraft carrier), and numerous land-based aircraft at bases such as Al Udied in Qatar, Al Dafra in the United Arab Emirates, and Isa Air Base in Bahrain. The U.S. and our Arab allies (which are equipped with a growing array of modern American-made equipment such as F-15s and F-16s) could use overwhelming force to destroy Iran's conventional naval forces in very short order.
Iran's real ability to disrupt the flow of oil lies in its asymmetric war-fighting capacity. Iran has thousands of mines(and any ship that can carry a mine is by definition a mine-layer), a small number of midget submarines, thousands of small watercraft that could be used in swarm attacks, and antiship cruise missiles. If the Iranians lay mines, it will take a significant amount of time to clear them. It took several months to clear all mines after the Tanker War, but a much shorter period to clear safe passages through the Persian Gulf to and from oil shipping terminals.
Antiship cruise missiles are mobile, yet those can also be found and destroyed. Yono submarines are short-duration threats—they eventually have to come to port for resupply, and when they do they will be sitting ducks. U.S. forces may take losses, as they did with the hits on the USS Stark and Samuel B. Roberts, but they will prevail and in fairly short order.
The Iranians must realize that the balance of forces does not lie in their favor. By initiating hostilities they risk American retaliation against their most prized assets—their covert nuclear-weapons program. The odds are good, then, that the Iranians will not follow through on their saber-rattling threats.
But this heated rhetoric does suggest how worried the Iranians are about the potential impact of fresh sanctions on their oil industry. All the more reason for the Europeans to proceed with those sanctions.
Mr. Russell, a navy captain, is a visiting fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. In 2010-2011 he was chief of staff to U.S. Navy Central Command/Fifth Fleet in Bahrain. Mr. Boot is a senior fellow in national security studies at the council.
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I do not know the quality of this source, but found the article interesting. It would seem that the US is deploying troops to Israel to gird for war with Iran.
http://www.presstv.com/detail/219346.html
An unnamed source said the military deployment of US anti-missile ships and accompanying support personnel will occur in January and later this spring, Global Research reported.
Commander of the US Third Air Force based in Germany Lt.-Gen Frank Gorenc said it is not just an "exercise," but a "deployment," The Jerusalem Post said.
Washington and Tel Aviv have planned to hold what they call the largest-ever joint military exercise this spring.
The US commander visited Israel two weeks ago to confirm details for “the deployment of several thousand American soldiers to Israel.”
The US General also visited one of Israel's three Iron Dome anti-missile outposts. The Israeli Air Force has announced plans to deploy a fourth Iron Dome system in coming months.
While US troops will be stationed in Israel for an unspecified amount of time, Israeli military personnel will be added to United States European Command (EUCOM) in Germany.
This is while the US is reportedly bringing its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) and ship-based Aegis ballistic missile systems to Israel.
The White House has resumed its anti-Iran war rhetoric after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released a report in November, in which Tehran was accused of conducting activities related to developing nuclear weapons. Iran strongly dismissed the allegations.
US analyst Robert Parry said the documentary evidence showed that IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano was installed with the support of the US and that he privately indicated to US and Israeli officials that he would help advance their goals regarding Iran.
In December, Iran's Navy launched massive 10-day military drills in the strategic Strait of Hormuz to show that the country is ready to defend itself against any attack.
"We wanted to send this message to certain powers that Iran is always prepared to defend itself against foreign aggression," Iran's Navy Deputy Commander Admiral Amir Rastegari told Press TV.
Meanwhile, US President Barack Obama on Saturday signed into law fresh economic sanctions, targeting Iran's Central Bank and financial sector.
Anti-Iran measures provoked by the US and Israel are aimed to deny Iran's right of having peaceful nuclear program.
Tehran, as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the IAEA, has repeatedly stated that its nuclear activities are solely for civilian purposes.
AGB/HGH/IS
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Unable to get that to open BD.
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BENOIT FAUCON
LONDON -- U.S. sanctions against Iran's central bank, if combined with an increasingly likely European oil embargo, are likely to significantly dent Tehran's oil revenue.
But though experts say the sanctions' impact probably will sink in only gradually, they already have started to drive Iran's currency down.
"We could see anywhere between a 5% and 30% decrease in Iranian oil revenue this year, depending on whether the EU enacts an embargo and how aggressively U.S. sanctions are applied," said Trevor Houser, a partner at New York-based economic-research company Rhodium Group.
Until now, existing sanctions against Iran's controversial nuclear program have capped its oil-and-gas production but were offset by buoyant crude prices. But the new measures are directly targeting Iran's oil sales, increasing its transaction costs while potentially forcing the country to sell oil at discounted prices, experts said.
The views come as tensions between Iran and the West have escalated in recent days. The Islamic Republic has threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz -- through which about a third of global seaborne oil exports transit.
That hasn't stopped U.S. President Barack Obama from signing Saturday new legislation sanctioning banks settling oil trades with the Central Bank of Iran. And it emerged Wednesday that the European Union has agreed in principle on an embargo against Iranian oil.
The impact of the measures would be felt only progressively.
The U.S. sanctions against the central bank come with a wide range of exemptions and a grace period of six months. The EU is also debating about how many months it would wait to implement the sanctions and if long-term supply deals should be allowed to be completed.
Yet existing sanctions against Iran already have increased the transaction cost and complexity of buying Iranian goods.
Mohammad Nahavandian, president of Iran's Chamber of Commerce, recently admitted that "sanctions [have been] raising the transaction costs" of buying oil.
Nigel Kushner, chief executive of Whale Rock Legal, a London law firm specializing in international trade and sanctions, said buyers of Iranian products -- for instance petrochemicals -- now routinely use barters against non-oil commodities instead of payments.
But the accumulation of sanctions will make its most-critical impact only once a European oil embargo is finalized.
In a report, Mark Dubowitz, executive director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies -- which is pushing for more Iran sanctions -- said the narrowing of Iranian oil-crude buyers would cut Iran's oil revenue by 7.8% to 8.5% if only Europe stops buying Iranian crude, while there would be a reduction of 37.7% to 41.5% if China is left as the only buyer.
Still, Iran has much leeway to survive tightening pressure. Its external debt stands at 5.4% of its gross domestic product for its 2010/2011 annual budget, according to the International Monetary Fund.
Yet Iran, neighboring Middle-East countries, has also increased its spending to assuage social tensions. Its budget for 2011/2012 is based on an oil price of $81.50 a barrel, compared to $75 a barrel the previous year.
Though officials have shrugged off the impact of new sanctions, the local currency -- the rial -- lost 12% early this week.
Rhodium's Houser said the ability for Iran's Central Bank to intervene will only weaken as sanctions bite.
"That leaves Tehran with two undesirable options for curbing inflation that could, if it gets out of hand, lead to political unrest--significantly raise domestic interest rates or make deep cuts in government spending," he said.
Write to Benoit Faucon at benoit.faucon@dowjones.com
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I do not know the quality of this source, but found the article interesting. It would seem that the US is deploying troops to Israel to gird for war with Iran.
http://www.presstv.com/detail/219346.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6260716.stm
Iran launches English TV channel
Press TV has 26 correspondents in various international locations
Iran's state broadcaster has launched a 24-hour English-language news channel.
Press TV, based in Tehran but with 26 correspondents around the world, says it aims to break a "stranglehold" it says the West has over world media.
Mohammad Sarafraz, vice-president of Iran's state broadcaster, said Press TV would offer "another point of view" unlike Western channels or al-Jazeera.
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With regards to the deployment to Israel I am glad yet dismayed this is clearly wag the tail.
Well this locks up the 80% of the Jewish vote and the money will keep pouring in.
Suddenly the concept of war will no longer be held to be insanity by the MSM. Not when THEIR guy is now hinting at it.
Remember how the MSM would try lock stock and barrel to get any Republican to state that military force should be used or even considered to stop Iran from going nuclear. Every single one would equivicate.
Now Brock may be finally behind the scenes agreeing to this in view of falling Jewish support - just watch the MSM will report it as though it is an ok idea. Just watch.
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While it might be a cynical matter of Baraq having the "tail wag the dog" :wink: unless I mistaken the meaning I took was that this is a report from the IRANIANS-- which leads the analysis down an entirely different path :lol:
Anyway, were the report true, who here amongst us would object?
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"Anyway, were the report true, who here amongst us would object?"
Not me. But I can't stand to give brock any credit for this.
"this is a report from the IRANIANS"
Well to be even more "cynical" the Iranians could be coming out with these reports which suggest Brock is actually going to do the right thing to help him - counter to them loving to keep the guy in power precisely because of his weakness.
Especially with the Repubs on the other side mostly saying they WILL use force to stop them from nucs.
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From the islamist paradigm, US troops in Israel staging to attack Iran is waiving the bloody shirt. They're not trying to boost Buraq, they're energizing their base.
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Your probably right.
That is why I noted "even more cynical".
But that doesn't deflect that Brock has been their best hope (at least till now) if not going forward.
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Your probably right.
That is why I noted "even more cynical".
But that doesn't deflect that Brock has been their best hope (at least till now) if not going forward.
Of course. They are counting on him blinking and selling out Israel. It's a pretty safe bet.
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http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/01/ron-paul-vindicated-on-iran-unfortunately/250955/#.TwfdPCM1K9E.facebook
A week ago Ron Paul tried to convey how the ever-tightening sanctions on Iran--which may soon include an embargo on its oil--look from an Iranian point of view: It's as if China were to blockade the Gulf of Mexico, he said--"an act of war".
This is sheer conjecture; Ron Paul is no expert on Iran. But now someone who does have relevant credentials has weighed in, and the picture he paints is disturbingly reminiscent of the one Paul painted. It suggests we may be closer to war than most people realize.
Vali Nasr, in addition to being a highly respected expert on the Middle East, belongs to a family that, according to Lobelog's sources, has "a direct line into Iranian Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's inner circle." In a Bloomberg View piece that is getting a lot of attention, Nasr reports that "Iran has interpreted sanctions that hurt its oil exports, which account for about half of government revenue, as acts of war." Indeed, the Iranian leadership now sees U.S. policy as "aimed at regime change."
In this light, Iran's recent threats--notably that it will close the Strait of Hormuz in response to an oil embargo--shouldn't be dismissed, says Nasr. "The regime in Tehran is ready for a fight."
The good news is that Nasr thinks war can be averted. The bad news is that to accomplish this America and other Western powers need to "imagine how the situation looks from Tehran"--not exactly a favorite pastime among American politicians these days.
Still, if only for the intellectual exercise, let's do try to imagine what things look like from Iran's point of view.
Iran's nuclear scientists have recently evinced a tendency to get assassinated, and a mysterious explosion at a military facility happened to kill the general in charge of Iran's missile program. These things were almost certainly done by Israel, possibly with American support. If you were Iranian, would you consider assassinations on your soil grounds for attacking the suspected perpetrators?
Well, we know that some notable Americans think assassinating people on American soil is punishable by war. After the alleged Iranian plot to assassinate a Saudi Ambassador in Washington was uncovered, Bill Kristol (whom you may recall from our previous run-up to a disastrous war) recommended that we attack Iran.
But I'm guessing that if I tried this Iran-America analogy out on Kristol, he might detect asymmetries. For example: We're us, whereas they're just them.
Underlying our Iran strategy is the assumption that if we keep ratcheting up the pressure, the regime will eventually say uncle. A problem with this premise is that throughout human history rulers have shown an aversion to being seen by their people as surrendering. Indeed, when you face dissent, as the Iranian regime does, there's actually a certain appeal to confronting an external threat, since confrontation tends to consolidate domestic support. As Nasr puts it, "the ruling clerics are responding with shows of strength to boost solidarity at home."
This doesn't mean Iran's rulers haven't wanted to make a deal. But it does mean the deal would have to leave these rulers with a domestically plausible claim to have benefited from it, and it also means these leaders can't afford to be seen begging for the deal. When President Ahmadinejad visited New York last year, he gave reporters unmistakable signals that he wanted to negotiate, but the Obama administration chose to ignore them. After Ahmadinejad "went home empty handed," reports Nasr, power increasingly shifted to Iranians who argued for confrontation over diplomacy.
Even so, Iran's foreign minister made another appeal to re-open talks only days ago, suggesting that they be held in Turkey. But, as the New York Times reported, western nations interpreted this overture "as an effort by Iran to buy time to continue its program." Got that? If Iranians refuse to negotiate it means they don't want a deal, and if they ask to negotiate it means they don't want a deal.
Nasr says the tightening of the screws is making Iran increasingly determined to get nuclear weapons--not to start a war, but to prevent one. Having seen what happened to Muammar Qaddafi, says Nasr, Iran's leaders worry that foreign powers would "feel safe enough to interfere in the affairs of a non-nuclear-armed state."
This is the kind of thing Ron Paul presumably had in mind when he said Iran may want nuclear weapons in order to get some "respect." But hey, what does Ron Paul know?
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Kind of forgot the whole part of Iran waging asymmetrical war against us since 1979.
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http://www.nationalreview.com/blogs/print/271423
Iran Is at War with Us
By Andrew C. McCarthy
July 9, 2011 4:00 A.M.
‘You can clearly see what they are doing in Iraq.” Sen. Lindsey Graham was talking about the Islamic Republic of Iran, specifically the death trade plied by the mullahs, their Revolutionary Guard Corps, their Hezbollah operatives, and the assorted jihadists under their control. And while the plying is being done “in Iraq,” it is being done against America.
Senator Graham elaborated that Iran is setting the stage to frame the long-scheduled withdrawal from Iraq as a case of the United States being “driven out,” a cowardly retreat under fire. Nor is this happening solely in Iraq. Iran’s fortification of the Afghan Taliban also continues at a steady clip. It may even be spiking now as the planned drawdown of American forces gets under way. Again, the mullahs are determined to pose as Allah’s avengers, casting the infidels out of Dar al-Islam.
They are getting plenty of help from the Obama administration. The U.S. withdrawal is being driven by the political calendar, not conditions on the ground. Thus our enemies — and Iran has always been our principal enemy — get to make it look like whatever they want it to look like.
So, as 33,000 U.S. troops begin making their quietus, the Taliban and its jihadist allies are emboldened, not vanquished. In fact, Fox’s Jennifer Griffin reports that superior Iranian rockets enable our enemies to fire from 13 miles away, twice the range of the Taliban’s former arsenal. With U.S. air power paralyzed by the demagoguery of Iran’s new best friend, Hamid Karzai — the Afghan president minted by our government’s Islamic-democracy project — it gets awfully difficult to defend against such attacks.
Defending themselves is about all our troops will be able to do in the coming months. Karzai and the mullahs have finalized a joint defense and security agreement — in the jihadi pincer, Iran arms both the sharia “democracy” and its Taliban opposition; it’s the American troops getting squeezed. Meanwhile, fresh off the anti-American duet Iraq’s Pres. Jalal Talabani crooned with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at the mullahs’ recent “anti-terrorism” summit, Iran’s vice president visited Baghdad this week to call on Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, another democracy project success story. As they forged deeper economic, security, and cultural ties, they also marked a month in which 15 Americans were killed in Iraq, making it the worst month for U.S. forces in over two years.
You may recall that time in 2009 as the fleeting period of euphoria after President Bush’s troop surge transformed Iraq just as it was about to become a humiliating American failure. According to received Washington wisdom, the surge was a triumph — indeed, so spectacular a triumph that even President Obama now claims the Iraq mission as his own, as if we all share the Obamedia’s amnesia about their hero’s prominence in Harry Reid’s anti-surge legion of “This war is lost” Democrats.
To be sure, Iraq is Obama’s kind of foreign-policy triumph. The strategy was not to defeat the enemy but to stabilize a sharia democracy and protect a population that remains rabidly anti-American. So we have built Baghdad into a reasonably stable Iranian client state, pulled ever deeper into the mullahs’ orbit.
Iran has spent eight years killing Americans in Iraq. We responded by doing nothing. Attacking the source of the problem might have jeopardized Iraq’s fragile new government, whose leading factions are beholden to Tehran, a complication we chose to paper over. In fact, even as democracy-project enthusiasts crowed about Iraq’s purported evolution into a key American ally against the jihad, the Bush administration acceded to Maliki’s demand that Iraq not be used as a staging ground for U.S. operations against other nations (translation: against Iran, the kingpin of the jihad). It seems the only country we’d be permitted to attack from Iraq is Israel. And that’s no joke: Obama adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski actually suggested that the U.S. would shoot Israeli bombers down over Iraq if they dared try to take out Iran’s ripening nuclear arsenal.
Of course, the 15 Americans killed in Iraq last month are fewer than the 19 Americans that Iran killed in Saudi Arabia in 1996, in the Khobar Towers bombing. And it is considerably less than the nearly 3,000 Americans killed on 9/11. Noting that the mullahs had been supporting al-Qaeda since the early 1990s, the 9/11 Commission gingerly related sketchy evidence of Iranian involvement in the suicide hijackings that vaulted the U.S. to war: the provision of safe conduct into and out of Afghanistan for al-Qaeda operatives, the “remarkable coincidence” (to borrow the commission’s phrase) that Hezbollah leaders ended up on the same Iranian transit flights as the future hijackers, etc. Iran even harbored al-Qaeda leaders, including two of Osama bin Laden’s sons, in the years after 9/11.
Yet, these were dots the commission was content to leave unconnected. And no one — not the Bush administration, not the Obama administration, and not Congress — has shown much interest in revisiting them, despite the hundreds of Americans Iran has since killed, and continues to kill.
Here at home, a phony debate rages over whether conservatives are becoming “isolationist” — whether we are the Right’s version of George McGovern’s “Come Home America” Left. But most of us have never been isolationist. We’ve been realists about the enemy — specifically, about the need to defeat rather than court the enemy.
In the days after 9/11, President Bush outlined the only plan that had a chance of achieving victory: Hunt terrorists down wherever they operate and treat terror-abetting regimes as terrorists. That should have been the mullahs’ death knell. Instead, we’ve tried to fight a war the enemy prosecutes globally as if it were happening in only two countries, neither of them Iran.
Putting aside the merits of a Marshall Plan analogue for the Muslim Middle East, the original Marshall Plan was undertaken only after total victory was achieved over America’s enemies. There could be no free, independent, pro-American Europe without Normandy and D-Day and Hitler’s annihilation. If you leave the enemy undisturbed while indulging in self-congratulation over democracy and the Arab Spring, you’re choreographing a farce. I’d call it “Springtime for Khamenei,” except the tragic joke is on us.
“Intervention” in 2011 has become what “negotiation” was in the Obama hey-day of 2009 — something purportedly good for its own sake. The inconvenient reality is that, if it is not based on a strategy designed to defeat America’s enemies, it is inevitably counterproductive. It gives our enemies countless opportunities to show, quite dramatically, that we lack both resolve and a cogent plan.
It is not isolationist to conclude that if we are not in it to win, we are wasting time, billions of dollars that we don’t have, and precious lives. I may be wrong to deem it highly unlikely that true democracy will ever take in Islamic soil. I may be wrong in concluding that the Arab Spring is diplo-lipstick on a pig better seen as the Islamist Ascendancy. But I do know one thing for certain: Freedom has no chance of advancing in the Middle East, any more than it would have advanced in Europe, unless we conquer the enemy.
There was a moment in time when we knew that. It was long ago, though, and perhaps beyond recapturing by a war-weary, financially tapped-out nation.
If we’re not in it to win it — for victory, not for tilting at windmills — we should come home. But regardless of what we do, what was true in 1983, when Hezbollah bombed our Marines, remains true today: Iran is at war with us, whether we choose to engage or not. If we are not going to win, we are going to lose. Happy talk about democracy and springtime won’t obscure the fact that there is no middle ground.
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"It's as if China were to blockade the Gulf of Mexico, he said--"an act of war".
To further this ridiculous analogy:
That would be like China stating they want to murder every Japanese and drive them off their islands into the sea.
"This is the kind of thing Ron Paul presumably had in mind when he said Iran may want nuclear weapons in order to get some "respect." But hey, what does Ron Paul know?"
Any idiot can see this is what Iran wants. While they murder all Jews in Israel.
"Underlying our Iran strategy is the assumption that if we keep ratcheting up the pressure, the regime will eventually say uncle. A problem with this premise is that throughout human history rulers have shown an aversion to being seen by their people as surrendering."
Well that has been Brock's assumption all along. I agree this doesn't work. Allowing Iran to have nucs as Paul so desires won't work either. And surely if one sees Iran trying to get "respect" now just wait till they get 20 or 50 or 100 nuclear devices say in several years.
"Ron Paul is no expert on Iran. But now someone who does have relevant credentials has weighed in, and the picture he paints is disturbingly reminiscent of the one Paul painted. It suggests we may be closer to war than most people realize."
Sorry. If this is Ron Pauls's logic as this writer suggests than it is no wonder most consider him a nut job.
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By BOB DAVIS, WAYNE MA and JEREMY PAGE
BEIJING—U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is likely to get a skeptical hearing in Beijing on Tuesday and Wednesday as he presses leaders to reduce purchases of Iranian oil and explains tough new U.S. sanctions rules meant to hobble Iran's financial sector.
Chinese officials are wary about cutting off a major source of supply, as are their counterparts in Tokyo, which Mr. Geithner will visit after Beijing. In China's case, the issue is also overlaid with nationalist politics. It doesn't want to be seen as succumbing to increased U.S. pressure to punish another nation, particularly when the latest effort was driven by the U.S. Congress, not a new United Nations agreement.
Indeed, if the European Union goes through with plans to cut off oil imports from Iran, and China were one of its few big buyers left, Beijing could find itself in a strong position to wring commercial concessions from Iran on a series of oil-industry contract disputes. The U.S. and Europe have been trying to press Iran to scrap a nuclear-weapons program; Iran says it isn't developing such weapons.
"To the U.S., the Chinese will be passive-aggressive," says Patrick Chovanec, a business professor at Beijing's Tsinghua University. "They won't tell the U.S. they're not going along, but implicitly it will be 'You don't tell us what to do.' "
Vice Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai bluntly dismissed the new U.S. sanctions effort. "These issues cannot be resolved through sanctions," he said at a media briefing on Monday. "Negotiations are also needed to solve the issue."
President Barack Obama recently signed into law a measure he initially opposed that would bar from U.S. financial markets foreign financial institutions that do business with Iran's central bank, which plays a critical role in facilitating trade with Iran. One way for a nation to get an exemption is to show a "significant reduction" in Iranian oil imports. The law would increase pressure on Chinese financial institutions that finance Chinese business deals in Iran.
The administration says it won changes in the legislation before it became law to give it more flexibility. "We encourage everyone that trades with Iran to significantly reduce their oil imports," said a Treasury official.
U.S. officials say China has been abiding by the requirements of U.N.-approved sanctions, but they have been trying to encourage Beijing to go further by—among other things—instructing Chinese banks not to deal with any Iranian counterparts engaged in the country's weapons program.
Even before the new law, Washington believed that China's largest banks were becoming increasingly cooperative with U.S. sanctions efforts. But Washington is still concerned that Iran is seeking new "access points" to international finance through smaller banks in Hong Kong and mainland China.
In September, David Cohen, the undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, visited China and Hong Kong to persuade local officials and bankers to help strengthen the sanctions against Iran and North Korea. Since then other U.S. officials have had discussions on sanctions with Chinese oil companies and Chinese government agencies.
In 2011 through Nov. 30, China's oil imports from Iran rose roughly 30% from the year-ago period. China imports about 11% of its crude oil from Iran, making Iran its No. 3 supplier after Saudi Arabia and Angola.
Since December, though, exports have begun to fall compared to a year earlier. Industry analysts doubt that's the result of U.S. pressure. Rather, negotiations between China United Petroleum & Chemicals Co, known as Unipec, and the National Iranian Oil Co., over commercial issues have dragged on longer than expected, they say.
But U.S. pressure may have played a role in China slowing down the pace of investment in oil and gas projects. Chinese oil firms are concerned about being hit by U.S. sanctions, say energy executives in Beijing. Even so, the more isolated Iran becomes economically, the more leverage Beijing may have in its various disputes with Iran. In 2010, China was Iran's largest oil import market, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, with Japan No. 2.
China is caught between its extensive commercial relations with Iran and its need to keep strong ties to the U.S. economy, said Pang Zhongying, director of Nankai University's Institute of Global Studies. "China has no choice but to prepare for the worst and try to avoid Chinese losses" in the U.S.-Iran showdown, he said.
Appearing to give in to the U.S. would play poorly at home for Chinese officials. "It will only take a few years before China is faced with zero oil," said a posting on an online forum of People's Daily, the Communist Party's newspaper. "By that time, the U.S. and EU will be strangling us."
Mr. Geithner's visit will mark a rare opportunity to discuss the issue with the two men who are expected to spearhead the new leadership of the Communist Party following a once-a-decade power transition beginning later this year.
On Wednesday, he is expected to meet Vice President Xi Jinping, the man due to take over as party chief in October or November this year, as well as Vice Premier Li Keqiang, who is widely expected to become premier after the leadership change.
U.S. officials are keen to gain to as much access as possible this year to the two men, about whom little is known outside the party elite. Mr Geithner's visit will also allow both sides to discuss preparations for Mr Xi's expected visit to the U.S. later this year, probably in February.
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An assailant on a motorcycle attached magnetic bombs on Wednesday to the car of an Iranian university professor specializing in petroleum, killing him and wounding two others, an Iranian semiofficial news agency reported.
The attack closely resembled earlier attacks on scientists allegedly connected to Tehran's controversial nuclear program.
The killing of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan was similar to previous apparent assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists that Tehran has blamed on Israel and the United States. Both countries have denied the accusations.
Mr. Roshan, 32, was inside the Iranian-assembled Peugeot 405 car together with two others when the bomb exploded near Gol Nabi Street in north Tehran, Fars reported. It wasn't immediately clear if Mr. Ahmadi was involved in Iran's nuclear program.
Fars described the explosion as a "terrorist attack" targeting Roshan, a graduate of the prestigious Sharif University of Technology in Tehran.
A similar bomb explosion on Jan. 12, 2010, killed Tehran University professor Masoud Ali Mohammadi, a senior physics professor. He was killed when a bomb-rigged motorcycle exploded near his car as he was about to leave for work.
In November 2010, a pair of back-to-back bomb attacks in different parts of the capital killed one nuclear scientist and wounded another. The slain scientist, Majid Shahriari, was a member of the nuclear-engineering faculty at Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran and cooperated with the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. The wounded scientist, Fereidoun Abbasi, was appointed head of Iran's atomic agency.
The United States and other countries say Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons technology. Iran denies the allegations, saying that its program is intended for peaceful purposes
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As a supervisor at the uranium enrichment plant in Natanz, Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan was engaged in building a nuclear bomb in violation of four binding U.N. Security Council resolutions. On Wednesday he was assassinated after a bomb was attached to his car, making him the fifth senior Iranian nuclear scientist known to have been killed in recent years.
His death will serve a useful purpose if it convinces a critical mass of his colleagues to cease pursuing an atomic critical mass. That wouldn't be a bad way to bring the confrontation over Iran's nuclear program to a peaceful conclusion. But don't count on it.
Opponents of Tehran's nuclear ambitions have been attempting for years to use a combination of diplomacy, sanctions and covert action to persuade the mullahs that they have more to lose than gain from building a bomb. So far, none of it has worked: Diplomacy has mostly allowed the Iranians to play for time. Sanctions so far have been too narrowly targeted to have much effect, though that may change now that the U.S. and Europe are finally targeting Iran's oil trade.
As for covert activity, we may someday learn the full story of who did what, how they did it, and what effect it all had. But to judge by last November's report on Iran's nuclear programs by the International Atomic Energy Agency, Tehran is closer than ever to a bomb. That's despite the Stuxnet computer worm, the assassinations, and last year's mysterious explosion at a missile factory.
What goes in the cloak-and-dagger world also goes for public diplomacy. Americans can take pride in last week's dramatic rescue by the destroyer USS Kidd of 13 Iranian sailors who had spent 40 days as hostages of Somali pirates. But if the Administration thought that would break the tension following Iran's threats over the Strait of Hormuz, Tehran had other ideas.
Days after the Kidd rescue, Iran imposed a death sentence on 28-year-old Amir Hekmati, an Arizona-born Iranian-American and former U.S. Marine. Mr. Hekmati was charged with spying for the CIA and convicted of being moharebe, or an enemy of God, the worst offense in the Iranian penal code. The U.S. government categorically denies that Mr. Hekmati worked as a spy. His family says he was in Iran on his first visit to see his grandmothers when he was arrested last August.
The Islamic Republic has a long history of detaining foreigners on dubious espionage charges and then trying to use them as diplomatic bargaining chips. But if Mr. Hekmati is simply their latest victim, the death sentence is unprecedented for an American citizen. It is also a reminder of how little U.S. gestures like Thursday's rescue count in Tehran's calculus. An evil regime will not be swayed by the conspicuous performance of good deeds.
Much of the world wants to believe that force won't be necessary to stop Iran's nuclear ambitions, but the explosions and killings show that a covert war involving deadly force is already underway. The Obama Administration says Iran plotted to kill a Saudi ambassador in a Washington, D.C. restaurant, and Iran is trying to kill U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan as it previously did in Iraq. Many more people will die if the world doesn't get serious about stopping this rogue regime.
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Baraq's weakness in bugging out of Iraq bears its inevitable fruit.
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Iran, the U.S. and the Strait of Hormuz Crisis
By George Friedman | January 17, 2012
The United States reportedly sent a letter to Iran via multiple intermediaries last
week warning Tehran that any attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz constituted a red
line for Washington. The same week, a chemist associated with Iran's nuclear program
was killed in Tehran. In Ankara, Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani met with
Turkish officials and has been floating hints of flexibility in negotiations over
Iran's nuclear program.
This week, a routine rotation of U.S. aircraft carriers is taking place in the
Middle East, with the potential for three carrier strike groups to be on station in
the U.S. Fifth Fleet's area of operations and a fourth carrier strike group based in
Japan about a week's transit from the region. Next week, Gen. Michael Dempsey,
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will travel to Israel to meet with senior
Israeli officials. And Iran is scheduling another set of war games in the Persian
Gulf for February that will focus on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps'
irregular tactics for closing the Strait of Hormuz.
While tensions are escalating in the Persian Gulf, the financial crisis in Europe
has continued, with downgrades in France's credit rating the latest blow. Meanwhile,
China continued its struggle to maintain exports in the face of economic weakness
among its major customers while inflation continued to increase the cost of Chinese
exports.
Fundamental changes in how Europe and China work and their long-term consequences
represent the major systemic shifts in the international system. In the more
immediate future, however, the U.S.-Iranian dynamic has the most serious potential
consequences for the world.
The U.S.-Iranian Dynamic
The increasing tensions in the region are not unexpected. As we have argued for some
time, the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the subsequent decision to withdraw created a
massive power vacuum in Iraq that Iran needed -- and was able -- to fill. Iran and
Iraq fought a brutal war in the 1980s that caused about 1 million Iranian
casualties, and Iran's fundamental national interest is assuring that no Iraqi
regime able to threaten Iranian national security re-emerges. The U.S. invasion and
withdrawal from Iraq provided Iran an opportunity to secure its western frontier,
one it could not pass on.
If Iran does come to have a dominant influence in Iraq -- and I don't mean Iran
turning Iraq into a satellite -- several things follow. Most important, the status
of the Arabian Peninsula is subject to change. On paper, Iran has the most
substantial conventional military force of any nation in the Persian Gulf. Absent
outside players, power on paper is not insignificant. While technologically
sophisticated, the military strength of the Arabian Peninsula nations on paper is
much smaller and they lack the Iranian military's ideologically committed manpower.
But Iran's direct military power is more the backdrop than the main engine of
Iranian power. It is the strength of Tehran's covert capabilities and influence that
makes Iran significant. Iran's covert intelligence capability is quite good. It has
spent decades building political alliances by a range of means, and not only by
nefarious methods. The Iranians have worked among the Shia, but not exclusively so;
they have built a network of influence among a range of classes and religious and
ethnic groups. And they have systematically built alliances and relationships with
significant figures to counter overt U.S. power. With U.S. military power departing
Iraq, Iran's relationships become all the more valuable.
The withdrawal of U.S. forces has had a profound psychological impact on the
political elites of the Persian Gulf. Since the decline of British power after World
War II, the United States has been the guarantor of the Arabian Peninsula's elites
and therefore of the flow of oil from the region. The foundation of that guarantee
has been military power, as seen in the response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in
1990. The United States still has substantial military power in the Persian Gulf,
and its air and naval forces could likely cope with any overt provocation by Iran.
But that's not how the Iranians operate. For all their rhetoric, they are cautious
in their policies. This does not mean they are passive. It simply means that they
avoid high-risk moves. They will rely on their covert capabilities and
relationships. Those relationships now exist in an environment in which many
reasonable Arab leaders see a shift in the balance of power, with the United States
growing weaker and less predictable in the region and Iran becoming stronger. This
provides fertile soil for Iranian allies to pressure regional regimes into
accommodations with Iran.
The Syrian Angle
Events in Syria compound this situation. The purported imminent collapse of Syrian
President Bashar al Assad's regime in Syria has proven less imminent than many in
the West imagined. At the same time, the isolation of the al Assad regime by the
West -- and more important, by other Arab countries -- has created a situation where
the regime is more dependent than ever on Iran.
Should the al Assad regime -- or the Syrian regime without al Assad -- survive, Iran
would therefore enjoy tremendous influence with Syria, as well as with Hezbollah in
Lebanon. The current course in Iraq coupled with the survival of an Alawite regime
in Syria would create an Iranian sphere of influence stretching from western
Afghanistan to the Mediterranean. This would represent a fundamental shift in the
regional balance of power, and probably would redefine Iranian relations with the
Arabian Peninsula. This is obviously in Iran's interest. It is not in the interests
of the United States, however.
The United States has sought to head this off via a twofold response. Clandestinely,
it has engaged in an active campaign of sabotage and assassination targeting Iran's
nuclear efforts. Publicly, it has created a sanctions regime against Iran, most
recently targeting Iran's oil exports. The later effort faces many challenges,
however.
Japan, the No. 2 buyer of Iranian crude, has pledged its support, but has not
outlined concrete plans to reduce its purchases. The Chinese and Indians -- Iran's
No. 1 and 3 buyers of crude, respectively -- will continue to buy from Iran despite
increased U.S. pressure. In spite of U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's
visit last week, the Chinese are not prepared to impose sanctions, and the Russians
are not likely to enforce sanctions even if they agreed to them. Turkey is unwilling
to create a confrontation with Iran and is trying to remain a vital trade conduit
for the Iranians regardless of sanctions. At the same time, while the Europeans seem
prepared to participate in harder-hitting sanctions on Iranian oil, they already
have delayed action on these sanctions and certainly are in no position politically
or otherwise to participate in military action. The European economic crisis is at
root a political crisis, so even if the Europeans could add significant military
weight,
which they generally lack, concerted action of any sort is unlikely.
Neither, for that matter, does the United States have the ability to do much
militarily. Invading Iran is out of the question. A nation of about 70 million
people, Iran's mountainous geography makes direct occupation impossible given
available American forces.
Air operations against Iran are an option, but they could not be confined to nuclear
facilities. Iran still doesn't have nuclear weapons, and while nuclear weapons would
compound the strategic problem, the problem would still exist without them. The
center of gravity of Iran's power is the relative strength of its conventional
forces in the region. Absent those, Iran would be less capable of wielding covert
power, as the psychological matrix would shift.
An air campaign against Iran's conventional forces would play to American military
strengths, but it has two problems. First, it would be an extended campaign, one
lasting months. Iran's capabilities are large and dispersed, and as seen in Desert
Storm and Kosovo against weaker opponents, such operations take a long time and are
not guaranteed to be effective. Second, the Iranians have counters. One, of course,
is the Strait of Hormuz. The second is the use of its special operations forces and
allies in and out of the region to conduct terror attacks. An extended air campaign
coupled with terrorist attacks could increase distrust of American power rather than
increase it among U.S. allies, to say nothing of the question of whether Washington
could sustain political support in a coalition or within the United States itself.
The Covert Option
The U.S. and Israel both have covert options as well. They have networks of
influence in the region and highly capable covert forces, which they have said
publicly that they would use to limit Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons without
resorting to overt force. We assume, though we lack evidence, that the assassination
of the Iranian chemist associated with the country's nuclear program last week was
either a U.S. or Israeli operation or some combination of the two. Not only did it
eliminate a scientist, it also bred insecurity and morale problems among those
working on the program. It also signaled the region that the United States and
Israel have options inside Iran.
The U.S. desire to support an Iranian anti-government movement generally has failed.
Tehran showed in 2009 that it could suppress demonstrations, and it was obvious that
the demonstrators did not have the widespread support needed to overcome such
repression. Though the United States has sought to support internal dissidents in
Iran since 1979, it has not succeeded in producing a meaningful threat to the
clerical regime. Therefore, covert operations are being aimed directly against the
nuclear program with the hope that successes there might ripple through other more
immediately significant sectors.
As we have long argued, the Iranians already have a "nuclear option," namely, the
prospect of blockading the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 35 percent of
seaborne crude and 20 percent of the world's traded oil passes daily. Doing so would
hurt them, too, of course. But failing to deter an air or covert campaign, they
might choose to close off the strait. Temporarily disrupting the flow of oil, even
intermittently, could rapidly create a global economic crisis given the fragility of
the world economy.
The United States does not want to see that. Washington will be extremely cautious
in its actions unless it can act with a high degree of assurance that it can prevent
such a disruption, something difficult to guarantee. It also will restrain Israel,
which might have the ability to strike at a few nuclear facilities but lacks the
force to completely eliminate the program much less target Iran's conventional
capability and manage the consequences of that strike in the Strait of Hormuz. Only
the United States could do all that, and given the possible consequences, it will be
loathe to attempt it.
The United States continues, therefore, with sanctions and covert actions while Iran
continues building its covert power in Iraq and in the region. Each will try to
convince the region that its power will be supreme in a year. The region is
skeptical of both, but will have to live with one of the two, or with an ongoing
test of wills -- an unnerving prospect. Each side is seeking to magnify its power
for psychological effect without crossing a red line that prompts the other to take
extreme measures. Iran signals its willingness to attempt to close Hormuz and its
development of nuclear weapons, but doesn't cross the line to actually closing the
strait or detonating a nuclear device. The United States pressures Iran and moves
forces around, but doesn't cross the red line of commencing military actions. Thus,
each avoids triggering unacceptable actions by the other.
The problem for the United States is that the status quo ultimately works against
it. If al Assad survives and if the situation in Iraq proceeds as it has been
proceeding, then Iran is creating a reality that will define the region. The United
States does not have a broad and effective coalition, and certainly not one that
would rally in the event of war. It has only Israel, and Israel is as uneasy with
direct military action as the United States is. It does not want to see a failed
attack and it does not want to see more instability in the Arab world. For all its
rhetoric, Israel has a weak hand to play. The only virtue of the American hand is
that it is stronger -- but only relatively speaking.
For the United States, preventing the expansion of an Iranian sphere of influence is
a primary concern. Iraq is going to be a difficult arena to stop Iran's expansion.
Syria therefore is key at present. Al Assad appears weak, and his replacement by a
Sunni government would limit -- but not destroy -- any Iranian sphere of influence.
It would be a reversal for Iran, and the United States badly needs to apply one. But
the problem is that the United States cannot be seen as the direct agent of regime
change in Syria, and al Assad is not as weak as has been claimed. Even so, Syria is
where the United States can work to block Iran without crossing Iran's red lines.
The normal outcome of a situation like this one, in which neither Iran nor the
United States can afford to cross the other's red lines since the consequences would
be too great for each, would be some sort of negotiation toward a longer-term
accommodation. Ideology aside -- and the United States negotiating with the "Axis of
Evil" or Iran with the "Great Satan" would be tough sells to their respective
domestic audiences -- the problem with this is that it is difficult to see what each
has to offer the other. What Iran wants -- a dominant position in the region and a
redefinition of how oil revenues are allocated and distributed -- would make the
United States dependent on Iran. What the United States wants -- an Iran that does
not build a sphere of influence, but instead remains within its borders -- would
cost Iran a historic opportunity to assert its longstanding claims.
We find ourselves in a situation in which neither side wants to force the other into
extreme steps and neither side is in a position to enter into broader
accommodations. And that's what makes the situation dangerous. When fundamental
issues are at stake, each side is in a position to profoundly harm the other if
pressed, and neither side is in a position to negotiate a broad settlement, a long
game of chess ensues. And in that game of chess, the possibilities of
miscalculation, of a bluff that the other side mistakes for an action, are very
real.
Europe and China are redefining the way the world works. But kingdoms run on oil, as
someone once said, and a lot of oil comes through Hormuz. Iran may or may not be
able to close the strait, and that reshapes Europe and China. The New Year thus
begins where we expected: at the Strait of Hormuz.
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Very interesting piece, not all sunshine and roses.
http://www.michaelyon-online.com/images/pdf/mccaffrey-nbc-iran-nukes-and-oil-january-122012.pdf
WSJ:
Mark Helprin:
Iran will be able to sea launch nukes from off our coasts or detonate in our harbors, Obama should take them out.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203518404577096851732704524.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion
By MARK HELPRIN
To assume that Iran will not close the Strait of Hormuz is to assume that primitive religious fanatics will perform cost-benefit analyses the way they are done at Wharton. They won't, especially if the oil that is their life's blood is threatened. If Iran does close the strait, we will fight an air and naval war derivative of and yet peripheral to the Iranian nuclear program, a mortal threat the president of the United States has inadequately addressed.
A mortal threat when Iran is not yet in possession of a nuclear arsenal? Yes, because immediately upon possession all remedies are severely restricted. Without doubt, Iran has long wanted nuclear weapons—to deter American intervention in its and neighboring territories; to threaten Europe and thereby cleave it from American interests in the Middle East; to respond to the former Iraqi nuclear effort; to counter the contiguous nuclear presences in Pakistan, Russia and the U.S. in the Gulf; to neutralize Israel's nuclear deterrent so as to limit it to the attrition of conventional battle, or to destroy it with one lucky shot; to lead the Islamic world; to correct the security imbalance with Saudi Arabia, which aided by geography and American arms now outclasses it; and to threaten the U.S. directly.
In the absence of measures beyond pinpoint sanctions and unenforceable resolutions, Iran will get nuclear weapons, which in its eyes are an existential necessity. We have long known and done nothing about this, preferring to dance with the absurd Iranian claim that it is seeking electricity. With rampant inflation and unemployment, a housing crisis, and gasoline rationing, why spend $1,000-$2,000 per kilowatt to build nuclear plants instead of $400-$800 for gas, when you possess the second largest gas reserves in the world? In 2005, Iran consumed 3.6 trillion cubic feet of its 974 trillion cubic feet of proven reserves, which are enough to last 270 years. We know that in 2006—generation exceeding consumption by 10%—Iran exported electricity and planned a high-tension line to Russia to export more.
Accommodationists argue that a rational Iran can be contained. Not the Iran with a revered tradition of deception; that during its war with Iraq pushed 100,000 young children to their deaths clearing minefields; that counts 15% of its population as "Volunteer Martyrs"; that chants "Death to America" at each session of parliament; and whose president states that no art "is more beautiful . . . than the art of the martyr's death." Not the Iran in thrall to medieval norms and suffering continual tension and crises.
Its conceptions of nuclear strategy are very likely to be looser, and its thresholds lower, than those of Russia and China, which are in turn famously looser and lower than our own. And yet Eisenhower and Churchill weighed a nuclear option in Korea, Kennedy a first strike upon the U.S.S.R., and Westmoreland upon North Vietnam. How then can we be certain that Iran is rational and containable?
Enlarge Image
Associated Press
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Inexpert experts will state that Iran cannot strike with nuclear weapons. But let us count the ways. It has the aerial tankerage to sustain one or two planes that might slip past air defenses between it and Israel, Europe, or the U.S., combining radar signatures with those of cleared commercial flights. As Iran increases its ballistic missile ranges and we strangle our missile defenses, America will face a potential launch from Iranian territory.
Iran can sea-launch from off our coasts. Germany planned this in World War II. Subsequently, the U.S. completed 67 water-supported launches, ending as recently as 1980; the U.S.S.R. had two similar programs; and Iran itself has sea-launched from a barge in the Caspian. And if in 2007, for example, 1,100 metric tons of cocaine were smuggled from South America without interdiction, we cannot dismiss the possibility of Iranian nuclear charges of 500 pounds or less ending up in Manhattan or on Pennsylvania Avenue.
The probabilities of the above are subject to the grave multiplication of nuclear weapons. Of all things in respect to the Iranian nuclear question, this is the most overlooked. A 1-in-20 chance of breaking a leg is substantially different from a 1-in-20 chance of dying, itself different from a 1-in-20 chance of half a million people dying. Cost drastically changes the nature of risk, although we persist in ignoring this. Assuming that we are a people worthy of defending ourselves, what can be done?
Much easier before Iran recently began to burrow into bedrock, it is still possible for the U.S., and even Israel at greater peril, to halt the Iranian nuclear program for years to come. Massive ordnance penetrators; lesser but precision-guided penetrators "drilling" one after another; fuel-air detonations with almost the force of nuclear weapons; high-power microwave attack; the destruction of laboratories, unhardened targets, and the Iranian electrical grid; and other means, can be combined to great effect.
Unlike North Korea, Iran does not yet possess nuclear weapons, does not have the potential of overwhelming an American ally, and is not of sufficient concern to Russia and China, its lukewarm patrons, for them to war on its behalf. It is incapable of withholding its oil without damaging itself irreparably, and even were it to cease production entirely, the Saudis—in whose interest the elimination of Iranian nuclear potential is paramount—could easily make up the shortfall. Though Iran might attack Saudi oil facilities, it could not damage them fatally. The Gulf would be closed until Iranian air, naval, and missile forces there were scrubbed out of existence by the U.S., probably France and Britain, and the Saudis themselves, in a few weeks.
It is true that Iranian proxies would attempt to exact a price in terror world-wide, but this is not new, we would brace for the reprisals, and although they would peak, they would then subside. The cost would be far less than that of permitting the power of nuclear destruction to a vengeful, martyrdom-obsessed state in the midst of a never-subsiding fury against the West.
Any president of the United States fit for the office should someday, soon, say to the American people that in his judgment Iran—because of its longstanding and implacable push for nuclear weapons, its express hostility to the U.S., Israel and the West, and its record of barbarity and terror—must be deprived of the capacity to wound this country and its allies such as they have never been wounded before.
Relying solely upon his oath, holding in abeyance any consideration of politics or transient opinion, and eager to defend his decision in exquisite detail, he should order the armed forces of the United States to attack and destroy the Iranian nuclear weapons complex. When they have complied, and our pilots are in the air on their way home, they will have protected our children in their beds—and our children's children, many years from now, in theirs. May this country always have clear enough sight and strong enough will to stand for itself in the face of mortal threat, and in time.
Mr. Helprin, a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, is the author of, among other works, the novels "Winter's Tale" (Harcourt) and "A Soldier of the Great War" (Harcourt).
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If I read Helprin correctly, he is calling for the President to war upon Iran without a declaration of war.
One notes that getting a declaration of war would ruin the element of surprise , , ,
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Does Iran have torpedos which could seriosly threatened US ships? This is old but may be applicable. Torpedo fast but sub would have to get close and also the missile is not guidable:
Iran's High Speed Torpedo Scam
April 4, 2006: Iran recently announced the successful test of a new, high-speed torpedo, one that could move through the water at speeds of up to 100 meters a second. This is four times as fast as conventional torpedoes, and is thus nearly "unavoidable" by its intended target.
The new Iranian weapon is apparently based upon Russia's VA-111 Shkval (Squall) torpedo. The Shkval is a high-speed supercavitating rocket-propelled torpedo originally designed to be a rapid-reaction defense against US submarines. Basically an underwater missile, the solid-rocket propelled torpedo achieves its speed by producing an envelope of supercavitating bubbles from its nose and skin, which coat the entire weapon surface in a thin layer of gas. This drastically reduces metal-to-water friction. The torpedo leaves the tube at nearly a hundred kilometers an hour, then lights its rocket motor. In tests in the 1990s the Shkval reportedly had an 80 percent kill probability at a range about seven kilometers, although steerability was reportedly limited.
The reliability of such rocket-propelled torpedoes remains uncertain. The much publicized loss of the Russian submarine "Kursk" was, according to some sources, likely due to an accidental rocket motor start of such a torpedo while still aboard the boat. News of this new Iranian weapon was accompanied by the announcement that Iran had also tested a new ballistic missile, the Fajr-3, which employs some stealth technology and carries several warheads.
Iran's possession and successful testing of this weapon is troublesome for several reasons. One is Iran's increasing belligerence, especially towards nuclear-armed Israel (which is estimated to have at least 200 nuclear weapons and the missiles and submarines to deliver them) as well as an almost equal antipathy towards the US. Another reason to worry is Russia's apparent intent to continue close economic ties with Iran and the resulting transfer of its technology to this Islamic state run by fanatics and others who are apparently just plain nuts.
Iran is believed to have three late-model Kilo class SSKs bought from Russia, eight mini-subs purchased from North Korea, and several older boats of unknown type. The navy has several dozen fast attack boats that might carry the new torpedo but whose capabilities are in other ways modest. Its small fleet of P-3K "Orion" aircraft could conceivably also carry such a torpedo although it is unknown if Iran plans to arm its Orions with the new torpedo. Iran's navy is the smallest of its armed forces.
However, there is also the matter of credibility and capability. For decades, Iran has continually boasted of new, Iranian designed and manufactured weapons, only to have the rather more somber truth leak out later. Iran's weapons design capabilities are primitive, but the government has some excellent publicists, who always manage to grab some headlines initially, before anyone can question the basic facts behind these amazing new weapons. Take, for example, the new wonder torpedo. The Russians have not had any success convincing the world's navy that their rocket propelled torpedo is a real threat. For one thing, the attacking sub has to get relatively close (within seven kilometers) to use it. Modern anti-submarine tactics focus on preventing subs from getting that close. For that reason, the Russians themselves tout the VA-111 Shkval torpedo as a specialized anti-submarine weapon for Russian subs being stalked by other subs. This is also questionable, because Shkval is essentially unguided. You have to turn the firing sub and line it up so that the Shkval, on leaving the torpedo tube and lighting off its rocket motor, will be aimed directly at the distant target. Do the math, and you will see that there is little margin for error, or chance of success, with such a weapon. If the Iranians bought the Shkval technology from Russia, they got the bad end of the deal.
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I gather they also claim mines that lurk on the bottom which are then released to float up as a ship passes overhead.
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Japan on Thursday became the first country to officially inform Washington that it
would seek a waiver from pending U.S. sanctions on foreign institutions doing
business with Iran's central bank. Japanese officials delivered the message to a
visiting U.S. government delegation. Other importers of Iranian crude, including
India, China and South Korea, have either waffled in their commitment to support the
U.S.-led sanctions or expressed an outright dismissal of them.
Washington passed sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran as part of a larger defense
authorization bill Dec. 31. Nations that agree to abide by the sanctions have a
six-month window to comply, during which time they can continue buying crude from
Iran. This is similar to proposed EU sanctions that will be discussed Jan. 23. As
with the 2010 U.N. sanctions banning gasoline sales to Iran, these sanctions are
unlikely to have the desired effect of crippling Iran's economy to the point of
Iranian capitulation. The same goes for the European Union's planned embargo, which
will be replete with loopholes for objecting states. Beyond trying to financially
strain Iran, the sanctions rhetoric is designed to keep Iran and its nuclear
ambitions in the headlines and to demonstrate publicly that action is being taken
against Iran, while quieter clandestine efforts are in play.
The last three months have seen the latest round of a cycle that has played out
repeatedly over the last several years: Israel escalates claims that Iran is close
to attaining a bomb that could threaten the existence of the Jewish state. The
United States and Europe then propose hardened sanctions aimed at deterring that
activity -- while Washington makes sure to note that military options remain on the
table -- and Iran responds by threatening to disrupt the shipment of oil through the
Strait of Hormuz, enervating global energy markets. The rhetoric in this
circumstance belies the actors' capabilities. Israel knows it has limited ability to
launch a successful airstrike on Iran, while the United States wants to avoid a new
war with a Persian Gulf state, and Tehran does not want to incur the economic cost
of shutting down the Strait of Hormuz.
Israeli rhetoric markedly shifted Wednesday. Defense Minister Ehud Barak told
Israeli Army Radio that an attack on Iran by his country is not soon forthcoming,
and he downplayed the immediacy of the threat posed by Iran's nuclear efforts.
Barak's comments came the day before U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen.
Martin Dempsey traveled to Israel. An article published Thursday in Israeli media,
written by a journalist with close ties to Barak, claimed that Dempsey would be
briefed on an Israeli intelligence assessment indicating that Iran has not yet tried
building a deliverable nuclear device. The assessment also implies that the Iranian
regime is more preoccupied with the potential for unrest following parliamentary
elections in March than it is with moving forward with its nuclear program.
A visit by a high-level U.S. defense official to Israel was already guaranteed to
capture Iran's attention, especially coming on the heels of Iranian military
maneuvers centered on the Strait of Hormuz. Israel and the United States could have
hinted at a possible attack in an effort to further their psychological warfare
campaign against Iran. Instead, Israel has done essentially the opposite, choosing
to de-emphasize the urgency of the Iranian nuclear threat. Notably, this follows
revelations that the United States reached out to Iran amid tensions over the Strait
of Hormuz. Israel's recent rhetoric on the Iranian nuclear program in many ways
takes the wind out of an already tottering sanctions campaign. The question is why
Israel would do this.
Israel could be employing psychological warfare tactics, lowering Iran's guard in
preparation for an attack. But Israel could not carry out such an attack
unilaterally, and the United States is giving no indication it is ready for a
military confrontation in one of the world's most vital energy thoroughfares. Israel
seems pleased with the progression of its covert military campaign against Iran (the
recent death of an Iranian chemist associated with the nuclear program could serve
to bolster that confidence), and thus does not seem motivated to push Washington
toward a military campaign the United States wants no part of. Israel may be willing
to see what comes out of the United States' latest attempt at dialogue with Iran.
Israel is even doing its part to create an atmosphere more conducive to those talks,
while relying on its covert capabilities to address Iran's nuclear threat.
And so, after a months-long buildup in tensions that again raised in the media the
possibility of a looming regional war, it appears rhetoric is cooling for now. U.S.
sanctions will likely leave space for allies of the United States to continue buying
Iranian crude (albeit at reduced levels); Washington is reportedly reaching out to
Iran for a diplomatic dialogue, while Iran has temporarily dialed down its bellicose
rhetoric regarding the Strait of Hormuz; and the Israelis, through the conduit of
Barak, have indicated that they are content for now with this course of action.
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Considering a U.S.-Iranian Deal
By George Friedman | January 24, 2012
Last week, I wrote on the strategic challenge Iran faces in its bid to shape a
sphere of influence stretching from western Afghanistan to Beirut on the eastern
Mediterranean coast. I also pointed out the limited options available to the United
States and other Western powers to counter Iran.
One was increased efforts to block Iranian influence in Syria. The other was to
consider a strategy of negotiation with Iran. In the past few days, we have seen
hints of both.
Rebel Gains in Syria
The city of Zabadani in southwestern Syria reportedly has fallen into the hands of
anti-regime forces. Though the city does not have much tactical value for the
rebels, and the regime could well retake it, the event could have real significance.
Up to this point, apart from media attention, the resistance to the regime of
President Bashar al Assad has not proven particularly effective. It was certainly
not able to take and hold territory, which is critical for any insurgency to have
significance.
Now that the rebels have taken Zabadani amid much fanfare -- even though it is not
clear to what extent the city was ceded to their control, much less whether they
will be able to hold it against Syrian military action -- a small bit of Syria now
appears to be under rebel control. The longer they can hold it, the weaker al Assad
will look and the more likely it becomes that regime opponents can create a
provisional government on Syrian soil to rally around.
Zabadani also gives outside powers something to help defend, should they choose to
do so. Intervening in a civil war against weak and diffused rebels is one thing.
Attacking Syrian tanks moving to retake Zabadani is quite another. There are no
indications that this is under consideration, but for the first time, there is the
potential for a militarily viable target set for outside players acting on behalf of
the rebels. The existence of that possibility might change the dynamic in Syria.
When we take into account the atmospherics of the Arab League demands for a
provisional government, some meaningful pressure might actually emerge.
From the Iranian point of view, this raises the risk that the sphere of influence
Tehran is pursuing will be blocked by the fall of the al Assad regime. This would
not pose a fundamental challenge to Iran, so long as its influence in Iraq remains
intact, but it would represent a potential high-water mark in Iranian ambitions. It
could open the door to recalculations in Tehran as to the limits of Iranian
influence and the threat to their national security. I must not overstate this:
Events in Syria have not gone that far, and Iran is hardly backed into a corner.
Still, it is a reminder to Tehran that all might not go the Iranians' way.
A Possibility of Negotiations
It is in this context that the possibility of negotiations has arisen. The Iranians
have claimed that the letter the U.S. administration sent to Iranian supreme leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that defined Iran's threats to Strait of Hormuz as a red line
contained a second paragraph offering direct talks with Iran. After hesitation, the
United States denied the offer of talks, but it did not deny it had sent a message
to the Iranian leadership. The Iranians then claimed such an offer was made verbally
to Tehran and not in the letter. Washington again was not categorical in its denial.
On Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said during a meeting with the
German foreign minister, "We do not seek conflict. We strongly believe the people of
Iran deserve a better future. They can have that future, the country can be
reintegrated into the global community ... when their government definitively turns
away from pursuing nuclear weapons."
From our perspective, this is a critical idea. As we have said for several years, we
do not see Iran as close to having a nuclear weapon. They may be close to being able
to test a crude nuclear device under controlled circumstances (and we don't know
this either), but the development of a deliverable nuclear weapon poses major
challenges for Iran.
Moreover, while the Iranians may aspire to a deterrent via a viable nuclear weapons
capability, we do not believe the Iranians see nuclear weapons as militarily useful.
A few such weapons could devastate Israel, but Iran would be annihilated in
retaliation. While the Iranians talk aggressively, historically they have acted
cautiously. For Iran, nuclear weapons are far more valuable as a notional threat and
bargaining chip than as something to be deployed. Indeed, the ideal situation is not
quite having a weapon, and therefore not forcing anyone to act against them, but
seeming close enough to be taken seriously. They certainly have achieved that.
The important question, therefore, is this: What would the United States offer if
Iran made meaningful concessions on its nuclear program, and what would Iran want in
return? In other words, forgetting the nuclear part of the equation, what did
Hillary Clinton mean when she said that Iran can be reintegrated into the
international community, and what would Iran actually want?
Recall that in our view, nuclear weapons never have been the issue. Instead, the
issue has been the development of an Iranian sphere of influence following the
withdrawal of the United States from Iraq, and the pressure Iran could place on
oil-producing states on the Arabian Peninsula. Iran has long felt that its natural
role as leader in the Persian Gulf has been thwarted, first by the Ottomans, then
the British and now by the Americans, and they have wanted to create what they
regard as the natural state of things.
The United States and its allies do not want Iran to get nuclear weapons. But more
than that, they do not want to see Iran as the dominant conventional force in the
area able to use its influence to undermine the Saudis. With or without nuclear
weapons, the United States must contain the Iranians to protect their Saudi allies.
But the problem is that Iran is not contained in Syria yet, and even were it
contained in Syria, it is not contained in Iraq. Iran has broken out of its
containment in a decisive fashion, and its ability to exert pressure in Arabia is
substantial.
Assume for the moment that Iran was willing to abandon its nuclear program. What
would the United States give in return? Obviously, Clinton would like to offer an
end to the sanctions. But the sanctions on Iran are simply not that onerous with the
Russians and Chinese not cooperating and the United States being forced to allow the
Japanese and others not to participate fully. But it goes deeper.
Iran's Historic Opportunity
This is a historic opportunity for Iran. It is the first moment in which no outside
power is in a direct position to block Iran militarily or politically. Whatever the
pain of sanctions, trading that moment for lifting the sanctions would not be
rational. The threat of Iranian influence is the problem, and Iran would not trade
that influence for an end to sanctions. So assuming the nuclear issue was to go
away, what exactly is the United States prepared to offer?
The United States has assured access to oil from the Persian Gulf -- not only for
itself, but also for the global industrial world -- since World War II. It does not
want to face a potential interruption of oil for any reason, like the one that
occurred in 1973. Certainly, as Iran expands its influence, the possibility of
conflict increases, along with the possibility that the United States would
intervene to protect its allies in Arabia from Iranian-sponsored subversion or even
direct attack. The United States does not want to intervene in the region. It does
not want an interruption of oil. It also does not want an extension of Iranian
power. It is not clear that Washington can have all three.
Iran wants three things, too.
First, it wants the United States to reduce its presence in the Persian Gulf
dramatically. Having seen two U.S. interventions against Iraq and one against
Afghanistan, Iran is aware of U.S. power and the way American political sentiment
can shift. It experienced the shift from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan, so it knows
how fast things can change. Tehran sees the United States in the Persian Gulf
coupled with U.S. and Israeli covert operations and destabilization campaigns as an
unpredictable danger to Iranian national security.
Second, the Iranians want to be recognized as the leading power in the region. This
does not mean they intend to occupy any nation directly. It does mean that Iran
doesn't want Saudi Arabia, for example, to pose a military threat against it.
Third, Iran wants a restructuring of oil revenue in the region. How this is formally
achieved -- whether by allowing Iranian investment in Arabian oil companies
(possibly financed by the host country) or some other means -- is unimportant. What
does matter is that the Iranians want a bigger share of the region's vast financial
resources.
The United States doesn't want a conflict with Iran. Iran doesn't want one with the
United States. Neither can be sure how such a conflict would play out. The Iranians
want to sell oil. The Americans want the West to be able to buy oil. The issue
really comes down to whether the United States wants to guarantee the flow of oil
militarily or via a political accommodation with the country that could disrupt the
flow of oil -- namely, Iran. That in turn raises two questions. First, could the
United States trust Iran? And second, could it live with withdrawing the American
protectorate on the Arabian Peninsula, casting old allies adrift?
When we listen to the rhetoric of American and Iranian politicians, it is difficult
to imagine trust between them. But when we recall the U.S. alliance with Stalin and
Mao or the Islamic republic's collaboration with the Soviet Union, we find rhetoric
is a very poor guide. Nations pursue their national interest, and while those
interests are never eternal, they can be substantial. From a purely rhetorical point
of view it is not always easy to tell which sides' politicians are more colorful. It
will be difficult to sell an alliance between the Great Satan and a founding member
of the Axis of Evil to the respective public of each country, but harder things have
been managed.
Iran's ultimate interest is security against the United States and the ability to
sell oil at a more substantial profit. (This would entail an easing of sanctions and
a redefinition of how oil revenues in the region are distributed.) The United
States' ultimate interest is access to oil and manageable prices that do not require
American military intervention. On that basis, Iranian and American interests are
not that far apart.
The Arabian Factor and a Possible Accommodation
The key point in this scenario is the future of U.S. relations with the countries of
the Arabian Peninsula. Any deal between Iran and the United States affects them two
ways. First, the reduction of U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf requires them to reach
an accommodation with the Iranians, something difficult and potentially
destabilizing for them. Second, the shift in the financial flow will hurt them and
probably will not be the final deal. Over time, the Iranians will use their
strengthened position in the region to continue pushing for additional concessions
from them.
There is always danger in abandoning allies. Other allies might be made
uncomfortable, for example. But these things have happened before. Abandoning old
allies for the national interest is not something the United States invented. The
idea that the United States should find money flowing to the Saudis inherently more
attractive than money flowing to the Iranians is not obvious.
The main question for the United States is how Iran might be contained. The flow of
money will strengthen Iran, and it might seek to extend its power beyond what is
tolerable to the United States. There are potential answers. First, the United
States can always return to the region. The Iranians do not see the Americans as
weak, but rather as unpredictable. Challenging the United States after Iran has
achieved its historic goal is not likely. Second, no matter how Iran grows, it is
far behind Turkey by every measure. Turkey is not ready to play an active role
balancing Iran now, but in the time it takes Iran to consolidate its position,
Turkey will be a force that will balance and eventually contain Iran. In the end, a
deal will come down to one that profits both sides and clearly defines the limits of
Iranian power -- limits that it is in Iran's interest to respect given that it is
profiting mightily from the deal.
Geopolitics leads in one direction. Ideology leads in another direction. The ability
to trust one another is yet a third. At the same time, the Iranians cannot be sure
of what the United States is prepared to do. The Americans do not want to go to war
with Iran. Both want oil flowing, and neither cares about nuclear weapons as much as
they pretend. Finally, no one else really matters in this deal. The Israelis are not
as hardline on Iran as they appear, nor will the United States listen to Israel on a
matter fundamental to the global economy. In the end, absent nuclear weapons, Israel
does not have that much of a problem with Iran.
It would not surprise me to find out that the United States offered direct talks,
nor to discover that Clinton's comments could not be extended to a more extensive
accommodation. Nor do I think that Iran would miss a chance for an historic
transformation of its strategic and financial position in favor of ideology. They
are much too cynical for that. The great losers would be the Saudis, but even they
could come around to a deal that, while less satisfactory than they have now, is
still quite satisfactory.
There are many blocks in the way of such a deal, from ideology to distrust to
domestic politics. But given the knot that is being tied in the region, rumors that
negotiations are being floated come as no surprise. Syria might not go the way Iran
wants, and Iraq is certainly not going the way the United States wants. Marriages
have been built on less.
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Gotta secure the Jewish vote eh Brock? I can hear the liberals defending, "oh he has been an ardent of Israel from day one".
The sudden turnaround. Similar to his STOTSU speech when he suddenly is a champion of natural gas. Same BS :roll:
***Pentagon chief sees Iran bomb potential in year
Jan 29 07:14 PM US/Eastern
US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, pictured on January 26. Iran could devel...
Iran could develop a nuclear bomb in about a year and create the means for delivery in a further two to three years, the US defense chief said Sunday, reiterating President Barack Obama's determination to halt the effort.
"The United States -- and the president's made this clear -- does not want Iran to develop a nuclear weapon," Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told the CBS program "60 Minutes."
"That's a red line for us. And it's a red line obviously for the Israelis so we share a common goal here."
Panetta maintained that US officials "will take whatever steps are necessary to stop it" if Washington receives intelligence that Iran is proceeding with developing a nuclear weapon.
Asked if that meant military action, he said: "There are no options that are off the table."
Panetta told the interviewer that "the consensus is that, if they (Iran) decided to do it, it would probably take them about a year to be able to produce a bomb and then possibly another one to two years in order to put it on a deliverable vehicle of some sort in order to deliver that weapon."
In a report issued in November, the International Atomic Energy Agency said intelligence from more than 10 countries and its own sources "indicates that Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear device."
It detailed 12 suspicious areas such as testing explosives in a steel container at a military base and studies on Shahab-3 ballistic missile warheads that the IAEA said were "highly relevant to a nuclear weapon program."
Iran rejected the dossier as based on forgeries.
The Islamic Republic has come under unprecedented international pressure since the publication of the report, with Washington and the European Union targeting its oil sector and central bank.
In his State of the Union message Tuesday, Obama said a peaceful outcome was still possible with Iran over its nuclear ambitions, but he declined to rule out the military option.
"The regime is more isolated than ever before; its leaders are faced with crippling sanctions, and as long as they shirk their responsibilities, this pressure will not relent," Obama said.
"Let there be no doubt: America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal," the president declared, triggering a standing ovation.***
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Email Print Save ↓ More .
.smaller Larger Efforts to impose tough sanctions on Iran have gathered momentum in the last month, first with bipartisan legislation in the U.S. that targets Iran's central bank, then with the European Union's embargo (joined by signs of import reductions from Japan and South Korea) on Iranian oil. But there are always loopholes. The art of making sanctions effective consists in knowing how to close them.
Consider the case of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications, better known as Swift. The Belgium-based, member-owned cooperative provides a secure network to exchange financial messages and transactional data to over 10,000 financial institutions throughout the world.
That makes Swift one of the most critical access cards Iran still holds to the global financial system. Swift's annual report notes that 19 Iranian banks and 25 Iranian institutions use Swift, and that in 2010 they "sent 1,160,000 messages and received 1,105,000 messages." Primary Iranian users of Swift's services include Banks Mellat, Sepah, Saderat, Post and Iran's central bank—all of them designated by the U.S. Treasury as affiliates of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps, involved in aiding Iran's nuclear programs, or sponsoring terrorism.
Swift is also Iran's gateway to a financial clearing mechanism (known as TARGET 2 and equivalent to the FedWire in the U.S.), through which it conducts much of its $35 billion in trade with Europe. Swift "offers more than mere technical assistance," says Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which has done most of the spadework on the issue. "They provide the prerequisite codes that allow you to process a transaction." Without Swift, much of that $35 billion in trade couldn't happen.
If Swift were an ordinary financial institution, sanctions would likely have already put an end to the services it provides Iran. But Swift insists its activities fall beyond the remit of current law. A Swift spokeswoman says its system "is only a secure messaging service," and that "all decisions on the legitimacy of financial transactions under applicable regulations, such as sanctions regulations, rest with financial institutions and the competent international and national authorities."
That may be true in a narrow sense, though we have our doubts. European law governing sanctions includes in its definition of a proscribed fund "documents showing evidence of an interest in funds or financial resources," which is the kind of documentation Swift provides. The European Central Bank has its own guidelines governing access to TARGET 2, which also give it the authority to bar Revolutionary Guard banks.
Under its own bylaws, Swift has the authority to expel any user of its products who "has adversely affected, or may adversely affect . . . SWIFT's reputation, brand, or goodwill, for instance if the prospective or existing user is subject to sanctions." If Swift's Board of Directors—including Chairman Yawar Shah of Citi and Deputy Chairman Stephan Zimmermann of UBS—think Revolutionary Guard-connected institutions don't adversely affect Swift's reputation, they should say so on the record.
Illinois Republican Mark Kirk had written an amendment on Swift to offer the Senate Banking Committee before his recent stroke, and it deserves to become part of the broader Iran sanctions bill due out this week. The amendment imposes sanctions on foreign financial institutions that employ "a member of the board of directors of an entity that. . . provides services relating to secure communications, electronic funds transfers, or cable transfers" that do business with designated Iranian banks. Unless Swift's directors act on Iran, sanctions may come swiftly to them.
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because he might be right this time.
WSJ:
Remember that bizarre story from last fall about an Iranian agent based in Texas who allegedly sought to conspire with Mexican drug gangs to blow up Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the U.S. in a crowded Washington, D.C., restaurant? The Justice Department insisted the story was true. Yet the Administration's reaction was otherwise muted, and the press corps went out of its way to cast doubt on the story. The Iranians can't be that crazy?
Well, yes, they can be, at least according to President Obama's top intelligence adviser. In testimony yesterday to the Senate Intelligence Committee, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper warned that Iran's leadership, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, "have changed their calculus and are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States as a response to real or perceived actions that threaten the regime."
Translation: Not only is Iran prepared to use terrorism in retaliation for any military strikes against it, they're also prepared to get their retaliation in first. "There is more to unfold here," he said. "They're trying to penetrate and engage in this hemisphere."
Mr. Clapper, a former Air Force general, is not given to flights of exaggeration. That should give his warnings some weight, especially among those who believe that, for all the aggressive rhetoric, Iranian leaders conduct foreign policy in a prudent and rational way and are amenable to negotiations.
Mr. Clapper's testimony comes as Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is warning that Iran is about a year away from having a nuclear bomb. So here's a question to those who oppose military strikes on Iran: If the regime is prepared to stage terrorist strikes in America when they don't have a bomb, what will they be capable of when they do have one?
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Will Iran strike first....
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/01/31/iran-s-changing-calculus-will-it-strike-inside-the-united-states.html
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Do NOT be surprised that if this does occur as in some form of assasination of a specific target (a Saudi) that Obamster will try to cover it up - or at least down play it. Just like his administration did after Ft. Hood.
I seriously doubt Iran would be so foolish to hit public citizens in the US like WTC or anything like remotely like that.
An Iranian attack like that in the US would be the best thing that ever happened to Israel.
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http://pjmedia.com/spengler/2012/02/03/lessons-about-iran-from-hitler/?singlepage=true
Lessons About Iran from Hitler
February 3, 2012 - 5:29 am - by David P. Goldman
Will sanctions persuade Iran to stop building nuclear weapons? No such question can be answered with finality, but it is more likely that the Obama administration’s graduated sanctions will accelerate Tehran’s efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. The Obama administration, according to news accounts, is aghast that Israel might take preemptive action rather than give sanctions time to work. Sanctions, though, are more likely to prompt Iran to stake everything on the nuclear card. The last time the West dealt with a similar case, the prospect of economic collapse and the fear of regime change motivated the outbreak of World War II.
Iran is planning to double its defense budget even though its currency is collapsing. These are related events: in the medium term, the free-fall of Iran’s rial constitutes a transfer of wealth to the government from what remains of Iran’s private sector. As the Washington Post reported yesterday, “The government, which receives oil revenue mostly in dollars and euros, is profiting from the rial’s decline, analysts said. ‘Their income is in dollars, so a strong dollar helps them to buy more rials to pay their bills,’ said one prominent economist, who asked not to be identified, for fear of reprisals.” At least for the time being, sanctions strengthen the relative position of the regime, while undermining its long-term staying power — unless, of course, Tehran begins a new set of regional wars under a nuclear umbrella.
An important insight into the character of the Iranian leadership can be gained from Adolf Hitler’s speech to the German army’s top commanders at Obersalzberg on Aug. 22, 1939, a week before the invasion of Poland. Hitler began by explaining that he initially had wanted to attack the Allies in the West but that circumstances compelled him to take Poland out first. The question, then, was why begin war at that particular moment. And the answer had two parts: economic weakness and the threat of regime change.
We have nothing to lose, but much indeed to gain. As a result of the constraints forced upon us, our economic position is such that we cannot hold out for more than a few years. [Hermann] Goering can confirm this. We have no other choice, we must act. … At no point in the future will Germany have a man with more authority than I. But I could be replaced at any moment by some idiot or criminal. … The morale of the German people is excellent. It can only worsen from here.
Hitler, by his own account, acted out of fear: fear that the German economy would collapse under the burden of his military expansion, and fear that he “could be replaced at any moment.” I quoted this speech in a 2005 essay, adding, “Within a generation, both Iran’s oil and demographic resources will be exhausted. Impending demographic collapse, I have argued in the past, impels Iran towards an imperial design (Demographics and Iran’s imperial design, September 13). Iran’s elderly dependent population will soar to nearly 30% from just 7% today by mid-century, the consequence of the country’s collapsing birth rate. The demographic disaster will hit just as oil exports dry up during the 2020s. To break out of the trap, Iran must make an all-or-nothing bet during the present generation.”
Just like Hitler, Iran has nothing to lose. Hitler was convinced that the Aryan race was doomed to corruption and extinction unless he restored its preeminence by force; Ahmadinejad knows with certainty that Persian will become an extinct language in a few generations given the present fertility trend. The UN’s “medium variant” forecast for Iran puts the present fertility rate at just 1.59 (which means about 1.35 for Persian-speakers given the higher fertility of Iran’s minorities), and the “low variant” at just 1.34. That’s as low as the baby-bust European countries. Iran is dying a slow death. In my book (How Civilizations Die) I report the horror and panic among Iran’s rulers over its prospective extinction.
What Hitler imagined in his nightmares, Ahmadinejad fears in the full light of day. Hitler told his commanders in August 1939 that they had nothing to lose; Ahmadinejad knows with certainty that he has nothing to lose.
In 2005, surgical strikes to destroy Iran’s nuclear capacity would have been comparatively easy. After seven years of deep digging, the logistical requirements are quite different. Senior planners at the Pentagon say privately that it would be very difficult to destroy centrifuges in bunkers, and that aerial attacks would concentrate on killing the political and military leadership as well as destroying command and control. Perhaps there is a covert capability that could put suitcase bombs into the tunnels leading to the bunkers; I know nothing about such things. It seems likely, however, that stopping Iran from getting nuclear weapons would be a messy and bloody business rather than a well-defined surgical operation. It is too bad the West did not have the good sense to correct the problem in 2005. However much it costs in Iranian blood and well-being, it’s still worth it.
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By CHARLES S. ROBB
AND CHARLES WALD
In his recent State of the Union address, President Obama declared, "Let there be no doubt: America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon." Yet Iran is fast approaching the nuclear threshold, despite new, tough international sanctions.
The clock must be stopped. The best hope for doing so is a triple-track strategy of diplomacy, sanctions and a more credible threat of force by the U.S. and Israel. The time has come for American leaders to begin preparations for, and a robust public debate about, military action against Iran.
From its inception, the Islamic Republic has terrorized its citizens, killed American soldiers, supported terrorist groups, and repeatedly undermined the stability of our Arab allies. Last October, American authorities uncovered an Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States on U.S. soil. And just last month, Iranian military leaders threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, a critical energy shipping lane. An Iran with nuclear weapons capability, overconfident behind its own nuclear deterrent, would act even more aggressively, threatening our allies and vital interests.
President Obama entered office pledging "to use all elements of American power to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon." We applaud his sincere diplomatic outreach and support for stricter sanctions passed by Congress. But it is now time to engage other elements of our power.
Though Iran's economic condition may be worsening, its centrifuges continue to spin, unimpeded. International Atomic Energy Agency reports indicate that in the last two years Iran's nuclear program advanced dramatically—doubling its uranium enrichment rate, enriching uranium to ever higher levels, testing advanced centrifuges, beginning enrichment at a fortified facility, and continuing its weaponization program.
While important, recent sanctions—a European oil embargo to possibly take effect July 1 and U.S. measures designed to limit Iran's oil exports by targeting firms dealing with its Central Bank—are unlikely to suffice on their own. China, which buys over a quarter of Iran's oil exports, has refused to cooperate. Other top buyers of Iranian crude, like India, South Korea and Japan, have promised to lower their Iranian imports but are unlikely to do so in significant quantities soon. We support additional tough sanctions but believe that as Congress considers further measures it must also regularly assess the effectiveness of sanctions in bringing a halt to Iran's nuclear program.
Enlarge Image
CloseDavid Klein
.Contrary to public perception, Iran's reported interest in resuming talks is not an indication of the sanctions' success. Historically, Tehran has used negotiations to stall and defuse pressure before international consensus for more drastic action can be reached. Both the reluctance of other nations to wean themselves from Iranian oil and Iran's latest diplomatic gambit are evidence of the need for much greater pressure.
As we argue in a new Bipartisan Policy Center report, "Meeting the Challenge: Stopping the Clock," to prevent a nuclear Iran the U.S. needs to demonstrate its resolve to do whatever is necessary, including military action. Gaining international support for tougher sanctions and convincing Iran to accept a diplomatic solution requires making clear that military conflict is the only other outcome.
Additional pressure needs to come from the credible threat of military action—whether by the U.S. or Israel—against Iran's nuclear program. Such threats can enable peaceful, diplomatic solutions. After U.S. and coalition forces toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003, fear of military action apparently led Iran, briefly, and Libya, permanently, to halt their nuclear programs.
Making credible the military threat will require strengthening our declaratory policy, making clear our willingness to use force rather than permit Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, and requiring all U.S. officials to adhere to that policy publicly. Congressional hearings on the viability of the military option would further underscore our seriousness.
Also, while we do not advocate an Israeli military strike against Iran, we believe that enhancing Israel's military capabilities—by providing it with 200 advanced GBU-31 bunker-busting munitions and three KC-135 refueling tankers to extend the range of its jets—would improve Israeli credibility and help convince the Iranians to pursue a diplomatic solution. The Obama administration, under a prior commitment from President Bush, already delivered less-advanced GBU-28 bunker busters to Israel.
If more pressure is needed, a quarantine could block refined petroleum imports into Iran, sending a clear signal and ensuring the effectiveness of sanctions on gasoline imports. Should even that fail to persuade Iran's leadership, the U.S. military is capable of launching an effective surgical air strike against Iran's nuclear program and its military installations. Such action would set back Iran's nuclear program, but continued monitoring and vigilance would remain necessary for an extended period.
We recognize the risks of this approach. We are also aware that our country is war-weary and saddled with economic challenges. But we cannot wish this problem away, nor should we fall prey to the inertia of resignation. It is time to begin a serious public debate about what it will take to prevent a nuclear Iran. Avoiding hard choices today can only lead to significantly greater costs in blood and treasure tomorrow.
Mr. Robb, a former Democratic senator from Virginia, and Mr. Wald, a retired general and air commander in the initial stages of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, are co-chairs of a new Bipartisan Policy Center report on Iran, "Meeting the Challenge: Stopping the Clock."
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By MEHDI KHALAJI
Since President Obama came to office, unconditional engagement with Iran has been official U.S. policy and total rejection of engagement has been official Iranian policy. The president has sent several letters to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, proposing various types of engagement, but all these ideas have been rebuffed. In March 2010, when the president said "Faced with an extended hand, Iran's leaders have shown only a clenched fist," the ayatollah accused him of deceitfully offering a "metal hand inside a velvet glove." It's time to acknowledge that engaging Iran's supreme leader is hopeless.
The reason for Khamanei's refusal to engage is simple: As the strategic architect and ultimate defender of Iran's nuclear program, his political standing depends on the survival of the program and on the perception that he can reject all pressure. His persistence amid rising U.S. sanctions determines the credibility of his claim to be "the leader of Muslim world." Any flinching would strengthen his rivals inside the country, because they were aggressively sidelined by him when they advocated a more moderate nuclear policy. Holding firm is an issue of life and death for him.
In this regard, Iran is very different from Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Saddam was able to survive more than a decade of sanctions because the regime was run by a single, ruthless megalomaniac who could eliminate any dissent with a bullet to the back of the head. There was no such thing as a "political crisis" in Saddam's Iraq because such a regime has no politics. By contrast, Iran is a den of political intrigue, with sophisticated and nuanced maneuvering among factions, albeit within an increasingly narrow element of the elite. In such a system, the leader's position is much more vulnerable than in a state of iron-fisted, one-man rule.
Enlarge Image
CloseAssociated Press
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaking at a military university in Tehran in November.
.Specifically, Khamenei's decision to crack down on the protests provoked by the rigged presidential election in 2009 created deep fissures within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the vanguard of the regime. Recently retired Gen. Hossein Alai, founder of the Revolutionary Guard Navy and its commander during the Iran-Iraq War, wrote an article for Tehran's Ettelaat newspaper that implicitly compared the situation in Iran today with the year prior to the revolution. He suggested that if Khamenei did not reach a political compromise with the reformist leaders of the protest movement, he would be making the same mistake that the Shah made a generation ago.
After Gen. Alai was attacked by the government-run media, some Revolutionary Guard commanders sent him an unsigned letter of support. Already there are signs that some within the Guard may not support Khamenei's preferred candidates in parliamentary elections scheduled for March.
What has really stoked the Revolutionary Guard's anger at Khamenei is that they see him as responsible for the tougher Western sanctions that have hurt their economic interests. The Revolutionary Guard has been a major player in the Iranian economy for more than two decades. Today, even most private businesses cannot function without some "special arrangement" with the Revolutionary Guard. Veterans are prominent in industries ranging from oil, mining and banking to cinema and sports. Most of them have changed from idealist revolutionaries to pragmatic money-lovers.
These cash-happy Islamists have been the main targets of the U.S.-led sanctions. Contrary to claims of anti-sanction activists in the West, the Guard's vast economic concerns have been badly bruised by the oil and banking sanctions implemented by Western nations.
To keep the nuclear program afloat and maintain their many business interests, the Revolutionary Guard's money men are forced to sell oil below international rates. Khamenei's adamant refusal to reach a compromise over the nuclear program has boxed Iran into a corner and cost them billions of dollars.
In Tehran's political circles, knowledgeable people are divided as to whether the nuclear crisis will lead to war or find a peaceful resolution. But the latter is only possible if the Revolutionary Guard sidelines Khamenei and forces a compromise. So far, Khamenei has retained the upper hand.
In addition to stymieing the Revolutionary Guard, Khamenei will sabotage any effort by other factions of the Islamic Republic to engage diplomatically with the West. The clerical establishment, which is deeply disaffected from Khamenei, is so economically dependent on the government that it cannot affect Iranian politics in a meaningful way. The old merchant class, equally disaffected, no longer plays a significant economic or political role.
Reformists like onetime president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani are gradually being pushed out of the political arena. In March, Mr. Rafsanjani may lose his only remaining position of influence—as head of the regime's Expediency Council, which advises the supreme leader.
In this environment, any further effort to engage Khamenei would be futile. A wiser course would be to prepare now to open channels of communication with Revolutionary Guard leaders, who are surely busy planning ways to address the mounting pressure of international sanctions. These are the people who will determine Khamenei's successor and whose anger may even lead them to take the reins of the country before he dies. While they are not closet liberals ready for a Tehran Spring, in the aftermath of Khamenei's regime they will have their own legitimacy crisis that may compel them to open up abroad in order to consolidate power, popularity and credibility at home.
The Revolutionary Guard, guilty of acts of terror at home and abroad, is by no means a natural partner for the West. But its leaders, with their myriad economic interests and sensitivity to sanctions, are far more inclined than Khamenei to strike a deal on Iran's nuclear program. Considering the alternatives, it's an opportunity worth pursuing.
Mr. Khalaji is a fellow at the Washington Institute.
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Iran government cuts off internet access as hardline regime makes a stand
By John Hutchinson
Last updated at 9:01 PM on 10th February 2012
Holds all the cards: It seems a crackdown on cyber-opponents of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has taken place after the internet outage in Iran
Iran has demonstrated further evidence of its strict regime after the government cut internet links leaving millions without email and social networks.
Interestingly, the shutdown comes at a time when inhabitants are preparing to celebrate the 33rd anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, with rumours of anti-government protests also planned.
But some internet boffins are rising above the crackdown, and accessing the web by using proxy servers over VPN connections.
Gmail, Google and Yahoo are all thought to have been restricted, and users have been unable to log in to their online banking.
'The interesting thing is that when asked, they deny the fact that all these services are all blocked,' an Iranian contacted by CNET said.
'I don't know the the infrastructure that they will use but I don't think we have a way out of that one.
More...Muslim fanatics who called for execution of gays and wanted to set up a 'medieval state' under Sharia law in Derby are jailed for up to two years
'We are getting closer and closer to North Korea.'
Blanket ban: Internet users in Iran are again facing an outage as the government tries to crack down on any opposition
Only last month, Mail Online reported how two Iranian bloggers had been captured and set to be executed, accused of 'spreading corruption' ahead of the parliamentary elections.
Four journalist were also arrested as Tehran cracked down on freedom of expression - much to the dismay of the Western world.
Also last month, the country's Information Minister announced plans for a goverment-run intranet, giving the state the upper hand in its cyber-battle with opponents.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2099549/Iran-government-cuts-internet-access-hardline-regime-makes-stand.html
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I'm not alone suggesting we should not use force in Iran. Like myself, an overwhelming number of Americans want us to stay out of any military intervention.
"A CNN/ORC International poll released Wednesday indicates that only 17% of the public wants the U.S. to use force, with 60% saying diplomatic or economic action against Iran is the right response, and 22% saying no action should be taken at this time."
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/15/cnn-poll-americans-favor-diplomacy-against-iran/?hpt=hp_t2
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I'm not alone suggesting we should not use force in Iran. Like myself, an overwhelming number of Americans want us to stay out of any military intervention.
"A CNN/ORC International poll released Wednesday indicates that only 17% of the public wants the U.S. to use force, with 60% saying diplomatic or economic action against Iran is the right response, and 22% saying no action should be taken at this time."
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/15/cnn-poll-americans-favor-diplomacy-against-iran/?hpt=hp_t2
Howabout after they strike the US?
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On the other hand, some practical Constitutional questions arise-- in particular there is that pesky matter of declaring war or not. Given the political landscape noted by JDN I'd say the chance of that is not much greater than that of Ahmahdinejad proposing to Fran Drescher.
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On the other hand, some practical Constitutional questions arise-- in particular there is that pesky matter of declaring war or not.
Then again, much to my chagrin, that pesky matter hasn't stopped President after President from starting wars. And, as months/years go on, never has anyone it seems asked Congress for a Declaration of War. I like the concept of checks and balances.
"The last time Congress passed joint resolutions saying that a "state of war" existed was on June 5, 1942, when the U.S. declared war on Bulgaria, Hungary, and Rumania.[14] Since then, the U.S. has used the term "authorization to use military force", as in the case against Iraq in 2003.
Sometimes decisions for military engagements were made by US presidents, without formal approval by Congress, based on UN Security Council resolutions that do not expressly declare the UN or its members to be at war. Part of the justification for the United States invasion of Panama was to capture Manuel Noriega (as a prisoner of war) because he was declared a criminal rather than a belligerent."
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Summary
Stratfor sources have indicated that Iranian naval exercises scheduled to take place by Feb. 19 have been delayed or possibly canceled. Given other recent moves both by the United States and Iran aimed at reducing bilateral tensions, the apparent delay may have been motivated by a desire to facilitate talks on Iran's nuclear program, among other issues.
Analysis
Iranian military exercises scheduled to take place by Feb. 19 in the Strait of Hormuz appear to have been delayed, with one Stratfor source reporting that the exercises have been canceled outright. Another Stratfor Iranian source indicated Iran's leadership is currently leaning toward canceling the exercises as a reciprocal gesture after the United States on Jan. 15 delayed military exercises with Israel.
A move to delay the war games would be very unusual, as Iran has typically followed through on its announced military exercises or at least provided a reason for their delay. The apparent delay notably comes after Iran stepped back from its threats on closing the Strait of Hormuz made during a previous set of war games in late December 2011 and early January 2012. Though these exercises may still take place at a later date, an Iranian decision to to wait to conduct them combined with other moves to reduce tensions may indicate Tehran is interested in facilitating backchannel talks with the United States.
The Great Prophet VII war games were to be organized by the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and coincide with parallel exercises organized by the Artesh, Iran's regular armed forces. The Great Prophet war games have become more or less annual events for Iran and have usually been accompanied by a great deal of Iranian media attention because new weapons systems are often featured during the exercises. (And given this history, some sort of technical delay with a new weapon that was intended to be featured cannot be ruled out.) However, unlike previous years, this year's events have been mentioned very little since they were announced during the Iranian navy's exercises in late December.
The potential delay (or cancellation) of the exercises is especially significant because of the timing. In late December and early January 2012, as the United States was preparing to levy sanctions on Iran's ability to engage in financial transactions and to export oil, Iran retaliated by threatening to close down the Strait of Hormuz, arguably raising tensions between the two countries to the highest level in years. Since that point, both the United States and Iran have made moves to ease tensions -- Iran backed off its rhetoric on the strait and the United States delayed its planned joint ballistic missile defense exercises with Israel (which are now slated to take place in October).
Delaying the Great Prophet VII military exercises in the strait would be a significant step by the Iranians toward reducing tensions in the hope of advancing backchannel negotiations between the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama and Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's office. These issues include not only Iran's nuclear program, but also international efforts to oust the regime of Syrian President Bashar al Assad, the balance of power in the Persian Gulf as well as Iraq and the U.S. exit strategy in Afghanistan.
In recent weeks, there have been reports of communication between the United States and Iran, and numerous U.S. officials have issued statements about the need to pursue diplomacy amid increasing speculation about a potential Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. In addition, the P-5+1 Group headquartered in Brussels has acknowledged receipt of a letter from the Iranian national security chief on Tehran seeking to revive talks regarding its controversial nuclear program.
Since the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan -- Iran's western and eastern neighbors, respectively -- Tehran has intensified its rhetoric and military maneuvers, with the IRGC and the Artesh (Iran's army) conducting regular drills on both Iranian soil and in the Persian Gulf waters several times each year. Their chief purpose has been to ensure the highest state of military preparedness in the face of potential threat of an attack as well as sending a message to the United States and its allies that the cost of war would be very high.
Any military exercise entails both opportunity and risk. The exercises can strengthen a potential adversary's perception of Iran's military capabilities, but they can also expose vulnerabilities or weaknesses that could degrade that perception. There are numerous factors entailed in deciding to hold or cancel an exercise, not all of which reach all the way up to Iran's supreme leader. But given the circumstances and the curious silence that has surrounded the Great Prophet exercises, there is considerable potential that the apparent delay is part of Iran's effort toward reducing tensions with the United States that it has apparently decided are doing the country more harm than good.
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Drudge reporting "sources" in the WH now saying military action against Iran now "more" likely.
Give me a break. If this is not now the tail wagging the dog!
After all this suddenly the WH has decided sanctions are not working.
Throw the Jews/Israel under the bus. Now he needs them and their donations. Suddenly the picture has changed.
I am all for helping Israel. But at the expense of another four years of this guy....
Democrats will stop at nothing.
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204880404577225602175019294.html?mod=opinion_newsreel
By EDWARD N. LUTTWAK
As the pros and cons of attacking Iran's nuclear installations are debated, Americans are confronted by equally confident but contradictory assertions about the possible scope of Iran's retaliation or the impact on the stability of the regime. Some hope the possession of nuclear weapons will moderate Tehran's fanatics. They argue that's what happened with China under Mao Zedong. Others note that extremism has never been reduced by empowerment.
And so the debate continues inconclusively while Iran's nuclear efforts persist—along with daily threats of death to America, Israel, Britain, Saudi Arabia's rulers, and more.
Yet everyone seems to assume the scope of the attack itself is a fixed parameter—a take-it-or-leave-it proposition that some fear to take and others dread to leave undone. That, by all accounts, is exactly how the issue was framed when the debate started in the last years of the second George W. Bush administration. This is misleading. The magnitude and intensity of an attack is a matter of choice, and it needs to be on the table.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff and their planners offered President Bush only one plan, a full-scale air offensive with all the trimmings—an air war rather than an air strike. While the plan was never publicly disclosed, its magnitude was widely known, and I have learned some of the details. Instead of identifying the few critical nodes of a nuclear-weapon program, the target list included every nuclear-related installation in Iran. And to ensure thorough destruction, each target was accorded multiple aiming points, each one then requiring a weapon of commensurate power, with one or more to follow until bomb-damage assessment photos would show the target obliterated.
That plan elevated the attack to a major operation, with several hundred primary strike sorties and many more support sorties for electronic suppression, refueling, air-sea rescue readiness, and overhead air defense. Given all those aiming points and the longest possible target list, casualties on the ground could run to the thousands.
And this was only the lesser part of the suggested air war, with many more targets, sorties and weapons justified by preliminary "Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses" attacks. In the name of not risking the loss of even one aircraft, planners put every combat airplane in the Iranian air force on the target list.
There was no distinction between operational aircraft and those in inventory and long immobilized by the lack of replacement parts. All 45 venerable F-14s, the youngest delivered in 1979, made the list, even though at least half have not flown in years. The same was true of geriatric F-4s mostly without engines, ex-Iraqi Mirages, and HESA Saeqeh, a clumsy local modification of the F-5. Some 2,000 antiaircraft guns were also on the list although most are mere machine guns, as well as some dozens of antiaircraft missiles, only a few of which could be operational given their great age.
The overall bill for this assault was thus hugely inflated into a veritable air armada that would last weeks rather than hours, require more than 20,000 sorties, and inevitably kill thousands of civilians on the ground.
With this, the Joint Chiefs made quite sure they would not be thrust into a third war as Iraq and Afghanistan were already consuming American military strength and burning through the Pentagon's budget.
But this war planning denied to the president and American strategy the option of interrupting Iran's nuclear efforts by a stealthy overnight attack against the handful of buildings that contain the least replaceable components of Iran's uranium hexafluoride and centrifuge enrichment cycle—and which would rely on electronic countermeasures to protect aircraft instead of the massive bombardment of Iran's air defenses.
That option was flatly ruled out as science fiction, while the claim that Iran's rulers might be too embarrassed to react at all—they keep telling their people that Iran's enemies are terrified by its immense might—was dismissed as political fiction.
Yet this kind of attack was carried out in September 2007, when the Israeli air force invisibly and inaudibly attacked the nuclear reactor that Syria's Assad regime had imported from North Korea, wholly destroying it with no known casualties. To be sure, an equivalent attack on Iran's critical nuclear nodes would have to be several times larger. But it could still be inaudible and invisible, start and end in one night, and kill very few on the ground.
The resulting humiliation of the regime might be worthwhile in itself—the real fantasy is a blindly nationalist reaction from a thoroughly disenchanted population. In fact, given the probability that an attack could only delay Iran's nuclear efforts by several years, the only one worth considering at all is the small, overnight strike.
Mr. Luttwak, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is the author of "Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace" (Belknap, 2002).
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The only thing new about Iran and nuclear weapons is the US election. Nothing has changed. All along it is obvious they are hell bent on getting them and nothing can stop them short of military force or some unexpected miracle.
The Republicans have sided with Israel on this. Apparantly Obama is feeling the heat before his election and now he must decide what to do for his own skin - not Israel's.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/25/world/middleeast/us-agencies-see-no-move-by-iran-to-build-a-bomb.html?_r=1
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There was an oddly timed NIE leak back during the Bush administration too , , ,
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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/25/world/middleeast/us-agencies-see-no-move-by-iran-to-build-a-bomb.html?_r=1
"Mr. Hitler only wants peace"-N. Chamberlain
"Iran only wants nuclear energy"-Buraq Obozo
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Authors conclude that at best bombing Iran would delay their program 10 years and risks them becoming even more determined to get one later. Additionally all the other problems that might arise, increasing nationalism among those who are disenchanted with the present regime, terrorism around the world, missles fired from Gaza, Lebanon, etc.
I disagree with the analysis. Israel will have no choice what to do. And waiting this long has not changed anything except allow the Iranians to dig in their defenses against any attack. A prospect of a middle East with several nuclear capable countries is worse. If not for the US than certainly for Israel which can easily be wiped out with just a few bombs.
****Bombing Iran
Nobody should welcome the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran. But bombing the place is not the answer
Feb 25th 2012 | from the print edition
FOR years Iran has practised denial and deception; it has blustered and played for time. All the while, it has kept an eye on the day when it might be able to build a nuclear weapon. The world has negotiated with Iran; it has balanced the pain of economic sanctions with the promise of reward if Iran unambiguously forsakes the bomb. All the while, outside powers have been able to count on the last resort of a military assault.
Today this stand-off looks as if it is about to fail. Iran has continued enriching uranium. It is acquiring the technology it needs for a weapon. Deep underground, at Fordow, near the holy city of Qom, it is fitting out a uranium-enrichment plant that many say is invulnerable to aerial attack. Iran does not yet seem to have chosen actually to procure a nuclear arsenal, but that moment could come soon. Some analysts, especially in Israel, judge that the scope for using force is running out. When it does, nothing will stand between Iran and a bomb.
The air is thick with the prophecy of war. Leon Panetta, America’s defence secretary, has spoken of Israel attacking as early as April. Others foresee an Israeli strike designed to drag in Barack Obama in the run-up to America’s presidential vote, when he will have most to lose from seeming weak.
A decision to go to war should be based not on one man’s electoral prospects, but on the argument that war is warranted and likely to succeed. Iran’s intentions are malign and the consequences of its having a weapon would be grave. Faced by such a regime you should never permanently forswear war. However, the case for war’s success is hard to make. If Iran is intent on getting a bomb, an attack would delay but not stop it. Indeed, using Western bombs as a tool to prevent nuclear proliferation risks making Iran only more determined to build a weapon—and more dangerous when it gets one.
A shadow over the Middle East
Make no mistake, an Iran armed with the bomb would pose a deep threat. The country is insecure, ideological and meddles in its neighbours’ affairs. Both Iran and its proxies—including Hizbullah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza—might act even more brazenly than they do now. The danger is keenly felt by Israel, surrounded by threats and especially vulnerable to a nuclear bomb because it is such a small land. Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, recently called the “Zionist regime” a “cancerous tumour that must be cut out”. Jews, of all people, cannot just dismiss that as so much rhetoric.
Even if Iran were to gain a weapon only for its own protection, others in the region might then feel they need weapons too. Saudi Arabia has said it will arm—and Pakistan is thought ready to supply a bomb in exchange for earlier Saudi backing of its own programme. Turkey and Egypt, the other regional powers, might conclude they have to join the nuclear club. Elsewhere, countries such as Brazil might see nuclear arms as vital to regional dominance, or fear that their neighbours will.
Some experts argue that nuclear-armed states tend to behave responsibly. But imagine a Middle East with five nuclear powers riven by rivalry and sectarian feuds. Each would have its fingers permanently twitching over the button, in the belief that the one that pressed first would be left standing. Iran’s regime gains legitimacy by demonising foreign powers. The cold war seems stable by comparison with a nuclear Middle East—and yet America and the Soviet Union were sometimes scarily close to Armageddon.
The dream of pre-emption
No wonder some people want a pre-emptive strike. But military action is not the solution to a nuclear Iran. It could retaliate, including with rocket attacks on Israel from its client groups in Lebanon and Gaza. Terror cells around the world might strike Jewish and American targets. It might threaten Arab oil infrastructure, in an attempt to use oil prices to wreck the world economy. Although some Arab leaders back a strike, most Muslims are unlikely to feel that way, further alienating the West from the Arab spring. Such costs of an attack are easy to overstate, but even supposing they were high they might be worth paying if a strike looked like working. It does not.
Striking Iran would be much harder than Israel’s successful solo missions against the weapons programmes of Iraq, in 1981, and Syria, in 2007. If an attack were easy, Israel would have gone in alone long ago, when the Iranian programme was more vulnerable. But Iran’s sites are spread out and some of them, hardened against strikes, demand repeated hits. America has more military options than Israel, so it would prefer to wait. That is one reason why it is seeking to hold Israel back. The other is that, for either air force, predictions of the damage from an attack span a huge range. At worst an Israeli mission might fail altogether, at best an American one could, it is said, set back the programme a decade (see article).
But uncertainty would reign. Iran is a vast, populous and sophisticated country with a nuclear programme that began under the shah. It may have secret sites that escape unscathed. Even if all its sites are hit, Iran’s nuclear know-how cannot be bombed out of existence. Nor can its network of suppliers at home and abroad. It has stocks of uranium in various stages of enrichment; an unknown amount would survive an attack, while the rest contaminated an unforeseeable area. Iran would probably withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, under which its uranium is watched by the International Atomic Energy Agency. At that point its entire programme would go underground—literally and figuratively. If Iran decided it needed a bomb, it would then be able to pursue one with utmost haste and in greater secrecy. Saudi Arabia and the others might conclude that they, too, needed to act pre-emptively to gain their own deterrents.
Perhaps America could bomb Iran every few years. But how would it know when and where to strike? And how would it justify a failing policy to the world? Perhaps, if limited bombing is not enough, America should be aiming for an all-out aerial war, or even regime change. Yet a decade in Iraq and Afghanistan has demonstrated where that leads. An aerial war could dramatically raise the threat of retaliation. Regime change might produce a government that the West could do business with. But the nuclear programme has broad support in Iran. The idea that a bomb is the only defence against an implacable American enemy might become stronger than ever.
Get real
That does not mean the world should just let Iran get the bomb. The government will soon be starved of revenues, because of an oil embargo. Sanctions are biting, the financial system is increasingly isolated and the currency has plunged in value. Proponents of an attack argue that military humiliation would finish the regime off. But it is as likely to rally Iranians around their leaders. Meanwhile, political change is sweeping across the Middle East. The regime in Tehran is divided and it has lost the faith of its people. Eventually, popular resistance will spring up as it did in 2009. A new regime brought about by the Iranians themselves is more likely to renounce the bomb than one that has just witnessed an American assault.
Is there a danger that Iran will get a nuclear weapon before that happens? Yes, but bombing might only increase the risk. Can you stop Iran from getting a bomb if it is determined to have one? Not indefinitely, and bombing it might make it all the more desperate. Short of occupation, the world cannot eliminate Iran’s capacity to gain the bomb. It can only change its will to possess one. Just now that is more likely to come about through sanctions and diplomacy than war.****
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Well written and well reasoned piece.
GM: I'm curious. Your take?
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Like most serious problems, there are no quick and easy answers and any action that might be taken has the potential for unintended negative consequences. There was an opening in 2009 for the popular uprising to remove the mullahcracy, but Buraq couldn't be bothered to support them.
The Europeans have been trying "soft power" with Iran for years, with no results except giving Iran precious time to build and bury their nuclear infrastructure. Russia and China will continue to keep the mullahs afloat despite "sanctions", which never have any real effect in removing dictators from power.
We know that since 1979, Iran has been waging jihad against the great satan through covert and not so covert means. Anyone who has paid attention to Iran since 1979 will note that the Iranian leadership doesn't make it's policy decisions based on the western cost/benefit paradigm, but instead on the shia islam jihad/martyrdom worldview. Thus, typical concepts of deterrance do not apply, and we know that it's reasonable to expect that Iran has suffered to go nuclear for a reason, meaning nuclear jihad.
As mentioned, a sunni/shia nuclear faceoff will quickly emerge once Iran goes openly nuclear, creating a new nexus for nuclear smuggling and geopolitical instability.
So, we can kick the can down the road and hope for the best despite no reasonable expectation of that happening or deal with the crisis with all the negatives mentioned in the article knowing it's the least worst of all the options.
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Of course we don't know what the truth is behind all these analyses. Does Israel really know what is going on in Iran or the US or is what they know what we are reading? This analyses includes what Israel can and cannot do conventionally. Their air power is somewhat limited. Waiting HAS allowed Iran to dig deeper. According to this article US airpower would be better but it sounds like the long term is to go after the scientists as well as the sites. This would require hitting civilian sites and some sort of ground game.
The world kept kicking the can down the road (I agree with GM) constantly avoiding the military option hoping for a peaceful solution. Now that that choice has led us to here we can either choose to accept a nuclear Iran or not.
It is worth noting that in one of the articles I posted it was pointed out that after the US bombed and invaded Iraq Iran actually may have backed away from their nuclear program suggesting that they may well have feared a forceful intervention and THAT THAT had a desired affect. Maybe there is a lesson in that.
****Attacking Iran
Up in the air
The probability of an attack on Iran’s nuclear programme has been increasing. But the chances of it ending the country’s nuclear ambitions are low
Feb 25th 2012 | from the print edition
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THE crisis has been a long time coming. Iran started exploring paths to nuclear weaponry before the fall of the shah in 1979. Ten years ago the outside world learned of the plants it was building to provide “heavy” water (used in reactors that produce plutonium) and enriched uranium, which is necessary for some types of nuclear reactor, but also for nuclear weapons. The enrichment facilities have grown in capability, capacity and number; there has been work on detonators, triggers and missile technology, too.
Iran wants, at the very least, to put itself in a position where it has the expertise and materials with which to build deliverable nuclear weapons quickly. It may well want, at some point, to develop the bombs themselves. This is deeply worrying to Israel, which is threatened by Iran’s proxies in Lebanon and Gaza and disgusted by the anti-Semitic rants of Iran’s leaders. It also alarms Arab states, which fear Iranian power (and their own Shiite minorities). That alarm could lead some of them—Saudi Arabia, Egypt, perhaps Turkey—to seek nuclear weapons of their own. Many fear that this would make the region even less stable than it is. Even if it did not, it would make the possible consequences of instability much more terrible.
In this section
»Up in the air
Stalled
From half-hearted to harsh
Reprints
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Related topics
United States
Armed forces
Nuclear proliferation
Nuclear weapons
International relations
Outside powers, especially America, would give a great deal to avoid the prospect of an emboldened, nuclear-armed Iran. Hence ever-stronger sanctions designed to get Iran to cease enrichment and content itself with reactor fuel made elsewhere. Hence, also, a willingness by America and others to keep open the option of military strikes.
In Israel that willingness has hardened close to the point of commitment. Israel has nuclear weapons itself, including submarine-based weapons that could posthumously annihilate any aggressor who destroyed the country. But this deterrent is not enough to stop Israelis from seeing a nuclear Iran as the precursor to a second holocaust. The problem is that military action will not necessarily bring about what Israel wants—and could, in the medium to long term, make matters worse.
Short fuses
The possibility of an Iranian bomb comes closer with every revolution of the centrifuges in its underground enrichment plants (see article). Israel’s director of military intelligence, Major-General Aviv Kochavi, says that Iran has obtained 4 tonnes of uranium enriched to 3.5% and another 100kg enriched to 20%, which the Iranians say is for a research reactor in Tehran. If further enriched to 90% (which is not that hard once you have got to 20%) the more enriched uranium would be enough for up to four nuclear weapons. General Kochavi says that from the moment Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, gave the order, it would take the Iranians a year to make a crude device and another year or two to put together a nuclear warhead that would fit on a ballistic missile. American analysts, who imagine a broader-based approach to developing a nuclear capability, rather than a crash programme, think it would take a bit longer.
Israel’s defence minister, Ehud Barak, talks of the Iranian programme entering a “zone of immunity” well before any bombs are built. This year some of Iran’s centrifuges have been moved to a previously secret facility near the holy city of Qom. This site, Fordow, is buried deep within the bowels of a mountain; hence Mr Barak’s talk of Iran reaching a stage “which may render any physical strike as impractical”.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says Fordow has room for 3,000 centrifuges, compared with the 9,000 Iran claims at its first enrichment plant, Natanz. Mr Barak fears that once Fordow is fully equipped Iran will leave the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). That would bring the IAEA’s inspections to an end, as well as its safeguard procedures aimed at tracking nuclear material. North Korea left the NPT in 2003, two years before announcing that it had the bomb and three years before testing one.
Not all Israeli security officials agree with Mr Barak. Some think that the time may already have passed when Israel on its own could carry out such a strike; others reject the idea that Fordow is a uniquely difficult target. Many of their American peers see a focus on Fordow as too narrow. There are less well defended facilities that are also critical to Iranian nuclear ambitions: sites that make centrifuges and missiles, for example.
Iran’s decreasing vulnerability is not the only reason for thinking that, after talking about it for many years, Israel might actually be about to strike. It has been building up its in-air refuelling capacity, and thus its ability to get a lot of planes over targets well inside Iran. And the Arab spring has reduced Iran’s scope for retaliation. The plight of the beleaguered Assad regime in Syria removes Iran’s only significant Arab ally from the fray. A year ago both Hizbullah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza might have been relied on to rain missiles on Israeli targets after a strike against Iran. Now Hamas is realigning itself away from Iran and towards Egypt, and the situation in Syria means that Hizbullah cannot be certain that, if it fires at Israel, its Iranian-supplied arsenal will be replenished.
Awkward allies
Then there is the American presidential election. Like the Bush administration before it, Barack Obama’s White House sees Iran’s nuclear ambitions as a huge concern. But it worries that the consequences of an attack on Iran, whether by Israel or America, are unpredictable and scary: oil prices would rocket—at least for a while—endangering the economic recovery; allies in the Gulf already shaken by the Arab spring could be further destabilised; jihadist terrorism could be re-energised; America could be deflected from its primary goal of balancing the power of a rising China in the western Pacific.
Leon Panetta, America’s secretary of defence, says an Israeli attack might delay the advent of an Iranian bomb by “maybe one, possibly two years”, which looks like too little reward for such risks. Mr Obama has insisted that the Israelis give more time for diplomacy, an ever-tightening sanctions regime and intelligence-led efforts to sabotage Iran’s progress. In the period between September last year and January this year Mr Panetta and the chairman of the joint chiefs, General Martin Dempsey, both warned Israeli leaders that if they attacked they would be on their own.
But the election may give Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, something to bargain with. In the face of a hawkish Republican rival and in front of an electorate that is in parts fiercely pro-Israel, Mr Obama may feel he has to welcome, or even build on, an Israeli fait accompli in a way he would not have done earlier and might not do after his re-election, should it come about. In March Mr Netanyahu is planning a trip to Washington. He is likely to remind a broadly sympathetic Congress where America’s duty lies in confronting the “existential threat” to Israel. Although Mr Netanyahu is a more cautious character than some suppose, it would be a mistake to think he is bluffing when he says privately that on his watch Iran will not be allowed to take an irreversible step towards the possession of nuclear weapons.
In early February Mr Panetta appeared to reflect the sense that an Israeli attack was becoming increasingly likely when sharing his thoughts with a journalist from the Washington Post. He said he now believed there was a “strong likelihood” that Israel would attack Iran between April and June this year. Other sources put the odds of an attack this year a bit over 50%.
Such an attack would be a far more complex undertaking than the Israeli strikes against Iraq’s Osirak reactor in 1981 and Syria’s reactor near al-Kibar in 2007. The Iranian nuclear programme looks as if it has been set up with air strikes in mind. Its sites are spread across more than a dozen supposedly well-defended locations.
Israel would probably pay particular attention to the enrichment plants at Natanz and Fordow; after them would come the facility at Isfahan that turns uranium into a gas that the centrifuges can work with and the heavy-water reactor under construction at Arak, both of which are above the ground. The larger Russian-built reactor at Bushehr would probably escape unscathed; it is less relevant to weapons work and damage to it could spread contamination across the Gulf.
Israel’s main attack force would consist of two dozen F-15Is and 100 F-16Is, variants of American fighter bombers that have been adapted for long-range missions, along with tankers for aerial refuelling, perhaps supplemented by armed drones and submarine-launched cruise missiles. The planes’ most likely route would be over Jordan and then Iraq, which has almost no air defences. Iran is defended, but mainly by Soviet-era surface-to-air missiles of a kind the Israelis have dealt with before. Iran has fighter aircraft, too, but the Israelis are not too concerned about them.
Plans of attack
Israel has at least 100 two-and-a-quarter tonne (5,000-pound) GBU-28s precision-guided bunker-busting bombs and even more of the smaller GBU-27s. Natanz would be vulnerable to these if they struck with sufficient accuracy and in sufficient numbers.
The biggest question is whether an Israeli strike would have any impact on the centrifuge chamber at Fordow, said to be buried 80 metres deep. According to Austin Long, an academic who used to work for the RAND Corporation, if every one of the F-15Is aimed the GBU-28 it was carrying, along with both its GBU-27s, at a single point, there would be a 35-90% chance of over half the weapons arriving at just the right place and at least one bomb would penetrate the facility. So if carried through with impeccable precision an attack on Fordow would have a reasonable chance of inflicting a bomb’s worth of damage.
But even if things went off without a hitch Iran would retain the capacity to repair and reconstitute its programme. Unless Israel was prepared to target the programme’s technical leadership in civilian research centres and universities the substantial nuclear know-how that Iran has gained over the past decades would remain largely intact. So would its network of hardware suppliers. Furthermore, if Iran is not already planning to leave the NPT such an attack would give it ample excuse to do so, taking its entire programme underground and focusing it on making bombs as soon as possible, rather than building up a threshold capability. Even a successful Israeli strike might thus delay Iran’s progress by only three or four years, while strengthening its resolve.
An American attack might gain five years or even ten; it could drop more bombs on more of the sites, and much bigger bombs—its B-2s carry GBU-57 “Massive Ordnance Penetrators”, weighing almost 14 tonnes. Mindful of its greater capability, in May 2008 Israel’s then prime minister, Ehud Olmert, asked George Bush whether America would, if needed, finish the job that Israel had started and stand by its friend no matter what the consequences. Mr Bush, preoccupied with Iraq, turned him down.
What are friends for? .
Mr Obama, whose relations with Mr Netanyahu are much cooler than were Mr Bush’s with Mr Olmert, says he is “leaving all options on the table”. An American attack thus remains a possibility, and will continue to be one up to the day Iran fields weapons. But America is unlikely to rush into a strike following an Israeli mission. Administration officials suggest that America would aim to stay firmly on the sidelines, though they are resigned to the fact that, however strong its denials, its complicity would be widely assumed. America would, however, respond vigorously to any attack on its own forces, the oil installations of its allies, or shipping.
Despite a lot of huffing and puffing from Iranian commanders about closing the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 35% of the world’s seaborne oil passes, Iran lacks the ships and firepower with which to mount a conventional blockade. Mines, torpedo-carrying mini-submarines and anti-ship missiles would still allow the Iranians to damage poorly defended tankers. But a spate of such attacks would probably bring an overwhelming response from the carrier groups of America’s Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain. Iranian action that managed to be more than a nuisance while not provoking a decisive counter-attack by America would require finely judged and innovative tactics.
Wars at home
Nevertheless, to maintain its credibility the Iranian government would feel compelled to retaliate. As well as threatening shipping, it has also said that it will strike back at any Gulf state from which attacks on it are launched. America has bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates; those countries could become targets if Iran chooses to see America as directly implicated in any attack. Iranian strikes on the Gulf states could, in turn, lead America to retaliate against non-nuclear targets in Iran.
Then there are attacks on Israel proper. Although Hizbullah and Hamas may not launch attacks as fiercely as they might have done a year ago, they could still do damage. Iran may also try to hit Israel with its own ballistic missiles, though this would come up against the obstacle of Israel’s missile defences, and could also spur a forthright American response.
A regional conflagration cannot be ruled out. But the biggest downside of an attack on Iran may be the possibility of revived patriotic support for an unpopular and incompetent regime. Even the most virulently anti-regime Iranians today fear that an attack on the country’s nuclear installations could rekindle the revolutionary Islamic patriotism of the Iran-Iraq war, validating decades of paranoid regime propaganda and cementing the Revolutionary Guard’s increasingly firm hold on politics and the economy.
Although such fears may be overdone, so too may be the hopes of some outside Iran that an attack could have the opposite effect, with Iranians turning against the regime. It is true that Iran is embroiled in a power struggle (see article). Parliamentarians have summoned the president for questioning for the first time since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Given the level of public disaffection with the regime following a post-election crackdown in 2009 and the economic downturn caused by sanctions (see article), the government can expect only limited sympathy from the public. If retaliatory strikes against shipping, or Gulf oil terminals, or Israel, brought on a subsequent wave of American attacks it might lose even that. This is a reason to expect a relatively restrained reaction to any raid, or one expressed through terrorist attacks far away—such as those mounted last week on Israeli diplomats in New Delhi, Tbilisi and Bangkok.
But discontented though they may be, Iranians are for the most part quite proud of their nuclear programme, seeing no reason why so ancient and grand a nation should not have nuclear weapons. They point out that Pakistan is a far less stable and more dangerous member of the nuclear club than Iran would be, and that Western powers are hypocritical in their tacit acceptance of Israel’s nuclear weapons. Iran, they say, has not launched a war since the 19th century; Israel has never been completely at peace.
This adds to the case that, although bombing could delay Iran’s nuclear ambitions, it stands little chance of diminishing them; further entrenching them looks more likely. Perhaps, in the time gained by an attack, today’s regime might fall, its place taken by one less committed to nuclear development. But it is also possible that reinvigorated sanctions might convince even today’s regime that the cost of becoming a nuclear power was too high. Coupling sanctions with the threat of an attack may make them yet more convincing—even if, paradoxically, an actual attack would lessen their force.
The sanctions have become so tough, though, only because the world takes the risk of an Israeli attack seriously and it needs an alternative. Sword-rattling can sometimes have its place. But the swords are sharp—and double-edged.
Nearing a point of no return***
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http://hotair.com/archives/2012/02/26/strategic-ambiguity-for-fun-and-profit/
Strategic ambiguity for fun and profit
posted at 5:45 pm on February 26, 2012 by J.E. Dyer
The US intelligence community is having a very difficult time interpreting the signals from Iran’s nuclear program. This isn’t that unusual in historical context; US intelligence tends to be surprised by nuclear detonations. But it is of grave concern that our national leadership at all levels seems to be so shortsighted about what is at stake. Our biggest problem in dealing with Iran today is framing the issue – and at the moment, we’re doing it wrong.
If we frame the issue as a question of how close Iran is to getting the bomb, as if all other things are equal – as if Iran could get the bomb in a vacuum, with nothing else mattering or changing along the way – then it makes a sort of sense to focus exclusively on the potential ambiguity of our various data points; e.g., computer files from 2003; Iran’s connections with Pakistan, North Korea, and the A.Q. Khan network; persistent attempts to import suspect materials in defiance of sanctions.
In this extremely narrow, simplistic construct – one or zero, Iran is about to get the bomb or isn’t – analysts can justify incessantly splitting the distance from here to a bomb.
“Well, they’re closer than they were, but that’s a technicality – we still don’t know if they want one. “
“Well, they’re closer than they were, and they’re being less cooperative with the IAEA, but we still don’t have direct indications that they are designing and testing a warhead.”
“Well, they’ve offered their Middle Eastern neighbors a ‘missile umbrella’ as a defense against outside powers, which is something that would only work if the missile umbrella were nuclear, but we just don’t have the evidence that they are working on a warhead right now.”
I’ve compared this approach in the past to Zeno of Elea’s famous paradox. Zeno proposed, as a basis for a reasoning exercise, that because the distance between an arrow and its target can theoretically be divided in half an infinite number of times, the arrow can never actually reach the target. US intelligence seems determined to operate on this basis, biasing its estimates with an emphasis on the remaining distance to the target.
But this is a posture, not an intelligence conclusion, and it’s based on an assumption that we can afford to focus on whatever Iran doesn’t seem to have done yet. A different, less complacent posture – e.g., from the Oval Office – would require a different emphasis from intelligence.
The disconnect with reality is rather startling. Perhaps the strongest clue that America’s intelligence community misreads the historical moment is its officials’ use of the expression “strategic ambiguity.” According to the New York Times:
[Intelligence officials] say that Iran could be seeking to enhance its influence in the region by creating what some analysts call “strategic ambiguity.” Rather than building a bomb now, Iran may want to increase its power by sowing doubt among other nations about its nuclear ambitions.
Well, sure. And the point here? “Strategic ambiguity” is what Iran has now, which is why we’re in a scramble – arms build-ups, sanctions, economic insecurity, regional realignments, the spread of Iranian-backed terror incidents, threats of “World War III” from Russia and China – and the situation is getting steadily worse. This is what strategic ambiguity looks like, Iranian-nuclear-intentions-wise: destabilization of the Eastern hemisphere. It’s no way for any of us to live.
And it certainly isn’t going to get better with age. The Iranian mullahs are one of several entities jockeying for leadership of the Islamist vision for the Middle East. Conflict and uncertainty are on their side, and that’s what strategic ambiguity over Iran is ideal for promoting. The longer it goes on, the more likely it is that at least some of the power relationships affecting the region (and Iran’s prospects in it) will be realigned. Indeed, the entire region is already changing, even as the US strategic focus seems to narrow to an absurd concept of waiting to prevent Iran from getting the bomb at the precise, Unassailable Moment when no one could claim she wasn’t trying to.
An extended period of strategic ambiguity for Iran means strategic discontinuity for the rest of us. There is no steady state in which the only thing that changes is how many seconds closer to a bomb Iran is. “Strategic ambiguity” over Iran’s nuclear intentions isn’t some intermediate future condition that might be less of a problem than Iran having the bomb; it’s the condition of today, and it is the problem.
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What if we finally imposed an embargo on Iran's central bank? I gather that this is considered likely to have powerful consequences and that we hold back because of the chance of it triggering Iran into seeking to close the Straits of Hormuz with its attendant disruptions and political consequences.
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Iran's Conservatives Grapple for Power
March 1, 2012
ATTA KENARE/AFP/Getty Images
An Iranian woman walks past electoral posters in Tehran on Feb. 27
Summary
Iran's parliamentary elections are scheduled for March 2. With most of the reformist politicians banned from participating, the elections are shaping up to be a competition between Iran's two dominant conservative camps: the populists, led by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; and candidates supporting the clerical establishment, led by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Though it is unlikely that even a large win for Ahmadinejad's faction would threaten the nature of the clerical regime in the near term, Ahmadinejad is trying to build a movement that can eventually wrest more control from the clerical elite. This election may indicate whether Ahmadinejad has made progress toward that goal.
Analysis
Iran will hold elections for its parliament, known as the Majlis, on March 2. These will be the first nationwide elections since the disputed 2009 presidential contest that saw the rise and swift fall of the reformist Green Movement. With many reformist leaders under house arrest or imprisoned and with the majority of the reformist parties barred from participating, the upcoming elections will be a political competition fought among Iran's conservatives.
The populist conservatives, led by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have been challenging the clerical elite, led by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, since the 2009 election for ultimate control of the state. While the supreme leader's pre-eminent role in the government does not appear to be at risk in the near term -- even if Ahmadinejad's populist faction manages to take the majority of parliamentary seats -- Ahmadinejad hopes to build a movement that can sustain his push for a government less captive to an unelected clerical elite, and the Majlis has become a key battleground for this effort.
Intra-Conservative Rift
Iran's conservatives can be roughly divided into two camps: those who believe the supreme leader has "faslol khatab," or final say in all matters, and those who do not. Ahmadinejad is leader of the latter camp, having used his two terms to establish the presidency as a position in competition with the supreme leader for executive authority.
Ahmadinejad initially had a good relationship with Khamenei and had his support during the contested 2009 presidential election. This began to deteriorate before the regime crushed protests by the Green movement, with Ahmadinejad demonstrating that he would not quietly follow all Khamenei's mandates.
His independent streak was most visible during his firing of intelligence chief Heidar Moslehi on April 18, 2011, against the direct wishes of the supreme leader, his dismissal of Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki on Dec. 13, 2010, while Mottaki was on an official trip abroad, and his encouragement of the resignations of several Cabinet members. The impetus for the firings was Khamenei's order to Ahmadinejad to dismiss his closest associate, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, from the post of first vice president shortly after Ahmadinejad's re-election in 2009. Ahmadinejad refused and abstained from his official duties for 10 days in protest when the supreme leader ultimately forced his hand. Ahmadinejad then appointed Mashaei as presidential chief of staff in a clear attempt to countermand the intent of Khamenei's order.
Ahmadinejad and his supporters present a serious threat to the current clerical regime and its key stakeholders and beneficiaries. A populist conservative who draws his support from the rural poor, Ahmadinejad has said that power should be vested in the elected government, while the clerics should have a guidance role. This implicitly criticizes the Islamic republic's principle of Velayat-e-Faqih, or rule by Islamic jurists, on which the clerical elite stakes its legitimacy. (Explicitly challenging the principle would not be tolerated, especially from a sitting president.) The conflict stems from the contradiction in the institutional nature of Iran, being both a parliamentary democracy and a clerical theocracy headed by the supreme leader, who is not popularly elected. Khamenei and the clerical elite, along with their allies in the judiciary and the parliament, are hoping to use the elections to slow the momentum of this emerging class of non-clerical politicians and prevent the further erosion of their authority.
Election Stakes
Although some districts have more than 10 different parliamentary lists vying for seats, there are only two different potential parliaments for which the Iranians will be voting. Beyond the potential to clearly cement a certain faction within the legislative body, these elections will also serve as a referendum on Ahmadinejad's policies and his practice of rejecting the preferences of the supreme leader. With the president scheduled to appear for questioning before the Majlis by March 20 and several of his associates being indicted by the judiciary on claims of corruption, the clerical elite sense an opportunity to reverse the conservative populists' momentum.
Ahmadinejad's current term will end in 2013, and he will be ineligible to run for his third and final term until 2017. (Under Iranian law, an individual may run for three presidential terms but only two may be consecutive.) Khamenei's chances for having a pro-clerical presidential candidate win and potentially hold the seat for the next eight years will be much improved with Ahmadinejad unable to run himself. This is of great importance as the 72-year-old supreme leader's health is rumored to be declining. Ahmadinejad's goal is to elect a populist presidential candidate without much of his own power base, enabling Ahmadinejad to run again in 2017 as the populists' favored candidate. Regardless of whether Ahmadinejad's candidate wins, he will spend the next four years building a political movement that can carry him to a third term, though having an ally in the presidency would help this effort, as would taking a large share of the parliamentary seats up for election on March 2.
There are several structural obstacles Khamenei can put in Ahmadinejad's way. The Guardian Council, half of whom are clerics appointed by the supreme leader, must approve all candidates for public office. The council has already moved to disqualify several of Ahmadinejad's most visible supporters, including Mashaei and former IRNA chief Ali Akbar Javanfekr, who was banned from politics for five years after his appeal was denied Feb. 29. He was initially arrested for implying that Khamenei's statements were more suggestions than orders. These disqualifications forced Ahmadinejad to quietly back provincial hopefuls and others out of the political spotlight. The supreme leader has also allowed the judiciary -- headed by Sadeq Larijani, the brother of current Majlis speaker and Khamenei ally Ali Larijani -- to indict several figures within Ahmadinejad's circle in an ongoing corruption and embezzlement scandal. Even Ahmadinejad has been summoned by the Majlis to be questioned on this issue. Several key supreme leader appointees, such as the secretary-general of the Expediency Council, publicly have placed blame on the current government rather than on international sanctions for Iran's ongoing economic woes, including a 40 percent drop in the value of Iran's currency since sanctions began.
This is not to imply that Ahmadinejad is without advantages of his own. Ahmadinejad still enjoys significant support from the rural poor, veterans and those outside the patronage circles of the clerical elite or the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Even among the clerical elite, Ahmadinejad has some level of support, and the IRGC is more or less divided. The president or his allies within the government have visited rural regions several times in the past months to announce various construction projects or government aide programs. The populist direct payment project implemented by Ahmadinejad to replace the previous subsidy program all but guaranteed the support of the poor.
Also helping Ahmadinejad is that, while Khamenei holds the paramount leadership post in the country as supreme leader, he lacks the type of religious credentials possessed by the previous supreme leader and founder of the republic, Ruhollah Khomeini. Khamenei lacks support from influential theologians, and even within the wider clerical community, the Velayat-e-Faqih concept is not universally agreed upon. If candidates supporting Ahmadinejad are able to take control of the Majlis, Ahmadinejad may be able to exploit these divisions within the clerical body to bring more clerics to his side. This will require a nuanced approach. Whatever issues the clerical elite might take with Khamenei in the role of supreme leader, they will still want a governmental system that places them at the top of the power structure.
Unexpected Victors
Any discussion on the future of Iranian politics must take into account the growing political influence of the IRGC. The IRGC played a key role in supporting Ahmadinejad's 2009 victory, and Khamenei relied on its support early in his career to establish himself in his role as supreme leader after heated opposition from such clerical figures as Grand Ayatollah Hussein Ali Montazeri. The IRGC's increased role in the Iranian military and economy through business deals have expanded its political influence, but the biggest boon to the IRGC's increased role has been the intra-conservative rift.
As both sides vie for power, the IRGC has slowly risen to fill the void in the middle. Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, the current mayor of Tehran and candidate in the March 2 elections, is a former commander of AFAGIR, the IRGC's air force, and a potential future presidential candidate. Iranian media also reported that Maj. Gen. Qassem Suleimani, the commander of the IRGC's Quds force, might soon be replaced in order to allow him to run in the 2013 presidential election. Suleimani is in a stronger position than Ghalibaf, who the clerics view as too liberal. But it should be noted that no retired IRGC commander has ever been elected president in Iran.
Ahmadinejad would also make history in Iran if he were able to win the 2017 election. No two-term president has ever been able to win the constitutionally permitted third term. Further, it is unlikely that Ahmadinejad will have any official post in the government in the intervening four years. Retaking the presidency is central to furthering the populists' movement to reduce the authority of the clerical establishment. To a large degree, the parliamentary elections will be a referendum on what Ahmadinejad has done thus far and what he will be allowed to do going forward.
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Second the New York Times reports that Iran’s main religious leader says that the production, possession, use or threatend use of nuclear weapons is a “great sin“:
Echoing sentiments expressed in speeches by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, [Iranian foreign minister, Ali Akbar] Salehi denied that the nuclear program had a military purpose, saying Iran would be a stronger country without nuclear arms.
“We do not see any glory, pride or power in the nuclear weapons — quite the opposite,” he said. He added that on the basis of a religious decree by Ayatollah Khamenei, “the production, possession, use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is illegitimate, futile, harmful, dangerous and prohibited as a great sin.”
Mr. Salehi said the existence of nearly 23,000 nuclear weapons in the world posed “the gravest threat” to sustainable international security.
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Iran is consistently marching towards nuclear weapons. I don't see any ambiguity.
"Sources at the WH, generals, etc one come out and say the military option is not viable .
The next day we hear that there is no alternative to military force in stopping Iran.
Another day we hear absurd proclomations that military force is "on the table".
The next day we hear people railing against the Israelis to not take action into their own hands.
The following day we hear that we are not abandoning the Jews.
Every day we hear some talking joker on cable proclaiming that the best choice is diplomacy.
Today Cogressman Ellison is on the MSNBC station saying we simply need to talk more with the Iranian leadership and that is more or less are only option.
Iranians are not stupid. They can see the waffling just as I can.
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http://www.usnews.com/opinion/mzuckerman/articles/2012/03/01/mort-zuckerman-obama-must-act-promptly-to-prevent-a-nuclear-iran?page=3
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203370604577261420155653052.html?mod=opinion_newsreel
As White House U-turns go, President Obama's hawkish rhetorical shift on Iran in the last week has been remarkable. The question now is whether Israel, and especially Iran, will believe that he means it after three years of trying to woo the mullahs to the bargaining table with diplomacy.
Mr. Obama opened the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee Sunday with a keynote whose strong talk on Iran kept the audience coming to its feet. The President took credit for isolating the Islamic Republic diplomatically and imposing a de facto oil embargo that has sent the Iranian rial tumbling.
His speech follows an interview last week with the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg in which Mr. Obama went out of his way to call a nuclear Iran "unacceptable." He referred to the "military component" of U.S. policy and said that "I think that the Israeli government recognizes that, as President of the United States, I don't bluff." As startling, he added that containing a nuclear Iran wouldn't work because of near-certain proliferation in the region and that "the risks of an Iranian nuclear weapon falling into the hands of terrorist organizations are profound."
The timing of all this is no accident as Benjamin Netanyahu meets Mr. Obama in the White House today amid intense speculation about an imminent Israeli strike on Iran. In an interview with Journal editors on Friday, Eyal Gabbai, the former director general of the Israeli Prime Minister's office, said Mr. Netanyahu's meeting with Mr. Obama "will be the last time they can speak face-to-face before a decision is taken."
Enlarge Image
CloseAssociated Press
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama.
.The Israeli military calculus toward Iran is driven largely by the perception that the regime's nuclear programs will soon enter a "zone of immunity," beyond which they may be effectively invulnerable to a non-nuclear Israeli strike. But also driving Israeli fears is the sense that the Obama Administration isn't prepared to use military means if diplomacy, sanctions and covert acts don't persuade Iran to stand down.
Those fears are far from groundless. Though Mr. Obama now takes credit for sanctions, his Administration fought Congress tooth-and-nail on sanctioning Iran's central bank. The President only reluctantly signed the sanctions into law as part of a larger defense bill. His aides also worked to stop legislation to cut off Iran from making financial transactions via the Swift banking consortium.
As for military strikes, senior Administration officials have repeatedly sounded as if their top priority is deterring Israel, rather than stopping Iran from getting a bomb.
As recently as November, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said a military strike would have "unintended consequences" and wouldn't necessarily result in "deterring Iran from what they want to do." In the last two weeks, Joint Chiefs Chairman Martin Dempsey said an Israeli strike would be "destabilizing," while Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testified that the Iranians haven't decided to build a bomb. Little wonder the Israelis are nervous about U.S. resolve.
It's welcome news if Mr. Obama is now trying to put those fears to rest, but he is also more outspoken than ever in trying to avert Israel from acting on its own. "Do we want a distraction in which Iran can portray itself as a victim, and deflect attention from what has to be the core issue, which is their pursuit of nuclear weapons?" Mr. Obama told Mr. Goldberg—the "distraction" here meaning an Israeli attack.
If the President's contention is that an Israeli strike would be less effective and have more unpredictable consequences than an American strike, he's right—and few Israelis would disagree. Israelis don't have the same military resources as the U.S.
The question Mr. Netanyahu and Israeli leaders have to ponder is whether Mr. Obama now means what he says. The President has built up an immense trust deficit with Israel that can't be easily dispensed in a week. All the more so when Israelis know that this is an election year when Mr. Obama needs to appear more pro-Israel than he would if he is re-elected.
It's good to hear Mr. Obama finally sounding serious about stopping a nuclear Iran. But if he now finds himself pleading with Israel not to take matters in its own hands, he should know his Administration's vacillation and mixed signals have done much to force Jerusalem's hand. More fundamentally, a President who says he doesn't "bluff" had better be prepared to act if his bluff is called.
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Sledge hammer ordinance may just not work.
I notice small tactical nuclear weapons are never mentioned.
This must contribute to reluctance on our military's part and the rather slim confidence Israel could do serious damage to Iran's nuclear capabilities. Well we did give them years to dig in all the while they knew we were a paper tiger.
http://www.economist.com/node/21548918
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I notice small tactical nuclear weapons are never mentioned.
http://www.economist.com/node/21548918
And I hope/expect never will be...
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"And I hope/expect never will be..."
But Obamster said no options off the table.
"We" have your back (till he no longer needs Jewish votes and dollars and media support).
Well what if that IS what it takes?
Don't wring your hands JDN.
I am thinking out loud.
The first ones to use nucs won't be Israel or the US.
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Already covered in this thread, but there is quite a news story going around about how Pres. Obama is now talking tough about Iran. I can't justify the time to read or analyze his words because he so seldom means what he says, especially in 'prepared' remarks. Iran has been emboldened by weakness. This didn't start under Obama's watch but it has festered and grown. It could be argued under Bush that a) we were busy in Iraq and b) still had time to act.
After all that was wrong in other intelligence, it is impossible to know what is right in Iran, but at this point it is very possibly the legacy of Barack Obama that Iran went nuclear under his watch. Now admitting the danger of that makes it even worse for his legacy if he fails to act.
In related matters, there was a string of negative global security news stories this morning (Iran, China military expenditures, Yemen rebellion) with the same central theme IMO, adversaries and enemies are emboldened around the world by American weakness.
Where were we when the Iranians rose up in 2009-2010 against the theocratic, military dictatorship? AWOL http://www.iranian.com/main/blog/dr-mansur-rastani/president-obama-you-undermined-2009-iranian-uprising
While he was learning and growing into the office, opportunities were lost and dangers escalated.
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I think it was Bill Kristol that pointed out the other night that the US use to speak out on behalf of Russian dissidents; nary a peep from President Baraq about his fellow Christian who is about to be executed in Iran for converting to Christianity.
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"...nary a peep from President Baraq about his fellow Christian..."
You are kind to give him the benefit of the doubt on his religion but the phrase 'his fellow Christian' has a dissonance to it. I hesitate to call myself a Christian around real Christians if I attend only a few times a year as a non-member of a church. The point is valid though, what is the supposed leader of the free world going to say or do about the most horrific violations of freedom of religion around the globe. Nothing.
Nothing that sounds like: 'Mr. Ahmadinejad, if you seek peace, tear down this wall!'
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More cognitive dissonance and glibness on Iran: Pres. Obama has been clarifying his policy toward Iran this week. Now that it's clear can someone please explain it to me.
We are committed to pursuing patience while Iran perfects its nuclear arsenal OR we are committed to taking action to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power? I heard him say both but which is it?
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'Mr. Ahmadinejad"
Speaking of which... He has been going around for years tipping Iran's intention of wiping the Jews out of the middle east.
If he was not doing this the real intent of Iran vis a vis Israel would not be so obvious and thus almost no chance of stopping them from nucs.
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"If he was not doing this the real intent of Iran vis a vis Israel would not be so obvious and thus almost no chance of stopping them from nucs."
His constant saber rattling always raises up oil prices, but you hit a good point: if going nuclear and wiping out Israel was his intention, why wouldn't he hide it? He has always looked like he was inviting attack and I don't understand why. Maybe we can get some insane people who relate better to analyze his logic and motives.
Pakistan was far more secretive about their nuclear program IIRC.
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"if going nuclear and wiping out Israel was his intention, why wouldn't he hide it? He has always looked like he was inviting attack and I don't understand why. Maybe we can get some insane people who relate better to analyze his logic and motives."
Given that I was a lawyer who went for the big bucks in stickfighting, I certainly qualify on the "insane" part :lol: so allow me to take a stab at this:
He did it for the votes and as part of his power struggles with the Ayotollahs.
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Don't forget the psychosocial aspect of sacred martyrdom amongst the shia.
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Somehow I don't pictures A-man as doing the martyr (shahid?) thing , , ,
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Somehow I don't pictures A-man as doing the martyr (shahid?) thing , , ,
You should read up on his bio then. I think he's a true believer.
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That he does appear to be, but somehow the leaders of the Islamic Fascist movements don't seem to choose martrydom.
with logic that eludes me, that is for the young.
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Hannity said yesterday Israel has no choice but to take military action.
Mort Zuckerman who is no conservative agrees:
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/mzuckerman/articles/2012/03/02/if-the-us-and-the-world-wont-stop-iran-israel-will-act-alone
So do I.
I really don't know have any clue whether the electorate would aprove Obama helping Israel or not. The polls don't impress me with such dire decisions.
I don't know if Americans would really want to get involved militarily for Jews. Or how many? Certainly some would not.
It doesn't sound like Israeli military can reliably do much damage to the dug in multiple sites. According to the Economist and others (posted on board) even the US military's ability is far from guaranteed. At least without:
1) ground operations
2) small nulcear devices
It really does sound like Bibi has made the decision to go ahead. What Obama will do is a mystery.
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"the tides of war are fading"
Some day history will look back and make him eat these words.
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In reading the opinion of the 60 minutes interview with the Mossad chief and Leslie Stahl along with everything else we have read I conclude that Israel has marginal ability at best to stop Iran from going nuclear. Indeed, the odds of success (without the US) are so low many Israelis would not do it alone. Too scared and understandably so.
I still think Israel has no choice but to try. The question is what will the US do?
What should they do?
There are many answers and many opinions.
Bottom line Iran will almost certainly have a nuclear bomb capability.
Military means was in retrospect and clearly is the only way to stop them.
IMHO , FWIW,
Iran will have nuclear weapons will dictate to the Jews to leave Israel or else and the situation will be 100 times more dangerous than now.
Everything points to this. Despite years of talking about talkng nothing else has changed.
Iran has succeeded in digging in, and correctly judged the US to not be willing to do go the distance.
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CCP, nice job following this. It will come down to what Netanyahu can and will do without advance American backing and your questions will dictate much of the aftermath.
Cynical but my take on the White House position is that they are still polling focus groups to measure whether or not Iran going fully nuclear will be considered by historians and the public in general to be George Bush's fault.
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http://www.economist.com/node/21549935
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CCP, nice job following this. It will come down to what Netanyahu can and will do without advance American backing and your questions will dictate much of the aftermath.
Cynical but my take on the White House position is that they are still polling focus groups to measure whether or not Iran going fully nuclear will be considered by historians and the public in general to be George Bush's fault.
I think Obama has no problem with Iran nuking Israel out of existance. He'll say all the right things afterwards and pretend to show sympathy to the survivors, but he'll be slapping high fives with Rev. Wright and Rasheed Khalili in private.
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Personally I didn't like Obama's advice to calm down the rhetoric. I don't recall ever seeing Bibi appear panicked, scared or irrational.
I notice MSNBC and CNN (though the latter was a far more balanced panel) had on guests implying that the IRan thing is diverting attention from the big issue at hand in the middle east which is the Israel Palestinian dispute without an end. They had guests who made it clear that the entire problem are the Jewish settlements and if it weren't for the Jews settling on WEst Bank there would be peace. Essentially the fault of the Jews. Chris Hays sounded suspiciously putting forth this veiw which indeed is the view of the present WH occupant. It is in my view no coicidence MSNBC is pushing this now. It is direct propaganda from the WH or its minions.
All I can say to the WH is just keep it up. You will lose many Jewish votes. If Jews are somewhat paranoid and suspicious and untrusting it is for good reason. On Obama's political gamesmanship:
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/215379-specter-says-obama-ditched-him-after-he-provided-60th-vote-to-pass-health-law
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According to this writer Netanyahu need not worry. He has Obama's ull support. Obama said so.
(till Nov 2 :wink:)
http://www.dewaynewickham.blogspot.com/
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"he'll be slapping high fives"
It could also be that he knows the difference between an ally and enemy but doesn't know what to do with that information.
If I were commander in chief, besides intelligence briefings I would have psychological experts on whatever is wrong with Ahmedinejad advising me as well. Correctly predicting and preparing for the enemy's next move is crucial, but difficult to do with raving maniacs.
Allowing Iran to go nuclear is unthinkable. Blowing up one location to set them back a year while confirming the view of the rest of the world that it is the "Zionists and the American Imperialists" (stealing a phrase from Saddam) who are the aggressors is not much gain.
Somewhere in the larger picture, nations like Russia and China shouldn't be able to play nice with us on other matters and smaller matters and then stab us in the back on crucial areas of non-proliferation and global security. If this is the biggest containable threat of this time, how about we treat it that way in our relationships with the other members of the security council.
The commitment to keep Iran non-nuclear needs to have more staying power than one first strike.
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If I were commander in chief, besides intelligence briefings I would have psychological experts on whatever is wrong with Ahmedinejad advising me as well. Correctly predicting and preparing for the enemy's next move is crucial, but difficult to do with raving maniacs.
That's part of any intelligence analysis. They were using shrinks to figure out Hitler back in WWII.
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Blowing up one location to set them back a year while confirming the view of the rest of the world that it is the "Zionists and the American Imperialists" (stealing a phrase from Saddam) who are the aggressors is not much gain.
There lies the problem, the world is only sympathetic to Israel or the US when we are victims. If we refuse to be victims, then our actions are condemned. If Tel Aviv is turned into radioactive glass, there will be lots of words but no actions of substance.
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I get the impression that our military is really not in the mood for tangling with Iran. Going back into this thread will show (without running the risk of mere URLs no longer being available :wink:) various pieces strongly make the point that Iran is a very tough nut to crack militarily.
Amongst the many variables (i.e. this is nowhere near an exhaustive analysis) not only are anti-aircraft defenses substantial (thank you Russia) but the facilities in question are deeply dug in, often in civilian population centers AND we have little idea whether we know of all locations. For some amount of time hard to determine, the straits of Hormuz will be disrupted; no one here should need a description of the economic consequences to the world economy-- and the strategic lessons that will be drawn by China, which depends heavily upon Iranian energy.
Indeed, we are unwilling to blacklist the Iranian central bank because of fears of economic disruption and the economic and the political consequences of that. I've yet to hear any of the Rep candidates call for even this step.
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Yes clearly the US military is against an attack on Iran. The weight of the information we know publically is that they have already decided Iran will go nuclear, and they have already concluded of a strategy of "containment". Along with some missle "defense" systems they know Israel has ~100 nuclear devices and submarines capable of launching them they appear to think a policy similar to US Soviet detante/mutual assured destruction is the best way to go.
Netanyahu does not agree with this strategy and is not willing to risk Iran getting the nucs. The questions being thrown about from time to time like during the 60 minute interview with the Mossad chief, "are the Ayatolohs rational" comes into play here. In other words would Iranian leaders who weld the power be level headed enough not to use nuclear weapons knowing full well they would suffer a devasting attack that would kill millions. The Mossad guy says they are in his opinion "rational". Well I say they are rational enough to plan to build nuclear weapons under the guise of a peaceful program, dig the program deep under ground, only let the IEA see what they want them to see, and make clear publically intentions of wanting to get all Jews out of Israel. They have also been rational enough to have some talks over the years, hold off (reportedly) the program shortly after they saw Saddam being dragged out of a hole, and now again show some signs they want to talk ("to save face") just as it is becoming clear Israel will act alone - again - if aint obvious by now - to stall off any military attack so they can continue on the program they have paid extraordinarily dearly for in time, expense, with sanctions, with economic woes.
Folks they want bombs. Every indication tis they plan on making good with their threats.
Amadinajad keeps making it clear that Iran only need light up a few nucs to kill or injure most Israelis. This is the same group (I think) that was willing to send 100 thousand children to near certain death across Iraqi mine fields.
So now we can either pray that containment would work aka Obama/US military or hope that what Netanyhu does works.
Either way Israel risks their existance.
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Who could have seen this coming? :roll:
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For some amount of time hard to determine, the straits of Hormuz will be disrupted; no one here should need a description of the economic consequences to the world economy
Good thing we aren't allowed to drill for oil here!
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So, why doesn't the House of Representative (i.e. the Reps) pass a resolution calling for embargoing the Central Bank of Iran? Why don't the Rep candidates call for it?
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Pasted from the Politics thread:
One more CBS/New York Times poll. A majority of Americans say they would favor using U.S. military action against Iran to prevent the country from acquiring nuclear weapons — by a margin of 51-36. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57395830-503544/poll-most-support-u.s-military-action-to-stop-iran-from-getting-nuclear-weapons/
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Strategies to deal with Iran sanctions
Srinath Raghavan
Share · Comment · print · T+ Share India's good relations with the Middle East countries will advance its interests in the region.
When it comes to Iran, India means business. This was clear from New Delhi's decision to send a delegation comprising officials and businessmen to Tehran. The delegation is exploring the opportunities created by the latest US and EU sanctions on Iran. India's serious pursuit of its economic interest is a welcome turn in its foreign policy. But New Delhi needs to orchestrate its economic and geopolitical moves on the complicated chess-board of West Asia.
The US has imposed sanctions that will penalise financial institutions transacting with the Iranian central bank. In tandem, the EU has slapped an embargo on Iranian crude imports that will come fully into effect in July 2012. American allies in Asia — Japan, Taiwan and South Korea — are also reducing their imports of Iranian crude. In all, Iran could miss out on as much as 35 per cent of its total exports. This leaves China and India as the two largest buyers of Iranian crude. Iran currently accounts for more than 11 per cent of India's oil imports, amounting to $12 billion a year.
TRADE WITH IRAN
Faced with such hard sanctions, it isn't surprising that Iran has agreed to a rupee payment mechanism for 45 per cent of its oil exports to India. This, of course, works rather well for us. It provides a major avenue for Indian exports. Iran is already the largest importer of rice from India, accounting for half of the 2.2 million tonnes exported by India last year. This is the time to surge ahead with exports in some other, higher-value sectors. We could also use this opportunity to upgrade the Chahbahar port and its transportation links with Afghanistan and some other Central Asian countries. Chahbahar was recently used by India to send 100,000 tonnes of wheat to Afghanistan. Investing further in its development will considerably increase India's economic footprint in these parts.
While surging ahead with the opportunities presented by the current situation, India needs to prepare for potential pitfalls in its ties with Iran. For a start, the agreement on the payment mechanism doesn't spell the end of the problems in importing oil from Iran. There is the major issue of insurance for tankers shipping Iranian oil to India. European firms insure more than 90 per cent of tanker fleets globally. Their refusal, following the imposition of sanctions, to cover shipments from Iran presents serious problems for India.
New Delhi is apparently considering extending the sovereign guarantee to Indian ships that fetch Iranian crude. This still leaves us with the issue of covering foreign tankers chartered by India. We may find some interim solution to this. But in the longer run, we need to enhance our own fleet, and foster the development of protection and indemnity insurance in India. The position, vis-à-vis Iran, points to a larger strategic imperative for India. Our energy security hinges on our ability to become a serious maritime power. And historically, there have been few maritime powers that aren't financial powerhouses as well.
GEOPOLITICAL CHALLENGES
The more pressing challenges are geopolitical. As the US and its allies attempt to step up sanctions on Iran, there will be pressure on India to follow suit. So far, India has spoken out against these steps, and has rightly held that it isn't bound to comply with unilateral sanctions. New Delhi should be more forthcoming in pointing out that the sanctions are actually likely to be counterproductive. The heart of the problem is the ambiguity in Washington's approach to Iran.
On the one hand, the imposition of additional sanctions is aimed at forcing Iran to negotiate with the West and halt its nuclear enrichment activities. On the other, there is the unstated but evident hope that the sanctions might lead to regime change in Iran. In this context, Tehran has little incentive to comply with UN Security Council resolutions on its nuclear programme. What is more, having seen the fate of Muammar Gaddafi, who paid for abandoning his nuclear programme with the loss of his regime and life, the Iranian leadership will look for solid reassurances before engaging in serious negotiations.
Making these arguments, if only in private, is important, because India wouldn't like Iran to acquire nuclear weapons capability. The problem isn't that a nuclear Iran would present an existential danger to its Arab neighbours and Israel. The American nuclear umbrella and the Israeli nuclear arsenal are more than adequate to make sure that Iran doesn't even contemplate using nuclear weapons. Nor is it the case that a nuclear Iran will trigger a chain-reaction of nuclear proliferation in West Asia. The Arab countries have, after all, lived with the Israeli bomb for decades. The problem rather is that the acquisition of nuclear weapons might embolden Iran in using its proxies to advance its influence in the region. For the fear of escalation to the nuclear level would constrict the options available to Iran's rivals. The resulting instability will undermine India's interests in West Asia — and not least, the presence of 6 million Indian workers.
INDIA'S INTERESTS
Further, a determined move by Tehran to acquire the bomb will catalyse the incipient rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia. This dynamic is currently playing out in third countries like Syria and Bahrain, where Iran and Saudi Arabia are supporting their respective clients. India has important interests in its relations with both Saudi Arabia and Iran. It is no coincidence that even as New Delhi is looking to expand its economic engagement with Tehran, the Indian defence minister went to Riyadh — the first visit of its kind. Similarly, India has interests at stake on both sides of the Iran-Israel divide. The challenge for New Delhi in all these sets of relationships is to avoid taking sides. The recent attack on the Israeli diplomat has led to exaggerated claims on the ‘war' in West Asia coming to India's doorstep, and the need for India to pick its partners.
On the contrary, India's good relations with all these countries provide it more options to advance its interests in the region. This is a game that New Delhi needs to play with patience and finesse.
(The author is Senior Fellow, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi.)
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/obama-vs-israel-priority-no-1-stop-israel/2012/03/08/gIQAXKM1zR_story.html
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/obama-vs-israel-priority-no-1-stop-israel/2012/03/08/gIQAXKM1zR_story.html
I think Obozo is ok with Israel getting nuked and as a result he only gets 70% of the Jewish vote. No doubt some of the dead Israelis will get registered in Cook county and vote for him as well.
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GM,
Your may be right.
I don't quite understand why for some of my fellow Jews, the liberal die hard democrat wasserman schultz types - Republicans are worse than Nazis or middle eastern terrorists.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/20/world/middleeast/united-states-war-game-sees-dire-results-of-an-israeli-attack-on-iran.html?_r=1&hp
Another release of "classified" military non information that expresses what any idiot can see.
OK Franks what is the alternative to military stirke that will stop Iran from going nuclear? The answer is nothing. The plan is obvious - containment and hope for the best.
I am sick and tired of the WH releasing only information that will help with its re election.
If we are not going to back Israel then just say so.
Stop the double talk, the "I have your back" crap. "No options are off the table" nonsense. And we know Iran will strike back in subtle ways at first and there is no end to this as long as we don't deal with it fully now.
It seems to me that military action should include their government that is causing all this not most of the Iranians (at least as is reported)
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.......How a War With Iran Would Cause $7 Gas
By Rick Newman | U.S.News & World Report LP – Wed, Mar 21, 2012 3:47 PM EDT
........
If gas prices are still close to $4 per gallon when Election Day rolls around, President Obama will face tough political odds. But Obama--or his successor--could end up with a far worse problem than that in the not-too-distant future.
Forecasting firm IHS Global Insight has run a detailed scenario on how a war with Iran would affect oil prices and the global economy, with disconcerting takeaways for anybody sensitive to oil and gas prices--including politicians. The forecast says that if a military campaign over Iran's nuclear program prompted Tehranto lay mines in an attempt to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, Brent crude prices could soar from current levels of about $125 per barrel to a peak of roughly $240. Gas prices would rise by the same magnitude--pushing them above $7 per gallon.
In the model, oil and gas prices probably wouldn't stay at those levels for long. Any major disruption of oil markets by Iran would likely bring a rapid and overwhelming response by the U.S. military, including attacks by ships and aircraft already stationed around the Persian Gulf. IHS predicts U.S. forces would probably be able to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the world's most important oil chokepoint, in four weeks or less. But it would still take months for oil prices to settle back down to normal levels, while consumers and businesses grappled with collateral damage to their finances.
Most economists estimate that the threat of confrontation with Iran has already pushed oil prices up by about $20 per barrel.. In the United States, gas prices have risen by nearly 55 cents per gallon so far this year to a national average of $3.92. In addition to hurting consumers, that impacts investors, speculators and business leaders, who are all intently focused on oil prices and where they might be heading.
In its scenario, IHS assumed that Iran will use mines, missiles and small-boat swarming tactics to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world's traded oil flows every day. That could come in response to a U.S. or Israeli preemptive attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, but Iran could also make such an aggressive move on its own. "Iran's leaders have done things that we expect rational leaders to avoid doing," Farid Abolfathi of IHS told clients in a recent presentation. "They might miscalculate or misjudge their chances of success."
Even though the model predicts U.S. forces could probably reopen the Strait fairly quickly, it might still take a while to completely defeat Iran. ines are notoriously tricky to clear and some could lurk undetected, threatening tankers for months. Iranian submarines and small attack boats could hide amidst a large fleet of civilian fishing vessels in dozens of villages and island harbors, mounting follow-on attacks on tankers and American ships.
The forecast also says that if oil were to rise to more than $200 a barrel, it could induce panicky consumer behavior, such as drivers topping off their gas tanks regularly out of fear that gasoline might run out. Lines at gas stations reminiscent of the 1970s might form. Pump prices would rise in line with oil prices, and stock markets could easily fall by 10 or 20 percent, possibly spurring a new recession.
IHS goes on to predict there would also be urgent efforts to relieve the supply crunch, such as a generous release of oil from emergency reserves in the U.S. and Europe. Saudi Arabia would be pressured to tap all the spare capacity it has, and export as much as possible via pipelines that run to the Red Sea. Many nations would institute rationing schemes and strict conservation measures.
Those actions, combined with the rollback of the Iranian military, would bring oil prices down to an average of about $160 per barrel for three months or so, then back to around $120, IHS believes. So the whole affair might rattle markets for six months or so, and perhaps end with something like a return to the status quo.
If it were to happen, the timing could upend American politics. A war with Iran in the fall, leading up to the elections, would intensify the financial pain soaring gas prices have on the typical American family, with gas costing them an extra $100 per month or more. But a surge of patriotism might offset that, electorally speaking, helping Obama more than it hurts him.
IHS assume that its scenario takes place at the beginning of 2013, which would saddle the U.S. president with one more tough and complex problem at the same time that momentous decisions about tax cuts (or hikes) need to be made, and big cuts in federal spending are due to kick in. Wriggling out of a recession under that blend of economic pressures would be an impressive Houdini act for whoever is president in 2013.
There's one other scenario, of course: Some kind of diplomatic resolution that avoids a military confrontation and pushes oil prices down instead of up. That would mean politics as usual, which is ugly enough. But the politicians, at least, would have one less thing to argue about.
Rick Newman is the author of Rebounders: How Winners Pivot From Setback to Success, to be published in May. Follow him on Twitter: @rickjnewman
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http://motherjones.com/mojo/2012/03/iran-war-watch-budgets-and-war-games-edition
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http://www.dickmorris.com/obama-surrenders-to-iran-dick-morris-tv-lunch-alert/
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Interesting about recent leak to media about Israel using Azerbaijan as a base for a possible attack on Iran. Apparantly Iran has been trying to arrange terrorist acts in that country in apparant retaliation for Azerbaijani security arrests:
****Deterioration of relations in 2012In 2012, three men were detained by the Azerbaijan Ministry of National Security for planning to attack Israelis employed by a Jewish school in Baku. Security officials in Baku linked Iran to the planned terror operation. The men allegedly received smuggled arms and equipment from Iranian agents, possibly as retaliation to the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists. Wafa Guluzade, a political commentator close to the Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, warned Iran that "planning the murder of prominent foreign citizens in Azerbaijan by a band of terrorists, one of whom [Dadashov] resides in Iran, amounts to 'hostile activity' against our country."[40]
Irani-Azeri relations deteriorated further after the Azeri Communication Minister, Ali Abbasov accused Iran of carrying out cyber attacks against the country.[40]
On March 2012 Azerbaijan arrested 22 people on suspicion of plotting attacks on the U.S and Israeli embassies in Baku on behalf of neighboring Iran. The ministry said that the suspects were recruited from 1999 onwards and trained in the use of weapons and spy techniques at military camps in Iran to enable them to gather information on foreign embassies, organizations and companies in Azerbaijan and stage attacks.[41][42]***
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Iran leadership has been quite clear about their intentions. Obviously they can see Obama is not on Israel's side in seriously stopping them from getting nuclear weapons just like anyone of us. Nothing new here:
*****02 April 2012 - 16H11
Iran vows to stick to nuclear 'path'
A picture released by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's official website shows him (right) listening to an expert during a tour of Tehran's research reactor centre on February 15. Iran declared on Monday it will not be swayed from its nuclear "path" by sanctions, a week before talks with world powers that are increasingly seen as a last chance for diplomacy in its showdown with the West.
A picture released by the Iranian president's official website shows a metal-encased rod with 20 percent enriched nuclear fuel as it is inserted into a reactor in Tehran on February 15. Iran declared on Monday it will not be swayed from its nuclear "path" by sanctions, a week before talks with world powers that are increasingly seen as a last chance for diplomacy in its showdown with the West.
Iranian Minister for Foreign Affairs Ali Akbar Salehi is seen prior to his speech at the opening day of the United Nation Human Rights Council annual session on February 27 in Geneva. Iran declared on Monday it will not be swayed from its nuclear "path" by sanctions, a week before talks with world powers that are increasingly seen as a last chance for diplomacy in its showdown with the West. AFP - Iran declared on Monday it will not be swayed from its nuclear "path" by sanctions, a week before talks with world powers that are increasingly seen as a last chance for diplomacy in its showdown with the West.
"The sanctions may have caused us small problems but we will continue our path," Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi vowed in an interview with the official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA).
"We do not underestimate any enemy, no matter how tiny and lowly they are. The regime's officials -- the supreme leader, the president, the army, the (Revolutionary) Guards and Basij (militia) -- are completely vigilant. And the nation is prepared to defend the achievements of Islamic Iran," he said.
The defiant words came after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Saturday that the talks between Iran and the world powers would take place April 13 and 14 in Istanbul.
She and US President Barack Obama have both publicly said that the window for diplomacy in the standoff over Iran's nuclear programme is closing.
"Our policy is one of prevention, not containment," Clinton said in Saudi Arabia after talks with her Gulf Arab counterparts.
It is up to Iran to engage in the talks "with an effort to obtain concrete results," Clinton said.
Israel -- the sole if undeclared nuclear weapons state in the Middle East -- and the United States have threatened military strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities if diplomacy and sanctions fail to curb the Islamic republic's nuclear ambitions.
The UN Security Council has imposed four sets of sanctions on Iran because of suspicions over its nuclear programme, which the United States and its allies believe includes a drive to develop atomic weapons capability.
The West has imposed its own unilateral economic sanctions on Iran.
But Iran's oil minister, Rostam Qasemi, told the Mehr news agency on Monday that the West's efforts to curb Iranian oil exports "have been a failure".
"We have seen off what they describe as 'rigorous sanctions' against the oil industry," he said.
Iran denies any military dimension to its nuclear activities.
Its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has called nuclear weapons a "sin". But he has also refused to bow to sanctions, and warned Iran would retaliate in kind if attacked.
Foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said in an interview with the Fars news agency that Iran considered the talk of war to be a "psychological" gambit "to affect the Iranian nation, to lower the support of the people for the system."
But, he said, "our readiness (to ward off any threat) is at its peak. We take any threat, even those with a low probability of happening, seriously.
"If any practical action, either surgical or long-lasting, is taken, we will respond decisively."
The talks between Iran and the P5+1 group -- the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany -- are seen as an opportunity to defuse the tense situation.
EU officials in Brussels said that, despite Clinton's affirmation, Istanbul had not yet been fully confirmed as the venue.
"The talks are scheduled to start late on the 13th and will be held primarily on the 14th," one EU diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity.
They will "very likely" take place in Istanbul, but all parties had not yet reached complete agreement, the diplomat said.
A spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who represents the P5+1 in the negotiations, said only: "We will announce it (the venue) formally once we have full agreement."
The last round of talks between Iran and the P5+1 group was held in Istanbul in January 2011 and ended in failure. Geneva hosted the round before that in late 2010.
The United States is poised to bolster unilateral sanctions that are already making it harder for Iran to sell its vital oil exports. Countries that do not reduce Iranian oil imports risk being targeted by US sanctions.
But Salehi stressed to IRNA: "The West thinks that Iran is like many other countries who will yield under America's pressure. But they are mistaken."
He said Iran had resisted Western pressure ever since it became an Islamic republic following its 1979 revolution. And he said the United States would be forced to retreat from its positions if Iranian "national unity" was strengthened.***
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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/04/opinion/can-brazil-stop-iran.html
"BRAZIL, the saying used to go, is the land of the future — and always will be. But when Brazil’s president, Dilma Rousseff, visits the White House next week, she will come as the leader of a country whose future has arrived.
With huge new offshore oil discoveries and foreign investment flooding in, Brazil’s economy, growing twice as fast as America’s, has surpassed Britain’s to become the world’s seventh largest. As a member of the Group of 20 and host of the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics, Brazil is an emerging global leader.
But there is one area where it has an opportunity to lead and has failed to: preventing the spread of nuclear weapons. Brazil should take the bold step of voluntarily ending its uranium enrichment program and calling on other nations, including Iran, to follow its example."
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http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4213414,00.html
'US to accept civilian nuke program in Iran'
President Obama signals Iran that US would endorse nuclear program if Ayatollah Ali Khamenei backs up claim that Islamic Republic won't purse atom bomb, US paper reports
Yitzhak Benhorin Published: 04.06.12, 19:37 / Israel News
WASHINGTON - US President Barack Obama has signaled Tehran that the Washington would accept an civilian nuclear program in Iran if Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei can back up his recent claim that his nation “will never pursue nuclear weapons,” the Washington Post reported Friday.
According to the report, the verbal message was sent through Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who met with Khamenei last week. A few days prior to leaving for the trip, Erdogan held a two-hour meeting with Obama on the sidelines of the nuclear security summit in Seoul, in which they discussed what the Turkish leader would tell Khamenei about the nuclear issue.
Washington Post columnist David Ignatius wrote that Obama advised Tehran, via Edrogan, that time is running out for a peaceful agreement. Obama didn’t specify whether Iran would be allowed to enrich uranium domestically. The issue evidently is to be discussed during the talks between the Islamic Republic and the West, which are slated start on April 13 at a venue yet to be decided.
Words into actions
Edrogan is said to have agreed with Obama that the primary challenge faced by the negotiators is turning Khamenei’s public rhetoric into a serious and verifiable commitment not to build a bomb.
Erdogan reportedly conveyed Obama’s message to Khamenei when he met the Iranian leader on Thursday. Erdogan also met President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other senior Iranian officials during his visit.
Western diplomats remain skeptic about the success of the diplomatic path, especially in light of the recent disagreement over the venue for the upcoming negotiations. According to the report, Istanbul was expected to host the talks, but the Iranians last weekend balked and suggested instead to meet in Iraq or China.
US officials consider this foot-dragging a sign that the Iranian leadership is still formulating its positions ahead of the talks.
Meanwhile, the US pressed on with sanctions that aim to deprive Tehran of revenue needed to develop its nuclear program.
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Ummm, , , , correct me if I am wrong, but hasn't this been US policy for many years?
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For centuries, the dilemma facing Iran (and before it, Persia) has been guaranteeing national survival and autonomy in the face of stronger regional powers like Ottoman Turkey and the Russian Empire. Though always weaker than these larger empires, Iran survived for three reasons: geography, resources and diplomacy. Iran's size and mountainous terrain made military forays into the country difficult and dangerous. Iran also was able to field sufficient force to deter attacks while permitting occasional assertions of power. At the same time, Tehran engaged in clever diplomatic efforts, playing threatening powers off each other.
The intrusion of European imperial powers into the region compounded Iran's difficulties in the 19th century, along with the lodging of British power to Iran's west in Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula following the end of World War I. This coincided with a transformation of the global economy to an oil-based system. Then as now, the region was a major source of global oil. Where the British once had interests in the region, the emergence of oil as the foundation of industrial and military power made these interests urgent. Following World War II, the Americans and the Soviets became the outside powers with the ability and desire to influence the region, but Tehran's basic strategic reality persisted. Iran faced both regional and global threats that it had to deflect or align with. And because of oil, the global power could not lose interest while the regional powers did not have the option of losing interest.
Whether ruled by shah or ayatollah, Iran's strategy remained the same: deter by geography, protect with defensive forces, and engage in complex diplomatic maneuvers. But underneath this reality, another vision of Iran's role always lurked.
Iran as Regional Power
A vision of Iran -- a country with an essentially defensive posture -- as a regional power remained. The shah competed with Saudi Arabia over Oman and dreamed of nuclear weapons. Ahmadinejad duels with Saudi Arabia over Bahrain, and also dreams of nuclear weapons. When we look beyond the rhetoric -- something we always should do when studying foreign policy, since the rhetoric is intended to intimidate, seduce and confuse foreign powers and the public -- we see substantial continuity in Iran's strategy since World War II. Iran dreams of achieving regional dominance by breaking free from its constraints and the threats posed by nearby powers.
Since World War II, Iran has had to deal with regional dangers like Iraq, with which it fought a brutal war lasting nearly a decade and costing Iran about 1 million casualties. It also has had to deal with the United States, whose power ultimately defined patterns in the region. So long as the United States had an overriding interest in the region, Iran had no choice but to define its policies in terms of the United States. For the shah, that meant submitting to the United States while subtly trying to control American actions. For the Islamic republic, it meant opposing the United States while trying to manipulate it into taking actions in the interests of Iran. Both acted within the traditions of Iranian strategic subtlety.
The Islamic republic proved more successful than the shah. It conducted a sophisticated disinformation campaign prior to the 2003 Iraq war to convince the United States that invading Iraq would be militarily easy and that Iraqis would welcome the Americans with open arms. This fed the existing U.S. desire to invade Iraq, becoming one factor among many that made the invasion seem doable. In a second phase, the Iranians helped many factions in Iraq resist the Americans, turning the occupation -- and plans for reconstructing Iraq according to American blueprints -- into a nightmare. In a third and final phase, Iran used its influence in Iraq to divide and paralyze the country after the Americans withdrew.
As a result of this maneuvering, Iran achieved two goals. First, the Americans disposed of Iran's archenemy, Saddam Hussein, turning Iraq into a strategic cripple. Second, Iran helped force the United States out of Iraq, creating a vacuum in Iraq and undermining U.S. credibility in the region -- and sapping any U.S. appetite for further military adventures in the Middle East. I want to emphasize that all of this was not an Iranian plot: Many other factors contributed to this sequence of events. At the same time, Iranian maneuvering was no minor factor in the process; Iran skillfully exploited events that it helped shape.
There was a defensive point to this. Iran had seen the United States invade the countries surrounding it, Iraq to its west and Afghanistan to its east. It viewed the United States as extremely powerful and unpredictable to the point of irrationality, though also able to be manipulated. Tehran therefore could not dismiss the possibility that the United States would choose war with Iran. Expelling the United States from Iraq, however, limited American military options in the region.
This strategy also had an offensive dimension. The U.S. withdrawal from Iraq positioned Iran to fill the vacuum. Critically, the geopolitics of the region had created an opening for Iran probably for the first time in centuries. First, the collapse of the Soviet Union released pressure from the north. Coming on top of the Ottoman collapse after World War I, Iran now no longer faced a regional power that could challenge it. Second, with the drawdown of U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf and Afghanistan, the global power had limited military options and even more limited political options for acting against Iran.
Iran's Opportunity
Iran now had the opportunity to consider emerging as a regional power rather than solely pursuing complex maneuvers to protect Iranian autonomy and the regime. The Iranians understood that the moods of global powers shifted unpredictably, the United States more than most. Therefore it knew that the more aggressive it became, the more the United States may militarily commit itself to containing Iran. At the same time, the United States might do so even without Iranian action. Accordingly, Iran searched for a strategy that might solidify its regional influence while not triggering U.S. retaliation.
Anyone studying the United States understands its concern with nuclear weapons. Throughout the Cold War it lived in the shadow of a Soviet first strike. The Bush administration used the possibility of an Iraqi nuclear program to rally domestic support for the invasion. When the Soviets and the Chinese attained nuclear weapons, the American response bordered on panic. The United States simultaneously became more cautious in its approach to those countries.
In looking at North Korea, the Iranians recognized a pattern they could use to their advantage. Regime survival in North Korea, a country of little consequence, was uncertain in the 1990s. When it undertook a nuclear program, however, the United States focused heavily on North Korea, simultaneously becoming more cautious in its approach to the North. Tremendous diplomatic activity and periodic aid was brought to bear to limit North Korea's program. From the North Korean point of view, actually acquiring deliverable nuclear weapons was not the point; North Korea was not a major power like China and Russia, and a miscalculation on Pyongyang's part could lead to more U.S. aggression. Rather, the process of developing nuclear weapons itself inflated North Korea's importance while inducing the United States to offer incentives or impose relatively ineffective economic sanctions (and thereby avoiding more dangerous military action). North Korea became a centerpiece of U.S. concern while the United States avoided actions that might destabilize North Korea and shake loose the weapons the North might have.
The North Koreans knew that having a deliverable weapon would prove dangerous, but that having a weapons program gave them leverage -- a lesson the Iranians learned well. From the Iranians' point of view, a nuclear program causes the United States simultaneously to take them more seriously and to increase its caution while dealing with them. At present, the United States leads a group of countries with varying degrees of enthusiasm for imposing sanctions that might cause some economic pain to Iran, but give the United States a pretext not to undertake the military action Iran really fears and that the United States does not want to take.
Israel, however, must take a different view of Iran's weapons program. While not a threat to the United States, the program may threaten Israel. The Israelis' problem is that they must trust their intelligence on the level of development of Iran's weapons. The United States can afford a miscalculation; Israel might not be able to afford it. This lack of certainty makes Israel unpredictable. From the Iranian point of view, however, an Israeli attack might be welcome.
Iran does not have nuclear weapons and may be following the North Korean strategy of never developing deliverable weapons. If they did, however, and the Israelis attacked and destroyed them, the Iranians would be as they were before acquiring nuclear weapons. But if the Israelis attacked and failed to destroy them, the Iranians would emerge stronger. The Iranians could retaliate by taking action in the Strait of Hormuz. The United States, which ultimately is the guarantor of the global maritime flow of oil, might engage Iran militarily. Or it might enter into negotiations with Iran to guarantee the flow. An Israeli attack, whether successful or unsuccessful, would set the stage for Iranian actions that would threaten the global economy, paint Israel as the villain, and result in the United States being forced by European and Asian powers to guarantee the flow of oil with diplomatic concessions rather than military action. An attack by Israel, successful or unsuccessful, would cost Iran little and create substantial opportunities. In my view, the Iranians want a program, not a weapon, but having the Israelis attack the program would suit Iran's interests quite nicely.
The nuclear option falls into the category of Iranian manipulation of regional and global powers, long a historical necessity for the Iranians. But another, and more significant event is under way in Syria.
Syria's Importance to Iran
As we have written, if the Syrian regime survives, this in part would be due to Iranian support. Isolated from the rest of the world, Syria would become dependent on Iran. If that were to happen, an Iranian sphere of influence would stretch from western Afghanistan to Beirut. This in turn would fundamentally shift the balance of power in the Middle East, fulfilling Iran's dream of becoming a dominant regional power in the Persian Gulf and beyond. This was the shah's and the ayatollah's dream. And this is why the United States is currently obsessing over Syria.
What would such a sphere of influence give the Iranians? Three things. First, it would force the global power, the United States, to abandon ideas of destroying Iran, as the breadth of its influence would produce dangerously unpredictable results. Second, it would legitimize the regime inside Iran and in the region beyond any legitimacy it currently has. Third, with proxies along Saudi Arabia's northern border in Iraq and Shia along the western coast of the Persian Gulf, Iran could force shifts in the financial distribution of revenues from oil. Faced with regime preservation, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states would have to be flexible on Iranian demands, to say the least. Diverting that money to Iran would strengthen it greatly.
Iran has applied its strategy under regimes of various ideologies. The shah, whom many considered psychologically unstable and megalomaniacal, pursued this strategy with restraint and care. The current regime, also considered ideologically and psychologically unstable, has been equally restrained in its actions. Rhetoric and ideology can mislead, and usually are intended to do just that.
This long-term strategy, pursued since the 16th century after Persia became Islamic, now sees a window of opportunity opening, engineered in some measure by Iran itself. Tehran's goal is to extend the American paralysis while it exploits the opportunities that the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq has created. Simultaneously, it wants to create a coherent sphere of influence that the United States will have to accommodate itself to in order to satisfy the demand of its coalition for a stable supply of oil and limited conflict in the region.
Iran is pursuing a two-pronged strategy toward this end. The first is to avoid any sudden moves, to allow processes to run their course. The second is to create a diversion through its nuclear program, causing the United States to replicate its North Korea policy in Iran. If its program causes an Israeli airstrike, Iran can turn that to its advantage as well. The Iranians understand that having nuclear weapons is dangerous but that having a weapons program is advantageous. But the key is not the nuclear program. That is merely a tool to divert attention from what is actually happening -- a shift in the balance of power in the Middle East.
George Friedman is chief executive officer of Stratfor, the world’s leading online publisher of geopolitical intelligence. This article has been republished from the Stratfor website.
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Any analysis of Iran that doesn't cover the Shia theological element is woefully incomplete.
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Comments Robert?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303978104577361972375454022.html?mod=world_newsreel
MIDDLE EAST NEWS
Updated April 23, 2012, 3:27 p.m. ET
Iran Says Virus Has Hit Oil Sector.
By BENOÎT FAUCON And FARNAZ FASSIHI
Iran's oil sector wrestled on Monday with alleged cyberattacks that began at the Oil Ministry and have spread to other industries, Iranian officials and media said.
The apparent sabotage forced Iran's Oil Ministry to cut off Internet access to all employees, including refinery workers, to avoid further spread, a new blow to an industry that is already a target of sanctions intended to deprive Tehran of oil revenue.
A virus called "Wiper" was plaguing the server and websites of the ministry and National Oil Company, Iran's Student News Agency, ISNA, reported Monday. Oil data haven't been compromised, ministry spokesman Alireza Nikzad said.
Oil shipments haven't been affected, Iranian officials said on Monday, though personnel at the Kharg oil terminal, through which at least 80% of Iran's exports are shipped abroad, haven't been able to send or receive email since Sunday, an oil official at the terminal said.
"We are using telephone, fax, SMS," the official said.
An Iranian security official told ISNA that Iran wasn't familiar with the virus, which he said steals information and erases data. The attack on computers of the oil ministry was first identified in March, but its effects reached a critical force on Sunday, when information was erased from several computers in the Oil Ministry and servers were disrupted, ISNA said.
Iran's oil news agency, SHANA, was also disrupted by the virus, ISNA reported.
The ministry said on Monday that it had created an emergency committee to battle the virus. The committee is investigating to determine whether it originated abroad or inside Iran, said Hamdollah Mohamadnejad, the ministry's defense strategist, according to news media.
Iran's nuclear industry was hit by a virus in 2010 known as Stuxnet, which targeted centrifuges, in what was widely believed to be an act of foreign sabotage aimed at slowing Tehran's progress toward building a nuclear weapon—though Iran denies it has such a goal.
Iran recently resumed talks with the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany, but Western governments have said they would continue to oppose Iran's nuclear program, which they suspect has military aims. Iran has said its nuclear program is only for peaceful uses.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has called the Internet a threat to national security and instructed security forces to train and form units to battle cyberattacks as well as the influence of social-media websites.
Iran announced in 2011 that it was working to launch the world's first "national Internet," a secure network that could effectively isolate Iranian users from the World Wide Web and shield government servers and websites from cyberattacks.
Minister of Communication Reza Taghipour said Monday that his ministry had accelerated its efforts to complete the project and free Iran from the West.
Write to Farnaz Fassihi at farnaz.fassihi@wsj.com
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Just a thought. Suppose the US military LET Iran have the drone? For political and military reasons.
*****Iran capture US drone by hacking its GPS signal?
16:04 16 December 2011
AerospaceHackingPoliticsJeff Hecht, consultant
(Image: ABACA/Press Association Images)
How did Iran manage to capture a US robotic surveillance plane, which looks remarkably undamaged in an Iranian video? The US initially claimed the drone went astray over Afghanistan and blamed a malfunction, but Iran said it had brought the craft down 200 kilometres inside its border earlier this month.
Now the Christian Science Monitor reports that Iran jammed GPS signals and fooled the drone into landing at an Iranian base. "The GPS navigation is the weakest point," an unnamed Iranian engineer analysing the captured drone told a Monitor correspondent inside Iran. "By putting noise [jamming] on the communications, you force the bird into autopilot. This is where the bird loses its brain."
Once the drone lost its bearings, the engineer said, Iranians were able to reprogram its internal mapping system to think that its home base was an Iranian site at almost the same altitude. He added that the slight mismatch in altitude caused a rough landing that damaged the robot plane's landing gear and underside.
GPS signals are broadcast by satellites, so they are weak near the ground. That makes them vulnerable to interference from stronger nearby signals. Even military versions of GPS are vulnerable to electronic warfare, which usually seeks to disable key systems to bring down a plane. The Iranians claim to have taken that one step further by electronically capturing control of the remotely controlled robot craft. A former Navy specialist told the Monitor that hostilely reprogramming a GPS to fly to a different home is "certainly possible".
Built by defense contractor Lockheed Martin, the RQ-170 Sentinel craft is a high-flying surveillance craft, which uses stealth technology to elude detection. Although details are classified, some information has leaked, including photos which match those shown by Iran.
At the time the US lost control, it was operated by the CIA. With no US controller operating it, the unmanned aircraft should have crashed - yet the one Iran displayed showed only a dent, although its landing gear was hidden.
If that's what happened to the CIA's Sentinel, it's going to prompt some serious rethinking of how to wage robotic warfare. You don't want the enemy to be able to capture and reprogram your robots so they fight you.
tagsCIAdroneGPShackIran
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29 Comments
All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please let us know, quoting the comment in question.
inventor on December 16, 2011 5:25 PM
I've been warning people about that a long time. The US department of defense is crazy to use open source windows software to control military drones. Were they on drugs?
dominic vautier on December 16, 2011 7:39 PM
Drones like this can fly all by themselves and have redundant means of navigation. If something unexpected happens such as an attempt to take over control the drown goes dark and flies back home. It does not depend on gps or even the special military gps. It can use topography to get home and that is the main way it works since it can’t be fooled.
I find it incredible that the Iranians got this bird. The number one defensive goal of our military was to protect our investment so we use the best technique which is topography, not gps. We are so good at designing these things. How did they get it? That is the big question. It was not by jamming gps or breaking the tether or fooling the bird. It was some other way.
farhang on December 16, 2011 7:49 PM
The U.S should not send its drone some 250 kilometers inside Iran. What if Iran had done such a thing, it would have been called a "provocation". Since America's military satellites scan all over Iran then why the drone should be here?
Jason on December 16, 2011 7:56 PM
The most amazing thing for me is that it didn't have self-destruct.
Enola on December 16, 2011 10:31 PM
Dominic suggested that the drone can't be fooled. I have some suggestions:
. Maybe it is just a fibre glass model to spread false news.
. Maybe the US is letting them spread that false news to up the ante so that Iran can be perceived as increasingly belligerent ahead of a war.
. Maybe the US wanted that drone to be caught for the reason above.
. Maybe they let them have it to underestimate their technology.
. Maybe it is secretly transmitting back to the US the Iranian's reverse engineering technology and the people doing it.
. If it is genuine, why did Iran let them know they caught one. Newer ones will now be upgraded.
Finally,
. Maybe it was not caught but snared in the air and brought down.
pres on December 16, 2011 10:46 PM
Whatever, if the US did not want them to have it then it was, at least, some payback for the US/Israeli STUXNET debacle.
sniper310 on December 17, 2011 5:02 AM
Stupid.. at least they should have have an auto fry for the electronics. Some brainless pilot must have went out for a cup of coffee. Was probably brought down by a high altitude jamming/intercept source.
GKZH on December 17, 2011 7:11 AM
But how iranian knew that there is a flying object to start interfere in it's brain?
Mark on December 17, 2011 8:51 AM
New land based GPS technology such as GPS 2.0 created by an Australian private company Locata would have prevented this hijacking of the satellite GPS signal.
Radio reception a terrestrial GPS beacon has 1 billion times the signal strength of a satellite GPS beacon - in normal civilian applications - making jaming harder to do..
morteza on December 17, 2011 11:49 AM
We, as iranians, are not your enemies as you mentioned in the last sentence. that was random and rude. Surveillance or spy bird, whatever you call it, was caught over another country, this does not make that country an enemy, and give you permission to start a new war.
Peter jackson on December 17, 2011 3:33 PM
Wow it is Possible ....!...........if it is possible, that is an incredible but extremly dangerous.....beware of this things.
d on December 17, 2011 3:41 PM
The build quality of the plane looks rather low
jemand on December 17, 2011 4:56 PM
If this bird is real and represents state of the art stealth aero-tech, then what will China do for Iran to get it's hands on it? Then again, it might be a decoy to test Chinese intelligence contacts with Iran. The possibilities are almost endless.
David Oldfield on December 17, 2011 6:43 PM
Anything that can be programmed, can be re-programmed.
That incudes planes and people.
GreenBoy on December 17, 2011 10:03 PM
I'm Iranian. I am completely against Iran's government. but I want to add some comments:
1- Was it fair to send a surveillance aircraft to Iran? Is it for or against human rights?
2- How did Iran know the presence of the RQ-170 on its air? It may be just an invention made by Iran government.
3- I know this government. They are master of doing such these.
Ham on December 18, 2011 5:05 AM
I wonder what pilots have to say about this? How would this have been handled if it had be a real person in the cockpit? One also wonders that if GPS can be hijacked by enemies, then can those enemies eventually turn around a fleet of drones and have them attack the sender countries? Or fly into targets?
Hamilton
Gigawatt on December 18, 2011 11:07 AM
SkyNet
Sean on December 18, 2011 10:52 PM
I agree with morteza and GreenBoy. Iran is not an enemy. It's only paranoid America that thinks it is and so they send those drones over Iran to spy on them. If it was the other way round then America would blast Iran all over the media and Iran would be a radioactive wasteland within minutes. I am sick of all this talk about how Iran is building a nuclear arsenal, so what if they are? What possible threat could they pose to America with it's thousands of missiles? Stop building this tension to fever pitch and just leave them alone!
Anon on December 19, 2011 2:11 AM
A former Navy specialist told the Monitor that hostilely reprogramming a GPS to fly to a different home is "certainly possible".
Maybe that's why he's not a specialist anymore. Jam the feeble GPS signals? Sure. Fool a military GPS receiver with false signals? Highly unlikely.
@Sean on December 19, 2011 2:16 AM
"Iran would be a radioactive wasteland within minutes."
Yes, because, as the first country with nuclear weapons, the United States has used them on
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Please paste this in the Military Science thread as well. TIA.
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Accident or murder?
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/155611
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No doubt our pravdas will be all over it , , ,
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Iranian Rapper Fears for His Life After Fatwa
by FARNAZ FASSIHI
BEIRUT—Iranian rapper Shahin Najafi expected his song calling on a Shiite saint to save Iran from its current rulers to stir up controversy, but he never imagined it might cost him his life.
He is now being dubbed the Salman Rushdie of music after two influential clerics in Iran issued fatwas—religious edicts—justifying his murder on grounds of blasphemy.
"I am still in disbelief. I'm only 31, with my whole life ahead of me," said Mr. Najafi in an interview from Germany, where he lives and, since last week, has been in hiding under the protection of German police.
Mr. Najafi says he doesn't regret the song and refuses to apologize, arguing that invoking a saint's name is a freedom of expression and not a religious insult. "Each person has to pay a price for what they want. I will never apologize for my art and for speaking the truth about Iran's government," said Mr. Najafi.
Iranian officials haven't commented on the fatwas or denounced them. But the case could present a new public-image problem for Iran ahead of talks next week with the international community in Baghdad over its nuclear program.
In recent months, Iran has sought to improve its image as a rogue nation by offering conciliatory remarks to build trust with the West. The efforts paid off to some extent at an initial meeting in March in Istanbul, where both sides claimed the negotiations ended on a positive note, paving the way for a second round set to begin on May 23 in Baghdad. Iran says the world should trust its word that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.
The senior clerics empowered to issue fatwas act independently of the government—but anyone who carries out a death fatwa is granted impunity under Iranian law.
"Iranian authorities could make it very clear that people who are inciting murder could be held accountable, and that's something they aren't currently doing," said Ann Harrison, Amnesty International's deputy program director for Middle East and Africa.
After Mr. Najafi released his song "Naqi" online on May 7, Iranian media and conservative bloggers said it was in violation of an earlier fatwa calling for the execution of anyone who blasphemes the 10th saint of Shiite Islam, Ali an-Naqi. A subsequent fatwa by another grand ayatollah declared that a singer who had been insulting the saint was guilty of blasphemy—giving the green light for his followers to kill Mr. Najafi, though the fatwa didn't mention the rapper by name. Both rulings have been repeated in Iranian media.
An Iranian website, Shia-Online, subsequently put a $100,000 bounty on Mr. Najafi's head, and more than 100 people, joining an online "campaign to execute Shahin Najafi," have pledged further rewards.
Mr. Najafi, a native of a small port town in southern Iran, fled to Germany in 2005 after he said an intelligence agent threatened him for staging underground concerts. His angry lyrics touch on rights abuses, stifling social norms and other difficulties of life in Iran, and in "Naqi," he calls on the saint to save the country. He says he is too young to go into hiding, but fears he might never be safe in Europe.
After the fatwa issued by the Iranian revolution's founding father Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini against Mr. Rushdie in 1989, the British-Indian writer went into hiding for years, and Iran suffered diplomatic fallout with Europe. While Mr. Najafi isn't nearly as renowned as Mr. Rushdie and the clerics who issued the fatwa aren't as powerful as Iran's supreme leader, the threat to his life is serious, human-rights organizations say.
—David Crawford contributed to this article.
A version of this article appeared May 16, 2012, on page A10 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Rapper Fears for His Life After Fatwa.
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Iran may be months away from putting a bomb together. In this author' opinion that would give Israel enough time to attack. The biggest rear is a breakout wherein Iran could put the a bomb together in a few weeks. It sounds like he believes they may have the knowhow and the essential building blocks in place to do this - just the will/word from the "surpeme" leader.
One scenerio is Iran claims a nucler accident at one of its sites and keeps away the inspectors. They then move to another site the wherewithall to go ahead and put devices together and within a few weeks they could conduct a test:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-close-iran-first-nuclear-bomb
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Iran increased its uranium by 0.825 ton since February. Now estimated total of 6.2 tons enough for five bombs.
In my previous post the estimate was enough for four bombs. At this pace the risks from what I can gather is what in the previous Scientific American author calls is a "breakout" wherein they can enrich rapidly to weapons grade uranium unbeknown to the West.
Otherwise they sound like they are still months to a few years away. Yet they keep accelerating the process and keep hardening their defenses against attack. Clearly Israel (with US) would have been far better off destroying their capabilities a long time ago.
Iran read America's timidness correctly. From everything I can read about it in the media - Israel has absolutely no choice. Netanyaho clearly knows this and appears to be attempting to force Brockman's hand. Some reported in the media is he is planning a pre-election strike so Brockman will have to act - if he wants the Jewish money (and maybe the support from that portion of the media controlled or influenced by Jews) to get elected.
As a proud Jew - this is what I conclude from the information I have.
http://news.yahoo.com/iran-enough-uranium-five-bombs-expert-085733687.html
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Taking the thought process from my previous two posts a little farther, if I was an Iranian leader, hell bent, on wiping all Jews from Israel when would I attempt a "breakout"? Would I want to be able to rapidly produce 5, 10, 15 nuclear devices? I would think it would also be necessary to have the ability to put them on missles that could reach Israel, the Persian Gulf (US Navy).
Amadenablowjob has already pointed out what we know 3 nuclear explosions in Israel will effectively wipe out the main centers of the country.
Just my armchair guess would be that once they get to around "10 weapons" grade material and can put on the tip of a missle they will try a breakout - announce and or threaten in some way to the world not to screw with them and then what - I don't know.
Or will they just attempt detonate the devices in Tel Aviv without any warning, etc?
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Well, we've seen the Iranian Navy recently transit the Suez Canal , , , and we've seen testing of missile launches from the holds of cargo ships in the Caspian Sea IIRC , , ,
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U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Sunday indirectly confirmed recent remarks by the Ambassador to Israel that the U.S. is “ready from a military perspective’’ to stop Iran from making a nuclear weapon if international pressure fails.
The U.S. and members of the United Nations Security Council recently met in Baghdad for talks about Iran’s suspected nuclear weapon program. Iran denies it has military intentions but has called for the destruction of Israel.
“We have plans to be able to implement any contingency we have to in order to defend ourselves,’’ Panetta said on ABC’s This Week. Earlier, Panetta said, “The fundamental premise is that neither the United States or the international community is going to allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.’’
Panetta defended the U.S. military’s use of drones to kill terrorists, resulting in some civilian casualties, calling them “one of the most precise weapons that we have in our arsenal.’’
He also insisted that the administration did not share any “inappropriate’’ details with filmmakers making a movie about Osama bin Laden, despite criticism from members of Congress.
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Lets see the Olympics will be July 27 through early August.
I will be so bold to guess that there is no attack before, or during these games.
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The Old Conservative for Today
columnist: Kevin C. Caffrey
Topic: Iran
Obama's Re-election May Force a War with Iran an 'October Surprise.'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Iran since 1953 has been an American problem. The article points out that sanctions will not work and that war with Iran is inevitable.
by Kevin C. Caffrey
(conservative)
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
The ‘October Surprise’ is this writer’s personal hypothesis about American and Iranian foreign policy between "US" and "Them". The argument goes that in September, 2012 if the Presidential Election is too close to call then Obama may go to war with Iran in order to insure his re-election. President Obama has a psychological pretense towards grandiosity and in his own words “a fellow citizen of the World.” President Obama is an Internationalist before an American. This conclusion is drawn from his actions in light of international policies. Obama has put international concerns before the American people who continually have ended up under the bus throughout his administration (read: next article). Obama suffers from Malignant Narcissism. In a September, 2008 article the American Thinker, quoted roughly five journalists who had remarked about Senator Obama’s grandiosity at the time. Later in the article Sam Vaknin PhD., wrote: “Barak Obama appears to be a narcissist.” The previous psychological argument is the weakest of the premises for the ‘October Surprise.’ One of the strongest premises revolves around “The Preemptive Strike Doctrine” it allows hair trigger Cart Blanche to Presidents since 9/11 to attack foreign nation-states. The fact is it appears Congress cannot stop a President today from attacking a foreign country. Congressional approval is needed by the Constitution in order to take America to war. President Obama committed the United States military in [his] "Humanitarian" war with Libya. Attacking foreign nations is nothing new for President Obama.
First it is a good idea to study a little bit about the dynamics of the Middle East; American foreign policy in the region, and specifically, America’s relationship with Iran.The CIA overthrow of the government of Iran in 1953, and the CIA’s insertion of a Monarchy was fantastic for the United States. The Monarchy was America’s staunchest ally in the Middle East until 1979. The Iranian Revolution (1979) removed the Monarchy of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Iran became a Theocratic-democracy under the ‘Supreme Ruler” Ayatollah Rohullah Khomeini. Iran this writer argues is the crux of America’s Middle Eastern Foreign Policy problem (Some would argue it is are ally Israel). Iran has always strived to control all the nation-states in the Middle East region. The U.S. Iran Relations are very complicated unless these relations are looked at from a Neo-realist international perspective, either from an Offensive or Defensive Structural Realist International Theory. The fact is America has always resisted the idea of a regional hegemon in the Middle East, which is one Nation-state who is the powerhouse of the entire region both economically and militarily. The entire run down of interaction within the Middle East demonstrates that American foreign policy is one that will stop any attempt by a Nation-state to become a Regional Hegemonic power in the Middle East. If a person looks at the Khatmai Era (1997 – July, 2005) or what is called the Iran-Contra Affair to Iraqgate: and the Admadinejad Era from (August 2005 to Present) what is found is an American policy to suffocate the regime in Iran with sanctions (CRS reports 75 different), Executive Orders (at least 5), Iran has mostly been at odds with the United States since 1979. However, America in the past has turned to Iran and actually treated Iran as an ally. For example, the United States armed Iran when it was losing the war with Iraq and vice-versa; if Iran was winning then the United States armed Iraq. This strategy is an Offensive realist strategy called “bait and bleeding” that allows for no clear winner in the war and hence, no hegemon. America’s Middle East policy was and remains a foreign policy that keeps each nation-state in conflict with the other nation-states in the region. The American foreign policy concerning the Middle East changed after the terrorist attack on September 11 that took down the World Trade Center in New York.
The Iraq War was a nightmare and the repercussions are beginning to display themselves today. The domestic internal problems of: Egypt, Libya, Syria, Iran, Lebanon, the Israelis and Palestinians, not to mention Israel screaming about bombing Iran over its nuclear program; all of this, in one way or another, has a lot to do with America disturbing the “Balance of Power” in the Middle East region. Nation building (International theory about making democracies i.e. Iraq) and one that President Obama adheres too) is a concept that will never work. This is due to the cultural and religious differences of the various people living in different areas around the world. Multiculturalism is a secular idealist construct that is beyond human understanding and unworkable in the real world. The International bodies are all a farce. People must be impressed with how well the Syrian dictator listens to the United Nations. President Obama believes in Multiculturalism, Nationbuilding, International law and treaties that tie America too International Institutions with no regard for the American Constitution. President Obama believes in multi-international policing for humanitarian reasons. For example, Libya the “War Powers Resolution” was trampled on, but so many Presidents have since 1973 it just seems that Executive Privilege outweighs the laws of Congress. If a President can wage war and get in and out quick enough it’s alright. The President can be in the middle of a fully fledged war before he needs money and must go to Congress to vote on a Declaration of War. President Obama the Nobel Peace prize winner and antiwar President was also the person who ordered: U.S. Forces Lead Attack Against Libya in Operation 'Odyssey Dawn' hundreds of missile strikes from ships and sub-marines in the area along with airstrikes were ordered by President Obama. America in ten years may know the number of dead, because of Obama’s "Humanitarian Operation." President Obama made a few comments on his little war in Libya: "Make no mistake: today we are part of a broad coalition," he said, a contrast to the Iraq invasion that was opposed by many allies and by Mr. Obama himself. "We are acting in the interest of the United States and the world." And President Obama did say after the fact that he would keep the American people informed. It is all about President Obama. Remember the commercial were the American people are told about how President Obama killed Osama bin Laden this is part of the Presidents personality and "Malignant Narcissism" disorder.
Many Democrats probably thought that President Obama was going to do away with President Bush’s “Preemptive Strike Doctrine.” However, Matt Welch in an article entitled the “Obama’s Preemptive Strike Doctrine” writes that, “The "anti-war candidate" puts some multilateral lipstick on George W. Bush's war pig.” And that is what Obama’s Defense Department did at the Quadrennial Defense Review in 2010, its interesting reading. Most American's have heard the same old stories for ten years now. Iran is once again stalling and playing the world leaders for fools and buying time for their nuclear program. From Bagdad, to Moscow, to Disneyland it will all end up the same, the Iranians will not budge, the Israel’s will get anxious, and October will be here in no time. The last comments that the reader should be left with are those that will make Obama believe that his International Throne will stay in place by Obama's Presidential election win in his decision to bomb Iran? Paul Joseph Watson quotes Obama: Barack Obama has told America’s allies that the United States will attack Iran before fall 2012 unless Tehran halts its nuclear program, a time frame that suggests Obama is willing to use war as a re-election campaign tool to rally the population around his leadership. President Obama is setting the stage in his remarks: “Addressing the powerful pro-Israel lobby, Obama delivered messages to multiple political audiences: Israel, Iran, Jewish voters, a restless Congress, a wary international community… At the core was his bullish assertion that the United States will never settle for containing a nuclear-armed Iran or fail to defend Israel.” In order to put the icing on the cake for the "October Surprise" is in an article by Pat Buchanan: “And Obama surely knows that an October confrontation with Iran, with war a possibility, or a reality, will mean the nation rallies around him and he wins a second term.” The only thing those of us who follow politics can do is watch and wait.
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OK with me if he is doing this AND making it public to shore up Jewish support (won't help one ioda with me though).
I guess the question is Netanyahu going to wait till after the election or do before November. An American led "Ocotober surprise" will be solely on the basis of Brock's re election outlook at that time:
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/report-obama-ordered-wave-cyberattacks-iran-131034261.html
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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/14/opinion/kristof-hugs-from-iran.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120614
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Elliott Abrams writing at CFR.org, June 27:
Why is it significant that the vice president of Iran has used a United Nations forum to deliver an appalling anti-Semitic speech?
This happened yesterday in Geneva . . . Vice President Mohammad-Reza Rahimi blamed "Zionists" for the world's drug trade, citing the Talmud and leaving his audience at the anti-drug conference in shock.
This event is significant because it reminds us that the assumptions behind the nuclear negotiations with Iran are questionable at best. Those assumptions include mirror-imaging, the belief that Iran's regime will make the sorts of "rational" calculations the governments of the EU and United States would make in their place. Impose sanctions on Iran, reduce its income from oil sales, harm its economy, and surely the Supreme Leader and his advisers will react as we would, weighing almost mathematically the costs and benefits of the nuclear program.
Then comes Mr. Rahimi, teaching us that math may not be the best way to predict Iranian policy decisions. How do we factor in irrational hatred of Jews? How do we weigh a deep desire to destroy the Jewish state? How do we calculate the effect of beliefs that seem to us in the West to be preposterous, ludicrous, impossible? Or a better question: how do Israelis make those judgments?
As many historians—most recently, Andrew Roberts in The Storm of War, his superb history of the Second World War—have reminded us, lucid calculations are often absent, statesmanship often pushed aside by ideological obsessions, hatred more powerful than rational calculations. Just because we think it irrational for Iranian officials to make such speeches, or wreck their economy to pursue nuclear weapons, or threaten Israel, does not mean that such things are not happening and will not happen.
Sitting around conference tables they may appear unlikely or impossible, but the Rahimi speech may be a better guide to Iranian foreign policy than the words spoken at those sessions.
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"Today many former Israeli intelligence officers are warning America not to listen the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and to avoid a military clash with Iran. Yuval Diskin, the retired head of the Shabak, the Israeli internal security service, has said Bibi is guided by “messianic feelings” which impair his judgement. Meir Dagan, his counterpart at the Mossad, the external security service, has said a military attack on Iran would be “stupid.” This time the warnings from our professional Israeli allies are not quiet."
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/07/06/the-last-time-we-fought-iran.html
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As Stratfor has well pointed out, war with Iran would be very serious business, but the Daily Beast piece misses that
a) a major element of our motivation was the Iranian capture of our embassy, and more importantly,
b) it was our intention that no one win.
Also, we are not looking at a land war, we are looking at whether we can destroy their nuke program.
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The article didn't miss it; t think the article very definitely points out that "war with Iran would be very serious business."
In fact, as the article also points out, many former Israeli intelligence officers are warning America to avoid a military clash with Iran because it would be try serious business.
If we take any military action against their "nuke program" there will be repercussions. As the article points out, it's not Islam, it's our meddling in the middle east
that causes the deep seated animosity.
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Off the radar screen of most of the chattering class is the fact that the US is assembling quite a naval presence of Iran. I must say I heartily approve.
Is BO about to "wag the dog"?
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I haven't watched it yet, but the documentary is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4IDy-0CJbE&feature=youtu.be
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Iran Strikes Again
by Alex Traiman
At least seven are dead and dozens are injured as a suicide bomber targeted a bus carrying Israelis on vacation in Bulgaria near the Black Sea. Immediate links are already being drawn to Iran.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused Iran and their terror proxy Hezbollah of being behind yesterday's attacks, but he is not the only one who has identified the link.
While Iranian State Television called the accusations, "ridiculous" and "sensational," others with alleged ties to the Iranian government are not as quick to deny the connections.
"The government in Tehran is a very likely suspect," said Trita Parsi, regime supporter and founder and president of the National Iranian American Council. "It appears that Tehran has shifted its focus to softer targets." Noting the logic of such a strategy, Parsi added that, "Targeting unwitting tourists is much easier than security-conscious officials."
The murderous attack came 18 years to the day after the horrific bombing of the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association (AMIA) that killed 85 and injured hundreds on July 18, 1994 in Buenos Aires. It was the deadliest bombing in Argentina's history.
After an extensive investigation, Argentina's Chief Prosecutor, Alberto Nisman formally charged Iran and Hezbollah for the bombing stating, "We deem it proven that the decision to carry out an attack July 18, 1994 on the AMIA was made by the highest authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran which directed Hezbollah to carry out the attack."
Just two years earlier, the Iranian sponsored Islamic Jihad Organization and Hezbollah took credit for bombing the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires. That attack killed 29 and injured 242.
Following the 1994 attack, prosecutors in Argentina called for the arrest of several Iranian officials, including Iran's President at the time, Ali Rafsanjani - also commonly credited as the father of Iran's nuclear weapon's program.
Like the previous attacks, yesterday's strike in Bulgaria was not an isolated incident. Iran has continued a decades-long pattern of attacking its enemies beyond its own borders. Not all the attacks have been successful.
Parsi notes that Iran has been behind several less sophisticated attacks during the past year. "Amateurish attacks did occur in Thailand, and Indian police have accused Iran of being behind a failed assassination attempt of the Israeli ambassador's wife in New Delhi. Iranian agents have also been arrested in Kenya."
Iran has not limited its terror activities solely to Jewish and Israeli targets.
In October, 2011, a plot to assassinate a Saudi Diplomat at a restaurant in Washington, DC was foiled by law enforcement. The plot included plans to strike at two embassies in America's capital city. Iran denied any connections to the plot, but Attorney General Eric Holder called the attempt a "flagrant violation of U.S. and international law," and stated that, "The United States is committed to holding Iran accountable for its actions."
Yet Iran is barely being held accountable.
For nearly two decades, Iran has sat atop the U.S. State Department's short list of "State Sponsors of Terrorism." Iran is joined on the list by noted actors Cuba, Sudan and Syria. Of those state terror sponsors, Iran has been continuously been designated as the most active.
Iran is on the list with good reason. Many remember some of Iran's most devastating terror attacks against Americans.
On October 23, 1983, two truck bombs targeting American and French military installations in Beirut Lebanon killed 299, including 241 Americans. At the time, it was the single deadliest attack on US interests since World War II. The attack was carried out by Hezbollah, a terror organization that was conceived and continues to be funded by Tehran.
In the 1990's, Iran continued its terror assault. On June 25, 1996, a truck bomb killed 19 Americans when it exploded at the Khobar Towers military housing complex in Saudi Arabia. After a three-year investigation, the FBI concluded that Iran was behind the attack.
In addition to these isolated attacks, Iran was a primary force behind the insurgencies against US forces in Iraq. According to the State Department, Iran provided "lethal support, including weapons, training, funding, and guidance, to Iraqi Shia militant groups that target U.S. and Iraqi forces," and supplied militants with "Iranian-produced advanced rockets, sniper rifles, automatic weapons, and mortars that have killed Iraqi and Coalition Forces, as well as civilians," and provided militants with "the capability to assemble explosives designed to defeat armored vehicles."
As Michael Ledeen, featured in the award-winning documentary Iranium noted in an interview for the film, "Iran has been at war with America for over thirty years."
When you begin to consider the scope of Iran's violent attacks against Western interests, coupled with statements such as, "Israel is a cancerous tumor" that needs to be removed, and "the countdown to the demise of America's demonic power has begun," you begin to understand that the Iranian regime would use whatever tools it has at its disposal to strike its self-stated enemies.
This is what makes Iran's development of nuclear weapons so dangerous. Notwithstanding the fact that Iran's clandestine nuclear program is completely illegal, nuclear weapons in the hands of the world's greatest terror sponsors could have cataclysmic consequences.
There is little reason to assume that Iran - a country that strikes Western interests whenever and wherever they can find them; has killed thousands of Americans and Israelis; and openly calls for the destruction of two nations - would not use nuclear weapons if it came to acquire them.
And the possible methods to deliver such a blast, including infiltrations by terrorists wherever they may be are too numerous to protect against. Today, Iranian terror proxies can be found across Asia, Africa, Europe, South America, Mexico and even inside the United States.
Yet the punishments America has inflicted in response to Iran's illegal and violent actions have simply not fit the crimes they continue to commit.
Sanctions legislation, while improving, has yet to formally cripple the Iranian economy or get Iran to give up its nuclear pursuits. And leading nations of the world, including the United States - that should be thoroughly fed up with Iran's belligerence - continue to search for ways to reach common ground and negotiate with Iran, in the vain and misguided hope of convincing this rogue regime to give up it's nuclear program.
The documentary Iranium covers in-depth the history of the Iranian regime, ideology, sponsorship of terror, nuclear development, and western incompetence in identifying and dealing with the threats.
Today, as we mourn the deaths of innocent civilians, the film remains as important as ever. And while millions across the world have seen the film, millions more have not. Iranium is a comprehensive and emotive tool that enables Americans to fully understand the nature and scope of the threats that Iran continues to pose.
The film struck a chord with officials within the Iranian regime who went out of their way to block it's screening, and repeatedly denounced the documentary during foreign ministry press conferences in Tehran.
If you have not yet watched the film, please do so by clicking on the player below. If you have watched the film, please pass it along to others. It is only through understanding the nature of the threats we face that will enable us to defeat them.
Alex Traiman is the Director of the award-winning documentary IRANIUM. The documentary is now available for
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The often unreliable Debka:
On July 27, just before Friday prayers, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei summoned top Iranian military chiefs for what he called “their last war council.”
“We’ll be at war within weeks,” he told the gathering, debkafile’s exclusive Iranian and intelligence sources disclose.
Present were Defense Minister General Ahmad Vahidi, Khamenei’s military adviser General Yahya Rahim-Safavi, Armed Forces Chief Major General Seyed Hassan Firuzabadi, Revolutionary Guards Corps commander General Mohammad Ali Jafari and Al Qods Brigades chief General Qassem Soleimani. The commanders of the air force, the navy and ground forces were also there.
Each of the participants was tapped to report on the readiness of his branch or sector for shouldering its contingency mission.
While retaliation had been exhaustively drilled in regular military exercises in the past year, Khamenei ordered the biggest fortification project in Iran’s history to save its nuclear program from even the mightiest of America’s super-weapons. Rocks are being gathered from afar, piled on key nuclear installations, covered with many tons of poured concrete and finally plated with steel.
That same Friday, the US Air force unveiled its new Massive Ordnance Penetrators. Each bunker buster weighs 30,000 pounds and is able to penetrate 60 feet of reinforced concrete.
Turning to retaliation, the war council endorsed a battery of paybacks for potential US and/or Israeli pre-emptive strikes against its nuclear program. They would start by announcing enhanced uranium enrichment up to 60 percent - that is close to weapons grade.
Oft-tested ballistic missiles, Shehab-3, would be loosed against Israel, Saudi Arabia and American Middle East and Gulf military installations.
Hizballah in Lebanon and Hamas and Jihad Islami in Gaza stand ready to pitch in against Israel with attacks from the north and the southwest.
Saudi oil export terminals would be blown up and mines sown in the Strait of Hormuz to impede the export of one-fifth of the world’s oil.
Khamenei put before his war council a timeline of weeks for the coming conflict – September or October.
http://www.debka.com/article/22229/Khamenei-Warns-Iran%E2%80%99s-Top-Leaders-WAR-IN-WEEKS
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Iran's Nuclear-Arms Guru Resurfaces
By JAY SOLOMON
VIENNA—The Iranian scientist considered Tehran's atomic-weapons guru until he was apparently sidelined several years ago is back at work, according to United Nations investigators and U.S. and Israeli officials, sparking fresh concerns about the status of Iran's nuclear program.
Close.Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, widely compared with Robert Oppenheimer, the American physicist who oversaw the crash 1940s effort to build an atomic bomb, helped push Iran into its nuclear age over the past two decades. A senior officer in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, he oversaw Iran's research into the construction and detonation of a nuclear warhead, Western officials say.
Mr. Fakhrizadeh complained in 2006 that his funding and nuclear-weapons work had been frozen by Iran's government, according to intercepted email and phone calls, U.S. officials said. The intercepts contributed to a 2007 U.S. intelligence report that concluded Iran had halted its attempts to build a nuclear bomb in 2003.
Today, however, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, believes Mr. Fakhrizadeh has opened a research facility in Tehran's northern suburbs involved in studies relevant to developing nuclear weapons. The offices include some of the same scientists and military staff active in Iran's previous nuclear-weapons research, said intelligence officials who have seen intelligence on the facility.
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In this, April 8, 2008, file photo released by the Iranian President's Office, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, center, visits the Natanz Uranium Enrichment Facility some 200 miles south of the capital, Tehran.
.A number of Mr. Fakhrizadeh's closest colleagues have risen up the ranks of the Iranian bureaucracy in recent months, placing them in positions to influence the future of Iran's nuclear program. Among them is Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, who heads the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran and is one of the country's vice presidents.
The apparent re-emergence of Mr. Fakhrizadeh comes as international diplomatic efforts to contain Tehran's nuclear program have stalled and as Israel threatens military strikes. It also calls into question the conclusion by the 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate that Iran had frozen its nuclear-weapons program.
A quarterly report by the IAEA is expected this week to conclude that Iran continues to expand the number of centrifuges it has for enriching uranium and is moving more of this equipment into an underground facility near the holy city of Qom. The site, known as Fordow, is seen as largely impregnable to attack. On Wednesday, the IAEA said it was establishing a special task force to investigate Iran's nuclear program, signaling its concern about Tehran's continued advances.
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CloseAssociated Press
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, left, met with Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran on Wednesday.
.Iran denies it is pursuing atomic weapons, saying its research is just for energy, and has said that much of the IAEA's information is bogus. Efforts to reach Mr. Fakhrizadeh through Iran's mission at the U.N. were unsuccessful. Mr. Abbasi-Davani denies any nuclear-weapons role.
Senior Obama administration officials say the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate remains accurate. They agree some research on atomic weapons development involving Mr. Fakhrizadeh has likely continued but contend it isn't centralized and systematic, as it was before 2003. These officials say the U.S. and its allies still have time to use sanctions and diplomacy to deny Iran an atomic bomb.
Israel and some European nations worry that Mr. Fakhrizadeh's suspected warhead research coincides with steps by Tehran to push ahead with the two other planks of a nuclear-arms program: missile systems and production of more highly enriched uranium. Security officials from these countries say Iran is steadily moving toward a point where its program would be so advanced that diplomacy or military strikes would no longer be able to deny it the bomb or the capability to build one.
"They are moving up all three elements of their nuclear program to the starting line," a senior Israeli official said.
At the center of the IAEA and Western focus on Mr. Fakhrizadeh, believed to be 51 years old, is an institution called the SPND, meaning, in Persian, the Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research. The IAEA believes that Mr. Fakhrizadeh secretly opened SPND in 2011 and that elements of Iran's nuclear-arms research, which they thought were shelved in 2003 and which also have civilian applications, may be taking place there.
Based in the Tehran suburb of Mojdeh, the SPND hosts six directorates that include research labs for metallurgy, chemistry and explosives testing, according to Western officials who have seen the intelligence on the site. The organization reports directly to the Revolutionary Guard.
"We have concerns in various areas that indicate activities that are relevant to nuclear explosive devices," IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano said in a June interview. "This is where we stand now. And if we cannot clarify, we get more concerned."
Mr. Amano has publicly raised his concerns that Iran has done other weapons-related research post-2003. Included in this, according to IAEA reports, was computer modeling in 2008 and 2009 to simulate the detonation of a nuclear bomb. The IAEA also says it has evidence Iran did studies starting in 2006 to develop a neutron initiator, which is placed in the core of a warhead to set off a fissile reaction.
Current and former IAEA officials say the SPND is just the most recent base for Mr. Fakhrizadeh, who has long been on the West's radar. The U.S. and IAEA trace his work back nearly two decades, saying he and the nuclear-weapons research efforts moved through a series of organizations over the years.
"Such projects are good if one wants to maintain the expertise of the scientists in fields related to nuclear-weapons research under different legitimate hats," said Olli Heinonen, former chief weapons inspector for the IAEA. "This is a way you can conceal."
Iran has long done research on nuclear energy, dating back to the shah's rule. But documents obtained by the IAEA and outside groups show the Islamic government began running a separate nuclear program in the late 1980s and '90s under the leadership of the defense ministry. It was initially based in an office called the Physics Research Center, or PHRC, and led by Mr. Fakhrizadeh and a professor at Sharif University.
More than 1,600 of PHRC telexes were obtained this year by the Institute for Science and International Security, a nonproliferation research organization in Washington. They show how the PHRC shielded technology purchases. In a Jan. 1, 1991, telex, the university's purchasing department sought samples of magnets that could be used in developing gas centrifuges from a European engineering company. The return address it gave wasn't the university's, but the PHRC's.
In 2000, according to IAEA officials, Mr. Fakhrizadeh moved to a new defense ministry institute where Tehran conducted some of its most advanced research on nuclear weapons. The institute used a military site south of Tehran called Parchin, where the agency says high-explosives tests required for developing atomic bombs were likely conducted. Much of the IAEA's focus in the past year has been on gaining access to Parchin, which Iran has so far denied.
IAEA inspectors have also repeatedly been rebuffed in efforts to interview Mr. Fakhrizadeh, say current and former IAEA staff members.
Mr. Heinonen, now at Harvard's Belfer Center on science and international affairs, described a 2008 trip to Tehran at which, the Finnish scientist says, he kept asking for access to Mr. Fakhrizadeh but was greeted instead by bureaucrats who deflected his questions.
The U.N. Security Council imposed a travel ban and financial sanctions on Mr. Fakhrizadeh in 2007 for his work, and similar sanctions against Mr. Abbasi-Davani because of his ties to Mr. Fakhrizadeh. Mr. Abbasi-Davani, interviewed that year while working as a rector at an Iranian university, denied playing any role in Iran's nuclear program, saying: "In order to gain prestige…we don't need the atomic bomb."
In November 2010, Mr. Abbasi-Davani was one of two scientists targeted by assassins on motorbikes who placed magnetized bombs on their cars while they were stuck in Tehran traffic. He survived, unlike his colleague. Iran blamed Israel. Israeli officials have never confirmed or denied involvement.
Later, Mr. Abbasi-Davani was promoted to head the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. Last month, he said Iran now has the technology to move quickly toward producing weapons-grade uranium. Such fuel can be used to build the core of an atomic weapon. Mr. Abbasi-Davani said it would only be for fueling a nuclear submarine or merchant vessels.
Mr. Abbasi-Davani emerged on the world stage last September to attend the IAEA's general conference in Vienna, despite the U.N. travel ban. Appearing before reporters, he said Iran wouldn't slow its uranium-enrichment activities but would move them into underground bunkers.
He also tweaked British, Israeli and American intelligence services that, he claimed, had tried to kill him a year earlier.
"Six years ago, the intelligence service of the U.K. began collecting information and data regarding my past," he said. They even "checked into the back door of my room in the university to see whether I have a bodyguard or not."
—Siobhan Gorman and Nathan Hodge contributed to this article.
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WSJ
What We Know About Iran's Nukes
The regime's most secure uranium-enrichment site has doubled capacity since May, and its suspected top bomb-maker is back on the case..
By OLLI HEINONEN AND SIMON HENDERSON
Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei claimed last week that his government isn't interested in nuclear weapons: "Our motto is nuclear energy for all and nuclear weapons for none," he said. A better perspective was provided almost simultaneously from the world's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, which on Aug. 30 released its latest report on Iran's nuclear activities.
The report, written in a mix of bureaucrat-speak and obscure science, nevertheless conveys a worrying message. It shows that Iran continues to expand its capacity for enriching uranium. There are now two new groups of centrifuges installed at Fordow—the hardened site built under a mountain near the holy city of Qom—which signals a doubling of the site's capacity since May.
Crucially, Iran continues to stockpile uranium enriched to 3.5% and 20% purity—levels for which Iran has no immediate use unless it is planning to make an atomic bomb. (Its stockpiles of 20% uranium far exceed Tehran's claimed needs for a reactor making medical isotopes.)
Iran is now operating around 11,000 centrifuges categorized as "IR-1," which are based on a Dutch design acquired by the Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan. This means that, despite international sanctions and surveillance, Iran has acquired (and perhaps continues to acquire) important supplies from abroad, particularly maraging steel and high-strength aluminum. Alternatively, and no less worrying, is the possibility that Iran is now able to produce such special metals domestically.
A piece of apparent good news is that Iran's IR-1 centrifuges are performing at half their design potential, producing less enriched uranium than they might otherwise. This indicates quality problems, perhaps due to the manufacturing process or to the raw materials used. It also appears that Iran remains slow in developing more advanced centrifuge types. This could be because of design and manufacturing problems. Or Iran could be saving the advanced centrifuges for another secret, yet-to-be-revealed facility. We can only speculate.
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Associated Press/Ronald Zak
Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency Yukiya Amano.
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Judging from this report, Iran seems determined to achieve the capability of producing nuclear materials suitable for nuclear weapons. Whether it has made a decision to produce a fully operational nuclear weapon is unclear. (The Obama administration says it hasn't, according to its latest declared intelligence on Iran's government.)
Going forward, the matter of advanced centrifuges will be important to watch. If Iran acquires or develops them, it could pursue a "fast break-out"—moving within months to 90%-enriched uranium, which is weapons-grade—using its already sizable and growing inventories of 20%. Once it has five or six bombs-worth of 90% enriched uranium, it would essentially be a latent nuclear-weapon state—whether it has actually tested a bomb or not.
Indeed, given the intelligence uncertainties involved with monitoring whether such a secretive program moves to "break-out," even a stockpile of five or six bombs-worth of 20%-enriched uranium would effectively make Iran a nuclear-weapon state.
Last week's IAEA report also shows that inspectors continue to struggle to get access to the controversial site of Parchin, outside Tehran, where satellite imagery shows that Iran has carried out substantial landscaping and construction activities, presumably to cover up past nuclear work. Similar Iranian obstructionism and destruction of evidence has taken place in the past.
Still, the IAEA has powerful inspection tools—plus information from member states such as the U.S.—which means it could take a view on what earlier happened at Parchin. The suspicion is that Iran used a giant steel chamber at the site to experiment on "implosion," the technique of squeezing a nuclear explosive (such as highly enriched uranium) into a critical mass using conventional explosives. Evidence of such testing would be a "smoking gun" indicating Iranian military nuclear intentions.
Cautious politicians will argue there is still time for diplomacy, plus sanctions and military threats, to succeed. But Iranian leaders give little impression they are about to give in to pressure. And during last week's flurry of news, this newspaper reported that Iran's suspected chief nuclear bomb maker, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, appears to have been brought back to the fore after several years of apparently being sidelined.
The IAEA report concludes by saying that Director-General Yukiya Amano "will continue to report as appropriate." But Mr. Amano does not have a sign on his desk saying "the buck stops here." The future of Iran's nuclear program is in the hands of whoever does.
Mr. Heinonen, a former top IAEA inspector, is a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center. Mr. Henderson is a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
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Israel Must Be 'Eliminated'
Netanyahu has to take Iran's words seriously. Why doesn't Obama? .
'To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle."
—George Orwell
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks at the United Nations today, which also happens to be Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. The timing is apt because when it comes to Iran and Israel, the hardest thing for some people to see or hear is what Iranian leaders say in front of the world's nose.
"Iran has been around for the last seven, 10 thousand years. They [the Israelis] have been occupying those territories for the last 60 to 70 years, with the support and force of the Westerners. They have no roots there in history," Mr. Ahmadinejad told reporters and editors in New York on Monday.
Related Video
Heritage Foundation fellow Brett Schaefer on President Obama's speech to the United Nations General Assembly.
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"We do believe that they have found themselves at a dead end and they are seeking new adventures in order to escape this dead end. Iran will not be damaged with foreign bombs. We don't even count them as any part of any equation for Iran. During a historical phase, they [the Israelis] represent minimal disturbances that come into the picture and are then eliminated."
Note that word—"eliminated." When Iranians talk about Israel, this intention of a final solution keeps coming up. In October 2005, Mr. Ahmadinejad, quoting the Ayatollah Khomeini, said Israel "must be wiped off the map." Lest anyone miss the point, the Iranian President said in June 2008 that Israel "has reached the end of its function and will soon disappear off the geographical domain."
He has company among Iranian leaders. In a televised speech in February, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei called Israel a "cancerous tumor that should be cut and will be cut," adding that "from now on, in any place, if any nation or any group that confronts the Zionist regime, we will endorse and we will help. We have no fear of expressing this."
Major General Hassan Firouzabadi, chief of staff of the armed forces, added in May that "the Iranian nation is standing for its cause that is the full annihilation of Israel."
This pledge of erasing an entire state goes back to the earliest days of the Iranian revolution. "One of our major points is that Israel must be destroyed," Ayatollah Khomeini said in the 1980s.
Former Iranian President Akbar Rafsanjani—often described as a moderate in Western media accounts—had this to say in 2001: "If one day, the Islamic world is also equipped with weapons like those that Israel possesses now, then the imperialists' strategy will reach a standstill because the use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything. However, it will only harm the Islamic world. It is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality."
So for Iran it is "not irrational" to contemplate the deaths of millions of Muslims in exchange for the end of Israel because millions of other Muslims will survive, but the Jewish state will not.
The world's civilized nations typically denounce such statements, as the U.S. State Department denounced Mr. Ahamadinejad's on Monday. But denouncing them is not the same as taking them seriously. Sometimes the greatest challenge for a civilized society is comprehending that not everyone behaves in civilized or rational fashion, that barbarians can still appear at the gate.
Thus we hear in U.S. and European policy circles that Israel is overreacting to such publicly stated intentions because Iran would never act on them and, in any case, Israel has its own nuclear deterrent. But no one believes Israel would launch a nuclear first-strike to wipe out Tehran, and an Israeli counterstrike would be too late to protect Israel from being "eliminated."
The tragic lesson of history is that sometimes barbarians mean what they say. Sometimes regimes do want to eliminate entire nations or races, and they will do so if they have the means and opportunity and face a timorous or disbelieving world.
No one knows that more acutely than Israeli leaders, whose state was founded in the wake of such a genocide. The question faced by Benjamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak and other Israelis is whether they can afford to allow another regime pledged to Jewish "annihilation" to acquire the means to accomplish it. The answer, in our view, is as obvious as Mr. Ahmadinejad's stated intentions.
In his U.N. speech Tuesday, President Obama took a tougher-than-usual election-season line against Iran, stating that "the United States will do what we must to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon." But the cold reality is that after nearly four years of failed diplomacy and half-hearted sanctions that he opposed until Congress forced his hand, neither Iran nor Israel believe him.
Someone should put Orwell on the President's reading list before it's too late
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It almost makes you wish for Bill Clinton again doesn't it?
"What they're really saying is, in spite of the fact that we deny the Holocaust, that we threaten Israel, and we demonize the United States, and we do all this stuff, we want you to trust us," Clinton told CNN's Piers Morgan in an interview to air Tuesday night. "They don't have a tenable position."
http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/25/world/meast/clinton-interview/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
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It almost makes you wish for Bill Clinton again doesn't it?
"What they're really saying is, in spite of the fact that we deny the Holocaust, that we threaten Israel, and we demonize the United States, and we do all this stuff, we want you to trust us," Clinton told CNN's Piers Morgan in an interview to air Tuesday night. "They don't have a tenable position."
http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/25/world/meast/clinton-interview/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
Why would anything Bill has ever said be taken as anything but the glib, selfserving lie of the moment, to be dropped like a stained blue dress or a young intern when it's no longer of immediate use?
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Some typical POTH progressive revisionism in this (e.g. Mao's China went nuke because of the nasty US making it feel insecure) but still the question presented remains. Iran has dug in deep, an attack would likely unifty the country, and justify going nuke both internally and internationally.
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ADVOCATES of airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities have long held that the attacks would delay an atom bomb for years and perhaps even buy Israel enough time to topple the Iranian government. In public statements, the Israeli defense minister, Ehud Barak, has said that an attack would leave Iran’s nuclear program reeling, if not destroyed. The blow, he declared recently, would set back the Iranian effort “for a long time.”
Quite the opposite, say a surprising number of scholars and military and arms-control experts. In reports, talks, articles and interviews, they argue that a strike could actually lead to Iran’s speeding up its efforts, ensuring the realization of a bomb and hastening its arrival.
“An attack would increase the likelihood,” Scott D. Sagan, a political scientist at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, said of an Iranian weapon.
The George W. Bush administration, it turns out, reached an even stronger conclusion in secret and rejected bombing as counterproductive.
The view among Mr. Bush’s top advisers, recalled Michael V. Hayden, then director of the Central Intelligence Agency, was that a strike “would drive them to do what we were trying to prevent.”
Those who warn against attacking Iran say that such a move would free officials in Tehran of many constraints. An attack, for instance, would all but certainly lead to the expulsion of international inspectors, which, in turn, would allow the government to undo hundreds of monitoring devices and safeguards, including seals on underground storage units. Further, an Iran permitted to present itself to the world as the victim of an attack would receive sympathy and perhaps vital imports from nations that once backed trade bans. The thinking also goes that a strike would allow Iran to further direct its economy to military ends.
Perhaps most notably, an attack could unite what is now a fractious state, these analysts say, and build an atmosphere of mobilizing rage. As the foreign ministers of Sweden and Finland wrote earlier this year, “It’s difficult to see a single action more likely to drive Iran into taking the final decision.”
History, the analysts say, demonstrates that airstrikes and military threats often result in unbending resolve among the beleaguered to do whatever it takes to acquire nuclear arms.
“People always assume the bad guys want nukes,” says Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear nonproliferation specialist at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. “But I think there’s usually a hesitation about the balance of risk. My sense is that the threat of military action makes bad guys feel like they need the bomb.”
Pakistan’s foreign minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, seemed to have embodied that kind of determination when he said famously in 1965, “If India builds the bomb, we will eat grass or leaves, even go hungry, but we will get one of our own.”
Mark Fitzpatrick, a senior nonproliferation official at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a prominent arms analysis group in London, said in an e-mail interview that it was “almost certain” that a military strike on Iran would result in “a Manhattan-style rush to produce nuclear weapons as fast as possible.”
These analysts maintain that the history of nuclear proliferation shows that attempting to thwart a nuclear program through an attack can have consequences opposite of those intended. Mr. Lewis of the Monterey Institute and other experts often cite Iraq. Israel’s attack on the Iraqi Osirak reactor in 1981, they argue, hardened the resolve of Saddam Hussein and gave his nuclear ambitions new life.
“All of the historical evidence that I have seen,” Mr. Lewis wrote recently, “suggests Saddam had yet to decide to seek nuclear weapons until the humiliation of the strike.”
Top Israelis disagree. Amos Yadlin, one of the pilots who attacked the Iraqi reactor and a former chief of Israeli military intelligence, argued early this year that Iraq’s nuclear program “never fully resumed” and cited the bombing episode as a compelling rationale for military action against Iran.
But a number of former Israeli officials have echoed those who think the attack emboldened Mr. Hussein and worry that an attack on Iran could do the same there.
Yuval Diskin, who retired last year as director of Israel’s internal security agency, told a gathering in April that “many experts” cite the acceleration risk. “What the Iranians prefer to do today slowly and quietly,” he said, “they would have the legitimacy to do quickly and in a much shorter time."
Nuclear historians say intimidation alone can spur an atomic response, as when American hostility prompted China to seek nuclear arms. Beijing succeeded in 1964 with a thunderous blast.
In “China Builds the Bomb,” John Wilson Lewis and Xue Litai wrote that Washington’s threats provoked “defiant anger and the decision to undertake the costly nuclear weapons program.”
The question of what prompts the speedups would seem to go far beyond the Iranian crisis and atomic history because the number of latent nuclear states (ones that could make bombs but choose not to, like Japan and Germany) has risen around the globe in recent decades. The estimated number now stands at around 40.
Scholars have long debated the social factors that keep countries from crossing the line.
Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told his colleagues before they won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005 that the bomb decision often turned on nothing more complex than a “sense of security or insecurity.”
In a turbulent world, he added, that kind of evaluation could change rapidly. “Thin,” he called the margin of safety, “and worrisome.”
William J. Broad is a New York Times reporter who has written extensively about weaponry.
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I haven't seen anything about this elsewhere but if true this sounds like good news:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/9580540/Iranian-currency-plummets-to-record-low-as-US-sanctions-take-hold.html
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Iran Blames Currency's Fall on Rogue Traders, Sanctions .
By FARNAZ FASSIHI
Iranian officials lashed out Tuesday over the free fall of the rial, which lost nearly 25% against the dollar in just a week, by blaming illegal trading rings and fiscal mismanagement, and conceding that international sanctions have hurt its economy.
The rial fluctuated between 35,500 to 40,000 to the dollar on Tuesday, according to money exchangers in Tehran. It was down from 34,200 to a dollar just a day earlier on Monday and 23,000 on Sept. 24.
The currency crisis highlights Iran's economic challenges as international sanctions are starting to have a visible impact. Inflation—estimated at about 55% compared with last year for basic food, rent and transportation—would likely rise further as prices come in line with new currency rates.
For the first time, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad publicly acknowledged Tuesday that the European Union and U.S. embargo on Iran's oil and Central Bank were hurting the economy and contributing to the devaluation of the rial.
"Two elements have joined hands to pressure the people of Iran. One is external and one is internal," he said in live televised remarks to reporters when asked to elaborate on the currency's rapid fall.
Oil sales, a major source of foreign-currency revenue for the government, had dropped as a result of sanctions, he said. Banking restrictions made it difficult to move and use oil revenues, he added. But he also blamed speculators for hammering the currency on the black market, by placing calls to traders to "jack [the dollar] up 5,000 rials," he said. "According to a report from one of the security services, 22 individuals are ringleaders of the recent turmoil in the currency market, and since these individuals are known, security institutions must act," he said.
Iranian police are investigating such traders, the semi-official Fars News Agency quoted a police official as saying.
It is Mr. Ahmadinejad's first explanation, economists said, that likely speaks to the problem's core: Because sanctions have slashed the government's oil income by nearly half—to about $42 billion annually from $85 billion—it has lower reserves with which to conduct its traditional operations to support the rial. For years, Iran's Central Bank has stabilized the currency by injecting cash into the market and keeping the black-market price closer to the official 12,260 rial to a dollar.
"The Central Bank is refusing to inject its dollars," said Fereydoun Khavand, an economics professor at the Université Paris Descartes and an Iran expert. "Dollar revenue has become a strategic and security issue because of regional developments, threat of war and sanctions, and [the Central Bank] will continue to act conservatively."
Critics of the government, meanwhile, have lashed out at poor management by Mr. Ahmadinejad's administration—blaming a provocative foreign policy that they say brought on sanctions, as well as fiscal mismanagement, including a partially implemented government subsidy program. Ali Larijani, the speaker of parliament, said Tuesday that the government's "Robin Hood-style" fiscal policies were to be blamed for 80% of Iran's economic woes.
Mr. Ahmadinejad said Tuesday the economic problems weren't his government's fault and said the Central Bank was capable of seeing the government through the crisis.
The U.S. said Tuesday that the rial's fall demonstrated that U.S. sanctions were having their intended effect. "The Iranian people are aware of who is responsible for the circumstances that have befallen the Iranian economy as a result of the regime's intransigence and refusal to abide by its international obligations," said White House spokesman Jay Carney.
The Central Bank is at the center of Iranians' growing nervousness over their currency, as it has unveiled changes over the past few weeks in how it distributes dollars at the official rate, at which the rial is stronger than on the black market.
The bank announced that people who hold dollar accounts would no longer have access to their money in dollars and the bank would compensate them in rials at the official rate. Those traveling abroad and students would no longer be eligible to purchase dollars at the official rate from the bank, it also said.On Monday, dozens of families gathered outside of the Central Bank headquarters to protest the change of policy, saying they couldn't afford to send tuition at the non-subsidized rates.
The bank also announced last week that the subsidized dollar rate, which was previously available to most importers, would be extended only to a smaller group of importers, including those bringing in basic food and medicine. Importers of other priority items, including industrial and raw materials, would be eligible for only a 2 percent discount on the black-market dollar rate, while the rest would pay market prices.
This change of policy, analysts say, made Iranians realize that the Central Bank was short on foreign revenues and wouldn't be supporting the rial with market operations.
The rial's sharp decline has sent panic through the business community and the citizenry. Most deals have been put on hold until the currency stabilizes, say many merchants and industrialists. Most exchange shops along downtown Tehran's Ferdowsi Avenue, the hub for foreign-currency trade, closed Tuesday afternoon and said they won't buy or sell dollars. Many middle-class Iranians are taking cash out of bank accounts and trading it for dollars and euros, which many economists say may also be fueling the rial's fall.
"I used to make $2,000 a month with my salary. Then it dropped to $1,000 a few weeks ago, and now my income is worth only $500," said Ardavan, a 32-year-old engineer.
Mr. Ahmadinejad on Tuesday pleaded with Iranians to stop hoarding dollars and help the country's economy.
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Iran's Currency Crisis in Context
October 5, 2012 | 1030 GMT
Summary
The steep decline in the value of Iran's currency over the past week will test the ability of the Iranian government to halt the downward economic spiral and prevent a large outbreak of social unrest. In dealing with the situation, Tehran is largely dependent on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an institution that is involved with the currency crisis at every level.
Analysis
Since late September, the Iranian rial has lost as much as 40 percent of its value against the U.S. dollar. The precipitous decline in the rial's value broadly stems from the U.S.-led economic sanctions campaign against Iran and the imperfect options at Tehran's disposal to defend the rial.
Sanctions Hit Iran's Financial System
The most recent phase of the sanctions campaign targeted the heart of the Iranian financial system. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-run national oil company sells the bulk of Iran's oil to foreigners in exchange for dollars. And since earlier sanctions pushed most private Iranian banks out of the oil business, the Central Bank of Iran is the primary institution to manage the transactions.
VIDEO: Stratfor on Economic Sanctions
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However, the sanctions are not airtight. The West has little appetite for the high oil prices that a complete embargo would entail, and sanctions can be difficult to sustain politically. The sanctions therefore allow waivers to be granted to importers that keep more than 1 million barrels per day of Iranian crude flowing into the market. On top of this permitted trade, Iran has developed a number of alternative payment methods and smuggling operations to maintain oil exports, albeit at greater difficulty and higher cost.
Despite these methods, the sanctions do appear to be having enough of an impact to undermine Iranian oil revenue and constrain Iran's ability to obtain enough of the hard currency it needs to defend the rial. Official Iranian crude exports have been cut roughly in half -- from slightly more than 2 million barrels per day to 1 million barrels per day -- though volumes fluctuate on a monthly basis.
With the rial coming under increased pressure, the Central Bank of Iran had to draw from its foreign exchange reserves to subsidize the exchange rate and to fix prices of staple goods. The exact value of Iran's foreign exchange reserves is disputed, but a range of estimates indicates a decline from approximately $100 billion to $65 billion since January. Using foreign exchange reserves to prop up the currency is an expensive policy to maintain, and the central bank adopted an approach meant to ensure that the subsidization was targeted toward essential goods. This was first manifested in the July 2012 shift from a two-tiered exchange rate system to a three-tiered system. The policy entailed maintaining the official rate for imports of basic goods, imposing a 15,000 rial-per-dollar rate for imports of capital and intermediate goods and allowing access to a market rate for imports of non-essential goods.
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This second tier is the most critical to examine. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps holds significant clout in Iranian industry, parallel financing and smuggling operations. The import of capital and intermediate goods for the Iranian economy is largely a Revolutionary Guard operation. Many members of the Revolutionary Guard have exploited their ability to access dollars cheaply and exchange them at a market rate to earn a profit through the tiered exchange system. This has allowed them to personally profit from Iran's premier state asset, its oil revenue, and has eroded the government's ability to redirect its wealth toward the wider population. Such speculators and black market traders form the "invisible mafia" that some Iranian government officials have blamed for the current crisis. Its presence could be tolerated during better times, but with the economy besieged by sanctions, Tehran's willingness to endure this activity has disappeared.
The pressure of sanctions and the loss of foreign exchange reserves due to the subsidized exchange rate have now reportedly led to the removal of the middle exchange rate and a drastic restriction of foreign exchange transactions throughout the economy. At the same time, a notable increase in government rhetoric about "economic jihad" and self-sustainability induced more panic in the market. Perception spread domestically that foreign exchange reserves were running out and the rial would soon collapse, leading Iranians to rush to currency exchange centers to trade their money for dollars.
The State's Response
As of Oct. 4, most currency exchange centers have reportedly shut down and police are barring access to these facilities as part of a state effort to constrain access to subsidized dollars and stop the outflow of dollars from Iran's foreign exchange reserves. Merchants at Tehran's Grand Bazaar -- whose continued participation in protests could provide the necessary momentum to sustain wider social turmoil -- have closed their shops over the past few days in protest of the currency depreciation. Security forces have been deployed to the bazaar in response, but the state is also actively trying to avoid a confrontation with the merchants that could trigger widespread unrest.
Stratfor has received indications that the government is quietly negotiating with merchants and offering access to dollars at subsidized exchange rates to compel them to reopen their shops. So far, the strategy appears to be working. Merchant associations held a meeting Oct. 4 and reportedly agreed to resume activity at the Grand Bazaar on Oct. 6. The government has ordered the deployment of Revolutionary Guard forces and police to the bazaar to ensure this remains the case. However, the sustainability of this strategy depends on three principal factors: the ability to apply physical force, continued oil sales and the maintenance of foreign exchange reserves.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
The thread tying the currency crisis together is the Revolutionary Guard. Iran's increased economic isolation due to sanctions over the years empowered the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The military force runs a sprawling business conglomerate that encompasses everything from insurance, construction, banking and energy. The Revolutionary Guard also plays an instrumental role in the smuggling of oil exports and consumer goods imports to sustain oil revenues and keep shelves stocked amid tightening sanctions. At the same time, members of the force at varying levels are in a prime position to exploit the currency exchange rates for personal gain. Finally, the Revolutionary Guard is the main security branch that the state will rely on to contain social unrest stemming from major economic disruptions.
In other words, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps may have to rein in its privately accumulated profits before it can effectively manage this widening economic crisis. This has significant implications for Iran's intensifying power struggle. In this latest bout of economic unease, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has once again become the scapegoat for the country's growing economic problems, a trend that has been in place for several years. Iran's clerical authorities have used a number of institutional levers to discredit the president's populist platform, which Ahmadinejad had framed as an alternative to the corrupted clerical elite. The Revolutionary Guard initially exploited this rift within the Iranian regime to strengthen its own position in the political affairs of the state; it has now aligned itself more closely with the clerics to isolate Ahmadinejad's faction.
Results from recent parliamentary elections indicate that the scapegoating strategy is working in the clerics' favor. However, the entire government will face a major crisis of confidence if it is unable to contain a currency crisis that could lead to more widespread unrest. The regime now appears to be trying to strike a deal with merchants to provide controlled access to imports. This strategy will require a consolidated security effort and a continued stream of oil revenue to allow the clerics to endure this crisis. And ultimately, that effort will rely on the security and business management abilities of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
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Read more: Iran's Currency Crisis in Context | Stratfor
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second post
West Seizes On Iran's Currency Woes .
By JAY SOLOMON and LAURENCE NORMAN
A meeting in Tehran on Thursday attended by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Iran's leaders are contending with a rapid fall in the currency.
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WASHINGTON—The U.S. and Europe are working on new coordinated measures intended to accelerate the recent plunge of Iran's currency and drain its foreign-exchange reserves, according to officials from the Obama administration, U.S. Congress and European Union.
The first salvos in this stepped-up sanctions campaign are expected at a meeting of EU foreign ministers on Oct. 15, including a ban on Iranian natural-gas exports and tighter restrictions on transactions with Tehran's central bank, European officials said.
A number of additional banks are also expected to be targeted, in the continuing effort to press Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to curb his country's nuclear program.
The U.S. and EU are also considering imposing a de facto trade embargo early next year by moving to block all export and import transactions through Iran's banking system—which could further choke off Tehran's access to foreign currency, U.S. and European officials said.
Financial Squeeze
On Oct. 15, European Union ministers are expected to pass:
Embargo on Iranian natural gas
Ban on graphite exports to Iran
Sanctions, asset freeze on additional Iranian banks
Officials are also looking at possible full asset freeze of Iran's central bank
U.S. lawmakers are working on legislation for:
Possible ban on transactions with Iran's central bank
Possible ban on international insuring of Iran
Possible ban on trade with Iran's energy sector
.Related Video
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Merchants in Tehran's main bazaar closed their shops in protest on Wednesday against the plunge of Iran's currency, which has shed more than a third of its value in less than a week. Photo: Associated Press.
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To that end, U.S. lawmakers are drafting legislation that would require the White House to block all international dealings with Iran's central bank, while also seeking to enforce a ban on all outside insuring of Iranian companies. There is also a legislative push to block investment in Iran's energy sector by closing off loopholes in existing sanctions.
The EU could follow up on implementing these U.S. measures, just as it backed the White House's moves to impede Iran's oil trade this year, officials said.
"You could see a move for a total embargo," said a senior European official involved in the sanctions debate. "This could fall in line with what Congress is thinking."
A nearly 40% drop in the Iranian rial's value against the dollar since Sept. 24 has increased confidence in Washington and Brussels that Western sanctions are starting to significantly erode Tehran's finances, senior U.S. and European officials said.
The rial's fall, which traders blame in part on mismanagement by Iranian authorities, is also seen to be fueling splits among Tehran's political elites. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has publicly feuded with Iranian lawmakers and bureaucrats over who is to blame, and on Tuesday attributed the crisis to illegal currency traders as well as U.S. and EU sanctions.
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On Wednesday, the Iranian government moved to shut down black-market foreign-exchange houses in a bid to restore financial calm, and antigovernment protests broke out in central Tehran.
It is unclear if the financial panic will force Tehran to make concessions on its nuclear program—the ultimate aim of the West's sanctions campaign. But the rial's plunge is undercutting views held by some in the U.S. and Europe that Tehran's oil wealth could make it immune from financial pressure, U.S. and European officials working on Iran said.
"There has been the perception that Iran is unmovable because of its oil resources," said a European official. "This perception is quickly shifting."
Iranian oil exports have fallen by more than 50% this year, according to Iranian officials and independent shipping trackers. U.S. and European officials said their moves to cut off those exports have been aided by ramped-up production in the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Libya and other countries, which has helped keep global energy prices stable.
U.S. officials and analysts see Washington and its allies now in a race with Tehran to see what is achieved first—a balance-of-payments crisis in Iran or its acquisition of a nuclear-weapons capability. Tehran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.
"The currency is dropping like a stone, there are riots, and Obama has harangued [Israeli leader Benjamin] Netanyahu not to bomb because there is time to economically cripple Iran," said Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a conservative think tank that advises U.S. lawmakers on sanctions policy. "So if the economic cripple-date occurs before the nuclear red line, then great, economic warfare may work."
U.S. and European officials believe Western sanctions and the EU's oil embargo, instituted in July, are costing Tehran $15 billion in lost energy revenue every quarter. This, in turn, is helping to force down the government's foreign-exchange reserves, which were estimated to be between $90 billion and $110 billion at the start of the year.
U.S. officials also believe that the widening financial penalties on Iran are making it harder for Iran's central bank to gain access to as much as 30% of its reserves, which are invested overseas. Outside economists now estimate inflation is running as high as 70% annually.
These developments, said U.S. and European officials, explain why Iranian financial officials appear reluctant to try to prop up the value of the Iranian rial by selling dollars into the local currency market. Mr. Ahmadinejad has publicly criticized Tehran's financial planners for not taking these steps.
Some member states still have concerns about taking steps that could disproportionately harm the Iranian population. There have been reports of food and medicine shortages in Iran in recent days, fueled by the weakening of the rial and dwindling imports.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday sought to deflect charges that sanctions are harming the Iranian people, saying Tehran's decisions were responsible for any economic hardships. "They have made their own government decisions—having nothing to do with the sanctions—that have had an impact on the economic conditions inside of the country,'' Mrs. Clinton said. "Of course, the sanctions have had an impact as well, but those could be remedied in short order if the Iranian government were willing to work with…the international community in a sincere manner."
In Brussels, the U.K., France and Germany have been pushing for broad new sanctions. Ministers from the three countries wrote to their counterparts last month, urging them to consider sanctions on energy, finance, trade and transportation, according to the letter, seen by The Wall Street Journal.
"The urgency of the matter requires that the EU demonstrates resolve and unity through quick and decisive action," they said in the letter, calling on the measures to be in place by Oct. 15.
Among the proposals being discussed in Europe is a widening of items on the prohibited-trade list, which would mainly affect energy-related products and services, according to several EU diplomats.
On Thursday, the 27-nation bloc was close to agreement on banning imports of Iranian natural gas and prohibiting exports of graphite to the country because of its possible use in the country's nuclear program, officials said.
The Europeans are also discussing broadening sanctions on a number of Iranian financial firms and imposing a full asset freeze on Iran's central bank. The Oct. 15 measures would likely fall short of a complete ban, an official said Thursday.
Other ideas under discussion include banning the export of marine equipment and the construction of Iranian oil tankers.
There is also a proposal to ban euro transactions with Iran through third parties, two diplomats said, although the details of how this could work are still being hammered out.
Last week, the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, plus Germany, said they were eager to resume direct negotiations with Tehran over its nuclear program, which have stalled since June.
Israeli leader Mr. Netanyahu, meanwhile, told the U.N. that the international community needed to be prepared to take military action against Iran by next summer to guard against it acquiring the fissile materials needed to assemble an atomic weapon.
—Benoît Faucon contributed to this article.
Write to Jay Solomon at jay.solomon@wsj.com and Laurence Norman at laurence.norman@dowjones.com
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third post
WASHINGTON — With harsh economic sanctions contributing to the first major protests in Iran in three years, Iranian officials have begun to describe what they call a “nine-step plan” to defuse the nuclear crisis with the West by gradually suspending the production of the uranium that would be easiest for them to convert into a nuclear weapon.
Enlarge This Image
Caren Firouz/Reuters
Iran’s plan was seen as a sign that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was feeling the pressure.
Related
Times Topic: Iran's Nuclear Program (Nuclear Talks, 2012)
Merchants Reopen in Tehran, With Police Watching for More Protests (October 5, 2012)
Iran Reveals More About What It Calls Foreign Sabotage (September 26, 2012)
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But the plan requires so many concessions by the West, starting with the dismantling of all the sanctions that are blocking oil sales and setting off the collapse of the Iranian currency, that American officials have dismissed it as unworkable. Nonetheless, Iranian officials used their visit to the United Nations last week to attempt to drum up support, indicating that the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is finally feeling the pressure.
“Within the intelligence community, I think it’s fair to say that there is split opinion about whether the upper level of the regime is getting seriously worried,” one senior intelligence official said when asked why the Iranians appeared to be backing away from their earlier stand that nothing would stop them from producing more medium-enriched uranium, which can be turned into bomb fuel in a matter of months.
“He’s erratic, and we’ve seen him walk up to the edge of deals before and walk away,” the official said, referring to Ayatollah Khamenei.
The Iranian plan is based on a proposal made to European officials in July. It essentially calls for a step-by-step dismantling of the sanctions while the Iranians end work at one of two sites where they are enriching what is known as “20 percent uranium.” Only when the Iranians reach step No. 9 — after all the sanctions are gone and badly depressed oil revenues have begun to flow again — would there be a “suspension” of the medium-enriched uranium production at the deep underground site called Fordow.
Obama administration officials say the deal is intended to generate headlines, but would not guarantee that Iran cannot produce a weapon. “The way they have structured it, you can move the fuel around, and it stays inside the country,” a senior Obama administration official said. “They could restart the program in a nanosecond. They don’t have to answer any questions from the inspectors” about evidence that they conducted research on nuclear weapons technology, but nonetheless would insist on a statement from the agency that all issues have been resolved.
“Yet we’re supposed to lift sanctions that would take years to reimpose, if we could get countries to agree,” the administration official said.
The United States has not put a formal offer on the table. But the outline of a way to a solution they described to Iranian officials before the summer is almost the mirror image of the Iranian nine-step proposal.
Under the American vision, Iran would halt all production of its 20 percent enriched uranium immediately, ship the existing stockpile out of the country and close the Fordow plant. That would defuse the threat of an Iranian “breakout” to produce a weapon, leaving the Iranians with a stockpile of low-enriched uranium that would require far more lengthy processing to weaponize.
Then the United States and its allies would offer some cooperation on civilian nuclear projects, and would agree not to add new sanctions at the United Nations Security Council. But the sanctions squeezing the Iranian economy would remain in place until a final deal is reached.
To the Iranians, this is a prescription for government change, and they insist it will fail. “I ask you sincerely, can anyone go to war with Iran,” even an economic war, and “come out a victor?” President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said last week during a meeting with a half-dozen authors who have written books about Iran. “Why does the U.S. believe she can prevail?”
Yet Mr. Ahmadinejad declined to talk about the current negotiations. Instead, to the astonishment of Iranian officials, he argued at the session that the Iranian people were better off economically than they had been when he came to office. Since Mr. Ahmadinejad’s return to Tehran, Iranian officials have begun looking for any signs that their proposal, although rejected by Washington, could represent the basis of a conversation.
So far, it is difficult to find much overlap between the American and Iranian proposals. Both countries want to retain leverage, so the Iranians believe it is essential to keep the capability to produce uranium, and they reject any proposals to dismantle the nuclear infrastructure they have built, which they say is for civilian use. Similarly, the Americans, Europeans and Israelis believe they must maintain the constant pressure of sanctions.
On Wednesday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton made it clear that the United States had no intention of relaxing the sanctions — particularly now, just as they show the first sign of forcing Iran’s leaders to rethink the costs of their nuclear program.
“We have always said that we had a dual-track approach to this, and one track was trying to put pressure on the Iranian government to come to the negotiating table,” Mrs. Clinton told reporters. But she said it was Iran’s own mismanagement of its economy, more than the sanctions, that deserved “responsibility for what is going on inside Iran.”
“And that is who should be held accountable,” Mrs. Clinton said. “And I think that they have made their own government decisions, having nothing to do with the sanctions that have had an impact on the economic conditions inside the country.”
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Pasting GMs post here as well:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2012/10/08/hyperinflation-hits-iran-like-weapon-of-mass-destruction/
Hyperinflation Hits Iran Like Weapon Of Mass Destruction
Addison Wiggin, Contributor
Tehran, Iran
“Better buy now,” advised the rice merchant in Tehran. The retired factory guard took him up on the advice, buying 900 pounds of the stuff to feed his extended family for the next 12 months.
“As I was gathering my money,” the retiree told The New York Times, he got a phone call. “When he hung up, he told me prices had just gone up by 10%. Of course, I paid. God knows how much it will cost tomorrow.”
Iran’s currency, the rial, collapsed 40% last week under the pressure of Western sanctions and homegrown blundering. We’re not sure if Iran is in hyperinflation, as Cato Institute researcher Steve Hanke asserted in Friday’s 5 Min. Forecast, but at the very least they’re on the cusp.
Austrian economists describe three stages of inflation. In the first stage, people still hang onto their money, expecting prices to come down. In the second stage, people part with their money to stock up on goods before prices rise again. In the final hyperinflationary stage, people buy anything they can get their hands on — even if they don’t need it — because the goods are more valuable than the currency.
As we said on Thursday, Iran today is looking more and more like Iran during the 1978-79 revolution. Now there’s corroboration from someone who lived through those days.
“The new government wanted to prevent flight capital from leaving the country,” recalls Chicago-based derivatives specialist Janet Tavakoli, who married an Iranian while in college.
“In the panic to leave the country with some of their wealth,” she wrote in her 1998 book Credit Derivatives, “citizens found that although there was an official exchange rate of 7 tomans (10 rials) to the U.S. dollar, there was no means to convert money. Banks were closed much of the time. The government put a further restriction on conversion of currency. Citizens could take only $1,000 in U.S. currency out of the country and could take only a suitcase of clothing. The idea was to prevent citizens from taking valuable carpets, now labeled national protected works of art, out of the country.”
“Before a currency goes into free fall,” she writes now at Huffington Post, “its value can be chipped away while a distracted population fails to notice that the currency buys cheaper-quality clothing and less food in a package at a grocery store. That’s the current situation with the U.S. dollar.” You can see the visible effects of dollar weakening via a multi-year chart of the GLD or the UUP.
Iran, she says, is far beyond that stage. Where it leads this time, we have no idea but it’s nowhere good.
Cheers,
Addison Wiggin
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Guess who Iran wants to win our election , , , :roll:
U.S. Officials Say Iran Has Agreed to Nuclear Talks
The United States and Iran have agreed for the first time to one-on-one negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, according to Obama administration officials, setting the stage for what could be a last-ditch diplomatic effort to avert a military strike on Iran.
In an exclusive report in Sunday’s New York Times, Helene Cooper and Mark Landler, citing Obama administration officials, write that Iranian officials have insisted that the talks wait until after the presidential election so that they know which American president they would be dealing with.
News of the agreement comes at a critical moment in the presidential contest. It has the potential to help President Obama make a case that he is nearing a diplomatic breakthrough in the effort to curb Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, but it could pose a risk if Iran is seen as using the prospect of the direct talks to buy time. It is also far from clear that Mr. Obama’s opponent, Mitt Romney, would go through with the negotiation should he win election.
Read More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/21/world/iran-said-ready-to-talk-to-us-about-nuclear-program.html?emc=na
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http://www.humanevents.com/2012/10/21/iranian-regime-obama-sent-secret-message-recognizing-our-nuclear-rights/
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Gerecht and Dubowitz: Countdown to the Red Line in Iran
After the 'cripple date,' it will likely take six months for the regime to truly feel the bite..
By REUEL MARC GERECHT
AND MARK DUBOWITZ
Iran's oil exports have been halved by economic sanctions, but that still leaves the regime with around $50 billion in oil income this year, according to calculations by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Nevertheless, the Iranian economy has taken a substantial hit from sanctions. After the rial lost nearly half of its value in a week earlier this month, Tehran began severely restricting access to dollars and euros.
That's a welcome sign for anyone who hopes that international sanctions will cause the Tehran regime to abandon its nuclear-weapons program. But the currency restrictions were also a warning: In all probability the regime is battening down the hatches, husbanding foreign-exchange reserves, and preparing for a long ordeal. Given the progress that Tehran has already made with its nuclear plans—still-hidden centrifuge manufacturing plants, enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordow, a likely weaponization facility at Parchin, and an extensive ballistic-missile program—the regime faces a short, relatively inexpensive dash to the nuclear finish line.
How close it is to that finish line, and how much more time should be allowed for sanctions to work before it's too late, and a pre-emptive military strike becomes essential?
The first task in answering the question is to make a solid guess about the Islamic Republic's economic cripple date. That will arrive when its hard-currency reserves are insufficient to cover its hard-currency payments; when the import of foreign goods is no longer possible; when the rial becomes worthless paper; and when precious metals and barter become the only means of exchange.
There is no way of knowing whether Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, and his Revolutionary Guards will ever relent in their nuclear ambitions—there is always the possibility that the economy could crater disastrously but the regime would keep enriching uranium anyway. For those who want to give sanctions every chance of succeeding, though, the working assumption must be that a collapsed economy will cause the mullahs to relent.
Common sense would suggest that the cripple date should arrive at least six months before Iran could go nuclear; six months would likely be required for the economic disaster to fully affect the regime. Fear and depression would need time to ripple through the Islamic Republic's formidable political system—Mr. Khamenei and his praetorians are, after all, serious revolutionaries.
In his recent speech to the United Nations, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described when he considers that the red line for a nuclear Iran will have been reached: late spring/early summer 2013, when the regime will have enough 20%-enriched uranium to make one bomb. For those who take the Israeli threat of a pre-emptive strike seriously and believe it would be a mistake, then the economic cripple date would have to occur within the next three months—by mid-January—for the Iranian regime to be staring at imminent economic collapse before the Israelis' red line in June.
President Obama has avoided citing a red line that he would not allow Iran to cross. He has said that Iran must not go nuclear, but he clearly doesn't subscribe to the Israeli view that a nuclear-weapon capability is in itself a casus belli. Mr. Obama instead has suggested that the Iranians' clear intent to assemble a bomb, not just acquiring the ingredients, is what he regards as a red line that would require pre-emptive force. By that definition, military action could be avoided until the Iranians were caught in flagrante delicto.
And they might be caught. Iran's nuclear program is different from that of the Soviets, Chinese, Indians, Pakistanis and North Koreans. They all went nuclear clandestinely, surprising the Central Intelligence Agency. Since Iran's secret program was revealed, Tehran has kept its enrichment plants—though not suspected weapons-design facilities—open to U.N. inspection. Although the regime may have become more proficient at deception, it is generally assumed that the plants at Natanz and Fordow are the only enrichment sites. Prudence should lead us, however, to challenge this assumption since the regime tried to hide both sites and cheats rapaciously.
If they are the only sites, then a crucial issue arises: At what point does the stockpiling of 20%-enriched uranium so diminish the time for processing weapons-grade material that—even if the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency could rapidly detect the diversion—Iran could become a threshold nuclear state in less than 30 days? After all, IAEA inspections currently occur about once a month.
It's not certain when that moment will arrive, given Iranian secrecy. But a reasonable guess, based on the increasing number of centrifuges, is that Tehran will be there by the end of 2013. Once the regime processes medium-enriched uranium into weapons-grade, then militarily stopping the program isn't practical. That's because designing nuclear triggers or warheads for the country's ever-growing supply of ballistic missiles could be done in small, undetectable facilities. If we assume January 2014 as the nuclear drop-dead date (by the U.S. standard), then American and European sanctions would need to collapse the Islamic Republic's economy by July 2013.
By that calculation, and leaving a minimum of six months for economic collapse to ripple through the Iranian system, the U.S. and its allies have nine months from today to crater Iran's economy. With $50 billion a year still pouring in from oil sales, and Tehran likely to have stockpiled additional foreign-exchange reserves in anticipation of sanctions, the government seems capable of lasting well past next summer.
It is incumbent, then, on the Treasury Department (the most creative source of sanctions ideas within the executive branch), the State Department, the National Security Council and CIA to determine what steps need to be taken to accelerate the grip of sanctions on Iran, and to more rapidly deplete those reserves, if a red line—Israel's in June or America's in January 2014—is not going to be crossed, necessitating military action.
One immediate step the administration could take would be to finally blacklist Iran's central bank for supporting proliferation and terrorism, shutting the bank off completely from the international financial system. The administration could prohibit all nonhumanitarian commercial exports to Iran and use the threat of sanctions to encourage compliance by Iran's export partners; at a minimum, the administration should remove waivers that currently allow countries reducing their purchases of Iranian oil to increase their commercial sales to the Islamic Republic. And it could target Iranian government assets held by international financial institutions to cut off Iran's access to its foreign-exchange reserves.
Finally, the administration could ban foreign tankers carrying oil products to or from Iran from calling at U.S. ports, and designate all of Iran's energy industry as a zone of proliferation concern—including the Iranian tanker company NITC—which would allow sanctions to strike more Iranian and foreign companies that bring in hard currency.
It is astonishing that these steps have not already been taken. In their absence, Iran's economy has been allowed to remain healthy enough to leave a vanishingly short time for sanctions to do the work that would head off military action, whether sooner by Israel or later by the United States.
Mr. Gerecht, a former CIA case officer, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Mr. Dubowitz is FDD's executive director and heads its Iran sanctions project.
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The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Part 1: An Unconventional Military
October 26, 2012 | 2026 GMT
Stratfor
Editor's Note: This is the first installment of a two-part special report on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Part 1 will lay out the corps' origins and explain how it has become Iran's most powerful institution. Part 2 will discuss the external pressures facing the IRGC, how that pressure is affecting the group, and what a weakened IRGC would mean for Iran.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, commonly referred to as the IRGC, is the most influential institution in the Iranian political system. To a large extent, Iran's ability to project power internationally and maintain domestic stability rests with this elite military institution. Of course, the IRGC functions somewhat like other conventional militaries; it is not completely immune to political infighting or institutional rivalry. While the disproportionate amount of power it wields will help the group overcome any factionalization to retain its pre-eminence, there are early signs of problems within its ranks.
Origin and Evolution
With several powerful and often competing institutions, the Iranian political system is extremely complex. But undoubtedly the most powerful institution in that system is the IRGC, which was created by the clerical elite after the 1979 revolution to protect the newly founded regime. During the 1980s, it fought against insurgencies (most notably against the Mujahideen-e-Khalq) and took a lead role in the Iran-Iraq War. These experiences helped the IRGC become the core of the Iranian national security and foreign policy establishment.
Currently, the IRGC comprises some 125,000 members and continues to derive its legitimacy from the clerical elite, led by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who maintains ultimate authority in Iranian politics. In fact, IRGC generals are appointed by Khamenei, the group's commander in chief, not the civilian government. While the clerics manage important state institutions, such as the Guardians Council, the judiciary, and the Assembly of Experts, they rely on the IRGC to maintain control of those institutions. This reliance likewise has contributed to the IRGC's power.
As a result, the IRGC has gained an edge over other institutions, such as the Artesh, or the conventional armed forces; various clerical institutions; the executive branch, led by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; and the main civilian intelligence service, the Ministry of Intelligence and National Security. In recent decades the IRGC has further expanded to gain influence -- in some cases, control -- over domestic law enforcement, foreign intelligence operations, strategic military command and the national economy.
In fact, the group has developed a robust economic portfolio. Many IRGC commanders retire relatively early -- usually at 50 years old -- and join Iran's political and economic elite. Former IRGC commanders now dominate heavy industries, including the construction industry, and civilians operating in these industries are subordinate to IRGC elements.
The group also generates revenue through illicit channels. Its mandate for border security enables the group to run massive smuggling operations. In these operations, IRGC troops move luxury goods and illegal drugs (especially Afghan heroin), charge port fees and receive bribes. The proceeds from these activities augment the funds appropriated to the IRGC by the civilian government.
Like other conventional militaries, the IRGC is susceptible to internal rivalry over budgets, turf and connections. However, professional discipline has prevented it from succumbing to outright factional infighting. Moreover, Khamenei has taken steps to avoid factionalization, including the constant rotation of senior leadership of the IRGC's various branches (except in instances where a particular branch requires specialized institutional knowledge). However, the position of overall commander has been mostly static. In fact, only three individuals have held the post since the IRGC became the protector of the regime: Maj. Gen. Mohsen Rezaie (1981-1997); Maj. Gen Yahya Rahim Safavi (1997-2007); and Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari (2007-present).
An Inevitable Political Entity
As a political entity, the IRGC has become more than what its founders intended. The Iranian Constitution prohibits the IRGC from engaging in politics. More important, the group has avoided political activity so as not to be construed as seditious. But given its ubiquity in political, economic and security affairs, its evolution as a political entity probably was inevitable.
IRGC commanders and officers naturally have differing political leanings. Some IRGC members openly support or sympathize with various political causes and individuals. Others do so more discreetly. But to varying degrees, all politicians have followings in the officer corps, whose support is far from uniform.
In theory, the commanders and officers pay fealty to Khamenei and the wider clerical establishment. But in practice, the IRGC is not really beholden to any entity or faction. The IRGC regards itself as the rightful heir to the revolution and the savior of the republic. It considers itself uniquely capable and worthy of ruling the country. That belief may be well-founded. As the most well-organized and efficient institution in the state, the IRGC has long supplied experienced administrators to the civilian sector. Some notable example include:
■Former overall commander Rezaie is now the secretary of the Expediency Council.
■Former IRGC air force commander Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf is the current mayor of Tehran.
■Brig. Gen. Mostafa Mohammad Najjar is the current interior minister, through whom the IRGC has gained greater leverage over internal security affairs.
■Gen. Ahmad Vahidi is the current defense minister. His position benefits the IRGC even though the corps and the Artesh are under the purview of the Joint Staff Command, led by IRGC Maj. Gen. Hassan Firouzabadi.
■Gen. Rostam Qasemi is the current oil minister. Formerly in charge of the IRGC's engineering and construction arm, Qasemi has seen to the IRGC's domination of the oil and natural gas sector.
Even though these former commanders and officers belong to the wider IRGC community, they form their own factions upon retirement. As an institution, the IRGC mostly has a unified stance on political issues. But individuals belonging to different institutions after retirement may dissent somewhat. The process resembles that of Israel; former members of Israel Defense Forces often emerge as key political leaders.
Consequently, any reference to the IRGC's stance on a particular issue represents the majority, not the entirety, of the group. And any reference to IRGC institutional interests represents the majority of commanders and officers with similar values. Differences of opinion certainly exist, but so far these differences have not manifested as fundamental divisions within the elite military institution. While its cohesion may be challenged in the future, the IRGC appears to be uniquely intact, at least for now.
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Read more: The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Part 1: An Unconventional Military | Stratfor
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http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/the-cyber-war-iran-7704
"As the United States and Iran inch closer to confrontation over Tehran's nuclear program, a little-asked question lurks in the background: are the two countries already at war?"
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http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/the-cyber-war-iran-7704
"As the United States and Iran inch closer to confrontation over Tehran's nuclear program, a little-asked question lurks in the background: are the two countries already at war?"
Iran has been at war with us since1979.
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I am getting the impression that the sanctions that the Congress (i.e. mostly Reps) has pressured Baraq into imposing on Iran are beginning to generate some genuine consequences.
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The Unseen Hand Behind Hamas's Clash With Israel
The terror group targets Tel Aviv and Jerusalem with long-range missiles shipped in from Iran. .
By SAUL SINGER
Jerusalem
One of the more chilling yet routine phrases used to describe the fighting between Israel and Hamas in recent days is "the current round." As in: "We don't expect many more missiles to hit Tel Aviv during the current round." The term treats warfare like a hurricane—randomly arriving, taking its toll, then departing, but leaving behind the expectation that something similar will return another day.
Ostensibly, the latest fighting began with Israel's targeted killing of Ahmed Jabari, the commander of what is commonly referred to as Hamas's military wing, even though what Jabari commanded is neither military nor a wing. Normal militaries don't target civilians or hide behind their own people. And Jabari didn't command a "wing" of Hamas, as if there was any daylight between him and the rest of the terror group's leadership.
But a one-sided fight long predated the missile strike on Jabari: Hamas had been firing round after round of rockets on Israeli towns around Gaza for the better part of a decade. Israeli children have grown up with the sounds of sirens telling them they have 15 seconds to take cover until a missile hits. When the pace of the shelling increased in recent weeks, the Israelis finally stuck back.
My family lives in Jerusalem, about two hours' drive from the Gaza Strip, so we had never experienced the feeling of running from a missile hurtling our way. But this week my daughter and I spent a night in Beersheba, Israel's fourth-largest city, taking part in a charity bike ride for a Jerusalem hospital that rehabilitates children, some of whom have been severely injured in terrorist attacks.
Beersheba isn't known for being in range of missile attacks from Gaza, but as the 500 bike riders gathered for dinner on Wednesday, we saw the flashes of Israel's Iron Dome missile-defense system intercepting Hamas rockets in the sky. Later, at the hotel, we heard the city's "code red" sirens go off five times during the night. Given Beersheba's distance from Gaza, we had a relatively luxurious 60 seconds to move groggily to the stairwell, the hotel's designated safe area.
No one was hurt in Beersheba that night. Iron Dome, a system developed in Israel and financed partly with U.S. assistance, no doubt saved lives. But on Thursday a missile that got through the system killed three Israelis in an apartment in Kiryat Malachi, a town not far away.
In areas out of Hamas's striking distance, Israelis are generally focused on the human side of the conflict—for example, opening their homes to friends and family from the south who want a break from the missile threat. In the U.S. and among other of Israel's allies, the focus is also often on the human side of the story, with an emphasis on how to make the violence stop.
But that outlook addresses only the immediate problem and reflects the "this round" way of thinking. It doesn't consider the conflict's real sources.
Certainly Hamas needs to be reined in. The first step the international community should take is to stop supporting the Hamas government in Gaza. Hamas's macabre game is to mix its terrorists and rockets in with Palestinian civilians, wait for an Israeli missile aimed at a rocket launcher to kill some of those civilians, and then bask in global condemnation of Israel. But if most governments and the United Nations squarely tagged Hamas as the aggressor responsible for the civilian casualties on both sides and cut off financial support and other aid, Hamas would be deterred as successfully as any Israeli military action could manage.
Yet to focus on Gaza and Hamas alone still doesn't address the heart of the problem. Before his death Wednesday, Ahmed Jabari had worked to cultivate Hamas networks in places such as Iran, Sudan and Lebanon. When sirens sounded in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in recent days, it was because Hamas was launching Fajr-5 missiles with a range of some 50 miles, considerably more than the usual Hamas rocket. The Fajr-5 is made in Iran. Tehran is the main source of Hamas's training and of the 200 missiles a day that Hamas has been firing into Israel in recent days.
If Jabari was the hand on the trigger, the arm and the head are in Tehran. Jabari's death could severely handicap Hamas's capabilities in the way that Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based terror group, still hasn't fully recovered from Israel's 2008 killing of its commander, Imad Mughniyeh. And Israel in the past week destroyed most of Hamas's long-range arsenal, blunting the sword that Iran built to dangle over Israel from the south. But as long as the Tehran regime stays in place, the menace to Israel—whether in the form of proxy terrorism or the threat of nuclear attack—will continue.
Even the debate over sanctions and military action against Iran's nuclear program largely misses the point. The solution is for Iran's regime to fall, and the key to that isn't sanctions or even military action. It is for Western governments to start saying to Iran's leaders what they told Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, Libya's Moammar Gadhafi and Syria's Bashar Assad: You must go.
There is a reason why Iran is desperately trying—with money, personnel and weapons—to keep Assad's brutal regime afloat in Syria. What the mullahs fear most is the Arab Spring spreading to Iran; stopping it in Syria might end the contagion. They know that their regime could implode if the Iranian people rise up, as they did in 2009, and this time around the U.S. and others say "You must go" rather than "Let's keep talking about your nuclear program."
Israel, under attack from Hamas, is dealing with just a small sample of what the region and the world will face if Iran's regime is allowed to obtain nuclear weapons. Military action against Iran's nuclear program may be necessary if all else fails, but the best way to prevent a nuclear Iran is to take the side of the Iranian people. Such a step wouldn't require the U.S. to enter another war, but it could well prevent one.
If President Obama hears the call from the Iranian people again, let's hope that with a second chance he gets it right. The collapse of the Iranian regime would open the greatest opportunities ever for ending not just the "current round" but the Arab-Israeli conflict as a whole.
Mr. Singer is co-author, with Dan Senor, of "Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle" (Twelve, 2009).
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Or, the jihadists see the ideal moment to destroy the "Zionist entity" and are probing the Iron Dome system for vulnerabilities. Any idea how Iran might deploy A NorK nuke on Tel Aviv?
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:-o :-o :-o :-o :-o :-o :-o :-o :-o
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http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/11/27/diagram-suggests-iran-working-on-explosive-more-than-triple-force-hiroshima/
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http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/11/27/diagram-suggests-iran-working-on-explosive-more-than-triple-force-hiroshima/
Whaaaaaaaat? NFW!
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By JAY SOLOMON And JULIAN E. BARNES
WASHINGTON—The U.S. has significantly stepped up spying operations on Iran's Bushehr nuclear reactor over the past two months, American officials said, driven by heightened concerns about the security of weapons-grade plutonium after Tehran unexpectedly discharged fuel rods from the facility in October.
The increased U.S. surveillance of Bushehr, on Iran's southwestern coast, has been conducted in part with the Pentagon's fleet of drones operating over the Persian Gulf. The effort resulted in the interception of visual images and audio communications coming from the reactor complex, these officials said.
Tehran suggested an American drone was spying on Bushehr on Nov. 1 when it sent Iranian fighter jets to pursue the unmanned craft, firing at it but missing. The drone in question was conducting surveillance that day, but not on Bushehr, U.S. officials said.
U.S. officials stepped up surveillance after becoming alarmed over activities at Bushehr, especially the removal of fuel rods from the plant in October, just two months after it became fully operational, officials said. Nuclear experts said they are more concerned about safety at the reactor, for now, than about the prospect that Tehran will use the facility to develop atomic weapons.
Tehran formally protested the Pentagon's spying activities in a Nov. 19 letter to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, according to a copy seen by The Wall Street Journal. The complaint charged that the U.S. has repeatedly violated Iranian airspace with its drone flights. But U.S. officials maintain that surveillance is conducted off the country's shoreline, in line with international law.
The extent of the U.S. surveillance activity underscores the limits of U.S. knowledge about Iran and its military and scientific bureaucracy, and points to anxious efforts by Washington to increase its understanding as an international confrontation looms over Tehran's nuclear program.
Officials wouldn't detail the type of surveillance under way at Bushehr, but drones are known to be capable of intercepting cellphone calls, electronic communications and other signals.
Eavesdropping on Iranian communications could provide clues to what the country's nuclear engineers were doing when they began moving fuel rods out of the Bushehr plant in October.
The U.S. normally views the 1,000-megawatt Bushehr reactor as a lesser proliferation and security threat than Iran's growing number of uranium-enrichment facilities. Both the reactor and the enrichment plants produce fissile materials that can be used to develop nuclear weapons. But Russia's State Atomic Power Corp., or Rusatom, built and commissioned Bushehr under an agreement that all spent fuel would be returned to Russia and stored.
So the International Atomic Energy Agency was surprised on Oct. 15 when Iran notified the U.N. watchdog that it was discharging all of the nuclear fuel from Bushehr and storing it in a cooling pond at the site, according to Vienna-based diplomats briefed on the correspondence.
Independent nuclear experts estimate that this discharged fuel was made up of between 22 and 220 pounds of weapons-grade plutonium, enough to produce as many as 24 nuclear bombs, if reprocessed further.
Nuclear fuel in power reactors is discharged and replaced as part of normal operations, these experts said. But Tehran took the action roughly two months after Rusatom said the Bushehr facility became fully operational, rather than the usual time frame of 12 to 18 months.
Also, Iranian government officials have said in recent weeks that local engineers wanted to oversee the fuel discharge as part of plans for Rusatom to transfer operational control over Bushehr to Tehran in coming months.
The discharge was part of a "normal technical procedure" associated with Iranian engineers taking control of Bushehr, Iran's ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Ashgar Soltanieh, told reporters in Vienna in November.
The IAEA wrote about the fuel transfer at Bushehr in its November quarterly report on Iran's nuclear program, but it didn't state the reason for it.
The report said Tehran was shifting the spent fuel rods to the cooling pond from Oct. 22-29, dates that roughly corresponded to when Iran said U.S. aircraft were conducting heightened reconnaissance missions near Bushehr. The IAEA said its inspectors confirmed the rods were in the cooling pond during a visit to the site on Nov. 6-7.
U.S. officials said the mystery at Bushehr alarmed the Obama administration, which is normally focused on Iran's activities at its two main uranium-enrichment facilities in the cities of Natanz and Qom.
.Administration officials and independent nuclear experts said they doubted Iran was attempting to extract the weapons-grade plutonium from the fuel rods. The IAEA doesn't believe Iran currently has a reprocessing facility to separate plutonium from Bushehr's spent fuel.
The IAEA also has cameras and seals at the Bushehr facility to detect and guard against any diversion for military purposes, as well as regular visits by inspectors.
Still, the fuel transfer has raised concerns in Washington about Bushehr's operational safety. Experts said Iranian engineers could potentially try to extract plutonium from Bushehr in a crisis or military confrontation with the West, once they master technical procedures.
"The proliferation threat at Bushehr doesn't seem imminent. But it raises questions about what could happen if there's a conflict," said David Albright, who heads the Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington think tank.
A spokesman for Rusatom in Moscow on Friday said the fuel discharge was a planned removal for safety testing. He denied a Reuters report that the shutdown was because of safety concerns after stray bolts were allegedly found under fuel cells at the plant.
Iranian state media reported last week that Iranian engineers have returned the fuel rods to the Bushehr reactor's core from the cooling pond.
In their complaint to the U.N., Iranian officials said American drones have repeatedly entered the country's airspace, prompting the Nov. 1 military action against the U.S. craft.
"Recent operations carried out by United States planes violating the airspace of the Islamic Republic of Iran include flights that took place over the coastal areas of Bushehr on 7, 13, 15, 20, 22, 23, and 26 October 2012, endangering the safety of air navigation," Iran's ambassador to the U.N., Mohammad Khazaee, wrote.
He said the U.S. "disregarded all radio warnings" before Iran shot an airborne cannon at the drone.
U.S. officials briefed on Pentagon reconnaissance denied any drone violated Iranian airspace. Washington has also increased monitoring of Iranian naval operations in the Gulf in recent months, following Tehran's threats to choke off oil traffic in the waterway in retaliation for widening Western sanctions, these officials said.
The concern over Bushehr comes as the U.S. and European Union this month seek to resume negotiations with Iran aimed at curbing Tehran's nuclear work.
Last week, the Obama administration gave Iran a March deadline to seriously engage with the IAEA in addressing concerns Tehran has secretly been developing nuclear weapons or risk facing a new U.N. Security Council censure. The U.N. has initiated four rounds of economic sanctions on Iran in recent years, and U.S. officials said they could move to enact a fifth.
"Iran cannot be allowed to indefinitely ignore its obligations…Iran must act now, in substance,'' Washington's No. 2 diplomat at the IAEA, Robert Wood, told the agency's board.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the international community must be prepared to take military action against Iran's nuclear facilities by next summer to guard against Tehran acquiring a nuclear-weapons capability. That is when Iran is expected to have amassed enough medium-enriched uranium to quickly convert it into weapons-grade fuel.
Iran denies its pursuing nuclear weapons. But Mr. Soltanieh, Tehran's ambassador to the IAEA, said on Friday that his country would consider pulling out of the U.N. treaty banning the development of atomic bombs if the West attacked.
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From Bushehr to the Bomb
Add plutonium to Iran's nuclear weapons risks. .
Last Sunday marked the 70th anniversary of the world's first controlled nuclear reaction, which took place under the bleachers of the old Stagg Field at the University of Chicago. Also last Sunday, the Journal reported that the U.S. had stepped up its spying on Iran's nuclear reactor at Bushehr after Iran had unexpectedly removed fuel rods containing between 22 and 220 pounds of weapons-grade plutonium.
The distance between civilian nuclear power and an atomic weapon, as the early nuclear pioneers understood, can be short. Now the Obama Administration is being forced to learn that lesson all over again.
For years, U.S. officials have insisted that the Russian-built reactor at Bushehr posed a negligible proliferation risk. Instead, they concentrated nearly all their attention on Iran's efforts to enrich uranium. At the same time, the U.S. bought Iran's argument that the country was within its legal rights to operate "peaceful" facilities such as Bushehr, never mind the question of why an oil-rich state would spend billions on a reactor it didn't need.
Far be it for us to suggest the world should be less alarmed by the strides Iran has made in enriching uranium—close to eight tons to reactor-grade level of 5%, along with 238 kilos to a near-bomb grade level of 20%, according to a report last month by the International Atomic Energy Agency. With some additional enrichment, those quantities suffice for probably six bombs.
But uranium is not the only route to a bomb. There's also plutonium, and Iran has long been at work on a plutonium-breeding heavy-water reactor in the city of Arak. The Iranians say the reactor is solely for research, yet IAEA inspectors have not been given access to the plant since August 2011.
Then there's Bushehr. Under the terms of Iran's agreement with Russia's State Atomic Power Corporation, or Rusatom, Iran is supposed to return all of the reactor's spent fuel rods to Russia for storage. Now it transpires that Iran removed the fuel rods in October, a mere two months after the reactor became fully operational. Iran claims the fuel rods have since been returned to the reactor core, though we are not aware of any independent corroboration of that claim.
The official reason for the transfer of the fuel was a safety test, and Rusatom has denied a report that the move was prompted by the discovery of loose bolts that could have caused a major accident. But as the Journal suggested in its story, the transfer could also have been a test run for the Iranians should they decide to reprocess those rods into weapons-grade plutonium. As many as 24 Nagasaki-type bombs could be produced with 220 pounds of plutonium.
So much, then, for the notion that the Bushehr reactor is "proliferation resistant," an idea that largely boils down to the fact that IAEA inspectors are routinely at the site. Yet legally the IAEA is only permitted to inspect Bushehr once every 90 days, and Iran has forbidden the agency from installing video cameras with near-real time surveillance capacity.
That means Iran could contrive an excuse to move the fuel rods without the agency knowing about it in time. And while Western intelligence agencies do not believe Iran has a reprocessing capability, experts tell us that the rapid extraction of weapons-usable plutonium from spent fuel rods is a straightforward process that can be performed in a fairly small (and easily secreted) space.
All of which goes to show that, contrary to Joe Biden's cavalier assurances during his debate with Paul Ryan that the U.S. would have adequate foreknowledge of any Iranian plans to build a bomb, U.S. intelligence on Iran's nuclear capabilities remains fragmentary at best. At the same time, Iran is increasing the number of routes it can take to race toward a bomb.
These columns have been warning of the proliferation risk posed by Bushehr since May 2002. As always with Iran's nuclear ambitions, the worst suspicions come true
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Iranian workers protested in August in front of a Tehran government building because they hadn't been paid.
.A manager of Bam Shargh Isogam, an Iranian manufacturer of insulation sheets for rooftops, saw trouble ahead when a government official offered advice for surviving the crippling international sanctions: Reduce quality and cut back production.
The manufacturer in Delijan, three hours south of Tehran, replaced the high-quality material imported from Europe with domestic material, dismissed more than half its 350 employees, and didn't pay the remaining workers for four months, managers said.
"From the owner to the line worker, no one is safe," said Bijan, a manager, who asked that his last name not be used. "Our country is facing an economic disaster." Company officials didn't return calls asking for comment.
Western sanctions against Iran, combined with years of economic mismanagement by the country's government, have hammered Iran's currency and its economy. The economy was predicted to contract by nearly 1% in 2012, according to the International Monetary Fund, after registering annual growth above 6% for much of the past decade. The IMF said Iran's economy could grow again in 2013, but stressed that the collapse of the currency, inflation and reduced oil sales were working against a rebound.
Washington has sanctioned Iranian institutions going back to the months following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. But it was 2010 legislation that markedly changed the financial war against the regime, according to U.S. and European officials.
Previously, U.S. sanctions only targeted American companies doing business with blacklisted Iranian entities. The 2010 law required the White House and U.S. Treasury to sanction any company, American or foreign, conducting proscribed Iranian trade, placing at risk their access to the U.S. financial system. The West intensified the sanctions campaign because of the belief that Iran is secretly developing atomic weapons, a charge Tehran denies.
Congress passed new sanctions this week, signed by President Barack Obama, that lawmakers said move closer to a nearly complete trade embargo on Iran. The law seeks to block Tehran's ability to barter its oil for gold and precious metals, and significantly widens the number of Iranian energy, shipping and financial entities on the U.S. blacklist, and bars foreign firms from doing business with them.
"The sanctions so far have inflicted far greater damage on Iran's economy than anyone expected, but the economic pressure is still moving too slowly given the pace of Iran's nuclear development," said Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a conservative Washington think tank that advised Congress on implementing the latest sanctions.
White House officials on Thursday declined to comment on how they are specifically going to implement the new sanctions, but said that the Obama administration has dramatically increased financial pressure on Tehran over the past four years.
The squeeze on Iran has been tightening for months. In July, the European Union placed a ban on purchases of Iranian oil. This deprived Tehran of one of its main energy markets. In September, Iran's currency dropped nearly 30% in one week. In response, Iran stopped subsidizing currency rates for travelers and students; it also halted subsidies for merchants importing anything but essential food and medical items.
Iran analysts are skeptical that the sanctions will bankrupt Iran's government in the short-term. Tehran was believed to have more than $100 billion in foreign exchange reserves at the beginning of last year, thanks to windfall oil revenues in recent years. Until September, it had used these reserves successfully to support the Iranian currency, the rial. These analysts believe the sharp decline in Iran's energy exports has cut into reserves, but probably not enough to drain Tehran of its hard currency.
The situation already is a crisis for many Iranians. For middle-class families even buying books and magazines has become a luxury. Poor families now go months without eating meat or poultry, which have seen some of the biggest price hikes.
"We've slowly scratched off milk, yogurt cheese and butter from our table. Prices are going up almost daily, and we can't afford them," said Ameneh, 45-year-old mother of two young children in Tehran, who asked her last name not be used.
Sanctions are reverberating beyond Iran's borders. Iranian business investments in Dubai have decreased as many merchants close shop. The Turkish tourism ministry said that visitors from Iran dropped 35% in the first nine months of the year.
Iranian officials, usually defiant in the face of Western pressure, now openly acknowledge that sanctions are taking a toll. Gholamreza Mesbahi Moghadam, head of the parliament's planning and budget committee, said recently that Iran's oil sales have fallen to little more than a million barrels per day, compared with the 2.5 million barrels per day last year. Mr. Moghadam said the government faced a $60 billion deficit in 2012.
Iran's nuclear program remains a top foreign policy issue for President Obama in his second term, according to senior U.S. officials. Washington's strategy includes the threat of even more economic sanctions in hopes of pressuring Iran into a compromise. But administration officials also are banking on the Iranian government's own failures to create pressure on the regime. They say that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's heavy spending and price hikes have led to surging inflation in the country.
"We are seeing tremendous impact on the economy, not just because of sanctions, but because of horrific mismanagement," said a senior U.S. official.
U.S. officials hope nuclear negotiations, which have been stalled for months, will resume soon. The Iranian regime is divided. Some pragmatic officials hope to end the standoff with the West to help revive the economy. But Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei holds the final decision, and some key supporters close to him have said the Islamic Republic must stand firm and compromise only if an agreement can be reached with the West that ensures the regime's stability.
One result of the economic blockade around Iran: Its modern economy is increasingly dependent on old-fashioned barter. In exchange for oil, Iran receives not dollars as before, but wheat and tea from India, rice from Uruguay, meat and fruit from Pakistan and everything from zippers to bricks from China.
"It's definitely one way of circumventing sanctions, but in the long while the economy will deteriorate," said Dariush Zahedi, a professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley, who has researched the impact of sanctions on Iranian society.
Tehran's bazaar merchants, a major force in the economy, staged a strike in September. Protests erupted, ending only after security and intelligence forces pressured merchant unions by threatening to arrest leaders and revoke members' licenses.
Factory workers and families of students who have lost their access to special subsidized dollar exchange rates for tuition have staged sit-ins outside the parliament to protest the Central Bank's new currency policies. In October, unions of truckers that transport fuel and gasoline in the city of Isfahan went on a two-day strike, cutting off fuel delivery to one of Iran's largest cities. Their costs of living and of maintaining their trucks have skyrocketed while their salaries remain the same.
Bam Shargh Isogam, the insulation manufacturer, is among 160 factories located in the industrial city of Delijan. The city, home to 50,000 Iranians, was once a model of economic growth. Located on a remote plain formerly devoid of industry, Delijan saw the construction of hundreds of factories ranging from construction material to paint and industrial textile during the past decade.
There were jobs for most of the city's residents and then some. Housing and construction boomed. A university outpost opened, offering courses and advanced vocational training workshops for workers and ambitious youth. Dozens of service businesses, such as catering and cargo transportation, flourished alongside the factories. Local industry even exported goods to neighboring countries like Iraq, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan.
Signs of serious problems for industrial areas such as Delijan started emerging in 2011.
At first, they had nothing to do with sanctions. The regime implemented an ambitious scheme to cut energy subsidies, which cost the government billions each year. The plan was lauded by international monetary officials. But economists inside and outside Iran say the implementation was botched, especially when it came to industry and businesses.
Prices for gasoline, electricity and water spiked. The government had promised that it would reallocate 30% of the money it saved on subsidies—about $100 billion a year—to private sector industries to compensate for these rising costs. Those allocations never arrived.
Meanwhile, the government gave billions of dollars to consumers to compensate them for the higher prices. And the Central Bank kept the currency rate artificially low. Tens of billions of dollars in foreign exchange were frittered away importing cheap consumer goods.
When sanctions hit in 2012, factory owners in Delijan couldn't take the additional blow. Simple maintenance routines, such as purchasing new parts for aging machinery, became an unaffordable, time-consuming ordeal.
Many smaller factories have shut down. Dozens of the bigger ones are battling to avoid bankruptcy, according to interviews with owners, managers and workers. The economic downturn is spreading to other sectors in the city as businesses downsize to meet shrinking demand.
The owner of Nader Ghazapazi, a local restaurant that serves factory workers, said orders have decreased to 320 meals each day from 1,250 five months ago. A representative of a local trucking company said it now has 15 trucks driving cargo to Tehran daily, compared with 40 before. All of the company's export business has stopped.
Across Iran, industries are facing similar problems. At the Alborz industrial complex near the city of Qazvin, many factories are searching for cost-saving measures. Some are closing an extra day each week, cutting paid holidays and reducing the number of free meals and snacks provided to workers.
The five major factories that produce the bulk of Iran's dairy products wrote a joint letter to Mr. Khamenei, the country's supreme leader, in October complaining that if the economy doesn't turn around they would be out of business in months.
Iran's car industry, the region's largest with manufacturing plants from Africa to Ukraine, posted 60% to 80% production declines last year, leading to hundreds of thousands losing their jobs, according to Iranian media reports. Many manufacturers of automobile spare parts are working at 40% capacity because of a shortage of cash and a lack of raw materials, according to a statement by one of the industry's union leaders.
The financial crunch has also imperiled one of Iran's biggest exports: its students. Some 90,000 Iranian college students abroad are in limbo after the government cut the subsidized exchange rate it allowed for students' tuition abroad. Many say they are abandoning their studies and returning to Iran because their expenses have quadrupled in the face of the rial devaluation. Yet they have few prospects back home.
"It's demoralizing. I've invested two years to get a graduate degree, and I can't afford to graduate now," said Ali, a student in Asia in his last semester of M.B.A. studies.
The effectiveness of the sanction campaign has surprised some of Washington's biggest skeptics. Just two years ago, Tehran's finances were bolstered by high international energy prices and a flourishing trade with Europe and East Asia. U.S. and European officials said a big reason for the success in recent months of the sanctions campaign has been the sharp increase over the past year in oil production by Iraq, Libya and the U.S., as well as Saudi Arabia's willingness to make up for any shortages in oil supply on international markets.
Iranian officials could respond with wartime measures such as rationing gasoline and basic goods and heavily controlling exports and imports. Iran's ministry of trade recently issued an import ban on a list of 75 luxury goods, ranging from cars to chocolate, plus a ban on exports of basic food items such as wheat.
The Central Bank also issued a new mandate to generate foreign currency cash flow, demanding that all exporters return revenues from sales abroad to Iran. "The merchants and business people are caught between the clerics fight with the West, said one prominent merchant with offices in Iran and Dubai. "We won't be able to survive."
Write to Farnaz Fassihi at farnaz.fassihi@wsj.com and Jay Solomon at jay.solomon@wsj.com
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By SOHRAB AHMARI
Seyed Hossein Mousavian, a former Iranian nuclear negotiator, said in a television interview aired recently in the Islamic Republic that the country "is in full compliance" with the International Atomic Energy Agency nuclear-safeguards agreement, and that there is "no evidence" the regime is diverting nuclear material for military purposes.
Both statements were deceptive at best: Iran isn't in compliance with all provisions of its current safeguards agreement, and the lack of evidence for diversion doesn't dispel the IAEA's concerns about nuclear-weapons research and development. Yet neither assertion was challenged by the on-air host.
Islamic Republic officials are accustomed to going unchallenged by Iranian journalists, who prefer to stay out of the regime's dungeons. But the interview with Mr. Mousavian appeared on "Ofogh" (Horizon), a television show produced by the Persian-language service of Voice of America, the U.S. government broadcaster founded in 1942 to provide "accurate, balanced, and comprehensive news" to "people living in closed and war-torn societies." VOA's Persian News Network, based in Washington, is funded by Congress and receives around $23 million in taxpayer money annually.
The "Ofogh" segment touched off a fierce reaction among Iranian viewers, who took to the show's Facebook page to vent their anger. "Like Iran's current leaders he is a master of sophistry," wrote one about Mr. Mousavian. Other viewers directed their complaints at VOA. "Voice of America = The Islamic Republic," wrote another.
According to current and former employees at the network, the viewers' complaints are unlikely to register with executives. One high-level production staffer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is currently employed at the network, said the Mousavian interview fit a pattern of VOA's Persian-language division allowing itself to be bullied by regime mouthpieces. "Mousavian dictated the terms of the arrangement," the staffer said. "He would not agree to debate somebody else."
Critics also charge that VOA's Persian coverage is often distorted by an editorial line favoring rapprochement with the mullahs. There is "a clear slant in favor of Iran in terms of its involvement in terrorism," the current production staffer wrote in response to queries for this article. The network, he said, often refuses to air criticism of Iranian terror unless it is "balanced with the perspective of the Islamic Republic who vehemently [deny] any involvement." And because "no one in the Islamic Republic gives us interviews anyway," VOA Persian abandons otherwise informative segments about terrorism.
A former employee and on-screen personality summed up the network's nonconfrontational attitude by saying that VOA sees itself as providing "a bridge between Washington and Tehran."
VOA denies these claims. Spokesman Kyle King said in a written statement that the network "airs material about the Islamic Republic when it is newsworthy. Decisions are not contingent on Iranian officials being available for comment, and they are usually not."
Rob Sobhani, a former Georgetown University lecturer in U.S. foreign policy, says that VOA is uneasy with criticism of the Islamic Republic. Until a few years ago, Mr. Sobhani, a staunch critic of the regime, appeared weekly as a commentator on the Persian-language network. Iranians used to approach him in airports outside the Islamic Republic, he says, to thank him for "saying things we can never say in Iran."
But Mr. Sobhani found himself appearing far less frequently after 2009. "I was told I was too negative toward the regime," he said. Mr. King, the VOA spokesman, said Mr. Sobhani "has appeared on several VOA programs since 2009." He added that the network doesn't coach guests "to be negative or positive," nor does it "cherry-pick guests to promote a particular point of view."
VOA hasn't been without its bright spots. Most notably, it aired "Parazit" (Static), a satirical news show that used irreverent, American-style humor to skewer the regime's misrule. "Parazit" proved enormously popular with audiences. The show's Facebook page, where new episodes were posted weekly after airing on the network, garnered over a million fans. Yet VOA pulled "Parazit" off the air early last year, leaving fans in the dark.
According to the production staffer critical of the network, VOA isn't particularly concerned about the popularity of its programming: "What it boils down to is that they don't attach a lot of significance to viewers' feedback. If a show is popular and has a big following in Iran and you lose that following by dropping the show, so be it. The money comes from Congress anyway."
Mr. Ahmari is an assistant books editor at the Journal.
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This from Newsmax, a less than reliable source in my opinion-- lets watch for other reports , , ,
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3. Iran Evacuates City Amid Talk of Radioactive Leak
Iranian officials have ordered residents of its third largest city to evacuate, raising new concerns about a potential leakage of radioactive material from a nuclear facility.
An edict issued on Wednesday told residents in Isfahan, a provincial capital of 1.5 million people 340 miles south of Tehran, to leave the city “because pollution has now reached emergency levels,” the BBC reported.
Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon adviser on Iran and Iraq and former editor of the Middle East Quarterly, said: “Pollution in Isfahan is a problem but in the past, Iranian authorities [responded] by closing schools and the government to keep people at home and let the pollution dissipate. Mass evacuations suggest a far more serious problem.”
Rubin added that a “radiation leak” is a possibility, the Washington Free Beacon reported, noting that the evacuation order may corroborate previous reports of radioactive leakage.
The Uranium Conversion Facility in Isfahan converts yellowcake into uranium oxide, uranium metal, and uranium hexafluoride. The plant sits on an active fault line, and Isfahan has been heavily damaged six times by earthquakes, according to the Free Beacon.
A report in November claimed a radioactive leak might have poisoned several workers at the plant. The head of Iran’s Medical Emergency Agency told reporters at the time that staffers at the facility “have observed some symptoms and are receiving treatment.”
In December, Tehran denied reports of a radioactive leak, and accused the West of fabricating the story, the Jerusalem Post reported. According to Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency, Deputy Governor-General of Isfahan Province for Political and Security Affairs Mohammad Mehdi Esmayeeli said “some Western media are just seeking to create tumult in the society through such moves.”
But Rubin added that given the threat of earthquakes in Iran, “a devastating nuclear accident is only a matter of time.”
Iran insists its nuclear program is intended for peaceful purposes, but the Islamic Republic is widely thought to be seeking to develop nuclear weapons.
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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jan/30/valentines-for-hagel-were-posted-from-tehran/
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To my knowledge Mr. Bolton is the first prominent person to say the ONLY way to stop Iran from going nuclear is to use military force.
Sanctions will NOT work.
I think he was on Greta's show around two days ago.
Thank God - someone finally said it! What we have been saying it on this board for years.
Contrast this to the Hill[billy] - the military option has always (a lie) been "on the table".
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http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/iran-rejects-u-s-offer-for-direct-talks-says-won-t-be-frightened-by-gun-threats.premium-1.502079
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Too bad we don't have a ton of natural gas to export to those who want Iranian energy , , ,
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The Political and Legal Challenges Undermining Iran Sanctions
February 7, 2013 | 1145 GMT
Summary
The U.S.-led global sanctions campaign against Iran is starting to unravel. The European Union's Court of Justice has removed two major Iranian banks from the sanctions list, and more de-listings are on the way. Though the U.S. Congress will try to compensate for the de-listings by passing additional sanctions, the perception of a slackening sanctions regime will make it very difficult for Washington to sustain the campaign politically on a global scale. This turn of events will have significant implications for negotiations between the United States and Iran in 2013.
Analysis
Bank Saderat, one of Iran's largest banks with a significant international presence, was the latest entity to be removed from the EU sanctions list Feb. 6. Bank Mellat, Iran's largest private bank, was relieved of sanctions Jan. 30. A number of other entities accused of involvement in Iran's nuclear procurement efforts have been removed from EU sanctions. These include, among others, Sina Bank, Fulmen Group -- who allegedly did the electrical work for a nuclear facility near Qom -- Kala Naft, the procurement arm for the National Iranian Oil Company, and a National Iranian Oil Company subsidiary, Oil Turbo Compressor Company.
The list is likely to grow longer, with at least 50 outstanding legal cases pending in the EU Court of Justice. Among the pending cases is Europaisch-Iranische Handelsbank, which has been under sanctions since 2011 and was a significant financial conduit for Iran to import industrial goods and technology from Germany.
An Important Legal Challenge
A legal technicality is behind this series of European de-listings. In 2010, the European Union sanctioned wealthy Saudi businessman Yassin Abdullah Qadi on allegations that he was an al Qaeda financier. Qadi challenged the European Court of Justice, saying the evidence against him was classified and therefore not accessible in the European court. Qadi's challenge was successful, and Iranian legal teams have since used it as legal precedence to fight the sanctions cases that have accumulated in the European Union in the past two years.
The United States, whose legal system has the flexibility to examine both unclassified and classified evidence, has maintained sanctions against firms with alleged links to Iran's nuclear program. But the European Court of Justice, which has to cull information from individual state intelligence agencies to build a case, has ruled that there is insufficient evidence to tie certain firms to the nuclear program. The European Union must pay millions of dollars in damages to these Iranian firms, which now have access to European financial and trading networks.
Political Obstacles
Sanctions campaigns, particularly on the scale of the one against Iran, typically run into substantial political difficulties. Iran's major trading partners, including Turkey, China, India and Japan, have consistently pushed against Washington and Brussels. These nations would rather protect their bilateral relationships with Iran and maintain a stable energy supply than follow a Western mandate. They view U.S. and EU threats to cut off access to Western financial markets as bullying tactics and argue that the sanctions do not apply to them unless the measures are approved by the U.N. Security Council (where China and Russia could play a blocking role).
Tehran's trading partners have reduced trade with Iran to the point that even Iranian officials have admitted their oil revenues have fallen by 40 percent due to sanctions. Still, many of those same partners have continued to work through creative mechanisms such as front companies and bartering arrangements to maintain trade. These moves come with risks, and there is a worldwide network of traders, insurers and shippers that closely monitor the pulse of the sanctions regime. If the United States is preparing for another round of sanctions and is looking for offenders, many governments and firms will openly demonstrate their cooperation with the sanctions to avoid ending up on a list and getting fined. But if the sanctions regime appears to be slackening, there is a great deal of money to be made in the smuggling networks built around any sanctioned market. Perception thus matters a great deal in the politics of sanctions, and the unraveling of the EU arm of this campaign will undermine the U.S.-led economic sanctions against Iran.
Iran regains valuable maneuvering space with each of these de-listings. Iranian businessmen and officials were already leading an intensive effort to circumvent sanctions, but now significant legal channels are opening that help Iranian firms resume business. This comes as the United States has re-extended an offer to Iran for direct negotiations. Iran could use this opening to seriously pursue these talks, or it could buy time and stall the negotiations, especially as the country prepares for elections in June.
The United States also has a decision to make. It wants to enter these negotiations from an unquestionable position of strength. With Iran on the defensive in Syria and trying to hold its position in Iraq, under heavy sanctions and facing a significant military presence in the Persian Gulf, the United States already carries far more leverage than Iran in pursuing these talks. The regional dynamics will continue to weaken Iran, but the new easing of sanctions pressure on Tehran may undermine the U.S. negotiating position.
Moreover, the U.S. Navy has reduced its carrier presence in the Persian Gulf to one, and U.S. defense officials, caught up in the ongoing political wrangling over the budget in Washington, are arguing that the Navy will not be able to deploy an additional carrier to the Persian Gulf as planned. Iran will be watching U.S. carrier movements closely, and Washington's decision over whether to send an additional carrier could influence Iran's willingness to negotiate. A number of factors could draw Tehran and Washington to the negotiating table, but there are just as many variables that could once again throw off the timing of these talks..
Read more: The Political and Legal Challenges Undermining Iran Sanctions | Stratfor
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"Too bad we don't have a ton of natural gas to export to those who want Iranian energy , , ,"
As quoted in 'energy', our fascist Sen. committee chair is contemplating whether American suppliers should be able to export at all.
Follow the Kerry Doctrine. Figure out what is right and makes sense and do the opposite - every time.
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U.S.-Iranian Dialogue in Obama's Second Term
February 5, 2013 | 1000 GMT
Stratfor
By Reva Bhalla
Vice President of Global Affairs
As U.S. President Barack Obama's second-term foreign policy team begins to take shape, Iran remains unfinished business for the U.S. administration. The diplomatic malaise surrounding this issue over the past decade has taken its toll on Washington and Tehran. Even as the United States and Iran are putting out feelers for another round of negotiations, expectations for any breakthrough understandably remain low. Still, there has been enough movement over the past week to warrant a closer look at this long-standing diplomatic impasse.
At the Munich Security Conference held Feb. 1-3, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said the United States would be willing to hold direct talks with Iran under the right conditions. Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi responded positively to the offer but warned that Iran would not commit unless Washington shows a "fair and real" intention to resolve the issues dividing the two sides.
An Uneven Record in U.S.-Iranian Diplomacy
This diplomatic courting ritual between the United States and Iran has occurred a handful of times over the past several years. Like previous times, the public offer of talks was preceded by denials of secret pre-negotiations. (This time, Ali Akbar Velayati, a presidential hopeful and senior adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, denied that he met with a U.S. representative in Oman.) Meanwhile, as a sideshow to the more critical U.S.-Iranian bilateral track, Iran has announced it will hold negotiations with the P-5+1 group Feb. 25 in Kazakhstan to demonstrate its willingness to seek a compromise on the nuclear issue as part of a broader deal. For good measure, Iran has balanced these diplomatic moves with an announcement that it is upgrading uranium centrifuges at the Natanz enrichment facility. Though this will rile Israel, the thought of Iran accelerating its nuclear program could add just the right amount of urgency to propel the talks.
The first step to any negotiation is defining a common interest. For the United States and Iran, those interests have evolved over the past decade. In 2003, they shared an interest in bringing Saddam Hussein down and neutralizing a Sunni jihadist threat. By 2007, it was a mutual interest in relieving the U.S. military burden in Iraq. In 2011, it was a common interest in avoiding a war in the Strait of Hormuz. In 2013, as the region fragments beyond either side's control, Washington and Tehran are each looking to prevent the coming quagmire from undermining their respective positions in the Middle East.
But talks have also stalled many times due to issues of timing, misreading of intentions, lack of political cohesion or a number of other valid reasons. At base, timing is everything. Both sides need to create a favorable political climate at home to pursue controversial negotiations abroad. Complicating matters, both sides have the mutually contradictory goal of negotiating from a position of strength. In 2007, Iran could still claim to hold thousands of U.S. troops hostage to attacks by its Shiite militant proxies in Iraq. In 2011, a Shiite uprising in Bahrain threatened to upset the balance of power in the Persian Gulf in Iran's favor while Iran could at the same time shake energy markets with military maneuvers in the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran, however, couldn't hold that position for long. With time, Tehran's still-limited covert capabilities in the eastern Arabian Peninsula were exposed. Meanwhile, the United States built up its military presence in the Persian Gulf. With minesweepers now concentrated in the area, Iran now must think twice before carrying out provocations in the strait that could accidentally trigger a military intervention.
Before Tehran could recover, the regional climate flipped against Iran. In 2012, the Sunni rebellion in Syria gained steam, in no small part due to a growing regional imperative to deprive Iran of its Mediterranean foothold in the Levant. As Iran's position in Syria and Lebanon began to slip, the Sunni momentum predictably spilled into Iraq, where massive Sunni protests against the Shiite government in Baghdad already are under way.
Now, Iran no longer poses a strategic threat to U.S. interests in the way it did just a few years ago, and the prospect of Iran solidifying an arc of influence from western Afghanistan to the Mediterranean has evaporated. Iran is on the defensive, trying to help its allies survive in Syria and Lebanon while at the same time being forced to devote more resources to holding its position in Iraq. And while Iran's overseas expenses are rising, its budget is simultaneously shrinking under the weight of sanctions. U.S.- and European-led sanctions over the past two years have gradually moved from a policy of targeted sanctions against individuals and firms to a near-total trade embargo that has prompted some Iranian officials to openly admit that Iran's oil revenues have dropped more than 40 percent.
At this point, the United States has two options. It could allow the regional forces to run their course and whittle down Iran's strength over time. Or it could exploit the current conditions and try negotiating with Iran from a position of strength while it still has the military capacity to pose a legitimate threat to Iran. Iran may be weakening, but it still has levers with which to pressure the United States. Preparations are already under way for Alawite forces in Syria to transition to an insurgency with Iran's backing. In Afghanistan, Iran has militant options to snarl an already fragile U.S. exit strategy. So far, the United States has shown a great deal of restraint in Syria; it does not want to find itself being drawn into another conflict zone in the Islamic world where Iran can play a potent spoiler role.
It appears that the United States is pursuing the strategy of giving negotiations another go with the expectation that these talks will extend beyond the immediate nuclear issue. Iran has frequently complained that it cannot trust the United States if Washington cannot speak with one voice. For example, while the U.S. administration has pursued talks in the past, Congress has tightened economic sanctions and has tried to insert clauses to prevent any rollback of sanctions. The economic pressure produced by the sanctions has helped the United States fortify its negotiating position, but the administration has tried to reserve options by keeping a list of sanctions it could repeal layer by layer should the talks yield progress.
Seeking Flexibility in Sanctions
Washington could look to Europe for more flexibility for its negotiating needs. In a recent story overlooked by the mainstream media, the General Court of the European Union on Jan. 29 revoked sanctions against Bank Mellat, one of the largest commercial banks in Iran that is primarily involved in financing Iran's vital energy sector. Bank Mellat was sanctioned in 2010 based on allegations that it was a state-owned bank involved in Iran's nuclear proliferation activities. But the EU court has now ruled that there was insufficient evidence to link the bank to the nuclear program. Even so, though Iran claims that the bank has been fully privatized since 2010, it is difficult to believe that it does not maintain vital links with the regime. Nonetheless, rumors are circulating that more EU sanctions de-listings could be in store.
Given the impossibility of sealing every legal loophole, perception plays a vital role in upholding any sanctions regime. Over the past two years, the United States -- in coordination with an even more aggressive European Union -- has signaled to traders, banks and insurers across the globe that the costs of doing business with Iran are not worth jeopardizing their ability to operate in Western markets. Enough businessmen were spooked into curbing, or at least scaling back, their interaction with Iran and known Iranian front companies that Iran has experienced a significant cut in revenue. But with large amounts of money to be made in a market under sanctions, it can be very difficult politically to maintain this level of economic pressure over an extended period of time. And the more the sanctions begin to resemble a trade embargo, the more ammunition Iran has for its propaganda arm in claiming sanctions are harming Iranian civilians. The prospect of additional sanctions being repealed in court in the coming months could deflate the West's economic campaign against Iran and give more businesses the confidence to break the sanctions -- but if the sanctions were intended to force negotiations in the first place, that may be a risk the U.S. administration is willing to take.
There is no clear link between the recent U.S. offer of talks and the sanctions de-listing of Bank Mellat. But if the United States were serious about using its position of relative strength to pursue a deal with Iran, we would expect to see some slight easing up on the sanctions pressure. This would likely begin in Europe, where there would be more flexibility in the sanctions legislation than there would be in the U.S. Congress. Germany, Iran's largest trading partner in Europe, has perhaps not coincidentally been the strongest proponent for this latest attempt at direct U.S.-Iranian talks. It is also notable that U.S. President Barack Obama's picks for his second-term Cabinet include senators Chuck Hagel and John Kerry, both of who have openly advocated dialogue with Iran.
Iran is now the most critical player to watch. Iran is weakening in the region and is becoming heavily constrained at home, but even so, the clerical regime is not desperate to reach a deal with Washington. Reaching an understanding with the United States could mitigate the decline of Alawite forces in Syria and the Sunni backlash that Iran is likely to face in Iraq, but it would not necessarily forestall them. And with general elections in Iran slated for June, the political climate in the country will not be conducive to the give-and-take needed to move the negotiations forward, at least in the near term.
The United States would prefer to reduce the number of unknowns in an increasingly volatile region by reaching an understanding with Iran. The irony is that with or without that understanding, Iran's position in the region will continue to weaken. Even if Washington doesn't need this negotiation as badly as Iran does, now is as good a time as any for a second-term president to give this dialogue another try.
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Read more: U.S.-Iranian Dialogue in Obama's Second Term | Stratfor
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And yet another perspective:
http://pjmedia.com/michaelledeen/2013/02/07/iran-the-war-within-and-without/?singlepage=true
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Iran's Global Business Is Murder Inc.
Bombings in capital cities, kidnappings, trade in drugs and guns—Iranian exports, all. Now Tehran wants nukes..
By MICHAEL OREN
A bomb explodes in Burgas, Bulgaria, leaving five Israeli tourists and a local driver dead. Mysteriously marked ammunition kills countless Africans in civil wars. Conspirators plot to blow up a crowded cafe and an embassy in Washington, D.C. A popular prime minister is assassinated, and a despised dictator stays in power by massacring his people by the tens of thousands.
Apart from their ruthlessness, these events might appear unrelated. And yet the dots are inextricably linked. The connection is Iran.
In 25 cities across five continents, community centers, consulates, army barracks and houses of worship have been targeted for destruction. Thousands have been killed. The perpetrators are agents of Hezbollah and the Quds Force, sometimes operating separately and occasionally in unison. All take their orders from Tehran.
Hezbollah's relationship with Tehran is "a partnership arrangement with Iran as the senior partner," says America's director of national intelligence, James Clapper. The Lebanon-based terror group provides the foot soldiers necessary for realizing Iran's vision of a global Islamic empire. Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah says his organization was founded to forge "a greater Islamic republic governed by the Master of Time [the Mahdi] and his rightful deputy, the jurisprudent Imam of Iran."
With funding, training and weapons from Iran, Hezbollah terrorists have killed European peacekeepers, foreign diplomats and thousands of Lebanese, among them Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. They have hijacked American, French and Kuwaiti airliners and kidnapped and executed officials from several countries. They are collaborating in Bashar Assad's slaughter of opposition forces in Syria today.
A deadly suicide attack in Burgas leaving five Israeli tourists and a local driver dead in last July.
Second only to al Qaeda, Hezbollah has murdered more Americans—at least 266—than any other terrorist group. The United States designated Hezbollah as a terrorist organization in 1997, though the European Union has yet to do so.
Above all, Hezbollah strives to kill Jews. It has fired thousands of rockets at Israeli civilians and tried to assassinate Israeli diplomats in at least six countries. Its early 1990s bombing of a Jewish community center and the Israeli Embassy in Argentina killed 115.
The attack in Burgas occurred last July, and this month the Bulgarian government completed a thorough inquiry into who was behind it: Hezbollah. "The finding is clear and unequivocal," said John Kerry in one of his first pronouncements as U.S. secretary of state. "We strongly urge other governments around the world—and particularly our partners in Europe—to take immediate action and to crack down on Hezbollah."
Then there is the Quds Force, the elite unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, which takes orders directly from Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamanei. The U.S. has repeatedly accused the Quds Force of helping insurgents kill American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and of supplying weapons to terrorists in Yemen, Sudan and Syria. In 2007, Quds Force operatives tried to blow up two Israeli jetliners in Kenya and kill Israel's ambassador in Nairobi.
Hezbollah and the Quds Force also traffic in drugs, ammunition and even cigarettes. Such illicit activities might seem disparate but they, too, are connected to terror and to Tehran.
In 2011, the New York Times reported that Hezbollah was working with South American drug lords to smuggle narcotics into Africa, the Middle East and Europe. The terror group laundered its hundreds of millions of dollars in profits through used-car dealerships in America.
Also in 2011, the FBI exposed a plot in which senior Quds Force operatives conspired with members of Mexico's Los Zetas drug cartel to assassinate Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Washington by bombing the restaurant where he dined. The Israeli Embassy in Washington was also targeted. The middleman between the terrorists and the drug dealers was an Iranian-American used-car salesman.
And still the dots proliferate. U.S. authorities have implicated Hezbollah in the sale of contraband cigarettes in North Carolina, and Iran has manufactured and sold millions of rounds of ammunition to warring armies in Africa. So while skirting Western sanctions, Iran funds terror world-wide.
But Iran's rulers are counting on the West's inability to see the larger pattern. Certainly the European Union would take a crucial step forward by designating Hezbollah a terrorist organization, but terror is only one pixel.
Tehran is enriching uranium and rushing to achieve military nuclear capabilities. If it succeeds, the ayatollahs' vision of an Islamic empire could crystallize.
Iran and its proxies have already dotted the world with murderous acts. They need only nuclear weapons to complete the horrific picture.
Mr. Oren is Israel's ambassador to the United States.
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http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/139013/jacques-e-c-hymans/iran-is-still-botching-the-bomb?cid=soc-facebook-in-postscripts-iran_is_still_botching_the_bomb-022113
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Certainly the piece raises questions worth asking but I also found it quite irksome. What is the point in waiting until the last minute? What were Israel/the US to do? ASSUME bumbling? ASSUME Stuxnet? What degree of confidence could they have in their projections and what are the consequences of getting it wrong? And, perhaps even more to the point, the consequence of letting time go by is that now the Iranians are dug in so deep and spread around so thoroughly that one wonders WTF can be done to stop them.
Ugh.
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An Inflection Point in the Iranian Nuclear Talks
February 28, 2013 | 0323 GMT
A reported U.S. offer to roll back sanctions against Iran suggests a shift in the talks surrounding Tehran's nuclear program. For almost 10 years, the negotiations surrounding the Iranian nuclear issue have failed to make any headway. But the latest round of talks points to a faint possibility of a break in the nearly decadelong trend of periodic, dead-end talks. For the first time since the Iranian nuclear controversy began in 2002, the United States and its Western allies reportedly have publicly offered to lift some trade sanctions (though not the ones targeting Iran's oil and financial sectors) in exchange for Iran suspending enrichment and providing transparency into its nuclear program.
The Iranians have expressed an unusual level of optimism after the talks in Almaty over the past 48 hours. Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi reportedly said he was "very confident" that an agreement could be reached. Moreover, Tehran's National Security chief Saeed Jalili described the meeting in the Kazakhstan capital as a "turning point," adding that the latest offer from the West was more realistic than previous offers and was closer to the Iranian views in some cases. On the other side, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry reportedly described the Almaty talks as "useful," saying that a serious engagement by Iran could lead to a comprehensive deal.
The last time there was an agreement on the Iranian nuclear issue was in December 2003, during Mohammed Khatami's presidency, when Tehran signed the Additional Protocol to its Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Safeguards Agreement, granting International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors expanded inspections of the country's nuclear program and temporary suspension of uranium enrichment, which at the time was 5 percent. After current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected to his first term two years later, the Islamic republic ended the voluntary implementation of the Additional Protocol in response to the West's shift from asking for temporary suspension of uranium enrichment to requesting Iran abandon it all together.
A lot has changed since then, but years of talks have led nowhere. In addition to removing some trade sanctions, the latest offer would allow Iran to keep some of the enriched uranium to fuel a medical research reactor in Tehran. Furthermore, the new offer reportedly no longer seeks a full shutdown of the underground Fordow nuclear facility (a key demand until recently); rather it is asking for a temporary cessation of its operations.
Iran, however, is insisting on international recognition of its sovereign right as a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to continue enriching uranium at 20 percent, which the other side is unwilling to accept. The key question here is why the West has now offered these concessions.
First, the latest round of sanctions that undermined Iran's crude export capabilities have ultimately allowed the United States to move into a position of relative strength in negotiations. Washington realizes that sustaining these sanctions over the long term will be problematic and that it needs to try to reach a settlement while it has the upper hand. Second, the United States wants to limit Iran's uranium enrichment levels, which Tehran has increased from 5 to 20 percent. Third, Iran could undermine U.S. interests in the Middle East and South Asia, and Washington is hoping that diplomacy could yield an understanding, as was the case when the two sides collaborated in U.S. moves to affect regime change in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Given the complexity of issues that must be dealt with, there is a high probability that the latest initiative could also fall apart. At the very least, it is extremely difficult to arrive at an arrangement that would accept Iran's harnessing of nuclear technology and at the same time prevent Tehran from putting this technology toward military use. That being the case, there has been a major development in terms of U.S. willingness to roll back some sanctions (something the Iranians have long been demanding and the West has until now been refusing), which cannot simply be dismissed as business as usual.
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When I read alleged learned "experts" on foreign affairs discuss these talks or the "peace" talks between Israel and the Savagstinians, I want to scream at these idiots.
You can't negotiate with people who aren't acting in good faith! It's like crisis negotiations with sociopathic personalities. Unless they believe you'll pull the trigger on them, they'll play games with you as long as possible when it suits their interest. Iran has done nothing but buy time to work towards completing their program, which most likely involves making parts of the great and little satan into radioactive glass.
And still we have credentialed people drone endlessly about these negotiations..... :roll:
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A New Round of Minesweeping Drills in the Persian Gulf
May 2, 2013 | 1400 GMT
Summary
A U.S. Navy minesweeping helicopter in the Persian Gulf
Tensions will likely rise between Washington and Tehran in the coming months as Iran prepares to elect a new president in June. Negotiations over Iran's nuclear program have stalled once again, and Tehran has been escalating its provocative rhetoric concerning its uranium enrichment capabilities. To contain Iran's nuclear ambitions, the United States must demonstrate its military capabilities in the Persian Gulf.
This is why, from May 6 to May 30, the United States will hold a second round of multinational naval exercises in the waters off the Iranian coast in less than a year. Though the United States has little interest in engaging Iran militarily, the Pentagon wants to prove its ability to degrade Iran's most potent deterrent against attack -- its ability to mine and close the Strait of Hormuz -- after the 2012 training operations proved inconclusive.
Analysis
Iran's ability to threaten shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz is indeed a powerful military deterrent. Some 40 percent of seaborne oil and 20 percent of liquefied natural gas pass through the strait, which is just 39 kilometers (24 miles) wide at its narrowest point. Iran's ability to disrupt traffic would raise the cost of intervention for the United States and its allies. Even a very short closure or mining of the strait by Iran would rock global oil markets.
A New Round of Minesweeping Drills in the Persian Gulf
This threat has constrained the United States and forced it to attempt to deal with the Iranian nuclear program through political and economic means, but the Pentagon has still been preparing military backup plans. An integral part of U.S. strategy toward Iran is signaling the United States' willingness to strengthen its allies and act militarily if the need arises. The second round of minesweeping exercises, which come shortly after U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel announced several weapons deals with allies in the Middle East, are as much about encouraging restraint from Iran as about prudent military contingency planning.
Inconclusive 2012 Exercises
Tensions between Washington and Tehran escalated at the beginning of 2012 following the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, when Iran staged naval exercises in the strait. In response, the United States ramped up its military preparations for possible closure by deploying several mine-hunting assets to the region, including four additional Avenger-class ships, minesweeping helicopters and the USS Ponce, a retrofitted amphibious transport dock that serves as a mother ship for the region. Another round of talks with Tehran that failed to produce a solution led the United States to reinforce sanctions against the country.
A hastily planned, U.S.-led joint naval exercise in the waters around the Arabian Peninsula called the International Mine Countermeasure Exercise 2012 soon followed. Lasting from Sept. 17 to Sept. 27, the training operation involved 33 nations and some 3,000 personnel and was the largest of its kind ever to occur in the region. The exercise was separated into two parts: The first focused on exchanging ideas and familiarizing personnel with new anti-mine technologies at a symposium in Bahrain. The second focused on mine-clearing training and collaboration through several joint maneuvers in the Gulf of Aden, the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf.
For the United States and its allies, the exercises served as a warning to Iran that Washington will not take threats to close the strait lightly, that the Pentagon is adjusting its force posture to be able to mitigate Iran's key deterrent and that the United States can quickly garner international support for military action in the Strait of Hormuz. From a military angle, however, the success of the exercises was questionable. The U.S. Navy said it had accomplished its operational training goals, but it was reported that fewer than half of the 29 simulated mines were found. In an area as sensitive as the Strait of Hormuz, this success rate would fail to soothe international markets or allow shipping traffic to resume at a regular pace.
Goals of the 2013 Exercises
The upcoming joint training operations will take place only eight months after the previous round -- an unusually short interregnum for large international military exercises -- but the need for the drills is strong. Clearing the strait of mines while under threat from anti-ship missiles hidden onshore, mini submarines and swarms of small boats would be complicated. Trying to accomplish such a task with a large international coalition would be even more difficult. With more than 30 countries again participating in the drills, considerable practice and collaboration is necessary.
The drills can also be diplomatically useful in a politically sensitive time for Iran. With traditional diplomatic solutions doing little to curb Iran's nuclear program and upcoming presidential elections in June, the United States and its allies can employ "gunboat diplomacy" in the Persian Gulf.
Adding urgency to the exercises is the fact that many of the U.S. anti-mine assets are aging. This is, in part, because niche capabilities like mine hunting have been largely ignored since the end of the Cold War. The war on terror called for a different form of naval support, so the U.S. Navy spent much of the past decade prioritizing assets and funding for that purpose. The United States is trying to compensate for this problem by developing new assets such as the littoral combat ships equipped for minesweeping, but these are still a few years from deployment.
In the meantime, the United States is relying on stopgap purchases of off-the-shelf minesweeping assets such as SeaFox devices, which arrived in theater after the 2012 drills. But even these assets will take time to incorporate into existing operational systems. Personnel have to be trained for each system, each must be tested in an operational environment and procedures must be formulated to ensure an appropriate fit into the overall mission. Elaborate, relatively realistic drills help accomplish such tasks and provide feedback about how the new systems will affect the mission itself, allowing planners to tweak future assessments. Further, these drills signal to Tehran that the United States is ready to counter any Iranian threats around the Strait of Hormuz.
Read more: A New Round of Minesweeping Drills in the Persian Gulf | Stratfor
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http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2013/05/16/what_america_could_gain_from_the_sunni-shia_rivalry_105165.html
May 16, 2013
A Strong Iran Is Good for America -- Seriously
By Robert Kaplan
Don't defeat Iran. Shi'ism is not America's enemy. It is not in the long-term interest of the United States to side with the Sunni Arab states against Iran or vice versa. Doing so produces an imbalance of power in the region as we learned with the collapse of the Iraqi state in the aftermath of the American invasion of 2003. Iran was then able to establish a contiguous sphere of influence stretching from western Afghanistan to the Mediterranean -- something that was only averted by the Arab Spring reaching Syria.
The two-year-old Syrian crisis has now come to a point where Iran is on the defensive, as its positions in Lebanon and Iraq come under threat. But Washington's talks with Moscow in an effort to reach a negotiated settlement on the Syria crisis may indicate that the United States is not interested in allowing the pendulum to swing in the other direction this time around.
Remember that the United States had a bad, decadeslong experience with Sunni domination of the Middle East. It was Sunni dominance, in which the Shias were not sufficiently feared, that helped lead to a phalanx of Arab dictators -- in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere -- who had little incentive to quell anti-Americanism in their midst. Such Leaders as Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and King Fahd in Saudi Arabia fostered a rotten and calcified political climate that was relatively empty of reform, while quietly tolerant of extremism, which resulted in the leader of the 9/11 terrorist cell being Egyptian and 15 of his 18 cohorts being Saudis. But at least the likes of Fahd and Mubarak ran strong states that cooperated with Western intelligence agencies: Perhaps not so the Sunni Islamists who might yet gain even more influence and power in Egypt and Syria. The last thing the West should want is a situation in Syria in which radical Sunni Islamist forces are able to project power in the region, especially across the country's eastern border into Iraq.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's quasi-democratic regime may be short on stability and long on thuggery, and it may be unduly interfered with by the Iranians, but at least it forms the basis of a state that might over time evolve in a better direction -- and therefore influence Iranian Shi'ism for the better, with Karbala and Najaf affecting debates in Qom. Allowing Iraq to fall will not just create a wider geopolitical space for jihadists to operate, it will also be a total reversal to the American efforts to establish democracy in Iraq. Furthermore, from the American point of view, the Shia-dominated Iraqi regime serves as a major counterbalance to Salafists gaining ground in the Sunni Arab world.
The Salafist threat is even greater when considering that Saudi Arabia, a country led by aging, Brezhnevite rulers, with a diminishing underground water table, a demographic male youth bulge and 40 percent youth unemployment, is weakening. The Sudairi Seven -- the seven sons of Ibn Saud's favorite wife, Hassa bint Ahmad al-Sudairi -- who lent coherence to the Saudi power structure, have all but disappeared. Nineteen grandsons and 16 surviving sons of Abdulaziz now compete on the Allegiance Council. And outside the Council there are many more grandsons. This is too large a group not to engage in complex factionalism, which could weaken the regime that has thus far remained resilient and make it difficult to deal with pressing problems. No one should underestimate the inherent artificiality of the Saudi state, built around the parched and deeply conservative upland of Najd, which has always struggled to subdue the more cosmopolitan maritime peripheries like Hijaz. The last thing Washington should want is to build a new Middle East around Saudi Arabia, which itself has entered a period of great uncertainty and is resolved to weakening Iranian influence in the northern rim of the Middle East at all costs -- even if it means empowering jihadists.
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By contrast, while the Iranian empire -- as well as this particular Iranian regime -- may be facing severe crises, the Iranian state is more coherent than that of Saudi Arabia. Whereas Saudi Arabia is not synonymous with the Arabian Peninsula, Iran is more-or-less synonymous with the Iranian plateau, which straddles the Middle East and Central Asia as well as the two energy-producing regions of the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea. Rather than an artificial contrivance of a single family, Shiite Iran -- with its relative geographic logic -- is heir to Iranian states going back to antiquity, when Persia was the world's first superpower. Iran encapsulates a rich and eclectic civilization. Even under the present regime, in Iran there is a semblance of a democratic foundation, while in Saudi Arabia there is an utter lack of any sense of democracy. Always remember that the clerical hold over the Islamic republic is not eternal, even as the West is culturally much closer to Iran than to Saudi Arabia. The West should therefore be prepared in coming years for regionwide upheavals in which its alliances are rearranged.
Iran, with its nearly 76 million people, is the second-most populous country in the Middle East after Egypt, while its level of education and bureaucratic institutionalization is higher. The U.S. estrangement from Iran has already lasted over a third of a century -- a decade longer than the U.S. estrangement from "Red" China. This cannot go on forever. Washington cannot allow Iran to undermine American regional interests. But the United States should, nevertheless, attempt to create conditions favorable for a robust American-Iranian dialogue that will balance its warm relations with Saudi Arabia. The clerical regime may fall or more likely transform itself over time as a consequence.
We realize how extremely difficult this will be: Marg bar Amrika ("Death to America") is the bumper sticker of the Iranian revolution. It will be the last thing the clerical regime gives up. But whereas artificial states like Iraq, Syria and Libya are perennially threatened with implosion and Saudi Arabia's future evolution is uncertain, Iran will hopefully go on under evolving and strong central leadership.
We say "hopefully" because the Western-imposed sanctions regime could threaten to leave power in Tehran in the hands of revolutionary forces better positioned to control patronage networks within a shrinking economy. And a decentralization of power -- just at the time Iran reaches the nuclear threshold -- is potentially a greater danger than a centrally controlled, nuclear Iran. That is generally the fear of Iran specialist Vali Nasr, author of The Shia Revival (2006) and The Dispensable Nation: American Foreign Policy in Retreat (2013).
Weakening central authority -- not the continuation of autocracy -- remains the greatest danger to the region. Keep in mind that stability in the Middle East has never been a matter of democracy. To date, Israel has only signed peace treaties with Arab autocrats, men who ran strong states and who could purge members of their own power structures who disagreed with them. It is not democracy that the United States should primarily want, but a regional balance of power that will reduce the risk of war.
Now that Iran is being weakened by the slow-motion collapse of Bashar al Assad's Alawite regime, a chaotic Syria will likely become -- even more so -- the fulcrum of a power struggle between Iran and the Sunni Arab world for years to come, preventing either side from being able to dominate the region.
Cold wars are tolerable precisely because they are cold. And a new cold war in the Middle East, assuming sectarian violence can be kept down at a reasonable level, will be something that policymakers in Washington may see as being in the American interest. A region balanced at least has the possibility to be a region at relative peace, with a Shiite bastion composed of Tehran and Baghdad facing off against a belt of Sunni revivalism stretching from Egypt to Anbar in western Iraq. It is for this reason that Barack Obama's administration should not be in favor of a zero-sum result in Syria.
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Robert D. Kaplan is Chief Geopolitical Analyst at Stratfor, a geopolitical analysis firm, and author of the bestselling book The Revenge of Geography. Kamran Bokhari is VP of Middle Eastern & South Asian Affairs at Stratfor. Reprinted with permission.
Page Printed from: http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2013/05/16/what_america_could_gain_from_the_sunni-shia_rivalry_105165-full.html at May 16, 2013 - 01:44:28 PM CDT
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I think Kaplan must be doing Hunter S. Thompson levels of drugs to come up with that last article.
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A similar thought occurs to me. I confess I am rather stunned that Stratfor let it go out , , ,
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Mojtaba Vahedi: Iran's Revolution From the Inside Out
Mojtaba Vahedi, an exiled former insider with the moderate mullahs, talks about the struggle for reform, his own exile, and why Tehran won't change without another popular uprising.
By SOHRAB AHMARI
Alexandria, Va.
'Iran is a country with a government that was elected." So declared Secretary of State John Kerry on a visit to France in February. His statement echoed an earlier one by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, who during his Senate confirmation hearings in January pronounced the Iranian government "elected" and "legitimate."
In the coming days, count on Western media to reinforce that view of Iranian democracy with coverage of the run-up to the June 14 presidential election. The horse-race aspect of the reporting is already in the air. There was breathless news on May 21 about the disqualification of dozens of presidential hopefuls, including the reformist standard-bearer, former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. This week, attention turned to the improving fortunes of one candidate, Saeed Jalili, a hard-liner with a pronounced hostility to the West. Could a reformer still win? With President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stepping down after two four-year terms, would a Jalili victory mean even more trouble for America and its allies than his predecessor?
Mojtaba Vahedi is here to say: None of it matters.
"What is happening now is not an election but a form of theater and the candidates should really be called actors," he says from his home in exile in Northern Virginia. "The regime couldn't care less who the people prefer."
Exiled critics of the Iranian regime aren't hard to find in the West, but Mr. Vahedi, who is 49, brings a unique perspective to his condemnation of the country's rulers: He was at the heart of the reform movement that began to gain traction in Iran a decade ago. And he was a trusted adviser and strategist for the moderate cleric Mehdi Karroubi, who co-led the popular opposition movement that in 2009 represented perhaps the best hope Iran has ever had of steering away from tyranny and extremism.
Witnessing what happened to Mr. Karroubi and to the reform movement in the 2000s prompted Mr. Vahedi to flee the country in 2009. Once safely clear of Iran, he became one of the Islamic Republic's most vocal critics, no longer a believer in democratic change from inside the regime. The mullah-dominated government, he now believes, must be overthrown.
We sit for an interview in Mr. Vahedi's study in suburban Washington, where Dan Brown thrillers and self-help books vie for shelf space with hefty volumes of Islamic philosophy and jurisprudence. He serves scalding tea, pastries and roasted almonds. Yet these hallmarks of Persian hospitality don't diminish the strangeness of our encounter: Here is a former official of a regime that in my Tehran childhood I thought omnipotent—now enjoying a modest and relatively anonymous slice of the American dream.
Mr. Vahedi observes events in Iran from a frustratingly long distance, but he often appears on Persian-language media, such as the Voice of America's Persian service, denouncing Iran's clerical regime. He also derides his former allies in the Iranian establishment reform movement. The reformists, he says, cling to the notion that the past decade's massive increase in repression was the work of President Ahmadinejad.
They delude themselves, Mr. Vahedi says, because the problem is far deeper than one man. "Anyone who thinks Ahmadinejad was behind the electoral rigging of recent years, or the brutality and the killing, is a fool." Dictatorship in Iran is "structural," Mr. Vahedi says. "The structure makes everyone obey one man, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and the leader isn't accountable to anyone."
So why does Mr. Khamenei, the paramount leader, even bother with the charade of popular elections? "Khamanei is looking for a fall guy who at the same time has no real power—someone with no serious responsibility but who's nevertheless accountable for every failure."
Chief among the country's ills are the mounting international isolation and economic hardship that have been caused by the regime's pursuit of nuclear weapons. Yet those in Western capitals who dream of rapprochement with a post-Ahmadinejad Islamic Republic should think twice, Mr. Vahedi warns. No matter who is designated the winner of the June 14 vote, the new president will have little to say about nuclear policy. But if the office is claimed by Mr. Jalili, the combative Iranian nuclear negotiator would be a most agreeable deputy for the Supreme Leader. "Jalili has zero independent will," Mr. Vahedi says. "Whatever policy change he ushers in the nuclear arena would solely reflect Khamenei's wishes."
And the nuclear program is certain to continue apace: "Khamenei won't permit a solution to the nuclear issue. Having invested eight years of repression to prevent any sort of change, what has Khamenei to lose? Do you think now he's suddenly going to say, 'OK, I'm going to improve my reputation and change my ways?' "
If Mr. Khamenei's speech last month before an audience of Iranian women was any indication, the answer is no. "The European race is an uncivilized race," the leader told the black-veiled figures seated beneath him. "They may have a nice, polished exterior but at heart, the Europeans are still savages."
Mr. Vahedi's journey from loyalist to antiregime polemicist isn't uncommon among members of the generation that brought the mullahs to power. Like many another lapsed Islamist, he has the dejected appearance of a man who looks on his life's project and sees a catastrophe staring back.
Mojtaba Vahedi was born in 1964 to a pious household in the holy city of Qom but grew up mostly in Tehran. As a teenager he along with his family joined the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the shah. Then in 1982, a middle-aged cleric and rising parliamentarian, impressed by his ambition and zeal, recruited the 18-year-old Mr. Vahedi to join his staff.
That cleric was Mehdi Karroubi, a kindly looking and charismatic figure who would go on to serve as Iran's parliamentary speaker during a brief period of reform in the early 2000s and who would emerge as the more outspoken of the two main opposition candidates in the stolen 2009 presidential election. From the time he graduated from high school until less that a year ago, Mr. Vahedi served on-and-off as Mr. Karroubi's aide, spokesman and chief of staff while editing a Karroubi-aligned reformist newspaper.
Mr. Karroubi, he recalls, was one of the first Iranian politicians to openly confront the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps—the engine of the regime's repressive apparatus—over its attempts to wrest control of the civilian economy. To be sure, the cleric was nothing if not a loyalist during the mullahs' first decade in power. In 1988 he went out of his way to defend the summary execution of some 3,000 leftists.
But by the time Mr. Karroubi took the reins in parliament in 2000, he had moved to the reformist fold. "He received five families of political prisoners every day," Mr. Vahedi says. "You couldn't call him a liberal but he had a reasonable mind-set." Mr. Karroubi attacked arbitrary sentences handed down by the judiciary; he also sharply criticized the powerful unelected legislators of the Guardian Council, even threatening to veto its budget.
In 2005, Mr. Karroubi contested the presidency on a reformist platform. When Mr. Ahmadinejad was declared the winner, Mr. Karroubi accused the revolutionary guards, the basij paramilitia and, most dangerously, Mr. Khamenei's son and heir-apparent, Mojtaba, of vote-rigging in at least three provinces, where the total number of votes cast outstripped the number of residents. The supreme leader denounced Mr. Karroubi, who responded by writing an open letter of protest addressed directly to Mr. Khamenei.
"I wrote that letter," Mr. Vahedi says with obvious pride. "It was extremely risky. We went into a basement away from prying ears, argued over the substance of the letter, and then I drafted it. I sent the office janitor, an illiterate, to have it printed. I knew Iranian newspapers couldn't carry it, so I hand-delivered it to the BBC."
When Mr. Karroubi launched a second presidential campaign in 2009, Mr. Vahedi once again joined his team. But two days before the polls opened, Mr. Vahedi flew to Dubai. He left Iran, he says, because he foresaw the vote-rigging that returned Mr. Ahmadinejad to power as well as the vicious crackdown that would soon answer the country's postelection uprising.
Sensing danger in Dubai, he next flew to London two weeks later, in late June 2009. As the violence in Iran's streets intensified, Mr. Vahedi kept editing and writing for his newspaper from abroad. "But then they realized I wasn't coming back," he recalls, "and one night Ahmadinejad's press minister took to state TV and claimed, 'There's a newspaper editor who's lived in England for seven months, and we know that he receives instructions every day from the Mossad and the CIA.' There were three nights of consecutive programming showing my face and denouncing me as a spy."
With that virtual death sentence, Mr. Vahedi escaped to the U.S. in February 2010. It was here that Mr. Vahedi finally broke with the reformists. "I saw the reformists getting ready for the 2013 elections," he says. "We'd seen the cheating in the last election, and nothing had changed—there's no change in the regime's behavior. . . . Reforms mean nothing if one man can hand them down from above and the same man can take them away."
It was a message meant for Mr. Vahedi's longtime mentor, too: "Then I said goodbye to my teacher, Karroubi. I had to part ways so I could say what I ultimately came to understand: that Iran's salvation depends on the total destruction of this regime." It's that last conclusion that the establishment reformists still can't abide, even as their candidates—including Mr. Karroubi—remain under house arrest and their supporters are beaten, jailed and executed.
As long as religion casts a shadow in politics, the people won't be free," say Mr. Vahedi, who counts himself a religious man. "Religion put to political use is a most corrosive thing. We don't have a religious government in Iran—it's a government that abuses religion. . . . Whenever they need it, they take advantage of the people's pious feelings and attachments."
What are the chances of another popular explosion of anger and resistance toward the regime after the June 14 election like that seen in 2009? Unlikely, says Mr. Vahedi. He isn't given to optimism about a country where "there's been a total breakdown in the Iranian concept of trust—beginning with the families, in small towns, in the big cities. The people lie to each other. The regime lies to them. They lie to the regime."
How long can this state of affairs last? Mr. Vahedi sighs and yet sounds optimistic despite himself: "No regime can survive on repression alone."
Mr. Ahmari is an assistant books editor at the Journal.
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Summary
Iran's domestic pressures came to the fore during the May 31 candidates' debate, the first during Iran's current presidential campaign. The eight candidates vetted by the Guardian Council debated a number of topics relating to the current state of Iran's economy. The candidates raised a number of familiar points -- that Iran must decrease its dependence on hydrocarbon revenues, lessen the large military presence in the economy and expand domestic industrial output and consumption.
While many Western media outlets have touched on what might be considered laughable aspects of the debate -- for instance, the disagreement between candidates and moderators over the format of the debate, or the reasoning behind asking multiple choice questions -- they have overlooked the fundamental reality expressed by the debate: The Islamic Republic of Iran has democratic institutions, and its political dialogue is real. And although framed under the supervisory role of its clerics, Iran's institutions have allowed the Islamic republic to survive and will help it continue to evolve, in stark contrast to the repressive dictatorships and monarchies of its Arab neighbors.
Analysis
Iran's candidates are in the midst of a campaign that will end with a presidential election on June 14. Sometime in August, Iran's incumbent president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, will leave office and contemplate his political career from the sidelines for at least four years. This transition of power is significant. The relatively easy transfer of power between popularly elected leaders in Iran is almost unique in the Middle East. Part of this is because the president serves under the Supreme Leader, who serves for life. The current Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (himself president under the founder of the Islamic republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini), has seen four presidents take office during his tenure.
The transition from Khomeini to Khamenei was one of the first evolutions of Iran's revolutionary government. In 1989, a decade after the overthrow of the Shah, Iran transitioned from a semi-presidential prime ministerial government to one with an empowered president kept in line by a Supreme Leader. Ahmadinejad has been locked in a bitter power struggle with the Supreme Leader for much of the past four years, yet he has been allowed to remain in office because the clerical establishment is unwilling to risk the public backlash (and threatened exposure of corruption) that would follow the ousting of a popular president.
This highlights one of many paradoxical elements of the Iranian government and its relationship with dissidence. Although foreign media outlets characterized the 2009 election as stolen, Ahmadinejad was and remains a highly popular candidate who likely would win a third consecutive term if he were legally permitted to run again. Still, the violent reaction to the Green Movement protestors and the attempted suppression of the reformist agenda in 2009 cannot be denied. Iran's political system is tailored to manage the idiosyncrasies of the Iranian state, and it is not a perfect facsimile of Western-style democracies.
But many similarities hold true, and the language of this presidential campaign is critical of the outgoing administration, even if the candidates do not have clear policy initiatives of their own. Rather than railing against Israel and against regional Sunni competitors such as Saudi Arabia, or inveighing against the foreign policy of the United States, the candidates have largely addressed the economy, the need to create jobs for the country's burgeoning youth population, and universal healthcare reform -- that last represented on Twitter by the phrase "#RouhaniCare." Even if the clerical regime wished to hold a monopoly over public discourse, the proliferation of independent and privately owned media outlets and shifts in public opinion have stayed beyond the reach of Iran's government censors.
In the 34 years since the Iranian Revolution, Iran's political system has changed to meet the needs of its day. This has been reflected by the pragmatic, economic focus of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's presidency following the end of the Iran-Iraq war; President Mohammad Khatami's quiet attempts at reform and foreign policy engagement beyond Iran's borders during the late 1990s and early 2000s; and the highly nationalistic, populist policies of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who in many ways sought to push back against clerical control of the broader political system. The upcoming election will be a key indicator of the health of the republic, whether it proceeds smoothly and the clerical elite accede to some of the political rebalancing pursued by Ahmadinejad, or they instead attempt to reconsolidate power under a previous iteration of the regime.
However the election turns out, Iran's regional policy ambitions and security concerns mean that we can expect little change in Tehran's support for the regime of Syrian President Bashar al Assad or Iran's pursuit of its nuclear program. Iran's political system and democratic institutions promote Iranian prerogatives, and a relatively commonplace change in political leadership at the presidential level is unlikely to do much to shift Iran's regional policies more in line with those of the United States or the European Union.
Changes in Iran's domestic politics will remain nearly indiscernible to a foreign audience waiting to see a Western-style liberal democracy flourish in Tehran, espousing new regional ambitions that would mitigate U.S. concerns. But change can be expected, and in years to come Tehran and Washington may very well open channels for dialogue. Evolution, not revolution, will instigate the Iranian government's future engagement with the West.
Read more: Iran's Political Debate | Stratfor
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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/16/world/middleeast/iran-election.html?emc=edit_na_20130615
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Published on The Weekly Standard (http://www.weeklystandard.com)
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He’s No ‘Moderate’
Iran picks a new leader to read from the same script.
Lee Smith
June 17, 2013 7:01 AM
It’s not clear why much of the Western media continues to describe Iran’s newly elected president as a “moderate.” After all, Hassan Rouhani is a regime pillar: As an early follower of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Rouhani joined him in exile in Paris, and over the last 34 years, the 64-year-old Qom-educated cleric has held key positions in the regime’s political echelons, and served in top military jobs during Iran’s decade-long war with Iraq. As Iran’s chief interlocutor with the West on the regime’s nuclear portfolio, Rouhani boasted of deceiving his negotiating partners. Domestically, he has threatened to crush protestors “mercilessly and monumentally,” and likely participated in the campaign of assassinations of the regime’s Iranian enemies at home and abroad, especially in Europe. Currently, Rouhani serves as Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s representative on the supreme national security council.
Aside from the fact that Iran’s English-language television station Press TV calls him a moderate, what exactly, in the eyes of the West, makes him one? After all, former president Muhammad Khatami labeled his public diplomacy campaign a “dialogue of civilizations,” which played right into Western ideas of tolerance and moderation. But Rouhani has nothing similar in his past.
“I think he gets that label because he has been Rafsanjani's factotum,” says former CIA officer Reuel Marc Gerecht. Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, another regime pillar and former president of Iran, is typically referred to as a “pragmatist” in the Western press. “Compared to Khamenei's circle, these fellows seem moderate,” says Gerecht. “Rouhani ran their little think tank around which foreign-policy types, the types that Westerners meet, gathered. Also, Rouhani was party to the only temporary ‘freeze’ in Iran's nuke program. Some folks—most notably the EU's Javier Solana—made a lot out of this. They should not have.”
In reality, all Rouhani did was play the U.S. and EU off each other. “From the outset,” Rouhani said in 2006, “the Americans kept telling the Europeans, ‘The Iranians are lying and deceiving you and they have not told you everything.’ The Europeans used to respond, ‘We trust them.’ … When we were negotiating with the Europeans in Tehran we were still installing some of the equipment at the Isfahan site. There was plenty of work to be done to complete the site and finish the work there. In reality, by creating a tame situation, we could finish Isfahan.”
Accordingly, a number of analysts wonder if Rouhani’s election is meant to serve the same purpose now in buying more time for the Iranian nuclear weapons program. With the regime putting a friendly, “moderate” face in front, the West is likely to double down on its efforts to reach the long sought after diplomatic solution to Iran’s nuclear issue.
As if on cue, the White House responded enthusiastically to Rouhani’s victory and announced that it is prepared, again, to enter direct negotiations. “There’s a great opportunity for Iran,” said White House chief of staff Denis McDonough, “and the people of that storied country, to have the kind of future that they would, I think, justifiably want.”
The presidential election didn’t offer much insight into what the Iranian people want. With a reported turnout of 72 percent of the country’s 50 million registered voters, informed sources in Iran charge that the regime exaggerated the actual turnout by a factor of 4 or 5. This election is almost certainly as fraudulent, if not more so, than the contested 2009 elections that brought the Green revolution to the streets. Up until last week, Tehran mayor Mohamed Baqer Qalibaf was leading in pre-election polling with 32.7 percent, Jalili was in second with 28.7 with Rouhani and the rest trailing. By Thursday, after the other reform candidate, Mohamed Reza Aref, dropped out, Rouhani had taken a commanding lead. In a poll conducted by the independent Virginia-based consultancy service IPOS, Rouhani was at 31.7 percent, with Qalibaf at 24.1 percent and Jalili at 13.7 percent. Another poll conducted by a website affiliated with the government showed that Rohani was leading with 43 percent. Even then the final tally far exceeded the expectations of the regime polling, with Rouhani winning with slightly more than 50 percent. It would appear that the regime ran up the number in order to avoid any chances of a run-off that might return protestors to the streets again.
Nonetheless, there were some demonstrations Saturday in Tehran, with protestors demanding the government release all political prisoners and invoking the Green revolution’s martyr Neda Agha Soltan—“the lady of Iran,” they chanted, “your path is continuing… Don’t be afraid, we are all together.”
Elsewhere, the Islamic Republic is showing what’s in store for domestic opponents. In Iraq, the Iranian-affiliated militia Kataeb Hezbollah launched a rocket attack against Camp Liberty, where around 3000 members of the Mujahideen e-Khalq (MEK) have been living since they were moved from Camp Ashraf, with U.S. and UN assurances for their security. John Kerry issued a statement saying that “the United States strongly condemns today's brutal, senseless, and utterly unacceptable rocket attack on Camp Hurriya that killed and injured camp residents.” Two were killed in the attack and dozens wounded.
Attacking Camp Liberty sends a message to everyone who is committed to overthrowing the regime, says Ali Safavi, the U.S. spokesman for the National Council of Resistance in Iran , an umbrella organization with the MEK as its largest member. “The MEK is leading the opposition calling for the overthrow of the regime,” says Safavi, who believes that there’s a connection between the elections and the attack on Liberty. “A month after the June 2009 elections, they attacked Camp Ashraf. In February 2011 there were huge demonstrations and in April Ashraf was again attacked, with 36 killed.” With Saturday’s attack, says Safavi, the regime is sending a message— "‘Don’t even think about overthrowing the regime.’ Their language is rockets and bullets.”
And the man the regime has chosen to read from that script, its newly elected front man, is no moderate.
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'There's a sucker born every minute" is one of those great American phrases, fondly and frequently repeated by Americans, who tend to forget that it was said mainly about Americans. In the election of Hassan Rohani as Iran's president, we are watching the point being demonstrated again by someone who has demonstrated it before.
Who is Mr. Rohani? If all you did over the weekend was read headlines, you would have gleaned that he is a "moderate" (Financial Times), a "pragmatic victor" (New York Times) and a "reformist" (Bloomberg). Reading a little further, you would also learn that his election is being welcomed by the White House as a "potentially hopeful sign" that Iran is ready to strike a nuclear bargain.
All this for a man who, as my colleague Sohrab Ahmari noted in these pages Monday, called on the regime's basij militia to suppress the student protests of July 1999 "mercilessly and monumentally." More than a dozen students were killed in those protests, more than 1,000 were arrested, hundreds were tortured, and 70 simply "disappeared." In 2004 Mr. Rohani defended Iran's human-rights record, insisting there was "not one person in prison in Iran except when there is a judgment by a judge following a trial."
WSJ assistant books editor Sohrab Ahmari on the results of Iran's recent presidential election. Photos: Associated Press
Mr. Rohani is also the man who chaired Iran's National Security Council between 1989 and 2005, meaning he was at the top table when Iran masterminded the 1994 bombing of the Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires, killing 85 people, and of the Khobar Towers in 1996, killing 19 U.S. airmen. He would also have been intimately familiar with the secret construction of Iran's illicit nuclear facilities in Arak, Natanz and Isfahan, which weren't publicly exposed until 2002.
In 2003 Mr. Rohani took charge as Iran's lead nuclear negotiator, a period now warmly remembered in the West for Tehran's short-lived agreement with Britain, France and Germany to suspend its nuclear-enrichment work. That was also the year in which Iran supposedly halted its illicit nuclear-weapons' work, although the suspension proved fleeting, according to subsequent U.N. reports.
Then again, what looked to the credulous as evidence of Iranian moderation was, to Iranian insiders, an exercise in diplomatic cunning. "Negotiations provided time for Isfahan's uranium conversion project to be finished and commissioned, the number of centrifuges at Natanz increased from 150 to 1,000 and software and hardware for Iran's nuclear infrastructure to be further developed," Seyed Hossein Mousavian, Mr. Rohani's spokesman at the time, argues in a recent memoir. "The heavy water reactor project in Arak came into operation and was not suspended at all."
Nor was that the only advantage of Mr. Rohani's strategy of making nice and playing for time, according to Mr. Mousavian.
"Tehran showed that it was possible to exploit the gap between Europe and the United States to achieve Iranian objectives." "The world's understanding of 'suspension' was changed from a legally binding obligation . . . to a voluntary and short-term undertaking aimed at confidence building." "The world gradually came close to believing that Iran's nuclear activities posed no security or military threat. . . . Public opinion in the West, which was totally against Tehran's nuclear program in September 2003, softened a good deal." "Efforts were made to attract global attention to the need for WMD disarmament by Israel."
And best of all: "Iran would be able to attain agreements for the transfer of advanced nuclear technology to Iran for medical, agricultural, power plant, and other applications, in a departure from the nuclear sanctions of the preceding 27 years."
Mr. Mousavian laments that much of this good work was undone by the nuclear hard line Iran took when the incendiary Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became president in 2005.
But that's true only up to a point. Iran made most of its key nuclear strides under Mr. Ahmadinejad, who also showed just how far Iran could test the West's patience without incurring regime-threatening penalties. Supply IEDs to Iraqi insurgents to kill American GIs? Check. Enrich uranium to near-bomb grade levels? Check. Steal an election and imprison the opposition? Check. Take Royal Marines and American backpackers hostage? Check. Fight to save Bashar Assad's regime in Syria? That, too. Even now, the diplomatic option remains a viable one as far as the Obama administration is concerned.
Now the West is supposed to be grateful that Mr. Ahmadinejad's scowling face will be replaced by Mr. Rohani's smiling one—a bad-cop, good-cop routine that Iran has played before. Western concessions will no doubt follow if Mr. Rohani can convince his boss, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, to play along. It shouldn't be a hard sell: Iran is now just a head-fake away from becoming a nuclear state and Mr. Khamenei has shown he's not averse to pragmatism when it suits him.
The capacity for self-deception is a coping mechanism in both life and diplomacy, but it comes at a price. As the West cheers the moderate and pragmatic and centrist Mr. Rohani, it will come to discover just how high a price it will pay.
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http://freebeacon.com/rowhani-may-have-helped-plan-1994-bombing/
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The Foreign Policy Impact of Iran's Presidential Election
Geopolitical Weekly
Tuesday, June 18, 2013 - 04:02 Print Text Size
Stratfor
By Michael Nayebi-Oskoui and Kamran Bokhari
Iranians went to the polls Friday to elect outgoing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's successor. Candidates reported few serious problems with the process, and the losers sent congratulations to the eventual winner, Hassan Rouhani.
Compared to the political instability that followed Ahmadinejad's 2009 re-election, this process was relatively boring. But however the news media felt about the election, Iran needs domestic stability if it is going to change its foreign policy in a very challenging geopolitical environment.
Domestic Stability
Domestic stability has been the first goal for any regime that would project power from Iran's central highlands. The Persian Empire first emerged only after a central power subjugated the various groups of Indo-Iranian, Turkic and Semitic peoples within its borders. The suppression of 2009's Green Movement is only a recent example of a strong state apparatus quelling internal dissent. For millennia, various Persian regimes have sought to keep such domestic pressures at bay while foreign powers have sought to exacerbate these tensions to distract Iran or make it vulnerable to invasion.
In today's Iran, structural economic stresses that have persisted under decades of sanctions are coming to a head while sectarian competition in the region has halted the expansion of Tehran's regional influence. The clerical regime that currently rules the Iranian mountain fortress understands the threats from beyond its borders, but like its predecessors, it must make peace at home before it can address external challenges.
Much of the Western, and especially U.S., coverage of the Iranian elections centered on Rouhani, a figure known to many in the West. He took part in the Islamic Revolution and had ties to Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic republic. He also has ties to Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Iran's second clerical president, and is a representative of the current supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, on the Supreme National Security Council. Rouhani served as secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council for 16 years. As an extension of this position, he was Iran's chief nuclear negotiator from 2003 to 2005. It was during this period when Rouhani's foreign policy credentials became best known in the United States and Europe. It was also during this period when Western and Iranian nuclear negotiators came closest to reaching a deal.
Paradoxically, Rouhani combines conservative and reformist tendencies. As a cleric, he does not seek fundamental changes in Iran's power structure of the sort Ahmadinejad sought, but he also advocates cooperation with, and outreach to, other branches of Iran's power structure such as the military and civilian politicians. While defending Iran's nuclear program and regional agenda, he understands that simply issuing ultimatums to the West and escalating tensions rather than striking compromises will not win relief from sanctions. In this regard, he resembles the reformist former President Mohammed Khatami, under whom Rouhani served as chief nuclear negotiator. Rouhani can be expected to adopt a less incendiary tone in foreign policy than Ahmadinejad and to cooperate with other domestic power centers, like those of the supreme leader and the military and security forces.
Iran's domestic woes give it an incentive to pursue the kind of pragmatic engagement and dialogue with the West Rouhani was known for, especially on issues such as Iran's nuclear program and Tehran's interests in the Levant, Iraq and Afghanistan. This means Friday's election represents a relative success for the Islamic republic, though it denied the West's desire for a disruptive election that would see Iran's clerical regime fall.
Ahead of any meaningful traction on its foreign policy agenda, the Iranian government had to re-engage its electorate, something it has accomplished with this election. Tellingly, aside from current nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, seven of the eight candidates approved to run in this election campaigned on moderate or even reformist platforms, in stark contrast to the nationalist rhetoric of the firebrand Ahmadinejad.
Although largely unaffected by the regional unrest in 2011, the clerical regime needed to demonstrate both to its citizens and foreign capitals that the Iranian people could still bring about change at the ballot box, not just through the streets. Given the choice, the Iranian people chose pragmatism in relatively free and fair elections.
Though the Islamic republic cannot be changed overnight -- long-term structural changes are needed to revive the Iranian economy -- Rouhani's campaign and election have provided a relatively immediate, low-cost way to lessen some of the domestic pressures on the regime. Large-scale demonstrations in support of the president-elect following the announcement of his victory took place in Tehran and throughout many of Iran's urban centers, without the involvement of state security forces. For now at least, this suggests Iran's large and increasingly frustrated electorate seems to have been appeased.
While it is, of course, too early to know how his presidency will play out, the Rouhani administration at the very least will not begin its tenure plagued with doubts regarding its legitimacy of the sort that greeted Ahmadinejad's second term. Also unlike Ahmadinejad, the president-elect has the opportunity to bridge deep divisions within the clerical elite. With clerical authority and the supreme leader no longer under attack from the presidency, and with convincing electoral support behind him, Rouhani has already overcome the largest hurdles to amending Iranian policy at home and abroad.
Foreign Policy Shifts
It is in this framework that the West hopes to eventually re-engage Rouhani and Iran. Fiery rhetoric aside, Ahmadinejad also sought a strategic dialogue with the West, especially as his competition with the supreme leader prompted him to seek foreign policy wins. But the infighting that resulted from Ahmadinejad's attempts to undermine the pro-clerical structure of the republic impeded any progress in this arena.
If Rouhani can get the clerics behind him and accommodate the interests of Iran's military and security forces and the broader electorate, his chances of reaching a dialogue or negotiated settlement with the West will be much improved.
Guiding much of this will not be just the change in personalities but Iran's shifting geopolitical environment. Since it is no longer on the regional offensive, Tehran's previous defiant rejection of American interests is now incompatible with long-term Iranian goals in the region.
There is still much work to be done at home before Iran can switch gears, and Iran's president-elect still faces considerable challenges to enacting any major shifts in policy. Rouhani must still convince many of the stakeholders within the regime that he can be trusted. He must protect the economic interests of the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps while building a relationship with Iran's larger and often overlooked regular army. He must also manage his relationships with Rafsanjani, his most influential political backer, and with the supreme leader. Rafsanjani and Khamenei are competitors, and although the approval and eventual success of Rouhani's candidacy may hint at a broader clerical rapprochement, the supreme leader will not take kindly to attempts by Rafsanjani to rule through Rouhani. Rafsanjani, however, is unlikely to stop trying to capitalize on the successes of his protege.
Against a backdrop of domestic political reconfiguration, gradual diplomatic outreach to and from Iran can be expected. Parliamentary elections in 2015 will provide greater insight into how much change Rouhani can attempt, and it is along this timeline we should expect to see Iran seriously re-engage in negotiations with the West. In the meantime, little substantive change will occur beyond more careful rhetoric regarding both Iran's nuclear program and Tehran's support for the embattled Syrian regime. While challenges to both Iran's domestic policy realignment and outreach to the United States thus remain, Western and regional hopes for such change endure.
Read more: The Foreign Policy Impact of Iran's Presidential Election | Stratfor
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By AVI JORISCH
The United States and Europe are failing to use a tool already in their possession that would deliver a knockout blow to Iran's nuclear program. It isn't a new piece of computer malware or a bomb. The group that would accomplish the mission isn't the Pentagon or the European Union—it's the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or Swift.
From its headquarters in La Hulpe, Belgium, near Brussels, Swift facilitates about a million global financial transactions per day by serving as an interbank messaging system for crediting and debiting accounts. Iranian financial institutions, like nearly every bank in the world, are reliant on Swift to move funds globally.
The EU has blacklisted 14 of Iran's 30 banks for facilitating illicit activity, including terrorism. The U.S. has designated the 14 banks named by the EU as well as another six Iranian banks for supporting Iran's nuclear program and sponsorship of terrorism. Critically, the U.S. has also blacklisted all 30 Iranian banks for deficiencies present in the anti-money-laundering systems of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Swift, however, has barred only the 14 banks blacklisted by the EU, leaving the other Iranian banks free to work within the global financial system. This is a clear violation of Swift's own corporate rules, which state that services "should not be used to facilitate illegal activities." Moreover, given Swift's large physical presence in New York and its business dealings in the U.S., there are strong legal grounds to argue that it is subject to U.S. law, which would mean it is violating that as well.
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Iranian rial banknotes
U.S. banking regulators and Treasury officials have an obligation to make Swift stop its dealings with Iranian banks or cease business operations in the United States. If Swift continues to service banks that the U.S. Treasury has designated as engaged in "specified unlawful activities," the U.S. government can take immediate legal action—under the Patriot Act of 2001 and the Laundering Control Act of 1986—and freeze its U.S.-based assets.
In Europe, Swift is adhering to the letter of the law by cutting off service to the 14 Iranian financial institutions on the EU blacklist. But the impact is blunted because those Iranian banks not on the list retain access to the Swift network and provide their blacklisted counterparts entree to the international financial system through correspondent services. The symbiotic relationship of the Iranian government and its banking sector enables the regime to maintain access to foreign currencies and markets by exploiting the banks that continue to use Swift.
Swift has maintained that it is a "neutral global financial communication network." But by any reasonable standard, Iran has forfeited its right to move money through the international financial system. It has done so by forcing its banks to sponsor terrorism, support Tehran's dangerous nuclear objectives, and facilitate criminal activity.
In February, Swift CEO Gottfried Leibbrandt said that if Swift completely stopped servicing Iranian banks, the Islamic Republic would be forced to reconcile its fund transfers using email or telephone, and that such alternatives are "not as secure as Swift and [lack] the convenience factor." In laymen's terms, Iran would effectively be shut out of the formal banking sector.
To make the existing sanctions more effective, European lawmakers should urge the European Central Bank to issue a banking advisory, as the U.S. did in 2008 and 2010, highlighting the fact that all Iranian banks are engaging in money laundering and other illicit behavior. This should provide Swift with the necessary justification for cutting off business with all 30 Iranian banks, not just those on the EU blacklist.
The Islamic Republic uses banks to support its quest for nuclear weapons, a quest that international sanctions are designed to foil. For this reason, the European Central Bank and U.S. Treasury should demand that Swift cease doing business with the Iranian-owned and operated banks and take action to ensure its compliance. Their failure to make this demand enables Iran to flout the will of the international community and thumb its nose at the sanctions so lengthily and laboriously negotiated.
Mr. Jorisch, a former Treasury Department official, is senior fellow for counterterrorism at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, D.C.
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http://www.wnd.com/2013/06/iran-syrian-crisis-prelude-to-coming-of-mahdi/
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WASHINGTON — Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq told the Obama administration this month that Iran was interested in direct talks with the United States on Iran’s nuclear program, and said that Iraq was prepared to facilitate the negotiations, Western officials said Thursday.
In a meeting in early July with the American ambassador in Baghdad, Mr. Maliki suggested that he was relaying a message from Iranian officials and asserted that Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s incoming president, would be serious about any discussions with the United States, according to accounts of the meeting.
Although Mr. Maliki indicated that he had been in touch with confidants of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, he did not disclose precisely whom he was dealing with on the Iranian side. Some Western officials remain uncertain whether Iran’s leaders have sought to use Iraq as a conduit or whether the idea is mainly Mr. Maliki’s initiative.
State Department officials declined to comment on Mr. Maliki’s move or what steps the United States might have taken in response. American officials have said since the beginning of the Obama administration that they would be open to direct talks with Iran.
“Iraq is a partner of the United States and we are in regular conversations with Iraqi officials about a full range of issues of mutual interest, including Iran,” said Patrick Ventrell, a State Department spokesman. “As we have repeatedly said, we are open to direct talks with Iran in order to resolve the international community’s concerns about Iran’s nuclear program.”
Gary Samore, who served as the senior aide on nonproliferation issues at the National Security Council during President Obama’s first term in office, said that it was plausible that Iran would use Iraq to send a message about its willingness to discuss nuclear issues.
“The Iranians see Maliki as somebody they have some trust in,” said Mr. Samore, who is the director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard. “From Maliki’s standpoint, it would serve a number of different purposes. He does not want to be squeezed between Washington and Tehran.”
In a separate move on Thursday, the State and Treasury Departments announced that the United States was expanding the list of medical devices, like dialysis machines, that could be sold to Iran without a license.
In a conference call with reporters, David Cohen, the under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said that the move was intended to “accelerate trade” and address humanitarian needs in Iran. The announcement was also seen by many observers as a good-will gesture before Mr. Rouhani prepares to take office in Tehran on Aug. 4.
Direct talks have the potential to ratchet down some of the pressure on President Obama over one of his greatest foreign policy challenges, the buildup of Iran’s nuclear program.
Mr. Obama has said that he will not permit Iran to have a nuclear weapon and has asserted that the use of military force is an option. Israeli officials have staked out a far tougher position, asserting that Iran should not be allowed to have the ability to build a weapon — and that the United States should do more to convince the Iranians that its threat to use force is credible. Israel has not ruled out military action of its own.
International sanctions have taken a serious toll on the Iranian economy and have helped bring Iran to the negotiating table, but have not yet extracted significant concessions from Iran on its nuclear program. For years, the United States and its partners — Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China — have met on and off with Iranian officials in a dialogue that has become known as the “P5 plus 1” talks.
Nonproliferation experts continue to argue that it is difficult to make major headway in such a committeelike forum, and that if progress is to be made, it will have to happen in private one-on-one discussions between Iranian officials and the Obama administration.
Whether Iran is genuinely interested in such talks, however, has been a subject of debate. In 2009, William J. Burns, then the under secretary of state for political affairs, met with Saeed Jalili, the Iranian nuclear negotiator, on the margins of the “P5 plus 1” talks. They agreed in principle that a portion of Iran’s enriched uranium could be used to make fuel for Tehran’s research center, which would preclude that material from being further enriched to make nuclear weapons.
But that deal fell through after Ayatollah Khamenei objected, and there have been no direct talks since. In a meeting this month with Iran’s departing president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Ayatollah Khamenei was sharply critical of the American stance.
“The Americans are unreliable and illogical, and are not honest in their approach,” Ayatollah Khamenei said. But he also said that he did not oppose talks “on certain issues.”
Even if direct talks are agreed to they are almost certain to be tough.
“The establishment of a bilateral channel is a necessary but not sufficient condition for coming to an agreement,” Mr. Samore said. “They want a nuclear weapons capability, and we want to deny them a nuclear weapons capability. Finding a compromise between those two objectives is going to be very difficult.”
Mr. Maliki, Western officials said, is not the only Iraqi politician who has encouraged a dialogue between the United States and Iran. Ammar al-Hakim, the leader of a major Shiite party in Iraq, is also said to have made that point.
During the war in Iraq, Iraqi officials also urged direct dealings between the United States and Iran.
Talks were held in Baghdad, but they were focused on the conflict in Iraq and Iran’s support for Shiite militias there — not the nuclear question — and got nowhere.
Mr. Maliki’s government appears to have been aligned with Iran on some issues, like its support for President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. Iranian aircraft have ferried huge quantities of arms through Iraqi airspace. Iraqi officials have asserted that they do not have the means to stop the flights, but Mr. Maliki has also been concerned that Mr. Assad’s fall will lead to an escalation of Sunni challenges to his government in Iraq.
American officials have repeatedly said that Mr. Maliki is not a pawn of Iran and that the United States should try to expand its influence in Iraq, including by selling arms.
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Pravda on the Hudson
TEHRAN — Bogged down in faltering nuclear talks with the European powers nearly 10 years ago, Hassan Rouhani did something that no Iranian diplomat before or since has managed to do.
He took out his cellphone, say Western diplomats who were there, dialed up his longtime friend and associate, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and convinced him that Iran needed to suspend nuclear enrichment. The call by Mr. Rouhani, who was elected president in June and will take office next week, resulted in an agreement in October 2003, the only nuclear deal between Iran and the West in the past 11 years.
“Rouhani showed that he is a central player in Iran’s political establishment,” said Stanislas de Laboulaye, a retired director general of the French Foreign Ministry, who was a member of the European delegation during the talks between 2003 and 2005. “He was the only one able to sell something deeply unpopular to the other leaders.”
There is growing optimism in Iran and in the West that Mr. Rouhani, 64, is ready to restart serious talks on the nuclear issue; Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq told the United States this month that Mr. Rouhani was ready to start direct talks, and the Obama administration has indicated a willingness to engage in head-to-head dialogue after years of inclusive multiparty negotiations.
In his campaign for president and again in recent weeks, Mr. Rouhani has made it clear that he is deeply concerned about his country’s growing economic troubles and is determined to soften the harsh tone and intransigent tactics of his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which have stalled nuclear negotiations and cut off relations with most of the developed world. But the question, as always in Iran, is the extent to which a President Rouhani can accomplish these goals.
“It is clear that numerous challenges await him,” said Mirza Agha Motaharinejad, a communications professor who campaigned for Mr. Rouhani in his home province of Semnan. “His political survival starts with who he will pick as cabinet members. The more representatives from different factions, the more support he will have.”
Mr. Rouhani rarely gives one-on-one interviews to reporters.Any Iranian president has to answer to the supreme leader. But that is not the only limitation on his power in the treacherous and complex politics of the Islamic republic. The rise and precipitous fall of Mr. Ahmadinejad stands as a warning of the fleeting nature of a president’s power in Iran.
Mr. Ahmadinejad came to power and was re-elected — fraudulently, most observers said — as the candidate of the traditionalist faction of ultraconservative clerics and Revolutionary Guards commanders. For years he rode high, taking particular pleasure in sticking the West in the eye, denying the Holocaust and challenging Israel. But by the end of his tenure he was locked in bitter infighting with his former patrons and widely unpopular with the public, which blamed him for the country’s economic woes.
Mr. Rouhani was defeated by the traditionalists after the nuclear deal fell apart in 2005 and left, politically speaking, for dead. He was a “sellout” in his critics’ eyes who had committed the unpardonable sin of showing weakness — though his supporters would call it reasonableness — in the negotiations with the Europeans.
In one of the most startling turnarounds in the history of the Islamic republic, he has managed to resurrect his career from that low point, drawing on connections that trace back to the earliest days of the clerical resistance to the shah. If he is to realize his ambitions of redirecting the country to the moderate course he has laid out — stressing greater individual rights, a relaxation of tensions with the West and the repair of Iran’s flagging economy — he will have to contend with precisely those forces that defeated him and Mr. Ahmadinejad.
Mr. Rouhani was born Hassan Fereydoon during the reign of the pro-Western shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, into a family of bazaar businessmen and clerics in a small desert town. A precocious boy, he was only 13 when he began studies at a seminary in the theological center of Qum, where he would befriend many of the men who would later become central figures in the Islamic republic.
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“From an early age I would overhear my father telling family members that I would become a cleric,” Mr. Rouhani writes in his memoir, one of six books he has published. “It was my destiny.”
Qum was a hotbed of resistance against the shah, and young Hassan fit right in. “We, the students, were ready to be killed, imprisoned or tortured,” Mr. Rouhani wrote in that same memoir, of the 1963 arrest of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who would later lead the 1979 Islamic Revolution. “We had sticks in our room, and when we heard a car pull up in our alley we were sure we would be arrested.” He was all of 14 at the time.
He later studied law at Tehran University and performed his compulsory military service in Mashhad, where he struck up a friendship with Mr. Khamenei.
In 1978 Mr. Rouhani moved to Britain, taught Islamic jurisprudence at Lancaster University and was set to attend Harvard as a graduate student when the revolution broke out. Instead of Cambridge, Mass., he headed off to Paris to join the exiled Ayatollah Khomeini.
Long known as fiercely intelligent, he became renowned after the revolution for his ability to navigate a system dominated by ideologues, building consensus among many opposing forces. Those close to him describe Mr. Rouhani as the golden boy of the Islamic republic’s close-knit group of leaders and a deal maker who has had a direct hand in most of Iran’s major foreign policy decisions over the past three decades.
He was one of three Iranian officials to meet with the former national security adviser Robert McFarlane when he secretly visited Tehran in 1986 to arrange the arms-for-hostages deal that would later erupt into the Iran-contra scandal. But they caution that he is, above all, a Shiite Muslim cleric who has dedicated his life to the Islamic Revolution, which he will never betray.
“Our opponents are wrong to expect compromises from Rouhani; the sanctions and other pressures will not make us change our stances,” said one of his former closest associates during an interview in Tehran. He requested anonymity because Mr. Rouhani has asked that no one speak in his name. “Rouhani is interested in a dialogue, not a monologue, with the West. He is prepared to reach common ground, but only if the other side is ready to reach common ground.”
In his books on foreign policy, Mr. Rouhani writes that modernity has failed, and that Christians in the West gave in to secularism without a fight. According to him, the United States and the Islamic republic are in permanent conflict. Israel, he writes, is the “axis of all anti-Iranian activities.” Yet he also raises issues like Iran’s massive brain drain and high unemployment figures in a book on the economy, and proposes membership in the World Trade Organization. “We need to keep a good relation with the people; only with them we can continue to resist and confront the U.S.A.,” he wrote in one of his two books on “foreign policy and Islamic thought.”
Nevertheless, diplomats who have faced him in negotiations praised his skills and flexibility. “He is perfectly placed in Iran’s system of power,” said Paul von Maltzahn, a former German ambassador to Iran who met Mr. Rouhani several times. “He is not easily manipulated and assertive.”
The last time they met was during a private visit by the former German foreign minister, Joschka Fischer. Mr. von Maltzahn recalled: “We all had dinner. Mr. Rouhani spoke about Glasgow, where he had studied in the 1990s. He cracked jokes. He’s straightforward, no double dealer.”
During his 16 years as the secretary of Iran’s most important decision organ, the National Security Council, Mr. Rouhani prevented hard-liners from forming an alliance with Saddam Hussein after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, his associates said. Instead, Iran remained neutral. He directed Iran’s unexpectedly respectful reaction to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and he was instrumental in helping the United States coordinate with opposition forces in Afghanistan and Iraq when the United States invaded those countries.
It was his toughest negotiation — the one that led to the 2003 agreement — that led to his public fall from grace. Is he willing to try again? Analysts say he might well be. “He is a proactive soldier of this system since his youth,” said Nader Karimi Joni, a columnist for reformist papers. “It’s his brainchild, and he feels responsible. Any solutions he will come up with will be within the limits of the system of the Islamic republic.”
Some European diplomats say they fear that Mr. Rouhani was too optimistic in 2003, perhaps getting ahead of most of the leadership. “After a while we started to worry whether he or his team had fully briefed the other leaders,” said one European negotiator, who requested anonymity, not wanting to hurt the chances of success for any coming talks.
But Mr. Rouhani’s associate, who has full knowledge of the talks, disagreed. “Our mistake was that we gave the Europeans too much credit, but they were on the phone with the Americans all the time,” he said. “What matters now is that with Mr. Rouhani’s election a new window of opportunity has opened up for the West. I suggest they seize the moment.”
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U.S., Iran: Why They Will Now Likely Negotiate
Analysis
August 2, 2013 | 0530 Print Text Size
Iranian President-elect Hasan Rouhani in Tehran on June 17. (BEHROUZ MEHRI/AFP/Getty Images)
Summary
Diplomatic relations between Tehran and Washington will improve after Iran's new president assumes office Aug. 4, ending months of speculation over whether Iran and Washington will find accommodation in their nuclear standoff. In fact, in recent weeks both sides have expressed interest in resuming bilateral nuclear talks. Those talks never took place simply because Iran never had to participate in them. Its economy was in decent shape despite the sanctions, its regional geopolitical position had been secure and its domestic political environment was in disarray.
But now things are different. Tehran is devoting an unsustainable amount of resources to Syrian President Bashar al Assad in his fight against the Syrian rebellion. And while economic sanctions have not yet forced Iran to the negotiating table, Iranian leaders will likely choose to engage the United States voluntarily to forestall further economic decline. The inauguration of President-elect Hassan Rouhani provides an ideal opportunity for them to do so.
Analysis
Iran severed diplomatic ties with the United States in 1979 and has been opposed to restoring them. For its part, the United States has offered to normalize relations on several occasions, but Iran has rebuffed all such offers. According to Tehran, Washington must first change its attitude toward Iran, a diplomatic way of saying the United States must accept the country as it is.
But several other factors have informed Iran's obstinacy. Since the mid-1990s, Iran has been politically incoherent. Over the past 16 years, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been at odds with Rouhani's two predecessors. He distrusted Mohammad Khatami's reformism, and he went through an outright power struggle with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. During this time, Iran was thus unable or unwilling to negotiate substantively with the West. In any case, its relative economic vitality meant that Iran never had to engage the United States directly, opting for back-channel negotiations instead.
However, after 9/11, the United States became much more active in the Middle East, an encroachment that Iran saw as both an opportunity and a threat. In a major display of bilateral cooperation, Tehran helped the administration of George W. Bush topple the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
The two sides began to deal with each other more substantively when the United States decided to oust Saddam Hussein. Washington had aligned itself with Iraqi Shia Islamist groups and Kurds to overthrow the Sunni Baathist regime. Washington's collaborators were closely tied to Tehran, and thus began a paradoxical relationship in which Iran and the United States worked with one another even as they each vied for influence in Iraq.
Their struggle over Iraq began around the same time the controversy over Iran's nuclear program began. While the two sides bargained over the future of Iraq furtively (with the exception of the three-way talks among Baghdad, Washington and Tehran), they negotiated Iran's nuclear program publicly yet indirectly. For the first few years, the diplomatic process was routed through the EU-3, which comprised the United Kingdom, France and Germany. Since 2006, the United States has been part of a broader process under the aegis of the P-5+1 group, which included the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany. Under the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama, Washington has sought Iranian input into its multilateral efforts to bring an end to the war in Afghanistan.
Notably, the Bush and Obama administrations offered to normalize relations with Iran, but Tehran rejected them for two reasons. First, Iranian leaders believed that normalizing relations with Washington would make it easier for the United States to subvert the regime. Second, no one in Tehran could agree on how to manage relations with Washington.
A High Price
What they could agree on was that they would not normalize relations with the United States as Libya had in 2003, when it scrapped its weapons of mass destruction program and in essence acquiesced to Western policies toward the region. Tehran's political leaders may differ ideologically, but they all see Iran as a regional and international player, and they do not want to sacrifice their geopolitical ambitions for saving face in the international community. More important, acquiring a nuclear weapons capability is seen as a deterrent against any efforts at regime change and as a means for achieving Iran's geopolitical imperatives.
However, acrimony surrounds Tehran's various power brokers. Disagreements are pronounced between those who consider themselves conservatives and those considered reformists on the issue of how to achieve Iran's imperatives, especially as economic sanctions have degraded the country's economy. Political discord in Iran is aggravated by the structure of the regime, a hybrid political system whereby power is dispersed among clerics, a popularly elected political class and a security establishment dominated by an elite ideological force.
Though the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has gained a tremendous amount of influence over the decades, its role in politics is still indirect, waged primarily through clerics and its veterans who enter politics. At its core, the struggle for power has been between the supreme leader, who presides over a vast clerical establishment, and a popularly elected president, who is the chief executive of the state.
Indeed, since the 1989 death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who founded the Islamic republic, there has been growing friction between the supreme leader and the president. Former President Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who left office in 1997, handled tensions effectively because he, like current Supreme Leader Khamenei, is a conservative and was a top associate of Khomeini.
Problems began when reformist cleric Mohammad Khatami assumed the presidency. He was elected by a wide margin twice, but his worldview clashed with the conservatives, who dominated the clerical and security institutions. It was during his second term that the United States and Iran were forced into dealing with each other in the early 2000s. Fearful that the Khatami government was too conciliatory toward Washington, the conservatives set out to wrest control over the presidency and parliament.
The conservatives believed they were better suited to manage relations with the United States. Accordingly, the Guardian Council, which oversees elections and the legislative process, disqualified thousands of reformist candidates (many of whom were incumbent lawmakers), giving the conservatives an easy victory in the 2004 elections. The following year, Ahmadinejad was elected president.
This conservative resurgence did not create the political harmony the clerics thought it would. On the contrary, it made matters worse. Ahmadinejad's ascension to the presidency divided the conservatives. He proved to be the most ambitious president in the history of the Islamic republic as he began to openly defy the clerical establishment. He even sought to weaken the clerics and enhance his own power.
He adopted a hawkish foreign policy, defying Washington on Iran's nuclear program and occasionally deprecating Israel. Naturally, his actions worsened tensions with the United States, which eventually tightened economic sanctions on Iran. What gains Khamenei made in installing a like-minded conservative president who could connect to the masses came at a high price: economic decline and infighting within the ruling conservative camp.
In his first term, Ahmadinejad avoided clashing with the supreme leader. But that changed in his second term. He defied Khamenei even on foreign policy matters. Caught between opposition from the clerical establishment and worsening economic conditions, Ahmadinejad sought to negotiate with the United States to ease the pain of the sanctions. He even agreed to swap low-enriched uranium for high-enriched uranium in late 2009. The move was overruled by Khamenei, which demonstrated that a conservative presidency does not translate to political harmony.
In the last two years of the Ahmadinejad administration, Iran was struck by two calamities: the Arab Spring and oil export sanctions. The Arab Spring undermined the position of Iran's core Arab ally, Syria, and by extension its position in the region. The sanctions deprived Iran of money from its main source of revenue.
In 2012, Tehran saw its revenues decline by 40 percent, causing the value of the rial to plummet by more than 70 percent. In July, the United States announced additional sanctions against the rial meant to make the currency unusable outside Iran. Between December 2011 and December 2012, Iranian reserves fell from about $110 billion to slightly under $70 billion. Under these conditions, Tehran cannot hope to maintain political stability for too long, much less pursue an ambitious foreign policy. Thus, Iran needed to strike a compromise that would ease sanctions without scrapping the nuclear program entirely. However, the infighting between Khamenei and Ahmadinejad prevented them from reaching a consensus.
A Major Development
Fortunately for Khamenei and Ahmadinejad's opponents, the president was on his way out when the international situation worsened. Khamenei began preparing for the presidential election. He preferred a moderate with experience in diplomacy and economic management but who would not threaten his authority. His first choice was former Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati, who became the supreme leader's chief international affairs adviser after leaving the Foreign Ministry.
Velayati possessed all the desired qualifications, but as a technocrat who had never run for office, he was unelectable. Rouhani is seen as a leader who could redress Iran's many problems, which necessarily requires negotiating with the United States. He is a pragmatic conservative with decades of experience in key government positions, most notably serving as the national security chief for more than 20 years. The various power brokers trust that he will conduct diplomacy tactically and responsibly. Furthermore, Khamenei feels secure that Rouhani's agenda of domestic reform will not undermine the clerical system.
Under the incoming Rouhani administration, Tehran's political establishment is likely to see an end to the infighting of the past two decades. Coupled with a dire economic situation, political coherence will likely lead to substantive U.S.-Iranian negotiations. Iran's decision to negotiate does not mean that an accommodation is imminent, but it is nonetheless a major development.
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http://nypost.com/2013/09/16/obamas-new-red-line-iran/
WASHINGTON — Here we go again.
President Obama drew another “red line” Sunday, now on Iranian nukes — and insisted that this time, he really means it, despite infamously wavering on his red-line pledge about Syria using chemical weapons.
“My suspicion is that the Iranians recognize they shouldn’t draw a lesson that we haven’t struck [Syria] to think we won’t strike Iran,” Obama said in an interview aired on ABC’s “This Week.”
Obama stressed that he wouldn’t just talk tough but act tough when it comes to nuclear weapons.
“I think what the Iranians understand is that the nuclear issue is a far larger issue for us than the chemical-weapons issue, that the threat against Israel, that a nuclear Iran poses, is much closer to our core interests,” he said.
Obama said his threat of military action had spurred the Russian-brokered deal that would have Syria give up its chemical weapons.
“My view is that if you have both a credible threat of force, combined with a rigorous diplomatic effort, that, in fact, you can you can strike a deal,” Obama said.
Syria has yet to agree to a deal that would require President Bashar al-Assad’s regime to identify all its chemical-weapons stockpiles by the end of this week and begin handing them over.
One of Obama’s former top advisers said Iran might respond to a strike on Syria with a terrorist or cyberattack on the US.
“If there were to be a cyber-response to a US attack on Syria, I would expect it to come from Iran, not Syria,” said Mike Morell, the CIA’s former deputy director.
Obama had vacillated about how to intervene since an alleged sarin gas attack killed more than 1,000 civilians — including about 400 children — near Damascus on Aug. 21.
The president was urging Congress to pull the trigger on a military strike.
Then, with lawmakers on the verge of rejecting military action, Obama turned to a last-minute Russian offer for a diplomatic solution.
Obama boasted that his willingness to shift positions and create foreign policy on the fly demonstrates that he is “less concerned about style points” and “more concerned about getting the policy right.”
“What I’ve said consistently throughout is that the chemical-weapons issue is a problem,” Obama said.
“I want that problem dealt with. And, as a consequence of the steps that we’ve taken over the last two weeks to three weeks, we now have a situation in which Syria has acknowledged it has chemical weapons, has said it’s willing to join the convention on chemical weapons, and Russia, its primary sponsor, has said that it will pressure Syria to reach that agreement.
“That’s my goal. And if that goal is achieved, then it sounds to me like we did something right.”
Obama said critics must move beyond the Cold War rhetoric.
“I know that sometimes this gets framed or looked at through the lens of the US versus Russia,” he said.
Meanwhile, Iran’s Fars news agency reported Sunday that Russian President Vladimir Putin has accepted Tehran’ s invitation to visit and help work out a strategy on its nuclear program.
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Terrific: Putin off to Iran to help get the West off their backs, too
Published by: Herman Cain
Checkmate.
How thoroughly did Vladimir Putin clean Barack Obama's clock on this whole Syria thing? You know it's bad when he starts hearing from other bad actors wanting him to come and and do the same thing for them. And as you might imagine, it didn't take long for the Iranians to come calling.
The Times of Israel has more:
The Russian leader affirmed that “Iran, as any other state, has the right for peaceful use of atomic energy, including enrichment.”
Rouhani, in turn, called for new steps toward resolving his country’s longstanding nuclear standoff with the West. The US and its allies believe that Iran is striving for a nuclear weapons capability while Tehran insists that its nuclear program is peaceful in nature.
“Regarding the Iranian nuclear issue, we want the swiftest solution to it within international norms,” Rouhani told Putin, according to Reuters. “Russia in the past has taken important steps in this sphere and now is the best opportunity for new steps from your side.”
So now we're not only going to let Assad off the hook on his chemical weapons, but Putin's ready to run interference for the Iranians in their quest for nuclear weapons.
You know what the Islamic world respects? Not human rights. Not good intentions. They respect power, period. That and the willingness to use it, ruthlessly if necessary. And given the resolution of the Syria debacle, it's pretty clear which world leader has the upper hand at the moment. The U.S. has long demonstrated it has little interest in taking real action against Iran and its nuclear program. How are supposed to stop them now when the same guy who is asserting their right to have it is the one Obama needs to bail him out of his foreign policy blunders?
The Russians are pretty good chess players. Putin just schooled Obama on how to turn a stalemate quickly into checkmate. It's no wonder the worst regimes in the world want him on their side.
Too bad the good guys don't have a strong, decisive leader.
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Judge Finds Manhattan Skyscraper Owned by Iranian Front
by IPT News • Sep 17, 2013 at 10:52 am
http://www.investigativeproject.org/4163/judge-finds-manhattan-skyscraper-owned-by-iranian
The United States government may be about to take possession of a Manhattan skyscraper worth more than $500 million after a federal judge found its owners knowingly served as fronts for the Iranian government.
The order granting what prosecutors describe as "the largest real property forfeiture" came after five years of litigation, the New York Daily News reports. If the order is upheld in an anticipated appeal, the government could sell the property and give some of the proceeds to victims of terrorist attacks, including the 1983 Beirut Marine barracks bombing and the 9/11 attacks.
The Alavi Foundation owns 60 percent of the 36-story 650 Fifth Ave. building in midtown Manhattan. The rest is held by the U.K.-based Assa Company, Limited. But U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest ruled that there is "uncontroverted record evidence, [proving] Assa was (and is) a front for Bank Melli, and thus a front for the Government of Iran" to shield its U.S.-based assets.
The U.S Treasury Department designated Bank Melli in 2007 as part of a package of economic sanctions aimed at slowing Iran's nuclear weapons program. Bank Melli, Treasury wrote at the time, "has facilitated the purchase of sensitive materials utilized by Iran's nuclear and missile industry…"
Attorneys for the Alavi Foundation argued that it is not clear that their clients knew about Assa's control by the Iranian government. Forrest dismissed that theory as "implausible" given the established connections among the owners. "No rational juror could believe in such extraordinary amnesia; many of the same Alavi board members who were indisputably involved in the creation of Assa as a front for Bank Melli in 1989 remained with, or returned to positions with, Alavi after the [orders prohibiting business dealings with Iran] were instituted in 1995."
Victims of Iranian-sponsored terrorist attacks have secured billions of dollars in civil judgments against the Islamic Republic for financing and providing other assistance to the killers. Little of those damages have been collected, however, as victims often find themselves fighting the U.S. government in their attempts to seize Iranian assets in the United States. It is unclear whether the government's success in New York could pry open the gates for those victims to complete their quest for justice.
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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/sep/19/us-pilot-scares-iranians-top-gun-worthy-stunt-you-/
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Here we go again. More delay. I don't know what we need to negotiate. Isn't our position iron clad by NOW? I do agree with Lindsay Graham for the first time in years for his proposal we give Obama leeway on attacking Iran. But I am Jewish. I don't think most Americans would. Back to this nonsense:
*****Sep 22, 12:22 PM EDT
Iran's president reaches West before heading to UN
By NASSER KARIMI and BRIAN MURPHY
Associated Press
Iran's president reaches West before heading to UN
US denies visiting allegedly missing Iranians
Iran's top leader opens way for Rouhani outreach
Iran: Jewish lawmaker heads to UN with president
Iran releases human rights lawyer, other prisoners
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- On the eve of a landmark trip to attend the U.N. General Assembly, Iran's president offered Sunday his most expansive vision that a deal to settle the impasse over Tehran's nuclear program could open doors for greater cooperation on regional flash points such as the Syrian civil war.
The linkage of Middle East affairs and broad-stroke rhetoric by Hasan Rouhani served as something of a final sales pitch to President Barack Obama ahead of the U.N. gathering, where Rouhani hopes to garner pledges from Western envoys to restart stalled nuclear negotiations as a way to ease painful economic sanctions.
Rouhani also must try to sell his policies of outreach to skeptical Iranian hard-liners, including the powerful Revolutionary Guard. Failure to return from New York with some progress - either pledges to revive nuclear talks or hints that the U.S. and its allies may consider relaxing sanctions - could increase pressures on Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to withdraw his apparent backing for Rouhani's overtures with Washington.
It adds up to a high-stakes week ahead for Rouhani in his first gathering with Western leaders since his inauguration last month.
While his effort to open new diplomatic space is genuine, it's still unclear where it could find footholds. Obama has exchanged letters with Rouhani and says he would welcome groundbreaking direct talks after a nearly 35-year diplomatic estrangement. But Washington previously has rejected offering a significant rollback in sanctions - Rouhani's main goal - as a way to push ahead nuclear talks.
Rouhani and Obama are scheduled to speak within hours of each other Tuesday at the General Assembly's annual meeting, setting up the possibility of the first face-to-face exchange between American and Iranian leaders since shortly after Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution.
"The Iranian nation is ready to talk and negotiate with the West, provided that there are no preconditions, the talks are on equal terms and there is mutual respect. (The West) should not consider only its own interests. Mutual interests should be considered," Rouhani said at a military parade for the 33rd anniversary of Iraq's 1980 invasion of Iran, which set off a ruinous eight-year war. The speech was carried live by state TV.
He added that if Western countries acknowledge Iran's "rights" - a reference that includes the contentious issue of uranium enrichment - it would be a path toward mutual "cooperation, logic, peace and friendship."
"Then we will be able to resolve regional, even global, problems," Rouhani said.
Iran and the United States are at odds over the civil war in Syria. Tehran backs President Bashar Assad, while Washington supports rebels trying to oust him. Iran also is the patron for anti-Israel forces led by Lebanon's Hezbollah.
Still, Iran has faced a potential quandary over Western claims that Assad's forces used chemical weapons in an attack last month. Iran has strongly opposed chemical arms since suffering attacks with mustard gas and other agents by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's military in the 1980s.
Rouhani has worked hard to recast Iran's international image after eight years under his combative predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But the new Iranian leader has not strayed from Tehran's unshakable position: Its right to conduct nuclear activities that the West fears could be a step toward weapons development, especially uranium enrichment. Iran says its program is peaceful, intended for purposes including research and cancer treatment, and enrichment is necessary for the fueling of reactors.
"Iran has joined all treaties, including the non-proliferation treaty, or NPT, and it is loyal to it," Rouhani said.
Khamenei, who issued a religious decree nearly a decade ago declaring nuclear weapons contrary to Islamic values, seems to have given critical support to Rouhani - a backing withheld from Ahmadinejad after fierce internal political feuds. This potentially gives Rouhani's government more room to offer proposals to the six-nation negotiating group, the permanent U.N. Security Council members plus Germany.
In a significant step, Khamenei last week suggested it was a moment for Iran to exercise "heroic flexibility" in diplomacy, while not giving important ground to its foes.
But some hard-line groups have warned Rouhani not to misinterpret Khamenei's comment as a mandate to restore ties with the West at any cost.
"Based on historical experience, it's wise and necessary to have skeptical monitoring of the behavior of the White House," said the statement Saturday from the Revolutionary Guard, whose missile arsenal was on display in the military parade, including the surface-to-surface Sajjil capable of reaching Israel and U.S. bases in the region.
Also Saturday, the Guard's acting commander, Gen. Hossein Salami, said there was no "flexibility" in protecting Iran's ability to have "peaceful nuclear energy," according to the semiofficial Fars news agency.
Rouhani also insisted the U.S. foreswear a military strike against Iran's nuclear program as a way to move ahead nuclear talks. It's unlikely, though, that Washington would make such a declaration, which would risk strong backlash from its key ally, Israel.
"No nation will accept war and diplomacy on (the same) table," the Iranian leader said.
Rouhani did not mention Israel by name at the military event, but the reference was clear.
"A regime is a threat for the region that has trampled all international treaties regarding weapons of mass destruction," he said, noting Israel's undeclared but widely presumed nuclear arsenal.
Shorter-range missiles in the parade included the Fajr-5, which Palestinian groups have used against Israeli targets in attacks from Hamas-controlled Gaza.
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Murphy reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
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The ruling clerics in Tehran haven't survived in power for 34 years without cunning. Fresh from their ally Bashar Assad's diplomatic victory in Damascus, they now see an opening to liberate themselves from Western pressure too. They're hoping an eager President Obama will ease sanctions in return for another promise of WMD disarmament.
That's the prudent way to read Iran's recent interest in Mr. Obama's entreaties after five years of rude dismissals. No doubt the mullahs are feeling international economic pressure, especially from financial sanctions through the world banking system. But they have shown for years that they don't mind imposing pain on their own people.
New President Hassan Rouhani sounds less strident notes than his predecessor, but the regime has rolled out other presidents who turned out either to have no power or to be false fronts to beguile the West. The real power, as ever, resides with the clerics and especially Ayatollah Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guard Corps. Mr. Rouhani was their nuclear envoy in the mid-2000s when Iran accelerated its nuclear-weapons program. It's doubtful they've had a come-to-Allah moment on nukes.
The likely reason they've finally decided to answer Mr. Obama's overtures is because they see an America in retreat and eager for a nuclear deal. In Syria, they saw Mr. Obama leap at Russia's diplomatic offer rather than follow through on his threat of a U.S. military strike if Assad used chemical weapons. Assad is now safe from Western intervention and he can dissemble and delay on disarming his chemical stockpiles.
The mullahs can also see how eager Mr. Obama is for a second-term deal with Iran that validates his campaign claim that "the tide of war is receding." The President has never taken no for an answer from Tehran. Despite being rebuffed for five years, he sent another entreaty after Mr. Rouhani's election in June.
Mr. Obama's letter invited Mr. Rouhani to "cooperate with the international community, keep your commitments and remove ambiguities" about the atomic program in exchange for sanctions relief, according to a senior Iranian official quoted in Thursday's New York Times. The letter hasn't been released, but Mr. Rouhani called it "positive and constructive" in an interview with NBC Wednesday.
The mullahs also learned from the Syrian fiasco that Mr. Obama wasn't able to sway Americans to support even what John Kerry called an "unbelievable small" military strike. They can see as well that even many Republican leaders now want the U.S. to withdraw from world leadership. As in the 1920s and 1970s, most American elites are eager for a diplomatic deal of just about any kind rather than run the risk of a military strike.
The White House is already signaling its first concession by suggesting that Mr. Obama might meet Mr. Rouhani in New York at this week's U.N. General Assembly. That would be the first such presidential meeting since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, and it would give the dictatorship new international prestige at zero cost. Iran continues to support U.S. enemies in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza and Afghanistan, and it continues to crush its political opposition at home.
Iran's diplomatic goals are obvious: Break its international isolation and lift the sanctions in exchange for a promise not to build a nuclear weapon even as it retains its ability to build one at a moment's notice. The Rouhani aide said last week that Tehran was particularly eager to lift the ban on Iranian money transfers through the Swift interbank system, and it will press for that as an initial concession before it dismantles a single nuclear centrifuge.
The danger for world order is that Iran is already close to a nuclear breakout capacity when it will be able to finish a device in a matter of weeks, without technically testing or possessing a bomb. The mullahs could also easily pull the North Korean trick of dismantling one facility while secretly running another one. They have systematically lied about their nuclear program for years.
All of which bodes ill for any genuine nuclear breakthrough. If true global security is Mr. Obama's goal, then at a bare minimum any deal would have to halt Iran's enrichment of uranium, remove the already enriched uranium from the country, close all nuclear sites and provide for robust monitoring anytime and anywhere.
Anything less would be a mirage. Anything less would force Israel in particular to recalculate the risks of a pre-emptive attack compared to the risks of future nuclear destruction. Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran's other Middle East rivals will also be looking closely at the fine print of any deal. A negotiation that dismantles Iran's nuclear program would be a great step forward, but a deal that promises peace while letting Iran stay poised on the edge of becoming a nuclear power would endanger the world.
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Reasonableness at last. That was the general reaction Wednesday to the news that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani appeared to acknowledge and condemn the Holocaust during an interview this week with CNN's Christiane Amanpour. Previous President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had rarely missed an opportunity to call the Nazi genocide of six million Jews a "myth." But Mr. Rouhani has adopted a more tempered tone, and the world longs to see him as someone with whom "we can do business together," as Margaret Thatcher once said about Mikhail Gorbachev.
One problem: The words attributed to Mr. Rouhani are not what he said.
According to CNN's translation of Mr. Rouhani's remarks, the Iranian President insisted that "whatever criminality they [the Nazis] committed against the Jews, we condemn." Yet as Iran's semi-official news agency Fars pointed out, Mr. Rouhani never uttered anything approximating those words. Nor, contrary to the CNN version, did he utter the word "Holocaust." Instead, he spoke about "historical events." Our independent translation of Mr. Rouhani's comments confirms that Fars, not CNN, got the Farsi right.
So what did Mr. Rouhani really say? After offering a vague indictment of "the crime committed by the Nazis both against the Jews and the non-Jews," he insisted that "I am not a history scholar," and that "the aspects that you talk about, clarification of these aspects is a duty of the historians and researchers."
Pretending that the facts of the Holocaust are a matter of serious historical dispute is a classic rhetorical evasion. Holocaust deniers commonly acknowledge that Jews were killed by the Nazis while insisting that the number of Jewish victims was relatively small and that there was no systematic effort to wipe them out.
We'll leave it to CNN to account for its translation, and why it made Mr. Rouhani seem so much more conciliatory than he was. Meantime, points for honesty go to the journalists at Fars, who for reasons that probably range from solidarity to self-preservation aren't disposed to whitewash their President's ideological predilections.
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Israel will have to act alone. I didn't realize that Bolton came out 2 months ago and said Israel should have "attacked Iran yesterday".
I wonder if legislative Democrats will recommend Obama for the Congressional Medal of Honor for "historic" act of tweeting Rouhani. :cry:
*****Adrift: The United States and the Middle East
August 30, 2013 By Andrew Harrod
Bolton and Michael Ledeen presented a disturbing picture of Obama Administration national security policy adrift amidst a continually crisis-laden Middle East on August 28, 2013. In particular, these two leading foreign policy experts foresaw no truly effective international policy to stop Iranian nuclear weapons proliferation, leaving Israel to confront this existential danger unilaterally.
Bolton and Ledeen appeared at the briefing “Who is the Real Rouhani?” at the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center. The Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET), described by its founder and president Sarah Stern as “unabashedly pro-American and pro-Israeli,” sponsored the event. Stern introduced Bolton and Ledeen by discussing how Hassan Rouhani had appeared to American media as a “great moderate” following his June 14, 2003, election to the presidency of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Yet Ledeen described the “big difference” between Rouhani and his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as being “exactly the same as the difference between Pepsi Cola and Coca Cola.” In contrast to Ahmadinejad, Rouhani “is more charming,” his “face is prettier,” and “he knows the West” due to his Western education. Such attributes, though, simply reminded Ledeen of how some Western observers had expectantly noted Yuri Andropov as a “jazz fan” after this KGB chief succeeded Leonid Brezhnev as the Soviet Union’s leader in 1982. Rouhani’s exposure to the West, rather than moderating his views, seems to have instilled anti-Western vitriol in Rouhani, just as other Islamist leaders like the Muslim Brotherhood’s (MB) ideologue Sayyid Qutb “learned to hate America in America.”
Ledeen also rejected speculation of Rouhani being part of a “cunning scheme” to present an “apparent moderate.” Ledeen believed that Rouhani’s election was a “surprise” in an “honest vote” within the Iranian theocracy. Here again the difference between Rouhani’s “moderation” and Ahmadinejad was minimal, for the latter could also “buy endless time” in negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.
In such dictatorships “you are dealing with a regime” that has “core policies,” Ledeen argued. “It doesn’t matter who the person is.” Rouhani, moreover, has personally been “fully committed…fully engaged” during his career in Iran’s terrorism and nuclear programs, central concerns for the international community. Citing the former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky, Ledeen considered a dictatorship’s domestic behavior indicative of foreign policy. “The way they treat their own people is the way they want to treat us.”
Bolton as well saw no moderation in Rouhani, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator during 2003-2005. This background meant that “Rouhani could not be a better public face” for Iran now. Reflecting upon his negotiating experience, Rouhani had subsequently often “boasted” of his success in shielding Iran’s nuclear program from interference.
Bolton attributed the origins of these negotiations to a European desire in 2003 for “showing up the United States” after its Iraq invasion. With the controversial Iraqi regime change as a backdrop, “we suave and sophisticated Europeans” sought to tame the Iranian nuclear program. The European concept then was a “macro-solution” following an Iranian enrichment freeze and today “they are still pursuing the same elusive goal.”
Iranian stalling tactics in the following negotiations recognized, Bolton observed that weapons proliferators “need time and they need legitimacy.” Iran, moreover, was “scared to death” after American invasions not only in Iraq but Afghanistan as well brought American troops to Iranian borders on opposing sides. Thus Iran has had no hesitation in suspending enrichment in the past, especially when temporary technical difficulties made the issue moot. Looking to the future, Bolton considered it “clear beyond dispute that the Europeans are getting ready to be suckered again.”
Bolton predicted that the Iranians would make diplomatic overtures to the American diplomats as well. Iranian officials would claim that their nuclear program was peaceful and transparent, while sanctions hurt the Iranian people. In response, American officials might well offer phased plans of reciprocal Iranian-international actions. “When you hear sequencing” from diplomats, Bolton warned, “you know they are talking about surrender.” With sanctions “once dialed back,” it will be “almost impossible to torque them back up again.” “What we don’t know cannot be good news,” Bolton meanwhile speculated about the progress of the Iranian nuclear program in light of past intelligence failures in Iraq.
In contrast to the Iranian regime, Ledeen believed that the Iranian people sought to emulate the Egyptian overthrow of the MB. Ledeen attributed to Iranian opposition leaders under house arrest a “huge following” such that the regime dared not execute them. Additionally, the “Iranian opposition is fundamentally pro-Western and anti-Islamist.” Speaking of senior Iranian ayatollahs in opposition to the Iranian regime as well as Muslim opposition to the MB in Egypt, Ledeen also warned “don’t write off all Muslims” as allies against Islamism. Ledeen lamented, however, that the United States had done nothing to foment this internal Iranian opposition, something not requiring American military force. Yet “Iran is the key to international terror,” while Iraq in 2003 was only a secondary terrorism supporter.
“We would have to have an Iran policy,” Ledeen argued, for regime change in Syria, a country under “virtual Iranian control” in the guise of the Lebanese Hezbollah (“that’s Teheran”) and Iran’s Al-Quds Force. The “road to Damascus starts in Teheran,” Ledeen said. The “problem in Syria is Iran,” Bolton agreed; focusing on Syria was “defining the problem much too narrowly.”
In particular, if the Assad regime perpetrated the latest chemical attack in Syria, then Ledeen saw “no way that that happened at a minimum without Iranian approval.” The Iranians might have even provided “know-how.” Syria regime change would be a terrible Iranian loss, thus in their view “Assad must be preserved.”
Contemplating a pending strike in Syria under the Obama Administration, Bolton foresaw this involving “some number of cruise missiles used against some number of empty buildings.” The response of the Assad regime and its Iranian supporters will be “that’s it” with no effect upon chemical weapon use.
For deterrence, by contrast, a response must be “absolutely punishing.” Opposed to a Syrian intervention, Bolton nonetheless criticized British Prime Minister David Cameron’s suggestion of a “proportionate response” to the Syrian gas attack. “Why respond proportionately?” Bolton asked. “You have to act decisively,” Ledeen concurred, proportionate response is “for little countries. Otherwise, why be a superpower.”
The “worst outcome is that we do something and it has no effect,” Ledeen worried, merely making a “moral demonstration.” Bolton as well warned that an ineffective “tank-plinking kind of raid” will have an “immeasurable effect” on American credibility. President Barack Obama’s personal “credibility has already been shredded” by earlier chemical attacks in Syria following his ill-conceived “ad lib” of a chemical attacks “redline.” Ledeen assessed the Obama Administration as now “leading with the behind.”
With respect to the critical question of Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapons, Bolton thought that the “prospects are grim.” The Iranians “are going to get nuclear weapons,” Bolton predicted, setting off Middle East regional proliferation as a result. This is the most possible outcome “by a long shot.” Current sanctions against Iran merely “give the illusion of doing something” and thereby cover the reluctance of congressional leaders and the Obama Administration to intervene in Iran. “The Iranians are convinced that they are dealing with an American administration that does not have the will to fight,” Ledeen likewise assessed.
In the end, the crisis of Iranian nuclear proliferation, “for well or ill…is going to be Israel’s to solve,” according to Bolton. Bolton criticized the past Israeli “mistake” of having allowed the first operational nuclear reactor in a “hostile state” in Bushehr, Iran. Now, though, he considered an Israeli military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities the last viable nonproliferation option in the face of American inaction.
The “Israelis won’t talk to us about” an Iranian strike, Ledeen predicted. “We’ll know about it when the attack begins,” Bolton seconded. As with past Middle East nuclear dangers in Iraq in 1981 and Syria in 2007, the pair foresaw Israel decisively acting alone for its own freedom and survival. Yet the interests of a wider but more timid free world, however ungrateful, would also hang in the balance.
Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: Click here.
Filed Under: Daily Mailer,
Copyright © 2013 · FRONTPAGEMAG.COM****
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I thought Netanyahu's speech at the UN today quite good. Unfortunately Baraq-Kerry are not likely to listen. :cry: :cry: :cry:
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The piece makes plenty of valid points concerning Iran's strength, but finishes as if the author is on Iran's payroll:
America Mustn’t Be Naïve About Iran
By VALI R. NASR
Published: October 2, 2013 45 Comments
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WASHINGTON — THE international agreement to destroy Syria’s stockpile of chemical weapons has put diplomacy back at center stage of American foreign policy. But enforcing America’s “red line” in Syria is only a prelude to dealing with the thicker, redder line around Iran’s nuclear program. Last week’s charm offensive by Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, and his seeming show of flexibility augurs well for a diplomatic resolution.
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In Tehran, Phone Call Between Presidents Is as Good as a Handshake (September 28, 2013)
U.S. and Iran Agree to Speed Talks to Defuse Nuclear Issue (September 28, 2013)
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But America would be naïve to assume that Iran is negotiating from a position of weakness. To the contrary, Iran has come out of the Arab Spring better positioned than any of its regional rivals, and the turmoil in Syria, its ally, has paradoxically strengthened it further. Witness Mr. Rouhani’s statements that distinguished Iran from its Arab neighbors and asserted that it was uniquely positioned to broker a resolution.
Over the past five years America has thought that only an Iran weakened by economic sanctions would agree to a nuclear deal. Iran’s economy is indeed in dire straits, which helps explain the decision by its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to put forward Mr. Rouhani, a former nuclear negotiator, as his interlocutor with the West.
It’s also true that Iran has been isolated as the sectarian tenor of the civil war in Syria incensed the country’s largely Sunni population against Shiite Iran and its clients: the governments in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq.
Iran’s diplomatic flexibility is serious, but should not be mistaken for willingness to surrender.
Iran does not see itself as vanquished. Its political system is still the most steadfast and resilient in the region. It is reveling in a newfound stability on the back of a surprisingly smooth presidential election. There were no street protests in Tehran this year, like those that paralyzed Tehran in 2009, Cairo in 2011 and Istanbul earlier this year. Indeed, Mr. Rouhani’s government, by freeing political prisoners and potentially relaxing controls on the press and social media, is showing its confidence.
Arab anger notwithstanding, there is agreement across the region that Iranian support for Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, has been effective. That consensus buttresses Iran’s claim to regional power and influence. Syria has showed Iran to be the only regional actor capable of successfully running a war in another country — and one with which it does not share a border. Iran has given the Assad regime money and weapons, deployed fighters in Syria and created a regional alliance with the Shiite government in Iraq and its proxy militia Hezbollah in Lebanon to help Mr. Assad. The West thinks of Russia as Mr. Assad’s vital ally, but it is Iran that holds the cards to his survival.
Hope that Turkey and America’s Arab allies would form an alliance that would isolate Iran has not come to pass. Those allies have been divided over what to do with Egypt, and now Syria. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey are bickering over whom to support in Syria. Saudi support for Egypt’s generals, who ousted the democratically elected Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July, has alienated Turkey, which supported Mr. Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood, now outlawed. For decades the Persian Gulf monarchies bought the support of the Muslim Brotherhood. Now the Islamists and the gulf rulers are competing for support of the Sunni Arab world. This gives Iran a strategic opportunity to exploit its role as a regional power broker.
Iran’s main nemesis, however, remains the United States. America’s withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan, and its strategic “pivot” toward Asia, have been welcome news in Tehran. American standing in the region has taken a toll with the Obama administration’s decision not to enforce its own red line against Syria’s use of chemical weapons. That created an opening for Iran’s chief ally, Russia, to play a critical role at the United Nations as a diplomatic broker.
Meanwhile, after Mr. Obama’s historic (though brief) phone conversation with Mr. Rouhani, pressure from Israel led Mr. Obama to reiterate, after meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, that he would not rule out the use of force to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran. Mr. Netanyahu went before the United Nations to call Mr. Rouhani “a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
In short, as America approaches talks with Iran over its nuclear program, it must not assume that Iran is ready to surrender. America’s reduced credibility in the Middle East, because of its waffling over Syria, is an equally important dynamic in the equation.
America will be going to the negotiating table without the credible threat of war, facing an Iran basking in newfound domestic stability and benefiting from its pivotal role in Syria. Negotiations between the two, for the first time, cannot be based on threatening Iran into submission, but on persuading it to compromise. That demands of America an approach to match the “heroic flexibility” that Ayatollah Khamenei has called for.
Expect no grand bargain with Iran in the short run, but rather, the lifting of specific sanctions in exchange for concrete steps to slow down Iran’s nuclear program and open it to international scrutiny. That would be an important first step, which could build bilateral trust and give diplomacy the impetus it needs to succeed.
Vali R. Nasr, dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, is a contributing opinion writer.
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Summary
For the second day in a row, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has denied that the recent death of Mojtaba Ahmadi, an Iranian allegedly working under a cyberwarfare unit linked to the corps, was an assassination. The murky details surrounding Ahmadi's death raise many more questions than answers, but the information released so far does not appear to support widespread speculation that this was either an Israeli-orchestrated operation or the result of an IRGC power struggle amid a developing U.S.-Iranian dialogue.
Analysis
Mojtaba Ahmadi was found dead Oct. 2 in a forested area near his home in the town of Karaj, northwest of Tehran. An eyewitness at the scene of the police investigation told Alborz news agency, a regional media outlet based in northwestern Iran, that Ahmadi had two bullet wounds in his chest, suggesting he was shot at close range. The local police chief also told Alborz that two motorcycles were seeing fleeing the scene. Footage of Ahmadi's funeral procession was shown on local television and members of his cyberwarfare unit offered condolences on a Facebook page.
Adding to the confusion surrounding his death, reports surfaced Oct. 4 claiming that a largely exile-based Iranian monarchist group called Soldiers of the Kingdom Assembly of Iran had claimed responsibility for the murder. Sharif, the IRGC official who denied Ahmadi's death was an assassination, also dismissed these claims, saying the group "has nothing to do with assassination whatsoever, and this group intends to use this case in its favor." The group's stated goal is to overthrow the clerics and restore the monarchy in Iran through a series of attacks on the regime in what it calls Operation Tondar, the Persian word for thunder. The group claimed a 2008 bombing at a mosque in Shiraz, but those links were never proven. Two of the group's members were also executed following the 2009 post-election unrest for alleged anti-regime activities. The organization's monarchism is more in line with the ambitions of pockets of the Iranian diaspora in the West than Iran's domestic opposition, and the organization has not demonstrated serious militant capabilities.
While it is clear that Ahmadi died under mysterious circumstances, the IRGC has avoided terming his death an assassination. A headline Oct. 3 from Sepah news agency, a mouthpiece for the IRGC, read: "Denial of news reports of the assassination of one of IRGC's officials." Without naming Ahmadi specifically, the report said, "In the wake of a horrific incident involving one of the IRGC officials...the matter is being investigated and the main reason of the event and the motive of the attacker have not been specified." IRGC spokesman Ramazan Sharif then told Iranian Student News Agency on Oct. 4 that while the death of a member of the "Karaj Corps" has "fueled suspicions from the very beginning...that it was an assassination...the investigation made clear it was not an assassination" and the police are continuing their investigation.
It is highly notable that Iranian officials, both political leaders and IRGC, are trying to downplay the incident. By not terming the death an assassination, the Iranian regime wants to give the impression that the incident was not politically motivated. At the same time, no official statements blaming the Israeli Mossad have been made so far, in contrast to the Iranian reaction to previous assassinations of scientists linked to Iran's nuclear program.
Israel has never outright claimed an assassination in Iran but has coyly suggested in previous statements that it was pleased with the outcome. Those statements would indirectly convey a message that Israel had covert reach into Iran to sabotage the country's nuclear program, with the possible help of operatives belonging to local militant organizations such as Mujahideen-e-Khalq. This time, however, Israel has deliberately distanced itself from the incident. Former Shin Bet intelligence chief and current Science and Technology Minister Yaakov Peri said on Israel Radio on Oct. 4 that "The fact that this or that leading Iranian nuclear or cyber figure is killed did not mean that Israel was necessarily involved." He added, "Many of these events are the consequence of internal disputes in Iran," and that while the deaths of such figures can sometimes have an impact, "There are always replacements...and such acts do not always cause a slowing or a reduction" of the threat posed by Iran.
Israel is deeply unnerved by the developing dialogue between the United States and Iran and is highly skeptical that this negotiation will lead to the verifiable containment of an Iranian nuclear threat. Israel therefore has an incentive to try to derail the talks, but carrying out an assassination at this early stage of the negotiation would risk seriously damaging Israel's position vis-a-vis the United States. Israel simply cannot afford to alienate Washington when it still lacks the ability to independently attack Iran's nuclear program. So far, interactions between the United States and Israel do not suggest that the United States is holding Israel responsible for the death of Ahmadi.
There are also factions within Iran that oppose Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's outreach to the United States. The IRGC in particular is the entity to watch inside Iran for attempts to derail Rouhani's strategy as the organization seeks to protect the economic assets and political influence it has developed during the sanctions regime. This concern is what drove the supreme leader and Rouhani to publicly warn the IRGC against interfering in this political strategy, with a promise that the IRGC would not see its economic interests threatened. Still, factions within the IRGC are uneasy over the talks, and the possibility that assassinations and other forms of intimidation can occur in Iran remains as the negotiations progress. However, Ahmadi does not appear to be a likely target in an internal IRGC power struggle. He is not a high-profile, politicized or controversial figure whose death would send a message to others either supporting or resisting the negotiation. Nor does Ahmadi appear to be a vital asset to the IRGC's core operations.
The murkiness surrounding Ahmadi's death leaves much to be explained, but so far, his death does not appear to fit neatly into a theory of foreign sabotage or internal power struggles. His death may well have been linked to a personal dispute at a politically sensitive time, though it is still too early to draw conclusions either way. What is clear, however, is that the Iranian clerical regime and IRGC is coordinated enough to downplay the incident overall and deny a political motive. Had this been a manifestation of an internal power struggle, we would likely be seeing more visible signs of conflict than this level of coordination. At the very least, this suggests enough political coherence to preserve the negotiation with the United States for now.
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http://www.dickmorris.com/obamas-sneaky-deal-with-iran-dick-morris-tv-lunch-alert/?utm_source=dmreports&utm_medium=dmreports&utm_campaign=dmreports
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http://www.clarionproject.org/news/christians-iran-get-80-lashes-drinking-communion-wine
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U.N. Says Iran Has Virtually Frozen Nuclear Program in Last Few Months
Move Could Aid Next Round of Negotiations With World Powers
By Jay Solomon And Carol E. Lee
Updated Nov. 14, 2013 7:48 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON—Iran has virtually frozen the expansion of its vast nuclear program since President Hasan Rouhani took office in August, the United Nations reported, potentially aiding diplomacy between Tehran and global powers that resumes next week.
After installing thousands of new centrifuge machines earlier this year, Iran added only four at its two uranium-enrichment sites during the past three months, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog.
Tehran also didn't put in place any major new components at the heavy-water reactor it is constructing in the city of Arak. Once completed, the facility will be capable of producing plutonium usable in nuclear weapons within a year.
Mr. Rouhani's government kept its stockpile of near weapons-grade nuclear fuel at below 250 kilograms, the amount required to produce one nuclear weapon if processed further, according to the IAEA. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has threatened to attack Iran's nuclear facilities if Tehran crosses this red line.
"This report indicates that Iran has made the political decision to pause the expansion of its enrichment capabilities," said the Arms Control Association, a Washington think tank, in a report released Thursday. "It could quickly reverse course and nearly double its numbers of operating centrifuges."
Israeli and Arab officials have voiced deep skepticism in recent days over Mr. Rouhani's overtures.
They say that Iran has already developed such a vast infrastructure for nuclear-fuel production that it may soon be able to make a quick dash to producing enough weapons-grade uranium for a bomb. They suspect the country is committed to developing a nuclear-weapons capability.
Nevertheless, a senior administration official said it is a positive sign that Iran isn't moving forward with those installments and helps talks when the Iranians aren't taking provocative steps, though the official added the U.S. can't ascribe motivation to the moves.
"It is positive but at the same time, it isn't a substitute" for getting agreement on a first phase of a deal, the official said.
The IAEA's quarterly report on Iran came as global powers—made up of the five permanent U.N. Security Council members plus Germany—prepare to resume negotiations with Iran next week in Geneva. The talks are aimed at preventing Tehran from eventually developing a nuclear weapon in exchange for a loosening of international sanctions.
A negotiating round this month nearly reached an accord, but broke down in the final stages because of continued concerns about the status of the Arak reactor and the numbers and capacity of Iran's centrifuges, according to American and European officials who took part in the talks.
President Barack Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry and other administration officials said they were hopeful that an interim agreement to contain Iran's nuclear work can still be reached. They also cautioned U.S. lawmakers against imposing new sanctions on Iran's oil exports and banks while the diplomacy gathers momentum.
"If we're serious about pursuing diplomacy, then there is no need for us to add new sanctions on top of the sanctions that are already very effective and that brought them to the table in the first place," Mr. Obama said at a news conference at the White House. "Now, if it turns out they can't deliver, they can't come to the table in a serious way and get this issue resolved, the sanctions can be ramped back up."
Some American lawmakers and key U.S. allies including Israel and Saudi Arabia are concerned an agreement won't go far enough in preventing Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons, which Iran denies it is seeking.
Members of Congress and these allies are pressing the White House for a complete suspension of Iran's uranium-enrichment program and the dismantling of Arak in exchange for sanctions relief. But U.S. officials have indicated that such demands are unlikely to be enforced in an initial agreement with Iran.
The IAEA report tracked a significant slowing of Iran's nuclear work since August. President Rouhani took office that month pledging to end Iran's standoff with the West over the nuclear issue.
The IAEA said Iran added only four centrifuges to the more than 10,000 currently in place at the uranium-enrichment facilities in the cities of Natanz and Qom.
Perhaps most important to the West, Iran didn't install any of its more advanced centrifuges, called the IR-2Ms, since August. These machines are believed to be capable of cutting by a third the time required to produce nuclear fuel.
The IAEA also outlined in its report the details of an agreement reached last week with Iran that will allow for more expansive monitoring of the nuclear program.
In particular, the Vienna-based agency said it would gain access over the next three months to some of Iran's uranium mines, the Arak heavy water reactor, and the detailed plans for new enrichment facilities Iran says it is building.
The IAEA, however, has still failed to gain Iran's approval to visit a military site south of Tehran, called Parchin. The U.N. suspects the site may have been involved in testing explosives triggers used in producing atomic bombs.
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http://www.israelvideonetwork.com/u-s-unprepared-for-a-military-strike-on-iran?utm_source=MadMimi&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Israel+Breaking+News+Video%3A+%27US+Unprepared+for+a+Military+Strike+on+Iran%27&utm_campaign=20131122_m118034805_11%2F23%3A+Israel+Breaking+News+Video%3A+%27US+Unprepared+for+a+Military+Strike+on+Iran%27&utm_term=_27US+Unprepared+for+a+Military+Strike+on+Iran_27
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CD,
I can't get to article.
Can you post the article itself?
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Try this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwT1aCmdKJo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mf0LGPCfpw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14xBt_q-32s
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http://www.jpost.com/Iranian-Threat/News/Iran-deal-Same-world-opposite-risk-assessments-332898
Iran deal: Same world, opposite risk assessments
By
Herb Keinon
http://www.jpost.com/Iranian-Threat/News/Iran-deal-Same-world-opposite-risk-assessments-332898
"Or, as Obama enthused, if Iran “seizes this opportunity” to prove to the world that its nuclear program is for exclusively peaceful purposes, then “the Iranian people will benefit from rejoining the international community, and we can begin to chip away at the mistrust between our two nations. This would provide Iran with a dignified path to forge a new beginning with the wider world based on mutual respect.”
Really? How about Iran’s part in Syrian President Bashar Assad’s massacre of tens of thousands of people? How about its continued development of intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads that were not even mentioned in the Geneva agreement? How about its role in exporting terrorism around the globe? How about its stoning of women accused of adultery, hanging of homosexuals and gruesome rate of executions? How about the anti- Semitic ranting of its leaders? Does all of the above really render the world a safer place, as Obama said? This agreement shows that Iran can indeed do all of the above, yet still get to be a member of the international community."
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That struck me as a perceptive analysis Rachel.
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The good news is that this catastrophe will make Obamacare look like a minor inconvenience.
Who could have forseen that Obama would fcuk Israel ?
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Iran's Foreign Minister: “The (nuclear) program will continue and all the sanctions and violations against the Iranian nation under the pretext of the nuclear program will be removed gradually,”
http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13920903000343
“The (nuclear) program has been recognized and the Iranian people’s right to use the peaceful nuclear technology based on the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) and as an inalienable right has been recognized and countries are necessitated not to create any obstacle on its way,” [Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad] Zarif said in a press conference in Geneva on Saturday morning.
“The (nuclear) program will continue and all the sanctions and violations against the Iranian nation under the pretext of the nuclear program will be removed gradually,” he added.
He said the next six months will be a serious start towards “the full removal of all UN Security Council, unilateral and multilateral sanctions, while the country’s enrichment program will be maintained.” “Production of 5-percent-enriched uranium will continue in the country similar the past,” Zarif continued.
“None of the enrichment centers will be closed and Fordo and Natanz will continue their work and the Arak heavy water program will continue in its present form and no material (enriched uranium stockpiles) will be taken out of the country and all the enriched materials will remain inside the country. The current sanctions will move towards decrease, no sanctions will be imposed and Iran’s financial resources will return,” he continued.
…
“This is a great success that the attempts made by the Zionist regime’s leaders to misrepresent Iran’s peaceful nuclear program and the Iranian people’s face were foiled,” he said.
…
“Iran’s enrichment program has been recognized both in the first step and in the goals section and in the final step as well,” Zarif said.
“The fact that all these pressures have failed to cease Iran’s enrichment program is a very important success for the Iranian nation’s resistance,” he added.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/11/how-iran-sees-the-geneva-deal.php
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2013/11/24/bargaining-theory-and-the-iran-deal/?wpisrc=nl_cage
From the article:
War is costly to all sides in a conflict. If states knew the outcome of a war, they would prefer to agree to that outcome via a bargain without ever fighting. As the Monkey Cage’s (and Stanford’s) James Fearon has pointed out in a famous article, we must thus ask why states sometimes fail to reach such a bargain?
One answer is that leaders act irrationally or that the leaders of states are able to deflect the cost of wars on others while reaping the benefits for themselves. These are plausible answers. Yet, it may also be that all sides act rationally and yet fail to strike a bargain that all would prefer to going to war. Below are some basic insights from theories about such bargaining failures as they apply to Iran.
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People who have sent their children marching into minefields en mass aren't rational actors.
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LONDON—A groundbreaking deal to curb Iran's nuclear program faces towering obstacles at home and abroad to becoming a permanent agreement, starting with the U.S. Congress and two of America's closest allies.
The leaders of both the Democratic and Republican parties are threatening to break with President Barack Obama's policy and enact new punitive sanctions on Iran, arguing that the interim deal reached in Geneva on Sunday yields too much to the Islamist regime while asking too little.
"The disproportionality of this agreement makes it more likely that Democrats and Republicans will join together and pass additional sanctions when we return in December," said Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.), an influential member of the Senate Democratic leadership. (Thank God for the Israel lobby!)
Such a move could kill the nascent nuclear accord, U.S. and Iranian officials agree, and add to more recent political embarrassments for the White House.
Reaching a comprehensive deal with Iran also faces formidable diplomatic and technical challenges, said U.S. and European officials. Washington wants to eventually dismantle much of Iran's nuclear infrastructure, including a heavy water reactor and enrichment facilities, steps Tehran has so far refused to take.
Israeli leaders, watching with trepidation over Iran's interim nuclear agreement, are wrangling over how to ensure the next rounds of diplomacy yield the best possible result for their country.
The White House has signaled it would defend the agreement by directly appealing to lawmakers and to foreign leaders. Mr. Obama on Sunday spoke by telephone to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has campaigned against the pact. The U.S. leader said he wanted to consult with Israelis on talks, and agreed Mr. Netanyahu "has good reason to be skeptical about Iran's intentions."
Iran celebrated the deal on Sunday as a political victory for President Hasan Rouhani and a step toward economic relief.
A final agreement could underpin broader American efforts to stabilize the Middle East and end conflicts in Syria and between Israel and the Palestinians, where Tehran actively supports militant groups, these officials said.
Senior U.S. officials said Sunday that a successful conclusion of an Iran accord could redefine the U.S.-Iran relationship, which has been marked by open hostilities since the 1979 Islamic revolution in Tehran.
"I think this is potentially a significant moment, but I'm not going to stand here in some triumphal moment and suggest to you that this is an end unto itself," Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday, following two days of exhaustive negotiations.
As a side benefit, experts expect to see the easing of tensions with Iran lead to a reduction in world oil prices, although the effects will depend in part on how much Iranian oil returns to the market.
Despite the lures of a permanent deal, the Obama administration's outreach to Tehran carries great risks, said U.S. and Mideast officials. Key American allies, including Saudi Arabia and Israel, are publicly challenging the U.S. policy, claiming it directly threatens their security.
Any further rupture of the security ties with these countries threatens to undermine a U.S. defense system that has been in place in the Mideast for three decades, said regional observers.
"The U.S. diplomacy offers great opportunities but is also very dangerous," said Emile El-Hokayem, a Dubai-based Persian Gulf expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. "Many American allies see Washington reorienting itself away from its traditional allies."
The interim deal announced Sunday between Iran and the five permanent members of the U.N Security Council and Germany requires Iran to freeze its program and the world powers to ease some sanctions. A permanent accord would require each side to go much further, taking steps that Mr. Obama said "won't be easy."
The deal calls for Tehran to curb central parts of its nuclear program in exchange for a rollback of economic sanctions. Iran agreed to freeze its production of near-weapons grade fuel—which is uranium enriched to 20% purity—and to remove its stockpile of the fissile material.
Iran also committed to defer the startup of a heavy-water nuclear reactor in the city of Arak that could begin producing weapons-grade plutonium for potential use in making a nuclear bomb within 18 months.
The U.S. views the deal as a six-month confidence-building phase to allow for talks on a permanent agreement. Mr. Kerry and other U.S. officials said it provides U.N. monitors significantly more time and ability to detect if Iran is secretly preparing to "break out" and assemble an atomic weapon.
Israel and Arab states blasted the deal in part because for the first time the West has accepted that Iran will continue enriching uranium on its soil to use in power plants and for other civilian purposes. Successive U.S. administrations, as well as the U.N. Security Council, have called for Iran to suspend all its enrichment activities.
Mr. Netanyahu on Sunday said his nation wasn't bound to respect the new accord—a warning that the Jewish state might still consider military strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities.
Saudi officials have privately suggested in recent months that it could be forced to pursue nuclear weapons if Iran was seen benefiting from a weak deal with the global powers, which form a diplomatic bloc called the P5+1.
Proliferation experts said the new agreement contains no specific commitments to address evidence that Iran has clandestinely developed technologies used in creating a nuclear warhead. U.N. officials cite suspected tests in 2000 of implosion devices that are used in making atomic weapons.
"What happens if Iran is caught again procuring equipment for such tests?" said George Perkovich of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There's nothing in the agreement that addresses this."
Sanctions relief under the agreement is expected to provide Tehran between $6 billion and $7 billion in badly needed foreign-exchange earnings over the next half-year, U.S. officials said. Of this, $4.2 billion will be Iran's earnings from oil sales that have been trapped in overseas bank accounts due to the international sanctions.
The U.S. and Europe are also suspending bans on Iran's trade in petrochemicals, precious metals, automobiles and airplane spare parts.
Mr. Kerry and other American officials stressed that Western financial pressure wouldn't slacken during the six months and that all of the sanctions on Tehran could be reimposed if Iran didn't live up to its commitments.
U.S. officials estimated that Iran would still lose around $25 billion in oil revenue during this confidence-building phase and that $14 billion to $16 billion of its oil revenue will be locked up in overseas banks.
"We are committed to maintaining our commitment to vigorously enforcing the vast majority of the sanctions that are currently in place," Mr. Kerry said.
Israel and the Obama administration's critics on Capitol Hill challenge these numbers, and voiced fears that Washington was letting Tehran get off the financial hook.
Experts on Iran sanctions said it took nearly a decade to bring to bear the financial pressure Tehran is currently facing, and that removing just some of the penalties could weaken the global business community's commitment to their implementation.
Indeed, a number of European companies announced on Sunday that they were preparing to resume operations in Iran.
"Iran has broken the back of the Western sanctions regime," said Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a think tank that advises Congress on Iran. "It is an illusion to believe the sanctions will not be eroded significantly by this deal.
Many Iranians stayed up all night to follow the news from Geneva on Persian Satellite channels like BBC Persian and Iranian official news websites. Others woke up to the news of the historic deal, storming social media with messages of congratulations as a sense of euphoria and hope filled the capital Tehran. Commuters on their way to work in Tehran honked their horns and flashed their lights.
Mr. Netanyahu and other Israeli officials say Iran will use this economic lifeline to stabilize their economy but still will be allowed to conduct nuclear work. At the end of the six months, they warned, Iran still will have the capacity to rapidly move toward an atomic weapon.
In Iran, markets immediately started responding to news that some sanctions—such as shipping insurance, petrochemical goods and auto and airplane parts—would be rolled back.
Iran's currency increased value against the dollar on Sunday by about 3%, according to money exchangers in Tehran's currency market. The currency had lost half of its value in the past two years because of the sanctions.
Tehran's stock market reported that investors were rushing to buy shares in industries benefiting from sanctions relief such as petrochemical and shipping. Iranian media reported long lines forming at the Tehran stock exchange.
—Siobhan Hughes, Farnaz Fassihi, Tatyana Shumsky and Laurence Norman contributed to this article.
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second post
Iran's Nuclear Triumph
Tehran can continue to enrich uranium at 10,000 working centrifuges.
Updated Nov. 24, 2013 10:18 p.m. ET
President Obama is hailing a weekend accord that he says has "halted the progress of the Iranian nuclear program," and we devoutly wish this were true. The reality is that the agreement in Geneva with five Western nations takes Iran a giant step closer to becoming a de facto nuclear power.
Start with the fact that this "interim" accord fails to meet the terms of several United Nations resolutions, which specify no sanctions relief until Iran suspends all uranium enrichment. Under this deal Iran gets sanctions relief, but it does not have to give up its centrifuges that enrich uranium, does not have to stop enriching, does not have to transfer control of its enrichment stockpiles, and does not have to shut down its plutonium reactor at Arak.
Enlarge Image
Iran nuclear talks at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2013. Associated Press
Mr. Obama's weekend statement glossed over these canyon-sized holes. He said Iran "cannot install or start up new centrifuges," but it already has about 10,000 operational centrifuges that it can continue to spin for at least another six months. Why does Tehran need so many centrifuges if not to make a bomb at the time it pleases?
The President also said that "Iran has committed to halting certain levels of enrichment and neutralizing part of its stockpiles." He is referring to an Iranian pledge to oxidize its 20% enriched uranium stockpile. But this too is less than reassuring because the process can be reversed and Iran retains a capability to enrich to 5%, which used to be a threshold we didn't accept because it can easily be reconverted to 20%.
Mr. Obama said "Iran will halt work at its plutonium reactor," but Iran has only promised not to fuel the reactor even as it can continue other work at the site. That is far from dismantling what is nothing more than a bomb factory. North Korea made similar promises in a similar deal with Condoleezza Rice during the final Bush years, but it quickly returned to bomb-making.
As for inspections, Mr. Obama hailed "extensive access" that will "allow the international community to verify whether Iran is keeping its commitments." One problem is that Iran hasn't ratified the additional protocol to its International Atomic Energy Agency agreement that would allow inspections on demand at such sites as Parchin, which remain off limits. Iran can also oust U.N. inspectors at any time, much as North Korea did.
Then there is the sanctions relief, which Mr. Obama says is only "modest" but which reverses years of U.S. diplomacy to tighten and enforce them. The message is that the sanctions era is over. The loosening of the oil regime is especially pernicious, inviting China, India and Germany to get back to business with Iran.
We are told that all of these issues will be negotiated as part of a "final" accord in the next six months, but that is not how arms control works. It is far more likely that this accord will set a precedent for a series of temporary deals in which the West will gradually ease more sanctions in return for fewer Iranian concessions.
Iran will threaten to walk away from the talks without new concessions, and Mr. Obama will not want to acknowledge that his diplomatic achievement wasn't real. The history of arms control is that once it is underway the process dominates over substance, and a Western leader who calls a halt is denounced for risking war. The negotiating advantage lies with the dictatorship that can ignore domestic opinion.
Mr. Obama all but admitted this himself by noting that "only diplomacy can bring about a durable solution to the challenge posed by Iran's nuclear program." He added that "I have a profound responsibility to try to resolve our differences peacefully, rather than rush towards conflict." Rush to conflict? Iran's covert nuclear program was uncovered a decade ago, and the West has been desperately trying to avoid military action.
The best that can be said is that the weekend deal slows for a few weeks Iran's rapid progress to a nuclear breakout. But the price is that at best it sets a standard that will allow Iran to become a nuclear-capable regime that stops just short of exploding a bomb. At worst, it will allow Iran to continue to cheat and explode a bomb whenever it is strategically convenient to serve its goal of dominating the Middle East.
This seems to be the conclusion in Tehran, where Foreign Minister Javad Zarif boasted that the deal recognizes Iran's right to enrich uranium while taking the threat of Western military action off the table. Grand Ayatollah Ali Khameini also vouchsafed his approval, only days after he denounced the U.S. and called Jews "rabid dogs."
Israel has a different view of the deal, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling it a "historic mistake." He and his cabinet will now have to make their own calculations about the risks of unilateral military action. Far from having Israel's back, as Mr. Obama likes to say, the U.S. and Europe are moving to a strategy of trying to contain Israel rather than containing Iran. The French also fell into line as we feared they would under U.S. and media pressure.
***
Mr. Obama seems determined to press ahead with an Iran deal regardless of the details or damage. He views it as a legacy project. A President has enormous leeway on foreign policy, but Congress can signal its bipartisan unhappiness by moving ahead as soon as possible to strengthen sanctions. Mr. Obama warned Congress not to do so in his weekend remarks, but it is the only way now to stop the President from accommodating a nuclear Iran.
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Who says Obama can't turn an economy around ? Unfortunately it's Iran's.
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Who says Obama can't turn an economy around ? Unfortunately it's Iran's.
Yes, it takes hard to currency to procure nuclear components. I thought this would be the story under the Lucy pulling the football out from Charlie Brown headline. We aren't gullible, are we?
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I know, it's really a series of strange coincidences how Obama weaken America and harms our allies while empowering our enemies and gives al qaeda nation states to rule.
"If you like your nuclear program, you can keep your nuclear program. PERIOD"
Sadly, the mullahs can take that to their newly solvent bank.
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That is a matter of definition. In the case of the article, "rational" means "preference maximizing."
People who have sent their children marching into minefields en mass aren't rational actors.
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http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/issuesideas/story.html?id=08a28e1c-6ece-4134-ba8e-e706d703401b
Ahmadinejad's demons
During the Iran-Iraq War, the Ayatollah Khomeini imported 500,000 small plastic keys from Taiwan. The trinkets were meant to be inspirational. After Iraq invaded in September, 1980, it had quickly become clear that Iran's forces were no match for Saddam Hussein's professional, well-armed military. To compensate for their disadvantage, Khomeini sent Iranian children, some as young as 12 years old, to the front lines. There, they marched in formation across minefields toward the enemy, clearing a path with their bodies. Before every mission, one of the Taiwanese keys would be hung around each child's neck. It was supposed to open the gates to paradise for them.
By National Post April 25, 2006
During the Iran-Iraq War, the Ayatollah Khomeini imported 500,000 small plastic keys from Taiwan. The trinkets were meant to be inspirational. After Iraq invaded in September, 1980, it had quickly become clear that Iran's forces were no match for Saddam Hussein's professional, well-armed military. To compensate for their disadvantage, Khomeini sent Iranian children, some as young as 12 years old, to the front lines. There, they marched in formation across minefields toward the enemy, clearing a path with their bodies. Before every mission, one of the Taiwanese keys would be hung around each child's neck. It was supposed to open the gates to paradise for them.
These children who marched to their deaths were part of the Basiji, a mass movement created by Khomeini in 1979. This volunteer militia went enthusiastically, and by the thousands, to their own destruction. According to one veteran of the Iran-Iraq War, "It was sometimes like a race. Even without the commander's orders, everyone wanted to be first."
The sacrifice of the Basiji was ghastly. And yet, today, it is a source of growing pride. Since the end of hostilities against Iraq in 1988, the Basiji have grown both in numbers and influence. They have been deployed, above all, as a vice squad to enforce religious law in Iran, and their elite "special units" have been used as shock troops against anti-government forces. Last year, they formed the potent core of the political base that propelled Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- a man who reportedly served as a Basij instructor during the Iran-Iraq War -- to the presidency.
Ahmadinejad revels in his alliance with the Basiji. He regularly appears in public wearing a black-and-white Basij scarf, and, in his speeches, he routinely praises "Basij power." Ahmadinejad's ascendance on the shoulders of the Basiji means that the Iranian Revolution, launched almost three decades ago, has entered a new and disturbing phase. A younger generation of Iranians, whose worldviews were forged in the atrocities of the Iran-Iraq War, have come to power, wielding a more fervently ideological approach to politics than their predecessors.
Most Basiji came from the countryside and were often illiterate. When their training was done, each Basiji received a blood-red headband that designated him a volunteer for martyrdom.
The chief combat tactic employed by the Basiji was the human wave attack, whereby barely armed children and teenagers would move continuously toward the enemy in perfectly straight rows. It did not matter whether they fell to enemy fire or detonated the mines with their bodies. Once a path to the Iraqi forces had been opened up, Iranian commanders would send in their more valuable and skilled Revolutionary Guard troops.
"They come toward our positions in huge hordes with their fists swinging," one Iraqi officer complained in the summer of 1982. "You can shoot down the first wave and then the second. But at some point the corpses are piling up in front of you, and all you want to do is scream and throw away your weapon. Those are human beings, after all!"
Why did the Basiji volunteer for such duty? Most were recruited by members of the Revolutionary Guards, which commanded the Basiji. These "special educators" would visit schools and handpick their martyrs from the paramilitary exercises in which all Iranian youth were required to participate. Propaganda films -- like the 1986 TV film A Contribution to the War -- praised this alliance between students and the regime, and undermined those parents who tried to save their children's lives.
In 1982, the German weekly Der Spiegel documented the story of a 12-year-old boy named Hossein, who enlisted with the Basiji despite having polio: "One day, some unknown imams turned up in the village. They called the whole population to the plaza in front of the police station, and they announced that they came with good news: The Islamic Army of Iran had been chosen to liberate the holy city Al-Quds -- Jerusalem -- from the infidels .... The local mullah had decided that every family with children would have to furnish one soldier of God. Because Hossein was the most easily expendable for his family, and because, in light of his illness, he could in any case not expect much happiness in this life, he was chosen by his father to represent the family in the struggle." (Of the 20 children that went into battle with Hossein, only he and two others survived.)
At the beginning of the war, Iran's ruling mullahs did not send human beings into the minefields, but rather animals: donkeys, horses and dogs. But the tactic proved useless: "After a few donkeys had been blown up, the rest ran off in terror," Mostafa Arki reports in his book Eight Years of War in the Middle East.
The donkeys reacted normally -- fear of death is natural. The Basiji, on the other hand, marched fearlessly to their deaths. The curious slogans that they chanted while entering the battlefields are of note: "Against the Yazid of our time!"; "Hussein's caravan is moving on!"; "A new Karbala awaits us!"
Yazid, Hussein, Karbala -- these are all references to the founding myth of Shia Islam. In the late seventh century, Islam was split between those loyal to the Caliph Yazid -- the predecessors of Sunni Islam -- and the founders of Shia Islam, who thought that the Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, should govern the Muslims. In 680, Hussein led an uprising against the "illegitimate" caliph, but he was betrayed. On the plain of Karbala, Yazid's forces attacked Hussein and his entourage and killed them. Hussein's corpse bore the marks of 33 lance punctures and 34 blows of the sword.
His head was cut off and his body was trampled by horses. Ever since, the martyrdom of Hussein has formed the core of Shia theology, and the Ashura Festival that commemorates his death is Shiism's holiest day. On that day, men beat themselves with their fists or flagellate themselves with iron chains to approximate Hussein's sufferings.
At times throughout the centuries, the ritual has grown obscenely violent. In his study Crowds and Power, Elias Canetti recounts a first-hand report of the Ashura Festival as it occurred in mid-19th-century Tehran:
"500,000 people, in the grip of delirium, cover their heads with ashes and beat their foreheads against the ground. They want to subject themselves voluntarily to torments: to commit suicide en masse, to mutilate themselves with refinement ... Hundreds of men in white shirts come by, their faces ecstatically raised toward the sky. Of these, several will be dead this evening."
During the Iran-Iraq War, Khomeini took this inward-directed fervour and channelled it toward the external enemy. He transformed the passive lamentation into active protest. He made the Battle of Karbala the prototype of any fight against tyranny. On the one hand, the scoundrel Yazid, now in the form of Saddam Hussein; on the other, the Prophet's grandson, Hussein, for whose suffering the time of Shia revenge had finally come.
The power of this story was reinforced by a theological twist that Khomeini gave it. According to Khomeini, life is worthless and death is the beginning of genuine existence. This latter world is accessible to martyrs: Their death is no death, but merely the transition from this world to the world beyond, where they will live on eternally and in splendour.
Military victories are secondary, Khomeini explained in September, 1980. The Basiji must "understand that he is a 'soldier of God' for whom it is not so much the outcome of the conflict as the mere participation in it that provides fulfilment and gratification."
For those whose courage still waned in the face of death, the regime put on a show. A mysterious horseman on a magnificent steed would suddenly appear on the front lines. His face -- covered in phosphorus -- would shine. His costume was that of a medieval prince.
A child soldier, Reza Behrouzi, whose story was documented in 1985 by the French writer Freidoune Sehabjam, reported that the soldiers reacted with a mixture of panic and rapture: "Everyone wanted to run toward the horseman. But he drove them away. 'Don't come to me!' he shouted, 'Charge into battle against the infidels! ... Revenge the death of our Imam Hussein and strike down the progeny of Yazid!' "
The mysterious apparition who was able to trigger such emotions is the "hidden imam," a mythical figure who influences Ahmadinejad to this day.
The Shia call all the male descendants of the Prophet Muhammad "imams" and ascribe to them a quasi-divine status. Hussein, who was killed at Karbala by Yazid, was the third Imam. His son and grandson were the fourth and fifth. At the end of this line, there is the "Twelfth Imam," who is named Muhammad.
Some call him the Mahdi (the "divinely guided one"). He was born in 869, the only son of the eleventh Imam. In 874, he disappeared without a trace, thereby bringing Muhammad's lineage to a close. In Shia mythology, however, the Twelfth Imam survived. The Shia believe that he merely withdrew from public view when he was five and that he will emerge from his "occultation" in order to liberate the world from evil.
In Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey, V. S. Naipaul described seeing posters in post-Revolutionary Tehran bearing motifs similar to those of Maoist China: crowds, for instance, with rifles and machine guns raised in the air as if in greeting. The posters always bore the same phrase: "Twelfth imam, we are waiting for you."
According to Shia tradition, legitimate Islamic rule can only be established following the twelfth imam's reappearance.
Khomeini, however, had no intention of waiting. He vested the myth with an entirely new sense: The Twelfth Imam will emerge only when the believers have vanquished evil. To speed up the Mahdi's return, Muslims had to shake off their torpor and fight.
It was this culture that nurtured Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's worldview. Born outside Tehran in 1956, the son of blacksmith, he trained as a civil engineer and, during the Iran-Iraq War, he joined the Revolutionary Guards.
His biography remains strangely elliptical. Did he play a role in the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy, as some charge? What exactly did he do during the war? We have no definite answers.
We do know that after the war's end, he served as the governor of Ardebil Province and as an organizer of Ansar-e Hezbollah, a radical gang of violent Islamic vigilantes. After becoming mayor of Tehran in April, 2003, Ahmadinejad used his position to build up a strong network of radical Islamic fundamentalists. It was in that role that he won his reputation -- and popularity -- as a hardliner devoted to rolling back the liberal reforms of then-President Muhammad Khatami.
Ahmadinejad positioned himself as the leader of a "second revolution" to eradicate corruption and Western influences from Iranian society. And the Basiji, whose numbers had grown dramatically since the end of the Iran-Iraq War, embraced him.
Recruited from the more conservative and impoverished parts of the population, the Basiji fall under the direction of -- and swear absolute loyalty to -- the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Khomeini's successor. During Ahmadinejad's run for the presidency in 2005, the millions of Basiji -- in every Iranian town, neighbourhood, and mosque -- became his unofficial campaign workers.
As Basij ideology and influence enjoy a renaissance under Ahmadinejad, the movement's belief in the virtues of violent self-sacrifice remains intact. Since 2004, the mobilization of Iranians for suicide brigades has intensified, with recruits being trained for foreign missions. Thus, a special military unit has been created bearing the name "Commando of Voluntary Martyrs." According to its own statistics, this force has so far recruited some 52,000 Iranians to the suicidal cause. It aims to form a "martyrdom unit" in every Iranian province.
The Basiji's cult of self-destruction would be chilling in any country. In the context of the Iranian nuclear program, however, its obsession with martyrdom amounts to a lit fuse. Nowadays, Basiji are sent not into the desert, but rather into the laboratory. Basij students are encouraged to enroll in technical and scientific disciplines. According to a spokesperson for the Revolutionary Guard, the aim is to use the "technical factor" in order to augment "national security."
What exactly does that mean? Consider that in December, 2001, former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani explained that "the use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything." On the other hand, if Israel responded with its own nuclear weapons, it "will only harm the Islamic world. It is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality."
Rafsanjani thus spelled out a macabre cost-benefit analysis. It might not be possible to destroy Israel without suffering retaliation. But, for Islam, the level of damage Israel could inflict is bearable -- only 100,000 or so additional martyrs for Islam.
And Rafsanjani is a member of the moderate, pragmatic wing of the Iranian Revolution; he believes that any conflict ought to have a "worthwhile" outcome. Ahmadinejad, by contrast, is predisposed toward apocalyptic thinking. In one of his first TV interviews after being elected president, he enthused: "Is there an art that is more beautiful, more divine, more eternal than the art of the martyr's death?" In September, 2005, he concluded his first speech before the United Nations by imploring God to bring about the return of the Twelfth Imam.
A politics pursued in alliance with a supernatural force is necessarily unpredictable. Why should an Iranian president engage in pragmatic politics when his assumption is that, in three or four years, the saviour will appear? If the messiah is coming, why compromise? That is why, up to now, Ahmadinejad has pursued confrontational policies with evident pleasure.
The history of the Basiji shows that we must expect monstrosities from the current Iranian regime. Already, what began in the early 1980s with the clearing of minefields by human detonators has spread throughout the Middle East, as suicide bombing has become the terrorist tactic of choice. And the Basiji who once upon a time wandered the desert armed only with a walking stick is today working as a chemist in a uranium enrichment facility.
- Matthias Kuntzel is a political scientist in Hamburg, Germany and author of Djihad und Judenhass (Jihad and Jew-Hatred).
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http://www.clarionproject.org/blog/iran/tehrans-pond-of-blood
Tehran's 'Pond Of Blood'
February 25th, 2010
Is the Iranian government interested in finding peaceful solutions to the standoff with the West?
Its own internal politics don’t seem to bear this out. Speaking on the recent opposition movement, a representative of Iran’s supreme leader said recently that it would be worth it to kill 75,000 Iranians for the regime to survive. This is grim, but unsurprising. The regime’s founder, Ayatollah Khomeini, himself said, “Those who say Islam should not kill don’t understand [it]. Killing is a great [divine] gift that appears [to man]. A religion that does not include [provisions for] killing and massacre is incomplete.”
In light of this, it should come as little surprise that in the early ‘80s Tehran hosted a fountain of faux blood, ostensibly as a way of intimidating its enemies. Radio Free Europe recently translated an Iranian blog about this infamous fountain.
In the early years of the 1980-1988 war with Iraq, a pond with several sections was built near an area dedicated to martyrs at the Beheshte Zahra graveyard in Tehran. Its fountain spurted blood. It became known as the "Pond of Blood." Obviously, it was not actual blood but only red coloring mixed in the water.
The fame of this pond even reached overseas, to the point that foreign journalists would strive to take pictures of it.
Once, the Iranian daily “Etelaat” published a special issue about the war with a picture of the fountain on the cover, with a caption consisting of a saying by Imam
Khomeini: "All in all, our revolution was a blessing."
The publication of that picture with that caption provoked the rage of the Hizbullahi fellows and protests began. The forces of the Revolutionary Guards were sent to the newspaper's offices to arrest and punish those behind the publication. In the end, the matter was solved by the dismissal of a few "Etelaat" employees and an apology from the head of the newspaper.
The construction of the pond, which had a symbolic and propaganda value, proved to be more painful to the families of the martyrs than to Iran's enemies. Hence, the bloody water was removed and now normal water flows in it.
There may still be peaceful avenues available to resolve this crisis, including sanctions against the regime’s primary supports and support for the opposition movement. But, it may not be reasonable to assume that a regime which considers it rational to kill thousands of its own people, and which celebrates death, would be quick to compromise with a West it may view with even greater enmity than an opposition movement.
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So you don't like the definition??? All your posts don't change the definition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_choice_theory:
The "rationality" described by rational choice theory is different from the colloquial and most philosophical use of the word. Typically, "rationality" means "sane" or "in a thoughtful clear-headed manner,." Rational choice theory uses a specific and narrower definition of "rationality" simply to mean that an individual acts as if balancing costs against benefits to arrive at action that maximizes personal advantage.[5] In rational choice theory, all decisions, crazy or sane, are postulated as mimicking such a "rational" process.
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For possibly the first time ever - I agree and appreciate Chuck Schumer's comments:
"The disproportionality of this agreement makes it more likely that Democrats and Republicans will join together and pass additional sanctions when we return in December," said Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.).
I hope it isn't the last time he stands up. We will see. Will Hillary jump in and pretend to be Israel' savior?
Iran leaders have concluded what we on this board concluded over a year ago, if not over two years ago.
Obama has already decided to let Iran go nuclear with a "containment" strategy. He played Netanyahu for a sucker. He had to "contain" Israel first.
If we could see it certainly the mullahs were laughing all the way to uranium mine.
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BD,
What's the logical endgame for the mullahs and that of the president ?
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a) FWIW I think BD is using "rational" is a specific "term of art" academic sense and GM is using it as it is used in everyday conversation.
b) Schumer, despite the liberal fascist anus that he is, is also an ardent defender of Israel. Coincidentally enough, this coincides with his prospects of being (re)elected in the State of NY.
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http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/11/25/obama-white-house-betrays-american-pastor/
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Is this consistent with what President Obama and Sec. Kerry have been saying?
http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13920905001087
EHRAN (FNA)- The Iranian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday called invalid a press release by the White House alleged to be the text of the nuclear agreement struck by Iran and the Group 5+1 (the US, Russia, China, Britain and France plus Germany) in Geneva on Sunday.
“What has been released by the website of the White House as a fact sheet is a one-sided interpretation of the agreed text in Geneva and some of the explanations and words in the sheet contradict the text of the Joint Plan of Action (the title of the Iran-powers deal), and this fact sheet has unfortunately been translated and released in the name of the Geneva agreement by certain media, which is not true,” Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Marziyeh Afkham said on Tuesday.
She said that the four-page text under the name of the Joint Plan of Action (which has been released by the Iranian foreign ministry) was the result of the agreement reached during the Geneva talks and all of its sentences and words were chosen based on the considerations of all parties to the talks. In fact one of the reasons why negotiations between Iran and the G5+1 took so long pertained to the accuracy which was needed for choosing the words for the text of the agreement, Afkham said, explaining that the Iranian delegation was much rigid and laid much emphasis on the need for this accuracy.
Afkham said that the text of the Joint Plan of Action was provided to the media a few hours after the two sides agreed on it.
After the White House released a modified version of the deal struck by Iran and the six world powers in Geneva early Sunday morning, the Iranian Foreign Ministry released the text of the agreement.
The full text of the deal is as follows:
Geneva, 24 November 2013
Joint Plan of Action
Preamble
The goal for these negotiations is to reach a mutually-agreed long-term comprehensive solution that would ensure Iran's nuclear programme will be exclusively peaceful. Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek or develop any nuclear weapons. This comprehensive solution would build on these initial measures and result in a final step for a period to be agreed upon and the resolution of concerns. This comprehensive solution would enable Iran to fully enjoy its right to nuclear energy for peaceful purposes under the relevant articles of the NPT in conformity with its obligations therein. This comprehensive solution would involve a mutually defined enrichment programme with practical limits and transparency measures to ensure the peaceful nature of the programme. This comprehensive solution would constitute an integrated whole where nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. This comprehensive solution would involve a reciprocal, step-bystep process, and would produce the comprehensive lifting of all UN Security Council sanctions, as well as multilateral and national sanctions related to Iran's nuclear programme.
There would be additional steps in between the initial measures and the final step, including, among other things, addressing the UN Security Council resolutions, with a view toward bringing to a satisfactory conclusion the UN Security Council's consideration of this matter. The E3+3 and Iran will be responsible for conclusion and implementation of mutual near-term measures and the comprehensive solution in good faith. A Joint Commission of E3/EU+3 and Iran will be established to monitor the implementation of the near-term measures and address issues that may arise, with the IAEA responsible for verification of nuclear-related measures. The Joint Commission will work with the IAEA to facilitate resolution of past and present issues of concern.
Elements of a first step The first step would be time-bound, with a duration of 6 months, and renewable by mutual consent, during which all parties will work to maintain a constructive atmosphere for negotiations in good faith. Iran would undertake the following voluntary measures:
• From the existing uranium enriched to 20%, retain half as working stock of 20% oxide for fabrication of fuel for the TRR. Dilute the remaining 20% UF6 to no more than 5%. No reconversion line.
• Iran announces that it will not enrich uranium over 5% for the duration of the 6 months.
• Iran announces that it will not make any further advances of its activities at the Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant1, Fordow2, or the Arak reactor3, designated by the IAEA as IR-40.
• Beginning when the line for conversion of UF6 enriched up to 5% to UO2 is ready, Iran has decided to convert to oxide UF6 newly enriched up to 5% during the 6 month period, as provided in the operational schedule of the conversion plant declared to the IAEA.
• No new locations for the enrichment.
• Iran will continue its safeguarded R&D practices, including its current enrichment R&D practices, which are not designed for accumulation of the enriched uranium.
• No reprocessing or construction of a facility capable of reprocessing.
• Enhanced monitoring:
o Provision of specified information to the IAEA, including information on Iran's plans for nuclear facilities, a description of each building on each nuclear site, a description of the scale of operations for each location engaged in specified nuclear activities, information on uranium mines and mills, and information on source material. This information would be provided within three months of the adoption of these measures.
o Submission of an updated DIQ for the reactor at Arak, designated by the IAEA as the IR-40, to the IAEA.
o Steps to agree with the IAEA on conclusion of the Safeguards Approach for the reactor at Arak, designated by the IAEA as the IR-40.
o Daily IAEA inspector access when inspectors are not present for the purpose of Design Information Verification, Interim Inventory Verification, Physical Inventory Verification, and unannounced inspections, for the purpose of access to offline surveillance records, at Fordow and Natanz.
o IAEA inspector managed access to:
centrifuge assembly workshops4;
centrifuge rotor production workshops and storage facilities; and, uranium mines and mills.
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Footnotes:
1 Namely, during the 6 months, Iran will not feed UF6 into the centrifuges installed but not enriching uranium. Not install additional centrifuges. Iran announces that during the first 6 months, it will replace existing centrifuges with centrifuges of the same type.
2 At Fordow, no further enrichment over 5% at 4 cascades now enriching uranium, and not increase enrichment capacity. Not
feed UF6 into the other 12 cascades, which would remain in a non-operative state. No interconnections between cascades.
Iran announces that during the first 6 months, it will replace existing centrifuges with centrifuges of the same type.
3 Iran announces on concerns related to the construction of the reactor at Arak that for 6 months it will not commission the reactor or transfer fuel or heavy water to the reactor site and will not test additional fuel or produce more fuel for the reactor or install remaining components.
4 Consistent with its plans, Iran's centrifuge production during the 6 months will be dedicated to replace damaged machines.
In return, the E3/EU+3 would undertake the following voluntary measures:
• Pause efforts to further reduce Iran's crude oil sales, enabling Iran's current customers to purchase their current average amounts of crude oil. Enable the repatriation of an agreed amount of revenue held abroad. For such oil sales, suspend the EU and U.S. sanctions on associated insurance and transportation services.
• Suspend U.S. and EU sanctions on:
o Iran's petrochemical exports, as well as sanctions on associated services.5 o Gold and precious metals, as well as sanctions on associated services.
• Suspend U.S. sanctions on Iran's auto industry, as well as sanctions on associated services.
• License the supply and installation in Iran of spare parts for safety of flight for Iranian civil aviation and associated services. License safety related inspections and repairs in Iran as well as associated services.6
• No new nuclear-related UN Security Council sanctions.
• No new EU nuclear-related sanctions.
• The U.S. Administration, acting consistent with the respective roles of the President and the
Congress, will refrain from imposing new nuclear-related sanctions.
• Establish a financial channel to facilitate humanitarian trade for Iran's domestic needs using Iranian oil revenues held abroad. Humanitarian trade would be defined as transactions involving food and agricultural products, medicine, medical devices, and medical expenses incurred abroad. This channel would involve specified foreign banks and non-designated Iranian banks to be defined when establishing the channel.
o This channel could also enable:
transactions required to pay Iran's UN obligations; and, direct tuition payments to universities and colleges for Iranian students studying abroad, up to an agreed amount for the six month period.
• Increase the EU authorisation thresholds for transactions for non-sanctioned trade to an agreed amount.
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Footnotes
5 "Sanctions on associated services" means any service, such as insurance, transportation, or financial, subject to the underlying U.S. or EU sanctions applicable, insofar as each service is related to the underlying sanction and required to facilitate the desired transactions. These services could involve any non-designated Iranian entities.
6 Sanctions relief could involve any non-designated Iranian airlines as well as Iran Air.
Elements of the final step of a comprehensive solution*
The final step of a comprehensive solution, which the parties aim to conclude negotiating and commence implementing no more than one year after the adoption of this document, would:
• Have a specified long-term duration to be agreed upon.
• Reflect the rights and obligations of parties to the NPT and IAEA Safeguards Agreements.
• Comprehensively lift UN Security Council, multilateral and national nuclear-related sanctions, including steps on access in areas of trade, technology, finance, and energy, on a schedule to be agreed upon.
• Involve a mutually defined enrichment programme with mutually agreed parameters consistent with practical needs, with agreed limits on scope and level of enrichment activities, capacity, where it is carried out, and stocks of enriched uranium, for a period to be agreed upon.
• Fully resolve concerns related to the reactor at Arak, designated by the IAEA as the IR-40.
No reprocessing or construction of a facility capable of reprocessing.
• Fully implement the agreed transparency measures and enhanced monitoring. Ratify and implement the Additional Protocol, consistent with the respective roles of the President and the Majlis (Iranian parliament).
• Include international civil nuclear cooperation, including among others, on acquiring modern light water power and research reactors and associated equipment, and the supply of modern nuclear fuel as well as agreed R&D practices.
Following successful implementation of the final step of the comprehensive solution for its full duration, the Iranian nuclear programme will be treated in the same manner as that of any non-nuclear weapon state party to the NPT.
* With respect to the final step and any steps in between, the standard principle that "nothing is agreed until everything is agreed" applies.
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Obama lied to the American public? GTFO! :roll:
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This is explained in both articles I posted.
a) FWIW I think BD is using "rational" is a specific "term of art" academic sense and GM is using it as it is used in everyday conversation.
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Analysis
The nuclear deal reached between the West and Iran on Nov. 23, however limited and temporary its terms, may represent a landmark shift in the geopolitics of the Middle East. While it follows a flurry of diplomatic activity and urgent meetings, largely made possible by a regime change in Iran last August and a sense of urgency on the part of the United States' second term president, the imperatives and geopolitical realities driving such a rapprochement have been taking shape for years. Stratfor analyses have discussed the geopolitical forces and imperatives driving this historic shift, as well as the many challenges, for years. Those challenges include a recalcitrant U.S. Congress, defiant allies in the Arab world and Israel and resistance from hard-liners in Iran's security apparatus who would sabotage any prospective deal to protect their privileged position built up during years of international isolation. Ultimately, the deal was reached because the two main parties -- the United States and Iran -- both believe that a deal is in their interests, now and in the future. Below is a reverse chronology of Stratfor analyses and forecasts over the past decade that have anticipated the events now unfolding in the wake of the new Geneva accord.
Fourth Quarter Forecast 2013
Oct. 1, 2013
While both Iran and the United States are serious about pursuing a dialogue, the transition from making positive gestures to negotiating substantial concessions will be difficult. Iran will expect some give-and-take from the United States on sanctions in negotiating the nuclear issue, but the U.S. president will have a limited range of choices for highly visible concessions he can make independently without having to consult an obstinate Congress. A nervous Saudi Arabia and Israel, meanwhile, will exercise their respective levers to undermine the negotiation, though they will face limits as the United States and Iran try to fast-track the talks while Iranian President Hassan Rouhani still carries support at home.
Iran: Rebalancing Civil-Military Relations
Sept. 19, 2013
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani faces a dilemma involving two powerful yet distinct actors: the United States and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Rouhani understands that he must bring in foreign investment to improve the Iranian economy, but he can only court potential investors if he can somehow convince the United States to ease its economic sanctions. The corps wields substantial economic power in Iran, and the group will not easily surrender that power to foreign competitors -- at least, not without gaining something in return. To appease the corps, Rouhani will offer concessions and guarantee the protection of its economics interests, so long those interests do not interfere with his foreign policy agenda.
U.S., Iran: Why They Will Now Likely Negotiate
Aug. 2, 2013
Tehran is devoting an unsustainable amount of resources to Syrian President Bashar al Assad in his fight against the Syrian rebellion. And while economic sanctions have not yet forced Iran to the negotiating table, Iranian leaders will likely choose to engage the United States voluntarily to forestall further economic decline. The inauguration of President-elect Hassan Rouhani provides an ideal opportunity for them to do so.
Negotiations Behind U.S. Sanctions Against Iran
July 3, 2013
While talk of sanctions has dominated headlines, a more subtle dialogue between Iran and the United States has been taking place. In an editorial appearing in U.S. foreign policy journal The National Interest, two insiders of the Iranian regime, Iranian political analyst Mohammad Ali Shabani and former member of Iranian nuclear negotiating team Seyed Hossein Mousavian, communicated several key points on behalf of Tehran:
The United States and Iran must continue to negotiate.
Sanctions hurt Iran economically but by no means paralyze Iranian trade.
Iran cannot be sure that any bilateral agreement made with the United States will be honored by a new administration come November.
The United States must abandon any policy intended to bring about regime change in Tehran.
Washington has few remaining options other than military intervention, which is an unlikely outcome.
Iran can significantly increase pressure on the United States by, for example, threatening the security of the Strait of Hormuz, an act that would raise the price of U.S. oil.
Perhaps most important, they said, "the Islamic Republic is willing to agree on a face-saving solution that would induce it to give up the cards it has gained over the past years."
On June 27, the United States delivered an important message. U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan W. Greenert said during a Pentagon news conference that the Strait of Hormuz had been relatively quiet and that the Iranian navy had been "professional and courteous" to U.S. naval vessels in the Persian Gulf. According to Greenert, the Iranian navy has abided by the norms that govern naval activity in international waters. Previously, armed speedboats operated provocatively close to U.S. vessels, but they have not done so recently, Greenert said. It is difficult to imagine Greenert making such a statement without clearance from the White House.
Saudi Nightmares
May 16, 2012
The Saudi royals live with an all-consuming fear -- that of an American understanding with Iran. The Saudis know that the American estrangement from Iran is unnatural and cannot go on forever. It has already lasted a third of a century, almost a decade longer than America's estrangement from Communist China. The Saudis also know that the logic of the present standoff over Iran's nuclear ambitions must lead -- through war or peace -- to some sort of American-Iranian dialogue about the two countries' core interests in the Middle East.
The Next Decade, by George Friedman
Published January 2011
In the next decade, the most desirable option with Iran is going to be delivered through a move that now seems inconceivable. It is the option chosen by Roosevelt and Nixon when they faced seemingly impossible strategic situations: the creation of alliances with countries that had previously been regarded as strategic and moral threats. Roosevelt allied the United States with Stalinist Russia, and Nixon aligned with Maoist China, each to block a third power that was seen as more dangerous. In both cases, there was intense ideological rivalry between the new ally and the United States, one that many regarded as extreme and utterly inflexible. Nevertheless, when the United States faced unacceptable alternatives, strategic interest overcame moral revulsion on both sides. The alternative for Roosevelt was a German victory in World War II. For Nixon, it was the Soviets using American weakness caused by the Vietnam War to change the global balance of power.
Conditions on the ground put the United States in a similar position today vis-a-vis Iran. These countries despise each other. Neither can easily destroy the other, and, truth be told, they have some interests in common. In simple terms, the American president, in order to achieve his strategic goals, must seek accommodation with Iran.
The seemingly impossible strategic situation driving the United States to this gesture is, as we've discussed, the need to maintain the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, and to achieve this at a time when the country must reduce the forces devoted to this part of the world.
The principal reason that Iran might accede to a deal is that it sees the United States as dangerous and unpredictable. Indeed, in less than ten years, Iran has found itself with American troops on both its eastern and western borders. Iran's primary strategic interest is regime survival. It must avoid a crushing U.S. intervention while guaranteeing that Iraq never again becomes a threat. Meanwhile, Iran must increase its authority within the Muslim world against the Sunni Muslims who rival and sometimes threaten it.
In trying to imagine a U.S.-Iranian detente, consider the overlaps in these countries' goals. The United States is in a war against some -- but not all -- Sunnis, and these Sunnis are also the enemies of Shiite Iran. Iran does not want U.S. troops along its eastern and western borders. (In point of fact, the United States does not want to be there either.) Just as the United States wants to see oil continue to flow freely through Hormuz, Iran wants to profit from that flow, not interrupt it. Finally, the Iranians understand that the United States alone poses the greatest threat to their security: solve the American problem and regime survival is assured. The United States understands, or should, that resurrecting the Iraqi counterweight to Iran is simply not an option in the short term. Unless the United States wants to make a huge, long-term commitment of ground forces in Iraq, which it clearly does not, the obvious solution to its problem in the region is to make an accommodation with Iran.
Thinking About the Unthinkable: A U.S.-Iranian Deal
March 1, 2010
The United States apparently has reached the point where it must either accept that Iran will develop nuclear weapons at some point if it wishes, or take military action to prevent this. There is a third strategy, however: Washington can seek to redefine the Iranian question.
The major risk of the third strategy is that Iran will overstep its bounds and seek to occupy the oil-producing countries of the Persian Gulf. Certainly, this would be tempting, but it would bring a rapid American intervention. The United States would not block indirect Iranian influence, however, from financial participation in regional projects to more significant roles for the Shia in Arabian states. Washington's limits for Iranian power are readily defined and enforced when exceeded.
The great losers in the third strategy, of course, would be the Sunnis in the Arabian Peninsula. But Iraq aside, they are incapable of defending themselves, and the United States has no long-term interest in their economic and political relations. So long as the oil flows, and no single power directly controls the entire region, the United States does not have a stake in this issue.
Decade Forecast: 2010-2020
Jan. 21, 2010
We also see the Iranian situation having been brought under control. Whether this will be by military action and isolation of Iran or by a political arrangement with the current or a successor regime is unclear but irrelevant to the broader geopolitical issue. Iran will be contained as it simply does not have the underlying power to be a major player in the region beyond its immediate horizons.
Geopolitical Diary: Military Intelligence Chief Shifts Israel's Iran Policy
Nov. 18, 2008
The change in tone [from the Israelis toward Iran] tracks with the change in Iranian-U.S. relations. While hardly warm, there are signs of some thawing, as we have discussed. U.S. President George W. Bush's administration appears to be moving toward more extensive, open discussions with Iran, and President-elect Barack Obama has indicated a commitment to exploring dialogue with Iran. Under those circumstances, Israel is not going to simply oppose talks. Israel cannot stray too far from the American position, and given that the Bush and Obama positions are converging, Israel cannot attempt to play off political disagreements in Washington.
The Iranian Position
Dec. 13, 2006
Politically speaking, it is obvious why the [Bush] administration has balked at suggestions that the United States should openly extend the hand of diplomacy to Iran, which -- chiefly through the mouthpiece of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- has said and done little to endear itself to the world, and much to spotlight the weakness of the U.S. position. Geopolitically speaking, it is equally obvious why the United States has no real choice in the matter. Washington's best option is to combine diplomacy with a military strategy (which we have discussed elsewhere) that can open the door to a substantial drawdown. But engaging Iran on some level -- however unpalatable it seems -- is an unavoidable part of the equation.
Read more: A Chronology of the Geopolitics of a Nuclear Deal with Iran | Stratfor
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Second post
Political commentator Charles Krauthammer: "Half a dozen times, the Security Council has passed resolutions which said Iran has to stop all enrichment, otherwise there will be no change in sanctions, no relief. Which means six times China and Russia -- not exactly hardliners on Iran -- have signed on to this. And what is the result of this agreement? Iran retains the right to enrich. ... And remember, enrichment is the dam against all proliferation. Once a country anywhere can start to enrich there is no containing its nuclear capacity. So it undermines the entire idea of nonproliferation and it grants Iran a right it's been lusting for for a decade. That's why there was so much jubilation in Tehran over this. … This is a sham from beginning to end. It's the worst deal since Munich."
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third post
Sohrab Ahmari: An Iranian Insider's View of the Geneva Deal
'If the right to enrich is accepted, which it has been, then everything that we have wanted has been realized.'
by Sohrab Ahmari
Nov. 26, 2013 7:21 p.m. ET
The Obama administration and Western diplomats were elated by an agreement, negotiated over the weekend, to temporarily limit some aspects of Iran's nuclear-weapons program. The elation was shared by Tehran's negotiating team, led by Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, whose beaming smile and social-media savvy have been fixtures of the talks in Geneva. When the deal was sealed early on Sunday, Mr. Zarif took to Twitter TWTR +2.18% to announce: "We have reached an agreement."
But there is another Iran, where government officials are generally unsmiling and Twitter is banned. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps rule this land, not Mr. Zarif or his nominal boss, President Hasan Rouhani. It is in this Islamic Republic where the results of President Obama's nuclear diplomacy will be tested.
No Iranian news outlet more closely reflects the views of the supreme leader and the country's hard-line establishment than the Kayhan newspaper. The editor of Kayhan— Hossein Shariatmadari currently holds the post—is directly appointed by Mr. Khamenei and is considered the leader's representative to Iranian media.
On Sunday, I spoke on the phone with Payam Fazlinejad, a Kayhan writer and senior researcher and lieutenant of Mr. Shariatmadari's. The 32-year-old Mr. Fazlinejad is also a lecturer who addresses Islamic Republic elites on the ideological threats facing the regime—themes he has expounded on in such books as "Knights of the Cultural NATO" and "The Intellectuals' Secret Army." While he emphasized on the phone that his opinions don't necessarily represent those of his employer, Mr. Fazlinejad's views are typical of those held by a large and powerful element of the Tehran regime.
Mr. Fazlinejad's reading of the Geneva agreement mixes triumphalism and hard-nosed skepticism. "We need to be able to have an accurate view of what occurred and then assess it against the positions of the supreme leader and his guidance," he says. "But as a general matter, if the right to enrich is accepted, which it has been, then everything that we have wanted has been realized."
Last year, Mr. Shariatmadari, the editor of the newspaper, wrote that Iran has a right to enrich uranium up to 99%. The Obama administration insists that the Geneva agreement doesn't enshrine a right to enrich uranium. Yet the deal permits the Iranian regime to continue enriching uranium up to 5%—a level that can be quickly escalated to produce weapons-grade material. Mr. Fazlinejad views the Geneva 5% concession as great-power acquiescence to Tehran's enrichment program. "Now, the details—including the amount of enrichment and the specific enrichment locations and the technological shape of our enrichment program—are up to our technicians to determine," he says.
Given that the Geneva deal is an interim, six-month arrangement, with a final agreement still to come, Mr. Fazlinejad suggests that Western leaders must "take into account that the supreme leader's support for the negotiations and agreement has been conditional and by no means absolute. The leader instructed us that if the rights of the Iranian nation and the principles of the revolution are respected and the negotiating team stands up to the overbearing demands of the United States and the global arrogance"—the regime's terms for the West generally—"then he would support their work." On the other hand, if the agreement denies Iran's absolute right to enrich, "then it is from our view essentially void."
The Kayhan writer warns against perceiving any diplomatic agreement over Iran's nuclear program as a first step toward broader rapprochement between Washington and Tehran. "The nature of the opposition of the Islamic revolution with the regime of liberal democracy is fundamentally philosophical," Mr. Fazlinejad says. "It's an ideological difference. It is not a tactical enmity, or one that has to do with temporary interests, which can be shifted and the enmity thus done away with. . . . So in contrast to all the punditry of late in the international media, which says that these negotiations are a step toward peace between Iran and the United States—those who take this view are completely mistaken."
Western leaders, Mr. Fazlinejad says, are also misreading the meaning of Mr. Rouhani's election in June and his foreign policy. Pointing to the Iranian president's recent visits with the families of Iran's "martyrs," Mr. Fazlinejad says: "Notice how hard Mr. Rouhani's government works to show itself to be loyal to the revolution's ideological principles." The new president "won't make the mistake of thinking he can either distance the Islamic Republic's leadership from its ideological principles or seek its ideological collapse."
To drive home his point about the endgame of the negotiations over Iran's nuclear program, Mr. Fazlinejad offers an analogy from the Islamic Republic's early history, citing the late Ayatollah Khomeini's statement regarding the 1987 United Nations Security Council Resolution 598, which paved the way for a cease-fire in the Iran-Iraq War.
"In that message," Mr. Fazlinejad says, "the imam made it clear that our military war against the arrogance in the form of Iraq's regime is over. . . . But he advised the youth and the political activists to 'safeguard the revolutionary hatred and grievance in your hearts, look upon your enemies with fury and know that you will be victorious.' "
Khomeini's statement, Mr. Fazlinejad says, "was a message of peace, signaling a permanent cease-fire. But at the same time it asserted the vitality of our struggle against the capitalist order. If anyone gets the sense from these negotiations, as [Foreign Minister] Mr. Zarif has, that we are getting closer to the West, he is as mistaken as Mr. Zarif."
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This is explained in both articles I posted.
a) FWIW I think BD is using "rational" is a specific "term of art" academic sense and GM is using it as it is used in everyday conversation.
"Because rational choice theory lacks understanding of consumer motivation, some economists restrict its use to understanding business behavior where goals are usually very clear. As Armen Alchian points out, competition in the market encourages businesses to maximize profits (in order to survive). Because that goal is significantly less vacuous than "maximizing utility" and the like, rational choice theory is apt."
Trying to analyze geopolitics without factoring in culture, history, belief systems seems pretty useless.
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So, what's the academic theory that explains how Iran uses these games to buy time until it nukes Israel and maybe the US, even at the cost of massive retaliation?
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While this is a criticism, IMO the better rational choice theorists are able to account for history and culture. I have found that those who criticize in this way fail to understand it.
This is explained in both articles I posted.
a) FWIW I think BD is using "rational" is a specific "term of art" academic sense and GM is using it as it is used in everyday conversation.
"Because rational choice theory lacks understanding of consumer motivation, some economists restrict its use to understanding business behavior where goals are usually very clear. As Armen Alchian points out, competition in the market encourages businesses to maximize profits (in order to survive). Because that goal is significantly less vacuous than "maximizing utility" and the like, rational choice theory is apt."
Trying to analyze geopolitics without factoring in culture, history, belief systems seems pretty useless.
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So, does rational choice explain if Iran is negotiating in good faith or not? What insight does rational choice theory give us in this case?
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Is this a real question, or a continued snide line of "discussion"?
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A real question.
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:lol:
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I am not aware of an in depth, academic work using rational choice about the negotiations that ended a few days ago. There are, however, several rational choice models about Iranian (foreign) policy more generally.
Here are some examples:
http://www.caspianstudies.com/article/Decision%20Making%20in%20Iran-FinalDraft.pdf
http://www.unc.edu/~kurzman/cv/Kurzman_Structural_Opportunity.pdf
If you want more current thought, I suggest academic blog sites like the Duck of Minerva or The Monkey Cage. Foreign Policy's online resources might something too.
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"
I am not aware of an in depth, academic work using rational choice about the negotiations that ended a few days ago."
GM's sense of humor is rubbing off on you :lol:
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"does rational choice explain if Iran is negotiating in good faith or not? What insight does rational choice theory give us in this case?"
If we assume Iran has no intention of abiding by any meaningful restrictions and sees this as all take and no give, then a scholarly theory is not necessary to analyze such a simple framework. More interesting is to study the Obama (G5+1) side to understand what motivates such recklessness.
Not 'rational choice', but look to a theory I would call 'saving face'. When one side is caving in a negotiation, the winning side can offer little fig leafs for the losing side to use for cover in order to make the capitulation happen. President Obama and Sec. Kerry can point to this complex agreement and say blah, blah, blah while Iran proudly proclaims that sanctions are lifted, hard currency is coming in, and nuclear enrichment will be uninterrupted.
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Many Jews might argue that the Iran deal is preferable to strikes and outright war with Iran. Such as Crafty's Stratford Post on the subject. The twisted arguments are ridiculous as we can all see Iran is hell bent on achieving nuclear weaponry capability.
But as the saying goes we all have our opinions and mine is just one of many.
This picture to me portrays what I have noted multiple times. The liberal Jews love the Democrat Party and also hate the Republicans more then Nazis.
http://news.yahoo.com/obama-defends-iran-deal-hanukkah-celebration-105731643.html
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I posted the Stratfor piece because S. has a long history of substantive, thoughtful analyses, many of which are well outside the box but ultimately have been born out.
That said, at the moment in looks to me like they are really stretching things in an effort to cover just how wrong (albeit plausibly) they have been on this one.
Even so, the point about balancing against Sunni fanaticism is worth considering IMHO.
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"
I am not aware of an in depth, academic work using rational choice about the negotiations that ended a few days ago."
GM's sense of humor is rubbing off on you :lol:
Iran has been waging war against us since1979 and working on nukes for at least a decade. Exactly how much lead time is needed ?
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Unthinkable, unthinkable, unthinkable, then too late and worse. That is my opinion.
Others think otherwise:
******By George F. Will, Published: December 6
In his disproportionate praise of the six-month agreement with Iran, Barack Obama said: “For the first time in nearly a decade, we have halted the progress of the Iranian nuclear program.” But if the program, now several decades old, had really been “halted” shortly after U.S. forces invaded neighboring Iraq, we would not be desperately pursuing agreements to stop it now, as about 10,000 centrifuges spin to enrich uranium.
If Denmark wanted to develop nuclear weapons, we would consider that nation daft but not dangerous. Iran’s nuclear program is alarming because Iran’s regime is opaque in its decision-making, frightening in its motives (measured by its rhetoric) and barbaric in its behavior. “Manes,” writes Kenneth M. Pollack of the Brookings Institution, “from whose name the word manichean derives, was a Persian who conceived of the world as being divided into good and evil.” But Pollack says suicidal tendencies are not among the irrationalities of the Iranian leadership, who are not “insane millenarians.”
best editorial cartoons of 2013 (so far): A collection of cartoons from around the country.
In “Unthinkable: Iran, the Bomb, and American Strategy,” Pollack argues that Iran’s nuclear program has been, so far, more beneficial to the United States than to Iran. Because of the anxieties and sanctions the program has triggered, Iran is more isolated, weak, impoverished and internally divided than at any time since it became a U.S. adversary in 1979. And one possible — Pollack thinks probable — result of Iran acquiring a nuclear arsenal would be Saudi Arabia doing so. Pollack considers this perhaps “the most compelling reason” for Iran to stop just short of weaponization.
Writing several months before the recent agreement was reached, Pollack said that, given Iran’s adamant refusal to give up all enrichment, it will retain at least a “breakout capability” — the ability to dash to weaponization in a matter of months, even weeks. Hence the need to plan serious, aggressive containment.
In September 2012, the Senate voted 90 to 1 for a nonbinding resolution “ruling out any policy that would rely on containment as an option in response to the Iranian nuclear threat.” The implication was that containment is a tepid and passive policy. But it was not such during the 45 years the United States contained the Soviet Union. And containment can involve much more than mere deterrence of Iran, against which the United States has already waged cyberwarfare.
Pollack believes that, were it not for Israel “repeatedly sounding the alarm,” Iran “probably would have crossed the nuclear threshold long ago.” But if a nuclear Iran is for Israel unthinkable because it is uncontainable, Israel’s only self-reliant recourse — a nuclear attack on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure — is unthinkable. And, Pollack thinks, unnecessary. The existence of Israel’s nuclear arsenal is a sufficient deterrent: The Iranian leadership is “aggressive, anti-American, anti-status quo, anti-Semitic, duplicitous, and murderous, but it is not irrational, and overall, it is not imprudent.”
There will be no constitutional impropriety if Congress recoils against the easing of sanctions and votes to impose even stiffer ones on Iran. The president has primary but not exclusive responsibility for foreign policy. It is time for a debate about the role of sanctions in a containment policy whose ultimate objective is regime change. For many decades prior to 1989, humanity was haunted by the possibility that facets of modernity — bureaucracy and propaganda technologies — could produce permanent tyrannies impervious to change. (See Hannah Arendt’s “The Origins of Totalitarianism.”) In “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” George Orwell wrote, “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — for ever.” Since 1989, however, tyrannies seem more brittle. And Pollack believes “the basic ingredients of regime change exist in Iran,” which “today is a land of labor protests and political demonstrations.”
Pollack may be too sanguine when he says that, since the brutal smashing of the Green Revolution of June 2009, “the Islamic Republic has been delegitimized and is starting to hollow out.” His fear is that even massive U.S. air strikes would only delay the danger that provoked them and thus might “prove to be nothing more than a prelude to invasion, as they were in Iraq and almost were in Kosovo.”
The logic of nuclear deterrence has not yet failed in the 64 years since the world acquired its second nuclear power. This logic does not guarantee certainty, but, says Pollack, “the small residual doubt cannot be allowed to be determinative.” His basic point is: “Our choices are awful, but choose we must.” Containment is the least awful response to Iran’s coming nuclear capability.
Read more from George F. Will’s archive or follow him on Facebook.******
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Second post
Book Review: 'Days of God,' by James Buchan
Reza Shah single-handedly propelled Iran from a shambolic, humiliated has-been empire into a modern nation-state.
By Roya Hakakian
Dec. 16, 2013 7:04 p.m. ET
In "Days of God," James Buchan comes as close as anyone—certainly as close as any Westerner—to capturing the Iranian predicament of the past 34 years: "Those who make great revolutions forget that prisons and torture chambers survive into the new era, but good manners, good food, the small pleasures of family life, and literary excellence all go to hell. What Iranians most wished for they never gained, and what they most sought to preserve they lost."
Mr. Buchan, a British journalist and novelist, first traveled to Iran in 1974, when the shah was still at the height of his powers, and he worked for many years as a Middle East correspondent for the Financial Times. The author's grasp of Persian literature and the Persian language allows him to treat Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution with rare insight and compassion.
The book chronicles the rise and fall of Iran's Pahlavi kings, the last in a monarchical tradition stretching back 2,500 years. In Mr. Buchan's telling, Iran's turbulent 20th century was defined by the conflict between the modernizing Pahlavis and the country's powerful Shiite clergy, led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The ayatollah-turned-revolutionary had always viewed secular rulers—be they despots or democrats—as an affront to the divine sovereign, and as Mr. Buchan writes, he believed that it was the clerics who "as heirs to the Prophet and the Imams . . . must lead the Muslim community."
Those tensions exploded in the cataclysmic events of 1978-79, which Mr. Buchan covers in rich detail and delightful prose: the massive protest on Sept. 8, 1978, in Tehran's Zhaleh Square, on which the shah's security forces opened fire, dooming his regime in the process; the Khomeinists' equally brutal arson attack on Cinema Rex in Abadan, Iran, which killed almost 500; the bloody retribution aimed at the army and Pahlavi-era officials that followed the revolution; the mass executions of Khomeini's former leftist allies, led by the psychotic hanging judge Sadegh Khalkhali; the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in November 1979; the eight-year war with Iraq; the Iran-Contra affair; and, finally, Khomeini's bizarre 1989 funeral, during which 10,000 grief-stricken devotees of the ayatollah were "treated for self-inflicted wounds, heat exhaustion, and crush injuries."
Enlarge Image
Days of God
By Roya Hakakian
(Simon & Schuster, 410 pages, $27.99)
A most portentous moment in modern Iranian history marks the opening of "Days of God": the 1926 coronation of Reza Shah, an elite cavalry officer in the Cossack Brigade and the founding patriarch of the Pahlavi dynasty. The author describes Reza Shah as an ambitious king-to-be, who aspired to emulate Ataturk in neighboring Turkey with a rapid program of modernization. While noting Reza Shah's flaws—hubris, above all—Mr. Buchan concludes that "Reza was the most influential Iranian of the last century, more influential even than Ruhollah Khomeini." The judgment is sound: Reza Shah almost single-handedly propelled Iran from a shambolic, humiliated has-been empire into a modern nation-state. His great influence notwithstanding, he was forced to abdicate the throne by the World War II Allies in 1941 in favor of his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
In recounting the 50-year rule of the Pahlavis, father and son, Mr. Buchan sharply breaks from the dominant, anti-Pahlavi narrative in the West. At the heart of that narrative is the notion that U.S.-Iran tensions today can be traced back to the 1953 coup, led by the CIA and MI6, against the shah's populist prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh. But according to Mr. Buchan, the real actors behind the anti-Mossadegh "coup" were the Iranian middle class, the merchants of the bazaar and, above all, the Islamist clergy, who loathed Mossadegh's secularism.
For the clerics, Mossadegh's overthrow was merely one episode in a centurylong quest for power that culminated in the Ayatollah Khomeini's 1979 takeover. The historical lesson is clear: The mullahs didn't form a spiritual, benign force that suddenly took the stage in 1978 in support of the oppressed masses against an evil king. Rather, they were pragmatic and persistent political actors with a long-standing thirst for power.
Gradually, as the book's narrative arrives at 1979 and the horrific years that followed, the author's perspective shifts from that of authoritative historian to objective contemporary reporter. He recounts the 444-day ordeal that became known as the hostage crisis in America, but the significance of it for the domestic politics of Iran is mentioned only as an aside. What appeared to the international community, especially the U.S., as an egregious display of enmity toward America also enabled the Khomeinists to consolidate their hold on power at home. But Mr. Buchan notes this pivotal insight only in a passing quotation from the arch-hostage taker Mohammad Mousavi-Khoeiniha : "We have reaped all the fruits of our undertaking. We defeated the attempt by the [Iranian] Liberals to take control of the machinery of government."
During the long 14 months it took until the hostages returned home, seismic shifts took place inside Iran, changing the nation as the world knew it. Mr. Buchan's analysis of all this is sometimes quick, too quick. In the interval, "the Islamic Republic freed the American diplomatic hostages, established its legal code, extirpated its enemies, and covered up its women," he writes.
Another barely analyzed incident is the fatwa against Salman Rushdie issued by the ayatollah in 1989: "Why Khomeini chose to condemn that author, that literary work, and at that time is not obvious to me," Mr. Buchan writes. That Khomeini depended on homemade and other crises—hostage taking, war with Iraq—is a point usually lost on even the most insightful Western experts, Mr. Buchan among them. Western writers are trained to seek underlying, logical rationales for the behavior of rogue and revolutionary regimes. But some men, and some regimes, simply thrive on chaos.
Ms. Hakakian is the author, most recently, of "Assassins of the Turquoise Palace," which received the 2013 Asian American Literary Award in nonfiction.
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U.S. President Barack Obama made a rare threat to veto legislation after a bipartisan group of senators introduced a bill that would impose new sanctions on Iran if an interim nuclear agreement fails. Despite pressure from the Obama administration, on Thursday a group of 26 republican and democratic senators filed a bill, the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act of 2013, targeting Iran's oil exports and penalizing its engineering, mining, and construction industries. Additionally, it would give the senate a voice in any final nuclear agreement with Iran. The sanctions would not take effect before the end of the six-month term of the interim deal. White House spokesman Jay Carney said the "action is unnecessary" and could "disrupt the opportunity here for a diplomatic resolution." Additionally, Benjamin J. Rhodes, a deputy national security advisor, said, "We just can't have new sanctions during this period." One of the bill's main supporters, Senator Robert Menedez, New Jersey Democrat and chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement, "Current sanctions brought Iran to the negotiating table, and a credible threat of future sanctions will require Iran to cooperate and act in good faith."
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http://www.israelvideonetwork.com/iranian-analyst-without-deal-we-wouldve-attacked-israel?utm_source=MadMimi&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Israel+Breaking+News+Video%3A+%27Without+Deal%2C+We+Would%27ve+Attacked+Israel%27&utm_campaign=20131220_m118410957_12%2F22%3A+Israel+Breaking+News+Video%3A+%27Without+Deal%2C+We+Would%27ve+Attacked+Israel%27&utm_term=Iranian+Analyst_3A+Without+Deal_2C+We+Would_27ve+Attacked+Israel
An Iranian political analyst claimed last week that if a deal between Iran and the West over Iran’s nuclear program had not been reached in Geneva, Iran would have annihilated Israel. The comments by Mohammad Sadeq Al-Hosseini, a former political advisor to Iranian President Khatami, aired on Syrian News TV on December 11. They were translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). In fact, said Al-Hosseini, had a deal not been reached in Geneva, President Barack Obama would have had to kiss the hands of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in order to prevent an Iranian attack on Israel.
“Believe me, President Obama tried five times to get a free handshake from President Rouhani, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly – and he failed,” said Al-Hosseini. “He (Obama) said: ‘I am prepared to discuss the issue of Bahrain, like Iran wants – but just give me that handshake,’” claimed Al-Hosseini. “Obama had to make a great retreat. He was forced to accept a handshake from President Rouhani, whom he considered a kind of Gorbachev or Sadat, so that the day would not come when he would be forced to kiss the hands of Hassan Nasrallah and Imam Khamenei, so that they would hold their fire in the great war that was prepared to annihilate Israel,” he further stated. “All the operations... It has been revealed that our missiles can now very easily reach Tel Aviv. We have weapons that can make Israel go blind. Nasrallah, the leader of the resistance, managed to deliver a 17-minute speech, and the Israeli airplanes were unable to reach the southern suburb of Beirut, or to fly over Lebanon,” claimed Al-Hoseeini. “This is the first time that such a thing has happened. This means that we have a new strategic weapon in Syria, in Iran, and in the southern suburb of Beirut, which can prevent Israel from attacking,” he declared. The former presidential adviser went on to claim that the Iranians “have raised the level of uranium enrichment far beyond the level they really needed, so that when the level would be lowered, they would emerge victorious.”
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Obama's Iran Sanctions Veto
He rejects a bipartisan attempt to strengthen his negotiating hand.
Dec. 22, 2013 6:23 p.m. ET
President Obama says he won't sign a deal with Iran that fails to stop its nuclear weapons program. So why is he threatening to veto a Senate sanctions bill that would strengthen his hand in negotiations with Tehran?
That's the big question after the White House promised to veto the "Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act of 2013" that a bipartisan group of Senators introduced on Thursday. Thirteen Democrats joined 13 Republicans as co-sponsors of the bill that would impose more sanctions on Iran only if the talks on a final agreement fail.
The veto threat means the President is siding with Iran against a bipartisan majority in the U.S. Congress. Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif claims the bill would kill the "interim" accord recently signed in Geneva, which sounds like either an excuse or a bluff. Yet White House spokesman Jay Carney immediately echoed the Iranian by saying "it is very important to refrain from taking any action that would potentially disrupt the opportunity for a diplomatic resolution."
At his Friday press conference, Mr. Obama didn't even make that elevated a case, insisting that "there's no reason to do it right now." He added that "I'm not surprised that there's been some talk from some Members of Congress about new sanctions. I think the politics of trying to look tough on Iran are often good when you're running for office or if you're in office."
So as usual the President says his opponents are motivated by political self-interest while he's above all that. At least he didn't blame the "Israel lobby," but what else could he have been referring to? Senate Democrats are getting a taste of what House Republicans get every other day from Mr. Obama.
Pardon us for looking at the merits, but the bill would do nothing to undermine the talks unless Iran isn't serious. Mr. Obama keeps saying that previous sanctions—which he resisted at every turn only to take credit later—are what brought Iran to the bargaining table. The current bill written by New Jersey Democrat Robert Menendez and Illinois Republican Mark Kirk simply warns Iran's rulers of worse sanctions if they walk away. The bill would tee up tighter restrictions on Iran's petroleum industry, access to foreign bank holdings and investment in engineering, mining and construction. This sharpens the incentive for Iran to dismantle its illegal nuclear facilities.
The White House seems to think the bill would alter the mood music of the talks, but if mood is the issue then a deal isn't going to succeed anyway. It's troubling enough that Iran and the U.S. can't even seem to agree on the details of the interim accord, which still isn't in effect.
We're also told that provisional sanctions would undermine Iran President Hasan Rouhani in his supposed battle with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guard Corps. But even if you think that Mr. Rouhani is a genuine moderate, parsing Iran's internal politics is a fool's game. Outsiders can't peer inside such a closed system, unless the NSA and CIA are better than we assume. No deal will work unless Iran's hardliners agree to it in any case.
The Senate bill would also send a useful message to German, Chinese, Indian and other companies that are eager to rush back into business with Iran. It says hold off until a final agreement is done and implemented. One reason Iran so hates the Menendez-Kirk bill is that it is hoping the sanctions relief contained in the interim accord will cascade into a wholesale breakdown whether or not a final agreement is reached.
The Senate bill would also help to keep Mr. Obama's negotiators focused on the merits, as opposed to the short-term atmospherics of a supposed diplomatic triumph. The text of the Senate bill says a successful negotiation must dismantle Iran's nuclear facilities, include compliance with existing U.N. Security Council resolutions (which include limits on ballistic missiles) and allow around the clock inspections at all suspect facilities. The interim accord required none of this.
The bill also offers a strong statement of U.S. support for Israel if it acts in self-defense against Iran's nuclear program. This too is a warning to Mr. Obama, who often seems more intent on containing Israel than containing Iran's nuclear ambitions.
No President wants Congress to intervene in foreign policy, but this bill gives him the freedom to negotiate as long as that negotiation achieves what Mr. Obama says are his goals. It tells Iran and Mr. Obama that Congress won't accept a North Korean-like deal that settles for promises instead of dismantling a rogue nuclear program. If Mr. Obama means what he says, he ought to welcome such political support.
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Click here to watch: Iran develops new generation of uranium centrifuges
President Obama faced mounting bipartisan pressure on Friday to drop his resistance to an Iran sanctions bill after Tehran announced a new generation of equipment to enrich uranium -- a move the Israelis claimed was further proof the regime seeks nuclear weapons. One of the president's top Democratic allies is leading the charge for Congress to pass sanctions legislation, despite the president's pleas to stand down. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez, D-N.J., told Fox News that the "Iranians are showing their true intentions" with their latest announcement. "If you're talking about producing more advanced centrifuges that are only used to enrich uranium at a quicker rate ... the only purposes of that and the only reason you won't give us access to [a military research facility] is because you're really not thinking about nuclear power for domestic energy -- you're thinking about nuclear power for nuclear weapons," he said. Menendez was reacting after Iran's nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi said late Thursday that the country is building a new generation of centrifuges for uranium enrichment. He said the system still needs further tests before the centrifuges can be mass produced. His comments appeared aimed at countering hard-liner criticism by showing the nuclear program is moving ahead and has not been halted by the accord. At the same time, the government was walking a fine line under the terms of the deal.
Iran, as part of a six-month nuclear deal with the U.S. and other world powers, agreed not to bring new centrifuges into operation during that period. But the deal does not stop it from developing centrifuges that are still in the testing phase. On Friday, the Embassy of Israel in Washington released a statement reiterating their call for Iran to halt enrichment and remove the infrastructure behind it. "Installing additional advanced centrifuges would be further indication that Iran intends to develop a nuclear bomb -- and to speed up the process of achieving it," the statement said. Menendez said he, like the president, wants to test the opportunity for diplomacy. "The difference is that we want to be ready should that diplomacy not succeed," the senator said. "It's getting Congress showing a strong hand with Iranians at the same time that the administration is seeking negotiation with them. I think that that's the best of all worlds."
Obama would not appear to agree.
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Iran Nuclear Deal to Take Effect on Jan. 20, World Powers Say
Iran and six world powers have agreed on how to put in place an accord that would temporarily freeze much of Iran’s nuclear program, American and Iranian officials said on Sunday. That accord would go into effect on Jan. 20.
International negotiators worked out an agreement in November to constrain much of Iran’s program for six months so that diplomats would have time to pursue a more comprehensive follow-up accord. But before the temporary agreement could take effect, negotiators had to work out the technical procedures for carrying it out and resolve some of its ambiguities in concert with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
READ MORE »
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/13/world/middleeast/iran-nuclear-deal.html?emc=edit_na_20140112
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http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/01/14/rouhani-world-powers-surrendered-to-iran-with-nuclear-deal/
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US run by Nazi space aliens, Iran claims
Alien Space Nazi Caricature Photo: Roz Mundo
WASHINGTON - Confirming the suspicions of many, the United States has been secretly run by a shadow government of German Nazi space aliens since 1945, Fars News Agency, Iran's semi-official news agency, reported on Sunday.
,,,,
http://www.jpost.com/Iranian-Threat/News/US-run-by-Nazi-space-aliens-Iran-claims-338159
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Russian media is again reporting that Moscow and Tehran are continuing talks related to an oil-for-goods agreement that could be worth as much as $1.5 billion per month. The Iranians are again politely refuting the reports, saying no such talks are on the agenda during Russo-Iranian bilateral meetings. Russia's proposal for the agreement was first leaked by "Russians familiar with the negotiations" to Reuters on Jan. 10, and Moscow has continued its attempts to keep the story in the media spotlight despite Iran's objections.
Details about how such a deal would be implemented are unclear, but the leaks suggest that Iran would deliver some 500,000 barrels of crude oil to Russia per day in exchange for various material goods, ranging from agricultural exports to basic machinery and supplies. We are skeptical that such an agreement will take place. Though both sides may see short-term benefits for keeping the dialogue going, the actual implementation of the deal, at least as presented by the media leaks, poses a strategic risk to both countries.
With this announcement, Russia is attempting to derail the U.S.-Iran talks, hoping to subtly complicate negotiations between Tehran and the P-5+1 group. This would give Moscow the opportunity to position itself in a Middle East in which Iran is closer to the West. The oil-for-goods deal may also prove popular inside Russia as a potential boost for the country's faltering industrial sector.
However, Russia would also begin incentivizing production in a country that could become its competitor in oil markets, should Tehran reinvest in and expand its energy production. Indeed, the program would boost oil production.
The Kremlin sees greater utility in trying to disrupt Iran's ongoing negotiations with the United States. Russia would prefer that the United States remain bogged down in Middle Eastern issues such as the Syrian civil war. However, this plan could lead to increased Iranian hydrocarbon exports to Asia, which buys the most Iranian crude and which Russia has been trying to tap.
Russia has attempted to leverage its relationship with Tehran against U.S.-Iranian relations in the past, most notably through oft-repeated and oft-refuted claims that Moscow was ready to supply Iran with S-300 air defense systems. With the Iranians and Americans now engaged in serious negotiations, the likelihood of an American strike on Iranian facilities -- and the need for advanced air defense systems -- has dropped dramatically.
With Russia attempting to present itself as a more pragmatic mediator after negotiating the Syrian chemical weapons deal and ahead of the Olympics, the Kremlin is now trying to throw off U.S.-Iran talks not through military equipment but through agricultural products and civilian machinery. The United States has already expressed unease with such a plan because it would circumvent sanctions, according to several news agencies, including al Jazeera.
The U.S. Senate has backed off from its push for additional sanctions legislation since Washington and Tehran finalized the terms of the initial nuclear deal Jan. 13. However, the oil-for-goods deal could compel the Senate to renew its efforts, which would jeopardize Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's attempts to sell the nuclear negotiations deal to his country.
In the short-term, discussions over an oil-for-goods deal would give Iran a bargaining chip in its negotiations with the West. It would show that Tehran is not entirely crippled by sanctions and has other options for the future. Moreover, the agreement would provide some immediate benefits to the Iranian government: the influx of 500,000 barrels per day's worth of oil. And Russian machinery and goods could help assuage some of the financial strain on Iran.
That said, the risks seem to outweigh the benefits for Tehran. Iran's negotiations with the United States and the P-5+1 group are necessary. While attractive, the revenue from 500,000 barrels of oil per day does not obviate the need to reduce or remove the sanctions regime. There is also a question of what the Iranians would gain directly through the deal. Admittedly, heavily sanctioned or monitored goods have been difficult for the Iranians to procure, but we have seen scarcely any verifiable evidence that the Iranians have been unable to import sufficient quantifies of foodstuffs, iron, steel, medicine and electronics equipment.
By exchanging oil for Russian goods, Tehran might reduce its import bill and increase oil production. But this undermines Iran's own domestic manufacturing and business activities, and it is unclear if Tehran really needs much of anything that Russia could barter for with oil. Ongoing sales of oil to Syria on credit with large and low-interest loans to the al Assad regime belie reports that the Iranian government's economic situation is on the brink of disaster. With an initial agreement with the United States in hand and potential easing of European financial sanctions expected in the coming weeks, pursuing a separate deal with Russia could cost Iran the gains it has already made in negotiating with the West.
Iran is also only in the early stages of seeing a potential boost in its exports to reliable Asian and regional consumers as a result of its deal with the West. Therefore, it seems as though Russia does not seriously think Iran will go for such a deal but is trying to use the possibility that it would as leverage for its own relationship with the West and the United States. However, Russia and Iran have an interest in managing expectations and placing some pressure on the United States and the P-5+1 group as the framework and implementation of the initial nuclear agreement is being worked out in Geneva. Of course, that does not mean that Iran sees Russia as a reliable partner for stabilizing its domestic economy. The oil-for-goods agreement would create too great a dependence on Moscow for the Iranians to be able to comfortably tolerate.
Read more: Iran, Russia and an Improbable Oil-for-Goods Deal | Stratfor
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Could a Detente with the U.S. Change Iran?
Geopolitical Diary
Thursday, January 23, 2014 - 20:51 Text Size Print
The preliminary agreement over Iran's nuclear program is nearing implementation. But for all that has been said about how a rapprochement will affect bilateral ties, it is worth noting how it will affect each country individually. Since September, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has often said he wants to repair ties with the United States. This is partly because the stakes are higher for the Islamic republic, which could change fundamentally if Tehran normalized relations with Washington.
On Thursday, news agencies quoted Rouhani as saying it was possible to turn 35 years of hostility with the United States into friendship if both sides make an effort. The president was responding to a question on whether there would ever be a U.S. Embassy in Tehran. (Currently, the United States conducts diplomacy with Iran through the Swiss.) Rouhani also said, "no animosity lasts forever."
What is a Geopolitical Diary? George Friedman explains.
These statements have been misinterpreted in the media. Rouhani did not exactly say that Tehran would reconcile with the United States immediately. In fact, what he said was not even unprecedented. On the contrary, his statements are consistent with the position Iran has taken since it began cooperating with the U.S. government a decade ago, when the administration of George W. Bush removed Saddam Hussein from power. In January 2008, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei addressed this matter rather candidly. Speaking to a group of students in the city of Yazd, Khamenei said that Iran did not want relations to be frozen in perpetuity. Rather, he noted that conditions in the United States at the time were such that it was not in Tehran's interests to be friendly with Washington, adding that he would be the first one to approve a rapprochement as soon as it benefited Iran.
Six years later, Tehran is still not ready to resume bilateral ties with Washington. But it sees public negotiations with the United States as beneficial. Meanwhile, the Iranians are cautiously signaling that improved relations are possible. Rouhani's position is not incongruous with Khamenei's, but the subject is nonetheless hotly debated within the Iranian political establishment.
At issue is the nature of Iran's relationship with the United States, one that is intimately tied to the prospect of reopening the embassy. Many of the Iranians that held U.S. diplomats hostage from 1979 to 1980 now hold key government positions, so an embassy would be a huge departure for the United States. But the issue possibly has even greater implications for Iran, which under former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini sought to eliminate U.S. influence in Tehran and considered the United States a "den of spies."
From Tehran's perspective, reestablishing formal diplomatic ties leaves Iran vulnerable to U.S. influence. Many Iranians officials believe that a detente with the Americans would eventually damage the country's revolutionary pedigree. Already, there are powerful elements in the conservative establishment that think the current ruling clique of pragmatic conservatives, led by Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Rouhani, are playing into U.S. interests and in doing so are undermining the integrity of the republic.
For their part, the pragmatic conservatives believe that opening up to the West would not conflict with their revolutionary ideals. Their actions are informed by the need to salvage their country's economy, which has been hit hard by the latest wave of sanctions. At the same time, they also believe the republic needs domestic reform and thus needs to open up the political system.
The hard-liners' main concern is that domestic reforms and a newfound closeness with the United States could strengthen Iran's democratic institutions at the expense of its unelected ones, thereby weakening the theocratic side of its hybrid political system. In short, the clerics would lose power, as would their allies in the security establishment.
For the pragmatic conservative clerics and their reformist partners, altering Iranian policy would not bring an end to the republic. Not only do they feel that the Iranian state is internally strong, but the Rouhani camp also enjoys large support from the public, given the mandate he received in the recent elections, as well as from Khamenei and much of the traditional clergy.
However, the Rouhani administration is aware that it has embarked on a very complex and difficult path. And the government faces considerable resistance from within the state, especially from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-dominated military establishment. For this reason, there are serious limits on how much ties can be normalized. The process will be excruciatingly difficult and at times circuital, as evidenced by the latest statements by Rouhani and his foreign minister, Javad Zarif. They said the Obama administration is mischaracterizing the concessions made by Tehran in the interim nuclear agreement and that Iran did not agree to dismantle its nuclear program.
Ultimately, the Islamic republic has to reconcile its domestic contradictions before it can reconcile with the United States. The model for the Iranians is China, which established normal diplomatic relations with Washington in the 1970s but continues to assert itself as a regional and even global power with interests that conflict with those of the United States. The problem that in addition to being fiercely nationalistic, the Iranians have pan-Muslim/Islamist ambitions intertwined with geopolitical sectarianism that will prevent them from truly emulating the Chinese.
Iran wants to normalize ties with the West, but it does not want to be a pro-Western state. Thus it could form a tentative alliance with the United States when their interests converge without actually becoming an American ally.
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Iran can now break out if it chooses to do so. :-o :cry:
http://www.timesofisrael.com/iran-now-has-nuclear-breakout-capability-us-intel-reports/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
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Iran can now break out if it chooses to do so. :-o :cry:
http://www.timesofisrael.com/iran-now-has-nuclear-breakout-capability-us-intel-reports/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
Anyone think this wasn't the plan all along?
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"Anyone think this wasn't the plan all along?"
Bush was hamstrung in Iraq and Afghanistan. I don't guess (because I really don't know) that he would have allowed this otherwise. I certainly don't thing Rumsfeld or Cheney would have. I admit myself I didn't see this back in '03. I was for bombing Iraq and now I admit it was a mistake though all those horror stories coming out of Saddam's tortured country were hard to read and think how can we just sit here and allow this to continue. Yet after all America has done for Iraq the killing still goes on and Iran was unchecked. We should have been bombing Iran's nuclear facilities all along IMHO. Now while still not too late, there is no will.
As for Obama he certainly couldn't care less about Israel or Jews. The American military does seem to have concluded 'containment' is better than pre-emptive attacks fro some years now.
Any talk of "military action is still on the table" was and has been just PR crap. It never was "on the table". Obviously Iran's leaders saw through this for the past decade.
Israel has been suckered. I guess we can only hope for an outcome similar to the Cold war.
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My sense of it is this:
Bush was badly weakened by his poor leadership of the Iraq War (which would not have been a mistake had Baraq not thrown it out, quite the contrary IMHO) and the vicious opposition in the US, (some of which got rather close to aid and comfort to the enemy or worse) and the Euros (especially the Germans and French) who were doing business with Iran and didn't want to be inconvenienced.
Israel was not suckered. It has been let down-- but don't think they did not see it coming.
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"Israel was not suckered. It has been let down-- but don't think they did not see it coming."
Agreed. And I would add, not only let down but foiled from taking action themselves and possibly "drawing the US in".
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Yes, I agree with you, they were undercut from acting.
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Actually I was talking about Buraq. This was his plan to let Iran go nuclear while he hamstrung Israel.
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Iran Nuclear Chief: ‘The Entire Nuclear Activity of Iran is Going On’
Click here to watch: Iran Nuclear Chief: ‘The Entire Nuclear Activity of Iran is Going On’
Iran’s nuclear chief, Dr. Ali Akbar Salehi, Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, in Tehran, took umbrage with calls to “dismantle” the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program, in a two-part interview with semi-official state news television Press TV on Tuesday. In the lengthy interview Salehi declared that rather than being dismantled, “The entire nuclear activity of Iran is going on.” “If you look at the word ‘dismantle’ and you look at it in the dictionary, dismantle means to take apart and try to put it into pieces, equipment,” Salehi said, according to a Press TV transcript of the interview that was conducted in English. “Well, you can come and see whether our nuclear sites, nuclear equipment and nuclear facilities are dismantled or not. The only thing we have stopped and suspended – and that is voluntarily – is the production of 20 percent enriched uranium and that’s it.” “Of course, there is another thing that we have undertaken; we have committed ourselves not to install main equipment, which have been defined as to what those main equipments are in the Arak 40 megawatt heavy water reactor.” “The nuclear facilities are functioning; our enrichment is proceeding, it’s doing its work, it’s producing the 5 percent enriched uranium and those centrifuges that stopped producing the 20 percent will be producing 5 percent enriched uranium. In other words our production of 5 percent [uranium] will increase. The entire nuclear activity of Iran is going on.” Salehi told the interviewer that the recent Geneva agreement with world powers allows Iran to switch over all of its centrifuges working to make 20 percent enriched uranium to produce to the 5 per cent threshold. He said the agreement does not impact Iran’s ability to develop even more efficient centrifuges, which it is working on now, and would test run for two years before putting them into mass production.
WATCH HERE
In the second part of the interview, Salehi described Iran’s heavy water reactor, Arak, which he classified as a research reactor “for the purpose of producing radio-isotopes and making other tests: fuel tests, material tests. So many other tests that you can use this reactor and make those tests; use the neutrons and make many different tests with the neutrons emanated from the core of this reactor.” But he claimed that while Iran’s Bushehr plant also produces plutonium, neither can do so in the quantity and at the refinement level required to create weapons-grade fuel. He said it will take two more years to finish building the Arak reactor, plus a year of testing, a year for the fuel to be used, and a year for it to cool, meaning, “It takes six, seven, eight years before we are able – if we intend to use the plutonium – to extract the plutonium. Seven to eight years and plus you need a reprocessing plant, which we don’t have and we don’t intend to construct.”
At the end of the interview, Press TV asked, “Let’s go back to November 24th, 2013 when Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany reached the so-called Geneva deal. As a nuclear scientist and MIT Graduate and, more importantly, as Iran’s nuclear chief, what was your first reaction?” Saleh began to answer, then changed direction: “I was happy that both sides reached, I mean, took the first step in a one thousand mile journey.”
Source: The Algemeiner
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http://www.timesofisrael.com/iranian-warships-en-route-to-us-territorial-waters/#ixzz2snzLZG89
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They will soon and as Bolton said you think they are a pain now wait till they get them.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/10/world/middleeast/jewish-hospital-at-home-in-iran.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20140210
Jewish Hospital a Fixture in Tehran
By THOMAS ERDBRINKFEB. 9, 2014
The Dr. Sapir Hospital and Charity Center on Mostafa Khomeini Street is the only Jewish hospital in Tehran and sits across from a Shiite seminary. Morteza Nikoubazl for The New York Times
TEHRAN — Sitting in his office at Tehran’s only Jewish hospital, Ciamak Morsadegh lit another cigarette and reminisced about how his wife left Iran for the United States after he insisted on staying.
Dr. Morsadegh, the director of the Dr. Sapir Hospital and Charity Center here, said that unlike thousands of other Jews he has never thought about leaving the Islamic Republic, for the simple reason that Iran is his home.
“I speak English, I pray in Hebrew, but I think in Persian,” said Dr. Morsadegh, a surgeon who is also a member of Parliament. “I am Iranian. Iranian-Jewish.”
Many were surprised last week when the government of President Hassan Rouhani donated $400,000 to the Dr. Sapir Hospital, but Dr. Morsadegh was not among them.
“We Jews are a part of Iran’s history,” he said. “What is important is that Mr. Rouhani makes big news out of supporting us. He is showing that we, as a religious minority, are part of this country, too.”
Situated on Mostafa Khomeini Street — named for the son of the Islamic Republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini — the hospital sits across from the Imam Reza Seminary school, one of the oldest Shiite seminaries in Tehran. White-turbaned clerics pass by, talking in hushed tones with their students. Though the hospital might seem out of place, local people do not seem to think so.
Launch media viewer
‘I speak English, I pray in Hebrew, but I think in Persian.’ CIAMAK MORSADEGH Director of the Dr. Sapir Hospital and Charity Center in Tehran. Morteza Nikoubazl for The New York Times
“When I am sick I go across the street,” Mohammad Mirghanin, a seminary student, said as he rushed to class. “They might have a different religion, but they are fellow Iranians. I do not see why I should not go to the Jewish hospital.”
On Saturday, a woman in a traditional black chador approached Khoddad Asnashahri, the hospital’s managing director and a Muslim, and asked for help.
“I went to the Iman Khomeini hospital with my daughter who needs a sonogram, but over there it costs 500,000 to man,” or roughly $200, said the woman, Zahra Hajabdolmaleki.
“We will help you here for half that amount,” Mr. Asnashahri pledged.
Named after a Jewish doctor who died in 1921 while trying to cure patients during a typhus epidemic raging through Tehran, the hospital started out as a clinic where all Iranians could come for medical care at vastly reduced rates. For more than 50 years it has been a meeting point for Iranian Jews and Muslims and the most prominent Jewish charity in the capital.
Mr. Asnashahri, who has worked at the hospital for nearly 48 years, praised the “good atmosphere” while also noting that only five Jewish physicians remained. “Many have migrated and others have bought shares in more modern hospitals,” he said.
About 96 percent of patients are Muslim, like most of the hospital’s employees. But what mattered most, he said, was the message that “here all people can come, no matter what religion, color or race.”
Launch media viewer
An Iranian orderly at the pharmacy counter in Dr. Sapir Hospital. The hospital began as a clinic with reduced rates for care. Morteza Nikoubazl for The New York Times
Though the Jewish population of Iran is dwindling — now at about 9,000, according to an official census by the Statistical Center of Iran, though other estimates range to 20,000 — the country has the largest number of Jews in the Middle East after Israel.
Dr. Morsadegh, the surgeon, has devoted his life to that diminishing community. He was a leader of the Tehran Jewish Committee, a group that supports synagogues, schools and other facets of Jewish life in Iran, and in 2008 was elected as the Jewish representative in Parliament, where five official religious minorities have a permanent seat.
He will not say that the situation for Jews and the other official religious minorities — Christian Armenians, Assyrians, Chaldeans and Zoroastrians — is perfect in Iran. The five minorities would like to see an Islamic law changed that allows one of their faith who converts to Islam to get the entire inheritance of his or her non-Muslim family, for example. Yet things are worse for evangelical Christians and Bahais, who can face prison sentences and in many cases exclusion from higher education.
Dr. Morsadegh said former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s repeated Holocaust denials left psychological scars, as well. “Look, all Jews believe in the Holocaust,” he said. “It would have been much better if the former president had not raised that issue.”
President Rouhani has remained silent on the Holocaust, and in September his social media team wished Jews around the world a happy Rosh Hashana.
“It has gotten a lot better,” Dr. Morsadegh said, recalling how thousands of Jews left the country after the 1979 revolution. Many more have emigrated since then, often because of Iran’s bad economy.
Though Dr. Sapir Hospital is Jewish owned, there is not much that would remind one of Jewish heritage. On the wall of Dr. Morsadegh’s office are two portraits of Iran’s past and current supreme leaders, facing a painting of Moses holding up the Ten Commandments. In September, Dr. Morsadegh joined President Rouhani on his trip to the United Nations in New York. Some in Iran have hinted at a connection between the president’s financial donation to the hospital and Dr. Morsadegh’s enthusiastic defense of Iran and the position of Jews in the country.
But the doctor is not bothered by those questions. “I helped out in the war with Iraq for this country, as a first aid doctor,” he said. “And I’d do it again tomorrow.”
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second post
Feb. 9, 2014 5:53 p.m. ET
From a statement by the independent watchdog group Freedom House, Feb. 5:
Freedom House condemns Iran's execution on January 27 of renowned Iranian poet Hashem Shaabani. In July 2013, an Islamic Revolutionary Tribunal had sentenced the poet to death, along with 14 others, on charges of "waging war on God," "spreading corruption on earth," and "questioning the principle of velayat-e faqih" (the rule of the jurisprudent, Iran's system of vesting supreme power in an unelected cleric), according to press reports. . . .
Shaabani and one other person were hanged at an undisclosed prison after the sentences were approved by President Hassan Rouhani.
During Shaabani's three-year incarceration, he was subjected to severe torture and interrogation. Shaabani, aged 32, was an Iranian of Arab origin and a founder of the Dialogue Institute, which tried to promote understanding of Arabic culture and literature in Iran.
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Global muslim outrage in 3.....2......never
second post
Feb. 9, 2014 5:53 p.m. ET
From a statement by the independent watchdog group Freedom House, Feb. 5:
Freedom House condemns Iran's execution on January 27 of renowned Iranian poet Hashem Shaabani. In July 2013, an Islamic Revolutionary Tribunal had sentenced the poet to death, along with 14 others, on charges of "waging war on God," "spreading corruption on earth," and "questioning the principle of velayat-e faqih" (the rule of the jurisprudent, Iran's system of vesting supreme power in an unelected cleric), according to press reports. . . .
Shaabani and one other person were hanged at an undisclosed prison after the sentences were approved by President Hassan Rouhani.
During Shaabani's three-year incarceration, he was subjected to severe torture and interrogation. Shaabani, aged 32, was an Iranian of Arab origin and a founder of the Dialogue Institute, which tried to promote understanding of Arabic culture and literature in Iran.
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http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/24/iraq-iran-arms-idUSL6N0LT41H20140224?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=*Mideast%20Brief&utm_campaign=Mideast%20Brief%202-25-14
Iran has signed a deal to sell Iraq arms and ammunition worth $195 million, according to documents seen by Reuters - a move that would break a U.N. embargo on weapons sales by Tehran.
The agreement was reached at the end of November, the documents showed, just weeks after Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki returned from lobbying the Obama administration in Washington for extra weapons to fight al Qaeda-linked militants.
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This was discussed today on Dick Morris radio (actually a really good show - he is really interesting). But I thought Libya took responsibility for Lockerbee and admitted it?
undecided
******Ex-Iranian intel officer says Iran, not Libya, behind Lockerbie attack
Ex-Iranian intel officer says Iran, not Libya, behind Lockerbie attack
March. 11, 2014 at 4:17 PM | 1 Comment
EDINBURGH, Scotland, March 11 (UPI) -- The 1988 Lockerbie jetliner bombing was payback for the U.S. Navy's downing of an Iranian airliner six months earlier, an ex-Iranian intelligence officer says.
Abolghassem Mesbahi says Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini ordered the attack on Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in which 290 people died, to avenge the accidental shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655 over the Persian Gulf by the USS Vincennes and left 270 people dead, the Daily Telegraph reported Monday.
The London newspaper said previously unreleased evidence that was to have been used in an appeal hearing for Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the former Libyan intelligence officer convicted of the bombing, supports Mesbahi's contention. The Lockerbie bombing was carried out by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine -- General Command, the newspaper said the evidence suggests.
The Telegraph said documents obtained by the Arab television network al-Jazeera for a documentary called "Lockerbie: What Really Happened?" names key individuals allegedly involved in the attack.
The Telegraph said the new evidence puts the conviction of al-Megrahi in question and supports allegations the truth about Lockerbie was covered up by Britain and the United States to avoid angering Syria, a key player in the Middle East
Al-Megrahi, the only man convicted in the Lockerbie attack, dropped his appeal after being released from prison in 2009 because he was suffering from cancer, though he maintained his innocence until his death in 2012.
Al-Megrahi's conviction was based on the prosecution's theory that Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi had personally ordered the Lockerbie attack in retaliation for the U.S. bombing of Tripoli and Benghazi in 1986, in which Gadhafi's daughter was killed.
But Mesbahi contends it was Iran, not Libya, that sought revenge.
"Iran decided to retaliate as soon as possible," Mesbahi, who had reported directly to Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and now lives under a witness protection program in Germany, told al-Jazeera. "The decision was made by the whole system in Iran and confirmed by Ayatollah Khomeini.
"The target of the Iranian decision-makers was to copy exactly what happened to the Iranian Airbus. Everything exactly the same, minimum 290 people dead."
The newspaper reported the U.S. State Department said it wanted all those responsible for the Lockerbie attack brought to justice, while Britain's Foreign Office said the case remains open because investigators believe al-Megrahi didn't act alone.
The Iranian government had no comment on the documentary's findings, but has previously denied any involvement in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.
Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2014/03/11/Ex-Iranian-intel-officer-says-Iran-not-Libya-behind-Lockerbie-attack/UPI-51221394569068/#ixzz2vheOEkoK*******
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Iran Doesn't Want a Deal
Strike three for John Kerry's diplomacy.
By Bret Stephens
May 12, 2014 6:47 p.m. ET
John Kerry began the year trying to bring representatives of the Assad regime together with rebel leaders in Geneva to end the civil war in Syria.
It was bound to fail. It failed. Strike one.
Next, the secretary of state worked tirelessly to create a framework agreement between Israelis and Palestinians, with a view to settling their differences once and for all.
It was bound to fail. It failed. Strike two.
This week, U.S. negotiators and their counterparts from the P5+1—the five permanent members of the Security Council, plus Germany—will meet in Vienna with Iranian negotiators to work out the details of a final nuclear agreement.
You know where this is going.
There's been a buzz about these negotiations, with Western diplomats extolling the unfussy way their Iranian counterparts have approached the talks. Positions are said to be converging; technical solutions on subjects like the plutonium reactor in Arak are being discussed. Last month Iranian Foreign Minister Mohamad Javad Zarif said there was "50 to 60 percent agreement."
All this is supposed to bode well for a deal to be concluded by the July deadline. If the Iranians are wise, they'll take whatever is on the table and give Mr. Kerry the diplomatic win he so desperately wants. Time is on Tehran's side. It can sweeten the terms of the agreement later on—including the further lifting of sanctions—through the usual two-step of provocation and negotiation.
The only thing Iran has to fear is an Israeli military strike. For that to happen, Jerusalem needs (or believes it needs) conditions that are both militarily and diplomatically permissive. By agreeing to a deal, the Iranians further restrict Israel's options without permanently restricting their own.
But Iran is not wise. It is merely cunning. And fanatical. Also greedy, thanks to a long history of being deceitful and obstreperous and still getting its way without having to pay a serious price. So it will allow this round of negotiations to fail and bargain instead for an extension of the current interim agreement. It will get the extension and then play for time again. There will never be a final deal.
Why am I so confident? Listen to the man with the last word first: "They expect us to limit our missile program while they constantly threaten Iran with military action," Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said Sunday. "So this is a stupid, idiotic expectation. The Revolutionary Guards should definitely carry out their program and not be satisfied with the present level. They should mass produce."
Ballistic missiles are lousy weapons for anything except the rapid delivery of chemical or nuclear warheads. (The 39 Iraqi Scuds that hit Israel in 1991 killed two people.) But limiting the number and range of ballistic missiles is central to any agreement that aims to prevent Iran from having a rapid nuclear-breakout capability. Mr. Khamenei's public call to mass produce missiles is not exactly an indication of seriousness about a final deal.
Also a sign of non-seriousness was last month's call by Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, to add an additional 30,000 centrifuges to Iran's existing 19,000. "So far we have produced seven to eight tons of enriched uranium," he said. But he wants Iran to produce 30 tons, ostensibly to fuel the civilian nuclear plant at Bushehr. And that's 30 tons a year. A single ton of civilian-grade uranium suffices, with further enrichment, for a single atomic bomb.
Still not getting the drift? "Iran will not retreat one step in the field of nuclear technology," said one prominent Iranian over the weekend. "We have nothing to put on the table and offer to them but transparency. That's it. Our nuclear technology is not up for negotiation."
That's Iranian President Hasan Rouhani speaking. For good measure, he added that Iran would go back to producing 20% enriched uranium—which is close to weapon-grade—"whenever necessary." And he's the moderate. Even the Obama administration cannot accept a deal that allows Iran to expand its centrifuge capabilities or enrich uranium to 20%.
The hardening of Tehran's negotiating position is another reminder of the blunder the administration made when it agreed to the interim deal and then turned on Congress to prevent automatic sanctions in the event Iran failed to make a final deal. "Show that you are strong, and you will see results"—such was the advice Mr. Rouhani confidentially offered an Israeli agent posing as a U.S. official in 1986 on how to deal with the Ayatollah Khomeini. The advice is still sound.
In the meantime, the administration needs to think about what it will do when Mr. Kerry strikes out. Is there a Plan B, other than the president's now trademark mix of hollow threats and soliloquies on the limits of presidential power? I doubt it. Goethe wrote that nothing is worse than aggressive stupidity, which is true. But pompous impotence surely comes in second place, and this administration combines aspects of both.
The Israelis may sit still through all this. But Mr. Kerry shouldn't count on it.
Write to bstephens@wsj.com
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second post
Summary
Iran has ramped up its rhetoric about possible deliveries of Iranian natural gas to Europe in the weeks following an escalation of tensions between Russia and the West over Ukraine. A partnership between the two would seem well founded: Iran is eager to transit its reserves, as well as those of its neighbors, to new markets, and Europe wants to find alternative natural gas supplies to Russia. But political and logistical constraints will render these plans distant, long-term solutions at best.
Analysis
Tehran has attempted to manage Moscow's perception of Iranian energy's appeal to European customers, saying that it still wants to respect Russia's traditional role as the largest supplier of natural gas to the European market. However, a potential shift in U.S.-Iranian relations is leading more markets to consider Iran as a natural gas supplier, as are trends in the global energy industry, which is trying to re-enter Iranian oil and natural gas plays. Iranian Deputy Oil Minister for International and Trade Affairs Ali Majedi reiterated Tehran's desire to export natural gas to Europe on May 7, citing three possible routes along which Iran could pipe the energy product. In recent weeks, Iran has even discussed transiting Turkmen natural gas to additional markets as well.
According to the most recent data in the BP Statistical Review of World Energy, Iran's proven natural gas reserves are at 33.6 trillion cubic meters, exceeding Russia's proven reserves of 32.9 trillion cubic meters. Tehran has been quick to play up its newfound top spot in global reserves, but Iran lags far behind Russia in terms of investment and production. In addition, close to 35 years of troubled relations with the West, difficult geography and ongoing sanctions have limited Iran's ability to develop meaningful domestic transport and export infrastructure. Iran may have more natural gas than Russia, but Tehran faces many more constraints in accessing reserves and lags far behind Moscow in options for profiting from its natural resource wealth.
Iranian negotiators are hammering out a comprehensive nuclear deal with their Western counterparts as a prelude to lifting U.S. and EU economic sanctions on Iran. During these talks, Iran has worked diligently to attract potential foreign investors, primarily from Europe and Asia, hoping to leverage its large hydrocarbon reserves and potential consumer market to the global economy as it pushes for better terms with the West. Part of that strategy -- highlighting Iran's ability to supply energy to Europe -- has come into greater focus as European consumers are again re-evaluating their dependence on Russian energy supply. Taking a nod from neighboring Turkey, Iran is also trying to strengthen its negotiating position by highlighting its geographic position, potentially linking Caspian and Central Asian energy supplies to markets in the Middle East, Europe and beyond.
Iran's Natural Gas Ties to Turkmenistan
Europe has long kept an eye on Turkmenistan's large natural gas reserves -- 17.5 trillion cubic meters -- but these supplies have remained just out of reach for decades. Europeans have struggled to find a transport route for Turkmenistan's supplies to European markets that does not involve the Russian-dominated Caspian Sea or a sanctioned Iran. Iran's generally positive ties with Turkmenistan have resulted in longer and more stable trade and political relations than Tehran has had with its other eastern neighbors, especially in recent decades. One of the best examples of this relationship is the interconnection of natural gas pipelines in northeastern Iran and Turkmenistan's natural gas pipeline networks. Ashgabat helps provide natural gas to the Caspian provincial capital of Rasht and to Mashhad, Iran's second-largest city, through two pipelines with a combined annual capacity of 20 billion cubic meters. Iran's annual imports average roughly half that amount.
Iran and Turkmenistan
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Iran imports Turkmen natural gas out of necessity. Mashhad is a former oasis town on an ancient Silk Road route linking Persia with Central Asia. A shrine to Reza, the eighth Shiite imam, has cemented modern-day Mashhad's role as a significant cultural and urban center and as Iran's holiest city. And so Mashhad has been able to develop despite its geographic isolation, though Iran's domestic energy infrastructure still heavily favors moving natural gas and oil produced in the southern regions of the country to population centers in the northern and western parts of the country.
With the world's fourth-largest natural gas reserves, Turkmenistan has been searching for greater access to global markets. Geography and Iran's own domestic reserves limit Tehran's role as a potential consumer market, and other Central Asian states, including Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan, have serious economic and security limitations in building pipelines in the mountainous terrain that separates them from their energy-rich neighbors. Turkmenistan traditionally has sold the bulk of its natural gas exports to Russia, but in recent years Ashgabat has focused on selling just over half of its exports to China, splitting the rest nearly evenly between Russia and Iran. Turkmenistan sees potential in expanding exports to growing natural gas markets in Asia, especially China, but faced with limited growth markets in Russia and Iran, Ashgabat has its eye on Western markets as well.
Turkmen political leaders have long sought to diversify the country's natural gas exports. The Trans-Caspian pipeline to Azerbaijan, which would link Turkmen supplies to Europe through Azerbaijan and Turkey, has been under discussion since 1996. However, the proposed pipeline has faced intense opposition from Russia. Iran has boundary disputes with neighboring Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan over the Caspian Sea, but this has not prevented Iran from offering to serve as a transit state for Turkmen natural gas in the past. Most recently, National Iranian Gas Company Managing Director Hamidreza Araqi announced March 11 that Iran was ready to transit Turkmen natural gas to Arab states in the Persian Gulf.
Challenges to Iranian and Turkmen Ambitions
Tehran has agreed to other transit plans as well. Iran and Turkey reached an agreement to transit Turkmen gas to Europe in 2012 under Iran's president at the time, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Regional tensions over the Syrian conflict, Western sanctions on Iran and domestic political issues have taken a toll on the implementation of this deal, and geography still presents a significant challenge to Iran and Turkey's plans to link Central Asian energy reserves to global markets.
Iran Natural Gas Fields and Pipelines
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With Russian opposition to the Trans-Caspian pipeline likely to impede its construction for the short to medium term, Ashgabat is looking for a land route to reach European consumers. The pipeline network has about 10 billion cubic meters of spare capacity, but it is completely disconnected from Iran's central gas transportation trunklines (known as the Iran Gas Trunkline), which severely limits Turkmenistan's ability to pump natural gas through Iran and into Turkey. Iran's mountainous terrain and the vast desert regions of the Iranian Plateau have prevented Iran from linking its own energy supplies to northeastern Iran, much less bringing Turkmen natural gas supplies to the West.
Iran needs to expand its domestic infrastructure significantly before it will be able to transport its own natural gas supplies, let alone Turkmen supplies. Iran intends to expand its Iran Gas Trunkline network, but currently there are no plans to extend the network toward the northeast. Turkmen natural gas does service the northern coastal region near Rasht, but Iran's Alborz mountain chain makes westward expansion of this line into Iran or toward Azerbaijan costly and difficult. Iran likely would need foreign investment and assistance in building out its transit network. Even if sanctions are lifted, Iran probably will prioritize developing its own reserves and export capabilities before assisting Turkmenistan.
The Turks and the Europeans probably will need to expand their own transit options to accommodate greater Iranian and Turkmen supplies. Turkey is in the early stages of building the Trans-Anatolian pipeline project to bring natural gas supplies from Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz II field to southern Europe. Though some spare capacity (less than 10 billion cubic meters) has been built into the design, final routing for the pipeline, future expansion plans and European infrastructure development are still firmly stuck in the planning and negotiations phase, meaning Turkey's infrastructure limitations compound those of Iran and Turkmenistan.
Russia's role as a supplier remains the biggest impediment to Iran and Turkmenistan's export plans. The European Union's weak response to Russia's actions in Ukraine illustrates Europe's strong reliance on Russian energy supplies, and Moscow's ability to undercut costlier Turkmen and Iranian supplies will give it a strong negotiating position for future contracts. In addition, ongoing support for Russia's competing South Stream pipeline project in some EU states indicates that not all European consumers consider Russian natural gas supplies risky.
The volume of potential Iranian and Turkmen natural gas supplies will continue to attract considerable outside interest, especially from European consumers. However, infrastructure and political limitations will probably keep these supplies from reaching Western markets in the short to medium term. Long-term ambitions could be fulfilled, but Russia will work hard to strengthen its export position to Europe in the meantime, hoping to limit the strategic value of Iranian and Central Asian natural gas supplies to global markets.
Read more: Iran's Plans to Export Natural Gas to Europe Face Obstacles | Stratfor
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We warned here at the time , , , :cry: :cry: :cry:
Click here to watch: Iran Claims it Replicated Captured US spy Drone
Iran said it has succeeded in copying a US drone it captured in December 2011, with state television broadcasting images apparently showing the replicated aircraft
Tehran captured the US RQ-170 Sentinel in 2011 while it was in its airspace, apparently on a mission to spy on the country’s nuclear sites, media in the United States reported.
“Our engineers succeeded in breaking the drone’s secrets and copying them. It will soon take a test flight,” an officer said in the footage. The broadcast showed supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s visit to an exhibition organised by the powerful Revolutionary Guards air wing about Iran’s military advances, particularly regarding ballistic missiles and drones. Footage showed two nearly identical drones.
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“This drone is very important for reconnaissance missions,” Khamenei said, standing in front of the Iranian copy of the American unmanned aircraft. Iran said it had taken control of the ultra hi-tech drone and forced it down in the desert where it was recovered nearly intact. Washington said it had lost control of the aircraft. At the time, US military officials tried to play the incident down, saying Iran did not have the technology to decipher its secrets, and President Barack Obama asked the Islamic republic to return the Sentinel. Iran has been working to develop a significant drone program of its own, and some of its unmanned aircraft have a range of hundreds of kilometers (miles) and are armed with missiles. The state broadcaster also showed images that the commentary said had been recorded by an Iranian drone above a US aircraft carrier in the Gulf. In the pictures, which were relatively clear, it was possible to see American personnel working on planes and helicopters aboard the vessel.
Source: Times of Israel
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Does this make any sense?
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Five years ago, Iran's then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezuela's then-President Hugo Chavez visited each other multiple times and stood arm-in-arm declaring a united front against "imperialism and colonialism" in an affront to the United States and its widening sanctions net. Chavez would even refer to Ahmadinejad as his brother, standing together as a "mountain" of resistance. But that brotherly love has not endured under Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. The current leaders' feelings toward each other is not so much a matter of personality preferences; increasingly watered down relations between Iran and Latin America are a function of Iran's shifting geopolitical position.
Iran has shut down its second oil office in Latin America. On April 7, Iran's National Oil Co. closed down an office in Bolivia, and today, a month later, Iran's Petropars Co. canceled an oil agreement with Venezuela's Petroleos de Venezuela. We expect further closures in Ecuador, Cuba and Nicaragua, where Iran has set up similar operations. In the words of the managing director of Iran's National Oil Co., Roknoddin Javadi, Iran's offices in Latin America are not economically justified and serve only political purposes.
Javadi's candor is quite revealing. Indeed, Iran has set up a number of shell companies throughout Latin America over the past several years, not simply to demonstrate that political pariahs can band together in the face of U.S. aggression but also to serve a practical purpose in circumventing sanctions. From joint oil projects to car and bicycle assembly plants to cement factories, deals were penned, though many of these companies lay dormant or were never built at all.
Instead, Iranian businessmen -- some of whom are tied to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps -- traveling on Venezuela's Conviasa flights from Tehran, Damascus and Caracas, would use these "legal" entities to launder money and in some cases acquire sensitive technology by proxy. The Fondo Binacional Venezuela-Iran, an Iranian-Venezuelan joint bank, would operate as a proxy for the Export Development Bank of Iran, a sanctioned entity that found willing partners in the region, particularly in Ecuador, to issue letters of credit for foreign transactions. In short, Iran's relationships in Latin America have been critical in enabling the IRGC to fulfill its mission of keeping Iran in business, even if it took inordinately creative means to do so.
But Iran is operating in a vastly different geopolitical climate now. With a July 20 deadline looming on the nuclear negotiations, U.S. and Iranian leaders are working feverishly toward a deal. On the surface, this is about defanging Iran's nuclear ambitions, yet both sides know that this is the crucial first step toward a strategic rapprochement with wide-ranging implications. And time is of the essence: The U.S. administration may be facing bigger challenges ahead after midterm elections, and the Iranian president is floundering at home over a bungled economic policy to phase out subsidies.
With the strategic drivers in play and the pressure on, it's no wonder that we are seeing some notable albeit subtle signs of progress in the negotiations. International Atomic Energy Association inspectors probed Iranian nuclear facilities this week and have reached a critical agreement on the inspection of the Arak facility, where U.S. congressmen and Israeli Knesset leaders alike have warned that a 40-megawatt heavy water plant still under construction could provide enough plutonium for Iran to construct a nuclear device. While resisting demands to dismantle the facility, Iran has been telegraphing a proposal under negotiation to redesign the facility in order to allay these fears.
That Iran downgraded its relationships in Latin America offers another prism into this negotiation. The U.S. Treasury Department has been focused on Iran's Latin America dealings, trying to apply pressure on Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua to end any illicit collaboration with Iran. The closure of Iranian oil offices may serve several purposes for the Rouhani government.
First, Rouhani is already escalating efforts to neutralize the IRGC, which has run many of the shell operations in Latin America. Rouhani has not been particularly threatened by the IRGC's rather weak displays of opposition to his negotiation with the United States so far, but he has reason to be concerned about IRGC attempts to exploit widespread disillusion with Rouhani's economic reforms. Shutting down some IRGC operations abroad may be an attempt to rein in Rouhani's opponents and alleviate the government's dependency on the IRGC to maintain the country's financial well-being.
Second, Iran's National Oil Co. is legitimately trying to lay the groundwork for the reopening of Iran's energy sector, with an expectation that sanctions will eventually be lifted and that Iran will have to get itself in shape financially and politically to manage that incoming investment and increased production. Trimming off a few expenses abroad could help in this regard.
Finally, Iran's proactive choice to shutter these operations in Latin America that have long irked U.S. Treasury officials is another positive gesture in its ongoing negotiations with the United States. Iran can signal that it is willing to play by the rules so long as Washington does its part to ease up on the financial sanctions and readmit Iran into the global banking system.
That is the next piece to watch. Iran is putting out a number of positive signals, but the United States will have to follow through with concessions of its own, starting with easing up on financial sanctions. Expert-level talks are taking place this week in New York, and the actual drafting of the nuclear agreement is supposed to continue May 13-16 in Vienna. There will be plenty of noise surrounding these talks but also plenty of reason for us to remain cautiously optimistic in analyzing each side of this weighty negotiation.
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Book Review: 'A Time to Attack' by Matthew Kroenig
Tehran will not abandon its 30-year project. So the U.S. faces a choice: accept a nuclear Iran or launch a pre-emptive strike.
By Reuel Marc Gerecht
June 19, 2014 7:35 p.m. ET
Here's a prediction: Next month in Vienna, Iran and the P5+1 world powers will extend the interim agreement they struck six months ago on Iran's nuclear program. Secretary of State John Kerry will hold a press conference, offering both sides solemn praise for finding common ground. All the while, through this tough compromise and historic collaboration, the Islamic Republic's 9,000 spinning centrifuges will keep on enriching uranium; the other 10,000 installed centrifuges won't be dismantled. Eventually these centrifuges, or thousands of new-and-improved ones, will be able to produce bomb-grade fuel.
Whether the official nuclear agreement is extended another six months or a year or more, the Iranian regime will not abandon its 30-year project. So the U.S. will face an unavoidable choice: accept a nuclear Iran or launch a pre-emptive military strike. Matthew Kroenig, a former Pentagon official who focused on the Iranian nuclear challenge under Defense Secretary Robert Gates, sees this reality clearly. His book, "A Time to Attack," embraces the military option because he believes it is the only way to stop the clerical regime's nuclear drive.
Mr. Kroenig, a professor at Georgetown, is commendably straightforward in dispensing with the naïve hope that Iran's nuclear program is peaceful in nature: "Iran would like to build nuclear weapons. The only people Tehran is fooling at this point are people who want to be fooled." He annihilates the argument that the Islamic Republic will go the way of Japan, maintaining a civilian nuclear program but never building a bomb. "It is simply implausible that Iran would go to such great lengths to get one screwdriver's turn away from the most powerful weapon on Earth—a weapon that would help Iran meet is foremost geopolitical goals—and then suddenly . . . voluntarily stop short," he writes, noting that the regime has so far spent $100 billion on this bid.
President Barack Obama insists that he is ready to attack Iran to keep it from getting the bomb—in 2012, he called a nuclear Iran "unacceptable"—and Mr. Kroenig takes the president at his word. This may not be a credible position, given the president's record on Syria, but Mr. Kroenig argues that "no president would want to go down in history as the leader who let Iran acquire nuclear weapons on his watch, especially if nuclear weapons in Iran one day result in a devastating nuclear war."
Enlarge Image
A Time to Attack
By Matthew Kroenig
(Palgrave Macmillian, 256 pages, $28)
Like the president, the author would like to see the current nuclear negotiations succeed. But he's extremely doubtful they will. "Security, prestige, and domestic politics [are] the three most important reasons why countries decide to build nuclear weapons," he writes, citing a Stanford University study of nuclear-armed states. "All three motivations are pushing Iran toward the bomb." Mr. Kroenig doesn't discuss Iranian internal politics, but he should have. A recent volume of Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's autobiography, for instance, has the former Iranian president bragging about the regime's nuclear gambit: "The Americans are really fooled," the mullah wrote.
Mr. Kroenig helpfully emphasizes a key detail that often goes unmentioned in public discussion of centrifuges and plutonium-producing heavy-water reactors. "Iran is building ICBMs," he writes. "No country on Earth, not even the United States, mounts conventional warheads on ICBMs. Traditionally, ICBMs have had one purpose: to deliver nuclear warheads thousands of miles away. If Iran is not developing nuclear weapons, then why does it have such a robust ICBM development program?"
Although not opposed to the use of sanctions as a diplomatic tool, Mr. Kroenig doesn't see them stopping Tehran's nuclear quest. Iran's economy has been devastated by sanctions, yet that hasn't halted atomic progress.
So if diplomacy and sanctions won't stop the mullahs, is there another strategy short of bombing that might? Mr. Kroenig is pessimistic. Iran is now much better prepared to deal with aggressive malware attacks, like the computer virus Stuxnet that briefly gummed up a lot centrifuges. Just about everyone in Washington dreams of regime change, even if they don't say so publicly. But that prospect offers little hope to Mr. Kroenig: The regime ruthlessly crushed the pro-democracy Green Movement in 2009.
Clandestine, plausibly deniable military operations also aren't a serious option, he argues. The assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists, presumably carried out by Israeli agents, hasn't accomplished much. And even if the U.S. or Israel could get special ops teams or stealthy aircraft in position to attack critical sites, bunker-busting 30,000-pound bombs would be required to destroy the uranium enrichment site at Fordow, which is buried deep in a mountain. Everyone knows that only one country has these weapons.
Containment, the strategy that much of Washington's foreign-policy establishment has embraced by default, doesn't make much sense either. As Mr. Kroenig puts it: "Why would anyone believe that we would fight a nuclear war with Iran if we didn't even have the stomach for a conventional war with a nonnuclear Iran?"
Logically and relentlessly, Mr. Kroenig moves to the conclusion that if the U.S. is serious about stopping Iran from getting a bomb, it will have to strike. Only four sites—Fordow, a second enrichment facility at Natanz, a uranium-conversion facility at Isfahan, and a heavy-water reactor at Arak—need to be destroyed to set the program back decades, if not longer. Mr. Kroenig readily admits that there will be costs for preventive military action. Tehran will likely respond with terrorism, directly or through proxies. But Mr. Kroenig contends that those costs are much lower than allowing Iran to go nuclear. Whether or not he's right, we will soon find out.
Mr. Gerecht is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
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Sent to me by our Big Dog-- some stuff did not print, so for a complete viewing going to the original will be necessary:
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July/August 2014
COMMENT
What Really Happened in Iran
The CIA, the Ouster of Mosaddeq, and the Restoration of the Shah
Ray Takeyh
RAY TAKEYH is Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Back in 2009, during his heavily promoted Cairo speech on American relations with the Muslim world, U.S. President Barack Obama noted, in passing, that “in the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government.” Obama was referring to the 1953 coup that toppled Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq and consolidated the rule of the shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Obama would go on to remind his audience that Iran had also committed its share of misdeeds against Americans. But he clearly intended his allusion to Washington’s role in the coup as a concession -- a public acknowledgment that the United States shared some of the blame for its long-simmering conflict with the Islamic Republic.
Yet there was a supreme irony to Obama’s concession. The history of the U.S. role in Iran’s 1953 coup may be “well known,” as the president declared in his speech, but it is not well founded. On the contrary, it rests heavily on two related myths: that machinations by the CIA were the most important factor in Mosaddeq’s downfall and that Iran’s brief democratic interlude was spoiled primarily by American and British meddling. For decades, historians, journalists, and pundits have promoted these myths, injecting them not just into the political discourse but also into popular culture: most recently, Argo, a Hollywood thriller that won the 2013 Academy Award for Best Picture, suggested that Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution was a belated response to an injustice perpetrated by the United States a quarter century earlier. That version of events has also been promoted by Iran’s theocratic leaders, who have exploited it to stoke anti-Americanism and to obscure the fact that the clergy itself played a major role in toppling Mosaddeq.
In reality, the CIA’s impact on the events of 1953 was ultimately insignificant. Regardless of anything the United States did or did not do, Mosaddeq was bound to fall and the shah was bound to retain his throne and expand his power. Yet the narrative of American culpability has become so entrenched that it now shapes how many Americans understand the history of U.S.-Iranian relations and influences how American leaders think about Iran. In reaching out to the Islamic Republic, the United States has cast itself as a sinner expiating its previous transgressions. This has allowed the Iranian theocracy, which has abused history in a thousand ways, to claim the moral high ground, giving it an unearned advantage over Washington and the West, even in situations that have nothing to do with 1953 and in which Iran’s behavior is the sole cause of the conflict, such as the negotiations over the Iranian nuclear program.
All of this makes developing a better and more accurate understanding of the real U.S. role in Iran’s past critically important. It’s far more than a matter of correcting the history books. Getting things right would help the United States develop a less self-defeating approach to the Islamic Republic today and would encourage Iranians -- especially the country’s clerical elite -- to claim ownership of their past.
Day in court: Mohammad Mosaddeq on trial, November 1953.
Day in court: Mohammad Mosaddeq on trial, November 1953. (Getty / Carl Mydans)
HONEST BROKERS
In the years following World War II, Iran was a devastated country, recovering from famine and poverty brought on by the war. It was also a wealthy country, whose ample oil reserves fueled the engines of the British Empire. But Iran’s government didn’t control that oil: the wheel was held by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, whose majority shareholder happened to be the British government. By the early 1950s, as assertive nationalism swept the developing world, many Iranians were beginning to see this colonial-era arrangement as an unjust, undignified anachronism.
So strong was the desire to take back control of Iran’s national resources that it united the country’s liberal reformers, its intelligentsia, elements of its clerical establishment, and its middle-class professionals into a coherent political movement. At the center of that movement stood Mosaddeq, an upper-class lawyer who had been involved in Iranian politics from a young age, serving in various ministries and as a member of parliament. Toward the end of World War II, Mosaddeq reemerged on the political scene as a champion of Iranian anticolonialism and nationalism and managed to draw together many disparate elements into his political party, the National Front. Mosaddeq was not a revolutionary; he was respectful of the traditions of his social class and supported the idea of constitutional monarchy. But he also sought a more modern and more democratic Iran, and in addition to the nationalization of Iran’s oil, his party’s agenda called for improved public education, freedom of the press, judicial reforms, and a more representative government.
In April 1951, the Iranian parliament voted to appoint Mosaddeq prime minister. In a clever move, Mosaddeq insisted that he would not assume the office unless the parliament also approved an act he had proposed that would nationalize the Iranian oil industry. Mosaddeq got his way in a unanimous vote, and the easily intimidated shah capitulated to the parliament’s demands. Iran now entered a new and more dangerous crisis.
The United Kingdom, a declining empire struggling to adjust to its diminished influence, saw the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company as a crucial source of energy and profit, as well as a symbol of what little imperial prestige the country had managed to cling to through the end of World War II. So London responded to the nationalization with fury. It warned European companies doing business in Iran to pull out or face retribution, and the still potent British navy began interdicting ships carrying Iranian oil on the grounds that they were transporting stolen cargo. These moves -- coupled with the fact that the Western oil giants, which were siding with London, owned nearly all the tankers then in existence -- managed to effectively blockade Iran’s petroleum exports. By 1952, Iran’s Abadan refinery, the largest in the world at the time, was grinding to a halt.
From the outset of the nationalization crisis, U.S. President Harry Truman had sought to settle the dispute. The close ties between the United States and the United Kingdom did not lead Washington to reflexively side with its ally. Truman had already demonstrated some regard for Iran’s autonomy and national interests. In 1946, Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin had sought to seize Iran’s northern provinces by refusing to withdraw Soviet forces that were deployed there during the war. Truman objected, insisting on maintaining Iran’s territorial integrity even if it meant rupturing the already frayed U.S. alliance with the Soviets; Stalin backed off. Similarly, when it came to the fight to control Iran’s oil, the Americans played the role of an honest broker. Truman dispatched a number of envoys to Tehran who urged the British to acknowledge the legitimacy of the parliament’s nationalization act while also pressing the Iranians to offer fair compensation for expropriated British assets.
In the meantime, Washington continued providing economic assistance to Iran, as it had ever since the war began -- assistance that helped ease the pain of the British oil blockade. And the Americans dissuaded the British from using military force to compel Iran to relent, as well as rejecting British pleas for a joint covert operation to topple Mosaddeq.
But Truman’s mediation fell short, owing more to Mosaddeq’s intransigence than any American missteps. Mosaddeq, it seemed, considered no economic price too high to protect Iran’s autonomy and national pride. In due course, Mosaddeq and his allies rejected every U.S. proposal that preserved any degree of British participation in Iran’s oil sector. It turned out that defining Iran’s oil interests in existential terms had handcuffed the prime minister: any compromise was tantamount to forfeiting the country’s sovereignty.
Homecoming king: the shah returns to Iran, August 1953.
Homecoming king: the shah returns to Iran, August 1953. (Getty / Carl Mydans)
TRUE COLORS
By 1952, the conflict had brought Iran’s economy to the verge of collapse. Tehran had failed to find ways to get its oil around the British embargo and, deprived of its key source of revenue, was facing mounting budget deficits and having difficulty meeting its payroll. Washington began to fear that through his standoff with the British, Mosaddeq had allowed the economy to deteriorate so badly that his continued rule would pave the way for Tudeh, Iran’s communist party, to challenge him and take power.
And indeed, as the dispute dragged on, Mosaddeq was faced with rising dissent at home. The cause of nationalization was still popular, but the public was growing weary of the prime minister’s intransigence and his refusal to accept various compromise arrangements. The prime minister dealt with the chorus of criticism by expanding his mandate through constitutionally dubious means, demanding special powers from the parliament and seeking to take charge of the armed forces and the Ministry of War, both of which had long been under the shah’s control.
Even before the Western intelligence services devised their plots, Mosaddeq’s conduct had already alienated his own coalition partners. The intelligentsia and Iran’s professional syndicates began chafing under the prime minister’s growing authoritarianism. Mosaddeq’s base of support within the middle classes, alarmed at the economy’s continued decline, began looking for an alternative and drifted toward the royalist opposition, as did the officer corps, which had suffered numerous purges.
Mosaddeq’s supporters among the clergy, who had endorsed the nationalization campaign and had even encouraged the shah to oppose the United Kingdom’s imperial designs, now began to reconsider. The clergy had never been completely comfortable with Mosaddeq’s penchant for modernization and had come to miss the deference they received from the conservative and insecure shah. Watching Iran’s economy collapse and fearing, like Washington, that the crisis could lead to a communist takeover, religious leaders such as Ayatollah Abul-Qasim Kashani began to subtly shift their allegiances. (Since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Iran’s theocratic rulers have attempted to obscure the inconvenient fact that, at a critical juncture, the mullahs sided with the shah.)
The crisis finally came to a head in February 1953, when the royal court, fed up with Mosaddeq’s attempts to undermine the monarchy, suddenly announced that the shah intended to leave the country for unspecified medical reasons, knowing that the public would interpret the move as a signal of the shah’s displeasure with Mosaddeq. The gambit worked, and news of the monarch’s planned departure caused a serious confrontation between Mosaddeq and his growing list of detractors. Kashani joined with disgruntled military officers and purged politicians and publicly implored the shah to stay. Protests engulfed Tehran and many provincial cities, and crowds even attempted to ransack Mosaddeq’s residence. Sensing the public mood, the shah canceled his trip.
This episode is particularly important, because it demonstrated the depth of authentic Iranian opposition to Mosaddeq; there is no evidence that the protests were engineered by the CIA. The demonstrations also helped the anti-Mosaddeq coalition solidify. Indeed, it would be this same coalition, with greater support from the armed forces, that would spearhead Mosaddeq’s ouster six months later.
THE PLOT THICKENS
The events of February made an impression on a frustrated Washington establishment. The CIA reported to U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower, who had inherited the Iranian dilemma when he took office a month earlier, that “the institution of the Crown may have more popular backing than we expected.” Secretary of State John Foster Dulles cabled the U.S. embassy in Tehran that “there appears to be [a] substantial and relatively courageous opposition group both within and outside [the] Majlis [Iran’s parliament]. We gather Army Chiefs and many civilians [are] still loyal to the Shah and would act if he gave them positive leadership, or even if he merely acquiesced in [a] move to install [a] new government.”
After the protests, the Majlis became the main seat of anti-Mosaddeq agitation. Since Mosaddeq’s ascension to the premiership, his seemingly arbitrary decision-making, his inability to end the oil crisis, and the narrowing of his circle to a few trusted aides had gradually alienated many parliamentarians. In response, the prime minister decided to eliminate the threat by simply dissolving the Majlis. Doing so required executing a ploy of dubious legality, however: on July 14, all the National Front deputies loyal to Mosaddeq resigned their posts at once, depriving the chamber of the necessary quorum to function. Mosaddeq then called for a national referendum to decide the fate of the paralyzed legislature. But this was hardly a good-faith, democratic gesture; the plebiscite was marred by boycotts, voting irregularities, and mob violence, and the results surprised no one: Mosaddeq’s proposal to dissolve parliament was approved by 99 percent of the voters. Mosaddeq won his rigged election, but the move cost him what remained of his tattered legitimacy.
Meanwhile, Mosaddeq seemed determined to do everything he could to confirm Washington’s worst fears about him. The prime minister thought that he could use U.S. concerns about the potential for increased Soviet influence in Iran to secure greater assistance from Washington. During a meeting in January, Mosaddeq had warned Loy Henderson, the U.S. ambassador, that unless the United States provided him with sufficient financial aid, “there will be [a] revolution in Iran in 30 days.” Mosaddeq also threatened to sell oil to Eastern bloc countries and to reach out to Moscow for aid if Washington didn’t come through. These threats and entreaties reached a climax in June, when Mosaddeq wrote Eisenhower directly to plead for increased U.S. economic assistance, insisting that if it were not given right away, “any steps that might be taken tomorrow to compensate for the negligence of today might well be too late.” Eisenhower took nearly a month to respond and then firmly told Iran’s prime minister that the only path out of his predicament was to settle the oil dispute with the United Kingdom.
By that point, however, Washington was already actively considering a plan the British had developed to push Mosaddeq aside. The British intelligence agency, MI6, had identified and reached out to a network of anti-Mosaddeq figures who would be willing to take action against the prime minster with covert American and British support. Among them was General Fazlollah Zahedi, a well-connected officer who had previously served in Mosaddeq’s cabinet but had left after becoming disillusioned with the prime minister’s leadership and had immersed himself in opposition politics. Given its history of interference in Iran, the British government also boasted an array of intelligence sources, including members of parliament and journalists, whom it had subsidized and cultivated. London could also count on a number of influential bazaar merchants who, in turn, had at their disposal thugs willing to instigate violent street protests.
The CIA took a rather dim view of these British agents, believing that they were “far overstated and oversold.” Nevertheless, by May, the agency had embraced the basic outlines of a British plan to engineer the overthrow of Mosaddeq. The U.S. embassy in Tehran was also on board: in a cable to Washington, Henderson assured the Eisenhower administration that “most Iranian politicians friendly to the West would welcome secret American intervention which would assist them in attaining their individual or group political ambitions.”
The joint U.S.-British plot for covert action was code-named TPAJAX. Zahedi emerged as the linchpin of the plan, as the Americans and the British saw him as Mosaddeq’s most formidable rival. The plot called for the CIA and MI6 to launch a propaganda campaign aimed at raising doubts about Mosaddeq, paying journalists to write stories critical of the prime minister, charging that he was corrupt, power hungry, and even of Jewish descent -- a crude attempt to exploit anti-Semitic prejudices, which the Western intelligence agencies wrongly believed were common in Iran at the time. Meanwhile, a network of Iranian operatives working for the Americans and the British would organize demonstrations and protests and encourage street gangs and tribal leaders to provoke their followers into committing acts of violence against state institutions. All this was supposed to further inflame the already unstable situation in the country and thus pave the way for the shah to dismiss Mosaddeq.
Indeed, the shah would be the plot’s central actor, since he retained the loyalty of the armed forces and only he had the authority to dismiss Mosaddeq. “If the Shah were to give the word, probably more than 99% of the officers would comply with his orders with a sense of relief and with the hope of attaining a state of stability,” a U.S. military attaché reported from Tehran in the spring of 1953.
IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED
On July 11, Eisenhower approved the plan, and the CIA and MI6 went to work. The Western intelligence agencies certainly found fertile ground for their machinations, as the turmoil sweeping Iran had already seriously compromised Mosaddeq’s standing. It appeared that all that was left to do was for the shah to officially dismiss the prime minister.
But enlisting the Iranian monarch proved more difficult than the Americans and the British had initially anticipated. On the surface, the shah seemed receptive to the plot, as he distrusted and even disdained his prime minister. But he was also clearly reluctant to do anything to further destabilize his country. The shah was a tentative man by nature and required much reassurance before embarking on a risky course. The CIA did manage to persuade his twin sister, Princess Ashraf, to press its case with her brother, however. Also urging the shah to act were General Norman Schwarzkopf, Sr., a U.S. military officer who had trained Iran’s police force and enjoyed a great deal of influence in the country, and Kermit Roosevelt, Jr., a CIA official who had helped devise the plot. Finally, on August 13, 1953, the shah signed a royal decree dismissing Mosaddeq and appointing Zahedi as the new prime minister.
Zahedi and his supporters wanted to make sure that Mosaddeq received the decree in person and thus waited for more than two days before sending the shah’s imperial guards to deliver the order to the prime minister’s residence at a time when Zahedi was certain Mosaddeq would be there. By that time, however, someone had tipped Mosaddeq off. He refused to accept the order and instead had his security detail arrest the men the shah had sent. Zahedi went into hiding, and the shah fled the country, going first to Iraq and then to Italy. The plot, it seemed, had failed. Mosaddeq took to the airwaves, claiming that he had disarmed a coup, while neglecting to mention that the shah had dismissed him from office. Indeed, it was Mosaddeq, not the shah or his foreign backers, who failed to abide by Iran’s constitution.
After the apparent failure of the coup, a mood of resignation descended on Washington and London. According to an internal review prepared by the CIA in 1954, after Mosaddeq’s refusal to follow the shah’s order, the U.S. Department of State determined that the operation had been “tried and failed,” and the official British position was equally glum: “We must regret that we cannot consider going on fighting.” General Walter Bedell Smith, Eisenhower’s confidant and wartime chief of staff, who was now serving as undersecretary of state, had the unenviable task of informing the president. In a note to Eisenhower, Smith wrote:
The move failed. . . . Actually, it was a counter-coup, as the Shah acted within his constitutional power in signing the [decree] replacing Mosaddeq. The old boy wouldn’t accept this and arrested the messenger and everybody else involved that he could get his hands on. We now have to take a whole new look at the Iranian situation and probably have to snuggle up to Mosaddeq if we’re going to save anything there.
The White House, the leadership of the CIA, and the U.S. embassy in Tehran all shared the view that the plot had failed and that it was time to move on. It seems that some operatives in the CIA station in Tehran thought there was still a chance that Zahedi could succeed, if he asserted himself. The station might even have maintained some contact with Zahedi; it’s not clear whether it did or not. What is clear is that by that point, the attempt to salvage the coup became very much an Iranian initiative.
A TRAGIC FIGURE
In the aftermath of the failed coup, chaos reigned in Tehran and political fortunes shifted quickly. The Tudeh Party felt that its time had finally come, and its members poured into the streets, waving red flags and destroying symbols of the monarchy. The more radical members of the National Front, such as Foreign Minister Hossein Fatemi, also joined the fray with their own denunciations of the shah. An editorial in Bakhtar-e Emruz, a newspaper Fatemi controlled, castigated the royal court as “a brothel, a filthy, corrupt place”; another editorial in the same newspaper warned the shah that the nation “is thirsty for revenge and wants to see you on the gallows.” Such talk alarmed military officers and clerics and also outraged many ordinary Iranians who still respected the monarchy. Mosaddeq himself did not call for disbanding the monarchy. Despite his attempts to expand his powers at the shah’s expense, Mosaddeq remained loyal to his vision of a constitutional monarchy.
The shah issued a statement from exile declaring that he had not abdicated the throne and stressing the unconstitutionality of Mosaddeq’s claim to power. Meanwhile, Zahedi and his coconspirators continued their resistance. Zahedi reached out to armed military units in the capital and in the provinces that remained loyal to the shah and told their commanders to prepare for mobilization. Zahedi also sought to widely broadcast the shah’s decree dismissing Mosaddeq and appointing Zahedi himself as prime minister, and the CIA station in Tehran appears to have helped distribute the message through both domestic and foreign media.
The efforts to publicize the shah’s decree and Mosaddeq’s studied silence are instructive. Many accounts of the coup, including Roosevelt’s, cast the shah as an unpopular and illegitimate ruler who maintained the throne only with the connivance of foreigners. But if that were the case, then Zahedi and his allies would not have worked so hard to try to publicize the shah’s preferences. The fact that they did suggests that the shah still enjoyed a great deal of public and institutional support, at least in the immediate aftermath of Mosaddeq’s countercoup; indeed, the news of the shah’s departure provoked uprisings throughout the country.
These demonstrations did not fundamentally alter the views of U.S. representatives in Iran. As Henderson later recalled, he initially did not take the turmoil very seriously and cabled the State Department that “it would probably have little significance.” Momentum soon built within Iran, however. The clergy stepped into the fray, with mullahs inveighing against Mosaddeq and the National Front. Kashani and other major religious figures urged their supporters to take to the streets. Unlike some of the demonstrations that had taken place earlier in the summer, these protests were not the work of the CIA’s and MI6’s clients. A surprised official at the U.S. embassy reported that the crowds “appeared to be led and directed by civilians rather than military. Participants not of hoodlum type, customarily predominant in recent demonstrations in Tehran. They seemed to come from all classes of people including workers, clerks, shopkeepers, students, et cetera.” A CIA assessment noted that “the flight of [the] Shah brought home to the populace in a dramatic way how far Mosaddeq had gone, and galvanized the people into an irate pro-Shah force.”
Mosaddeq was determined to halt the revolutionary surge and commanded the military to restore order. Instead, many soldiers joined in the demonstrations, as chants of “Long live the shah!” echoed in the capital. On August 19, the army chief of staff, General Taqi Riahi, who had stayed loyal to Mosaddeq until then, telephoned the prime minister to confess that he had lost control of many of his troops and of the capital city. Royalist military units took over Tehran’s main radio station and several important government ministries. Seeing his options narrowing, Mosaddeq went into hiding in a neighbor’s house. But the prime minister was too much of a creature of the establishment to remain on the run for long, and he soon turned himself in. A few months later, Mosaddeq was convicted of treason, for which the mandatory punishment was execution. However, given his age, his long-standing service to the country, and his role in nationalizing Iran’s oil industry, the sentence was commuted to three years in prison. In practice, he would go on to serve a life sentence, spending the remaining 14 years of his life confined to his native village.
Mosaddeq was a principled politician with deep reverence for Iran’s institutions and constitutional order. He had spent his entire public life defending the rule of law and the separation of powers. But the pressures of governing during a crisis accentuated troubling aspects of his character. His need for popular acclaim blinded him to compromises that could have resolved the oil conflict with the United Kingdom and thus protected Iran’s economy. Worse, by 1953, Mosaddeq -- the constitutional parliamentarian and champion of democratic reform -- had turned into a populist demagogue: rigging referendums, intimidating his rivals, disbanding parliament, and demanding special powers.
Popular lore gets two things right: Mosaddeq was indeed a tragic figure, and a victim. But his tragedy was that he couldn’t find a way out of a predicament that he himself was largely responsible for creating. And more than anyone else, he was a victim of himself.
THE MYTH OF U.S. FINGERPRINTS
Since 1953, and especially since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled the shah, the truth about the coup has been obscured by self-serving narratives concocted by Americans and Iranians alike. The Islamic Republic has done much to propagate the notion that the coup and the conspiracy against Mosaddeq demonstrated an implacable American hostility to Iran. The theocratic revolutionaries have been assisted in this distortion by American accounts that grossly exaggerate the significance of the U.S. role in pushing Mosaddeq from power. Chief among these is the version that appears in Roosevelt’s self-aggrandizing 1979 book, Countercoup: The Struggle for the Control of Iran. In his Orientalist rendition, Roosevelt landed in Tehran with a few bags of cash and easily manipulated the benighted Iranians into carrying out Washington’s schemes.
Contrary to Roosevelt’s account, the documentary record reveals that the Eisenhower administration was hardly in control and was in fact surprised by the way events played out. On the eve of the shah’s triumph, Henderson reported in a cable to Washington that the real cause of the coup’s success was that “most armed forces and great numbers [of] Iranian civilians [are] inherently loyal to [the] Shah whom they have been taught to believe is [a] symbol of national unity as well as of [the] stability of the country.” As Iran underwent its titanic internal struggle, even the CIA seemed to be aware that its own machinations had proved relatively unimportant. On August 21, Charles Cabell, the agency’s acting director, reported to Eisenhower that “an unexpectedly strong upsurge of popular and military reaction to Prime Minister Mosaddeq’s Government has resulted, according to late dispatches from Tehran, in the virtual occupation of that city by forces proclaiming their loyalty to the Shah and his appointed Prime Minister Zahedi.”
In addition to overstating the American and British hand in orchestrating Mosaddeq’s downfall and the shah’s restoration, the conventional narrative of the coup neglects the fact that the shah was still popular in the early 1950s. He had not yet become the megalomaniac of the 1970s, but was still a young, hesitant monarch deferential to Iran’s elder statesmen and grand ayatollahs and respectful of the limits of his powers.
But the mythological version of the events of 1953 has persisted, partly because since the Islamic Revolution, making the United States out to be the villain has served the interests of Iran’s leaders. Another reason for the myth’s survival is that in the aftermath of the debacle in Vietnam and in the wake of congressional investigations during the mid-1970s that revealed the CIA’s involvement in covert attempts to foment coups overseas, many Americans began to question the integrity of their institutions and the motives of their government; it hardly seemed far-fetched to assume that the CIA had been the main force behind the coup in Iran.
Whatever the reason for the persistence of the mythology about 1953, it is long past time for the Americans and the Iranians to move beyond it. As Washington and Tehran struggle to end their protracted enmity, it would help greatly if the United States no longer felt the need to keep implicitly apologizing for its role in Mosaddeq’s ouster. As for the Islamic Republic, at a moment when it is dealing with internal divisions and uncertainties about its future, it would likewise help for it to abandon its outdated notions of victimhood and domination by foreigners and acknowledge that it was Iranians themselves who were the principal protagonists in one of the most important turning points in their country’s history.
Copyright © 2002-2012 by the Council on Foreign Relations, Inc.
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Iran Watering Down Russian Trade Deal Terms
Analysis
August 8, 2014 | 0908 Print Text Size
Iran Watering Down Trade Deal with Russia
Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani during a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the fourth Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia in Shanghai on May 21, 2014. (ALEXEY DRUZHININ/AFP/Getty Images)
Summary
Some media outlets overreacted after Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh visited Moscow on Aug. 5, where he and Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak, who also heads the Iran-Russia Joint Commission, announced a memorandum of understanding on trade. Early reports indicated that, as part of the deal, Russia would buy 500,000 barrels per day of Iranian oil, which it would then sell on the spot market. In return, Russia would invest in Iranian nuclear power plants, electricity grids, agricultural products, machinery and consumer goods.
Analysis
A multi-billion dollar trade deal between Russia and Iran to work around U.S.-led sanctions would be market-shaking news indeed and would place U.S.-Iran nuclear negotiations in jeopardy. But this is far from what is actually taking place.
Iran Will Continue To Leverage U.S.-Russia Divide in Nuclear Talks
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Not only was the original memorandum of understanding vague, but the Russian Energy Ministry retracted a statement from Novak claiming that Russia would facilitate shipments of Iranian oil to markets. Stratfor’s own investigation into what took place behind the scenes confirmed our suspicion that Tehran is not keen on rushing into a megadeal with Russia. In fact, Iran is continuing negotiations to scale down the terms of the agreement. According to a Stratfor source, the deal currently being discussed would allow Russia to buy 70,000 barrels per day of Iranian crude at reduced prices in exchange for providing maintenance and upgrades on Iran's electricity infrastructure. This figure is considerably less than the previously envisioned 500,000 barrels per day. Moreover, the deal does not touch on the possibility of controversial Russian investment in and development of Iranian oil and natural gas fields.
The rumor is that Iran and Russia could announce a deal by the end of September, but that timeline is subject to how Iran wants to shape its parallel -- and far more significant -- negotiations with the United States. It behooves Iran to periodically highlight its options should negotiations with the United States collapse. However, Stratfor maintains that Iran’s strategic priority lies in forging a diplomatic rapprochement with the United States and rehabilitating its economy through the easing of sanctions. Moreover, Iran is trying to position itself in the long term as an energy alternative to Russia for European buyers, and thus it has little interest in creating a deep dependency on Moscow. Just as Russia has used its relationship with Iran in previous years to command the United States’ attention on certain issues, Iran is now using this ambiguous trade deal with Russia to shape its negotiations with Washington.
Read more: Iran Watering Down Russian Trade Deal Terms | Stratfor
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http://www.the-american-interest.com/blog/2014/08/29/is-obama-rethinking-his-trust-the-mullahs-strategy/
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What I really don't understand is why does Obama think he is the only who can and does lie?
Bottom line. He knows this. He just doesn't care. He plays "American" just enough to prevent a liberal slaughter at the next election.
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Iran Prepares for a Leadership Transition
Analysis
September 15, 2014 | 0436 Print Text Size
Summary
Though Iran has been broadcasting pictures and videos of top state officials and noted foreign dignitaries visiting Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the hospital, the health of the man who has held the most powerful post in the Islamic Republic remains unclear. The unusual public relations management of what has been described as a prostrate surgery suggests Tehran may be preparing the nation and the world for a transition to a third supreme leader. Iranian efforts to project an atmosphere of normalcy conceal concerns among players in the Iranian political system that a power vacuum will emerge just as the Islamic republic has reached a geopolitical crossroads.
Analysis
Any transition comes at the most crucial time in the 35-year history of the Islamic Republic due to unprecedented domestic political shifts underway and, more importantly, due to international events.
Pragmatic conservative President Hassan Rouhani's election in June 2013 elections led to a social, political and economic reform program facing considerable resistance from within the hard-right factions within the clerical and security establishments. The biggest issue between the presidential camp and its opponents is the ongoing process of negotiations with the United States over the Iranian nuclear program.
Nuclear Talks and Syria
After an unprecedented breakthrough in November 2013 that saw an interim agreement, the negotiation process has hit a major snag, with a final agreement not reached by a July 20, 2014, deadline, though the deadline for negotiations was extended to Nov. 24, 2014. Some form of partial agreement had been expected, with talks kicking into high gear ahead of the opening session of the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York on Sept. 18.
A mood of pessimism in Tehran has since been reported, however, with senior Foreign Ministry officials prepping the media for the eventuality that the talks might fail. The risk of failure comes from the fact that Rouhani can only go so far in accepting caps on Iran's ability to pursue a civilian nuclear program before his hawkish opponents will gain the upper hand in Iran's domestic political struggle. Stratfor sources say Rouhani did not want to attend this year's General Assembly, but Foreign Minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif reportedly convinced the president that his visit might help the negotiating process.
As if the negotiation itself was not enough of a problem for Rouhani, the U.S. move to support rebel forces in Syria that would fight both the Islamic State and Iran's ally, the Assad regime, is a major problem for Tehran. U.S. and Iranian interests overlapped with regard to the IS threat in Iraq. But in Syria, the United States must rely on anti-Iranian actors to fight IS and the Obama administration seeks to topple the Assad regime. Accordingly, less than a year after the two sides embarked upon a rapprochement, tensions seem to be returning.
A New Supreme Leader
On top of this stressor, uncertainties surrounding Khamenei's health have shifted Iran's priorities to the search for a new supreme leader. The unusual manner in which Tehran continues to telegraph Khamenei's hospitalization to show that all is well -- while at the same time psychologically preparing the country and the outside world for the inevitable change -- coupled with the (albeit unverified) 2010 release by WikiLeaks of a U.S. diplomatic cable reporting that the supreme leader was suffering from terminal cancer suggests the political establishment in Tehran is preparing for a succession. Khamenei himself would want to prepare a succession before he can no longer carry out his official responsibilities.
Before Khamenei was elected supreme leader in 1989, the idea of a collective clerical body was in vogue among many clerics. The country's second-most influential cleric, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, on several occasions has proposed a "jurisprudential council" consisting of several top clerics as an alternative to the supreme leader's post. His proposal has not gained much traction, but with succession imminent, it might seem more attractive as a compromise should the competing factions prove unable to reach a consensus.
Constitutionally, an interim leadership council takes over should the incumbent supreme leader no longer be able to carry out his duties until the Assembly of Experts elects a successor. Considering the factionalized nature of the Iranian political elite, it is only normal to assume that the process to replace Khamenei will be marred by a major struggle between the various camps that make up the conservative establishment. After all, this is an extremely rare opportunity for those seeking change and for those seeking continuity to shape the future of the republic.
For the hardliners, already deeply unnerved by what they see as an extremely troubling moderate path adopted by Rouhani, it is imperative that the next supreme leader not be sympathetic to the president. From their point of view, Khamenei has given the government far too much leeway. For his part, Rouhani knows that if his opponents get their way in the transition, his troubles promoting his domestic and foreign policy agenda could increase exponentially.
Possible Successors
The country's elite ideological military force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, will no doubt play a key role in who gets to be supreme leader. Likewise, the religious establishment in Qom will definitely have a say in the matter. The revolutionary-era clerics who have long dominated the political establishment are a dying breed, and the Assembly of Experts would not want to appoint someone of advanced age, since this would quickly lead to another succession.
Stratfor has learned that potential replacements for Khamenei include former judiciary chief Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, a cleric close to Khamenei and known for his relative moderate stances. They also include Hassan Khomeini, the oldest grandson of the founder of the republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. He is close to the president's pragmatic conservative camp and the reformists, but pedigree may not compensate for his relatively left-wing leanings and his relatively young age of 42. Finally, they include current judiciary chief Mohammed-Sadegh Larijani, the younger brother of Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani who some believe is the preferred candidate of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
The key problem that has surrounded the post of the supreme leader since the death of the founder of the republic is the very small pool of potential candidates to choose a replacement from: Most clerics either lack political skills, while those that do have political savvy lack requisite religious credentials. Khamenei was a lesser cleric to the status of ayatollah shortly before assuming the role of supreme leader, though he has demonstrated great political acumen since then. Khomeini was unique in that he had solid credentials as a noted religious scholar, but also had solid political credentials given his longtime leadership of the movement that culminated in the overthrow of shah in 1979. Since Khomeini fell out with his designated successor, Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, in 1987, no one has had both qualities. Whoever takes over from Khamenei will be no exception to this, even though he will need to be able to manage factional rivalries at one of the most critical junctures in the evolution of the Islamic Republic.
Read more: Iran Prepares for a Leadership Transition | Stratfor
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http://pamelageller.com/2014/10/irans-supreme-leader-khamenei-calls-for-muslim-unity-for-israels-annihilation.html/
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Did Iran's Crackdown on Dissidents Include Nuclear Scientists?
by Paul Alster
Special to IPT News
October 2, 2014
http://www.investigativeproject.org/4598/did-iran-crackdown-on-dissidents-include-nuclear
A four-month extension granted by the P5+1 to the Islamic Republic of Iran to comply with the nuclear arms deal brokered in late-2013 and negotiate a final deal ends Nov. 24. Iran has been required to fully account for its nuclear development activities and offer all assistance to international inspectors, in return for the lifting of crippling international sanctions.
Iran welcomed the easing of financial and other sanctions, but many in the international community believe that Iran has failed to keep its end of the bargain.
"No deal is better than a bad deal," President Obama is on record as saying, but with the not-insignificant distraction of the ISIS terror sweep into Syria and Iraq, there are fears that the notoriously smooth-tongued Iranian negotiators will pull another fast one and wriggle out of their commitments.
"In order to understand what could go wrong, all one has to do is to carefully reflect upon the past decade and note everything that actually has gone wrong: how Iran was able to progress from having several hundred centrifuges to 19,000 of these machines, and to accumulate a stockpile of LEU [Low Enriched Uranium] in an amount that if enriched to higher levels could produce fissile material for 6 or 7 nuclear devices," Emily B. Landau, senior research fellow and head of the Arms Control and Regional Security Program at the Tel-Aviv-based Institute of National Strategic Studies (INSS) points out in a recently published study, 'Principles and Guidelines for a Comprehensive Nuclear Deal with Iran.'
Against this background this week came renewed allegations from Iranian dissidents that the high-profile slaying of a senior Iranian nuclear scientist in January 2007 may have been carried out by the regime itself, and not by Israel's Mossad intelligence service, as has been widely assumed.
The allegation has been made by Mahboobeh Hosseinpour, the sister of the late Ardeshir Hosseinpour, who died in suspicious circumstances after apparently expressing deep concern at the direction of the Iranian nuclear program.
Hosseinpour was contacted in 2004 by government agents with "a direct message" from Iran's supreme leader, a statement from the opposition group The New Iran said, summarizing the sister's story.
The agents "sought to enlist Dr. Hosseinpour to work on increasing the IRI's capabilities in uranium enrichment for the purpose of building atomic weapons with a secondary goal of teaching and supervising Russian and North Korean scientists in order to accelerate this project. In order to incentivize Dr. Hosseinpour, he was offered the rank of a two-star general in the IRI's Revolutionary Guard apparatus along with ownership of three factories related to manufacturing of parts for the nuclear projects. This offer received a harsh and negative reaction from Dr. Hosseinpour who promptly ridiculed and rejected it."
Mahboobeh Hosseinpour believes her brother's "persistent resistance against the IRI regime and its nuclear intentions that led Ali Khamenei to order his assassination on January 15, 2007."
It's a powerful claim, but one without evidence. On its own, it would be hard to accept that – like a classic James Bond villain – Iran killed one of its leading nuclear scientists. But similar allegations in recent years appear to reflect the Iran's zero tolerance view of any internal dissent.
In 2012, Britain's Daily Mail reported claims by London-based dissident Potkin Azarmeh that Iranian intelligence agents, and not a man paraded by the regime as an Israeli spy and apparently executed 50-year-old Masoud Ali Mohammadi, another senior Iranian scientist allegedly working on the nuclear development project.
"Some Iranian dissidents believe that [Iran] has used the cover of its war with Israel to crack down on internal opponents, with some saying that Mr Mohammadi was killed because he was a supporter of reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi," the Daily Mail reported. "Ali-Mohammadi died in January 2010 when a remote-controlled bomb attached to a motorcycle outside his home in Tehran went off."
This week's allegations are clearly designed by Iranian dissidents to plant questions in the mind of the public and of international politicians prepared to accept the benign smile of President Hassan Rouhani as a genuinely moderate new face in Iran. The potential double-bluff of killing its own sharpest nuclear brains, they intimate, is not far removed from the ruse being performed under the noses of the international community who have failed to understand the extent to which Iran's nuclear program continues to develop, even with IAEA inspectors in the country at the behest of the P5+1.
Any potential extension to negotiations, argue regional experts such as Ephraim Asculai, who worked 40 years with Israel's Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC), could be a fatal mistake. "Iran is... interested in buying time," Asculai believes, "because the window of opportunity for breaking out – making an explosive nuclear device – narrows with each passing day."
International negotiators seem to have given up on dismantling Iran's nuclear program, Landau warns. "Rather, at this point they seek only to slow it down, with the hope that they will be able to prevent in time an Iranian rush to concretize its military nuclear capability."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made it clear at the United Nations General Assembly earlier this week that Iran remains the biggest threat to world peace. The international community should not be distracted by the ISIS issue, Netanyahu warned. Iran remains the major supporter of Syrian President Assad's disgraced regime, bankrolls Hizballah in south Lebanon and now inside Syria, and continues to do all it can to support the terror regime of Hamas in Gaza.
A glance at Iran's brutal repression of internal dissent and its endemic corruption appears to add weight to the view that Tehran will indeed go to any lengths to silence questioning voices and should not be trusted.
Ranked a dismal 144th of 177 nations in the 2013 Transparency International corruption index, Iran has long found ways of getting around international sanctions, flagrantly violating human rights, and ruling through fear.
"The new administration has not made any significant improvement in the promotion and protection of freedom of expression and opinion, despite pledges made by the president during his campaign and after his swearing in," U.N Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon observed as recently as March.
Leaders in the opposition Green Movement, which attempted to bring about reforms in Iran and still argues that they were robbed of election victory in 2009 due to widespread government orchestrated fraud, have long since been rounded up. Former Prime Minister Mir Houssein Musavi has been confined to house arrest. Critics of the Iranian regime suggest that many of those arrested and summarily tried for offences such as drug dealing are in fact Green Movement supporters and supporters of other opposition groups. Some have been executed.
Amnesty International's 2013 report on Iran pointedly included the following statements:
1) The [Iranian] authorities maintained severe restrictions on freedoms of expression, association and assembly. Dissidents and human rights defenders... were arbitrarily arrested, detained incommunicado, imprisoned after unfair trials and banned from travelling abroad. Torture and other ill-treatment were common and committed with impunity ... They took steps to create a controlled, national internet, routinely monitored telephone calls, blocked websites, jammed foreign broadcasts and took harsh action against those who spoke out.
2) Government critics and opponents were arbitrarily arrested and detained by security forces. Tens were sentenced to prison terms after unfair trials. Dozens of peaceful government critics detained in connection with mass protests in 2009-2011 remained in prison or under house arrest throughout the year. Many were prisoners of conscience.
3) Political and other suspects continued to face grossly unfair trials before Revolutionary and Criminal Courts. They often faced vaguely worded charges that did not amount to recognizably criminal offences and were convicted, sometimes in the absence of defence lawyers, on the basis of "confessions" or other information allegedly obtained under torture. Courts accepted such "confessions" as evidence without investigating how they were obtained.
4) Hundreds of people were sentenced to death. Official sources acknowledged 314 executions. Credible unofficial sources suggested that at least 230 other executions were also carried out, many of them in secret, totaling 544. The true figure may have been far higher, exceeding 600. There were at least 63 public executions.
The Mujahedeen el-Khalq (MEK) is one of a number of Iranian opposition movements that have attempted to challenge the rule of the Ayatollah's since 1981. These movements have been under sustained assault from the regime and have been forced out of the country, even though Iran publicly scoffs at them and insists they are of no consequence. The MEK was granted sanctuary by the U.S. at Camp Ashraf in neighboring Iraq in 2004, even though it was at that time still officially a designated terrorist organization. It was de-listed in 2012, despite furious protests from the Iranian government.
Why, then, did the U.S., EU, and UK designate a pro-democracy Iranian group?
"The MEK was put on the terrorist list solely because the mullahs insisted on such action if there was to be any dialogue between Washington and Tehran," Lord Alex Carlile, former independent reviewer of British anti-terrorism laws, explained in The Guardian in October 12, 2012. "This was all part of a misguided effort to reach out to 'moderates' in the regime, an effort that accomplished nothing but gave Iran the time it needed to commence and advance its nuclear development."
Carlile accurately predicted what would happen next at Camp Ashraf. By September 2013 the Shi'ite government of former Iraqi Prime Minster Nouri Al-Malaki had grown increasingly close to the Iranian leadership. Al-Malaki constantly called for the Iranian dissidents at Camp Ashraf to be removed. In an apparent show of loyalty to Iran it is alleged that on September 1, Iraqi forces entered the camp and murdered not less than 52 members of the MEK, a massacre that drew furious responses from the international community, including the U.S.
"In reality," Carlile observed, "far too much attention has been paid to disinformation disseminated by Tehran and its lobbyists in an effort to make the western countries conclude that there is no viable opposition and no chance of change from within – leaving the west to choose between making concessions to Iran or going to war, both very unpleasant choices."
Given all of the above, just a taste of the huge number of dossiers on Iran's scheming, murderous regime that consistently seeks to mislead and misinform, surely the P5+1 will not allow the Islamic Republic another opportunity to buy time for its nuclear program and potentially further de-stabilize an already toxic situation in the region. Or will it?
Paul Alster is an Israel-based contributor to FoxNews.com and The Jerusalem Report and blogs at paulalster.com. He can be followed on Twitter: @paul_alster
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http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/10/16/when_the_ayatollah_said_no_to_nukes_iran_khomeini
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http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/10/16/when_the_ayatollah_said_no_to_nukes_iran_khomeini
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/patrick-goodenough/iranian-nuclear-fatwa-cited-obama-may-not-exist
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Oy , , , :-P :x :roll: :cry:
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Click here to watch: How to prevent a nuclear Iran
On November 4, American voters will be facing a monumental and high stakes moment in which they will decide whether control of the US Senate will continue to be in Democratic Party hands or be turned over to the Republicans. American voters should be warned that the continuance of a Democratic-controlled Senate led by Harry Reid will guarantee that Iran will end up being the first Islamist jihadist state with a nuclear weapon. Only a Republican-controlled Senate and House of Representatives will be able to stop President Barack Obama from capitulating to the Iranians and signing a bad deal which will allow the country to become a nuclear threshold state. A bill proposed by fellow Democratic Senator Bob Menendez and Republican Mark Kirk, which threatens additional harsher sanctions than those originally imposed on Iran in 2011 if no final agreement to dismantle their nuclear enrichment program is reached by the November 24 deadline, failed to even come to a vote on the Senate floor this last winter. The resolution, which at the time had the votes to pass with 43 Republicans and 16 Democrats cosponsoring it, was blocked from coming to a vote by Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid at the request of the White House. While only two Republicans did not support the bill, many of the Senators from the Democratic Party were against it including many Jewish Senators. Only if the Republicans take control of the Senate, it is likely that Obama will find himself presented with a new sanctions bill whether or not he signs a final agreement with Iran.
Watch Here
The blocking of this legislation by the White House is flabbergasting when one remembers that Iran only came to the negotiating table in large measure because of the original crippling economic sanctions drafted by Senators Mark Kirk and Robert Menendez in 2011 which was reluctantly signed into law by Barack Obama. Those sanctions reduced Iran’s oil exports and cut it off from the global, dollar dominated financial system. Consequently, Iran’s currency lost three quarters of its value and inflation and unemployment rose greatly. As senior Treasury Department officials told Reuters in an interview, "Iran’s economy today is about 25% smaller than it would have been if we had not imposed the oil and financial sanctions." On October 19, the New York Times reported that Obama was planning on bypassing the Congress by not bringing a future final agreement to a Congressional’ vote which will include suspending the enforcement of the sanctions passed in 2011. Such a plan is worrisome because it implies that the agreement the US is pushing so hard for, is a bad one. Otherwise, why not bring it to the Congress which could then simply vote to rescind the sanctions or ratify the treaty after a full congressional hearing, disclosure and debate. The Los Angeles Times on October 20 reported that conservative Iranian lawmaker Javad Qoddoushi said that he was briefed by Abbas Araqchi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister and a nuclear negotiator, who stated that the Obama Administration has sweetened its offer again in the ongoing negotiations, saying that it might accept Iran operating 4000 centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium, up from the previous 1300. This news came a week after we learned that the Obama administration has agreed to let the Iranians disconnect their remaining operating centrifuges, rather than dismantle or destroy them as Obama originally promised. These US concessions are the latest in a long line of concessions. In November 2013, the US and five other world powers signed the Geneva Interim Agreement in which they tacitly endorsed the Iranians "right" to enrich and gave them sanctions relief worth more than $7 billion just for willing to engage in talks. Then, after six months of negotiations in which the Iranians conceded nothing, the US extended the negotiations another six months despite the fact that Iran has still not implemented all the nuclear transparency measures it had agreed to carry out in the interim agreement. The only way now to pressure Iran to agree to dismantle their nuclear program is if the Iranians fear that the new elected Congress will be determined to override any possible Obama veto and shut down their economy again with much worse crippling sanctions. Voting for a Republican Senate majority this November will give a message to Iran that the American public does not support Obama’s agenda of appeasement and that the Republicans with the support of few righteous Democrats have the public mandate to take the fight to Obama and undermine any possible weak or bad final agreement. As the leading Republican critic of the negotiations, Senator Mark Kirk, said: "Congress will not permit the president to unilaterally unravel Iran sanctions that passed the Senate in a 99 to 0 vote."
Source: Ynet
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Crafty,
I tried to look up more information concerning this bill. Different takes come up with MUCH confusing reports of political jockeying involved. Interesting to note that Senator Bob Menendez D NJ co-sponsored this since he is normally a big liberal. One site implies that this is because he accepts political donations from "Jewish" donors. Another site points out the AIPAC completely changed course in first backing the bill than being against it. As for the 13 Jewish Senators it sounds around four (?) were against the bill including Levin and Feinstein. Others like Bennett and Schumer and Blumenthal were supporters.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d113:SN01881:@@@P
I am really not clear what the rush by Obama is to get some sort of "deal" with Iran is all about if the deal means caving in to most of Iran's demands.
The thought of a sponsor of Terror being able to make nuclear weapons.
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Midterms Killed Iran Deal
By DICK MORRIS
Published on TheHill.com on December 2, 2014
The first fruit of the Republican victory in the midterm elections is the failure of President Obama's efforts to give away everything to Iran in the nuclear negotiations. If Democrats had kept their Senate majority on Nov. 4, we would all be wincing as Obama triumphantly announced a "peace" deal with Iran that would have all but invited the terrorist regime to acquire nuclear weapons.
It is only because of the certainty that a Republican Congress would pass legislation condemning and possibly blocking the nonproliferation deal that his efforts at appeasement fell short. Neither the U.S. nor Britain, France nor Germany, not even the European Union (the negotiating partners) wanted to sign a deal that the U.S. Congress would condemn as a giveaway.
Behind this victory is the hand of Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.). While I have condemned him from this space in previous columns, it is time his singular accomplishments in fighting the Iranian nuclear project be recognized. Along with Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), he has achieved a broad bipartisan consensus that the Iranian nuclear program must be dismantled and destroyed.
With Menendez's backing, it might even be possible to override an Obama veto of sanctions legislation once the new Congress meets. Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), Bob Casey Jr. (D-Pa.) and, perhaps, the two California Democrats -- Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein -- will be under heavy constituent pressure to back a sanctions bill. Add in what remains of the conservative Democratic bloc in the Senate, like Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), and you begin to approach the necessary 67 votes.
The key point as the new year dawns is that it is not enough to let the current situation freeze. The sanctions relief, granted in anticipation of a final deal one year ago, must be rolled back to punish Iran for failing to move ahead and for cheating on the sanctions that remain. Iranian oil sales have averaged 1.34 million barrels per day, about half of the pre-sanctions level. Without progress in the negotiations, it is imperative that Iran be denied the almost $40 billion it stands to reap from even its current level of oil output and sales.
Iran retains and operates all of its 10,000 nuclear centrifuges and refuses to dismantle any. The most it will offer is to operate them more slowly and to hold down enrichment to below-bomb levels. With a stockpile of 3 percent to 5 percent enriched uranium, to say nothing of 20 percent enrichment, a bomb is just a short time away whenever the ayatollah flips the switch.
Iran also refuses to stop construction of its heavy water reactor at Arak or even to convert it to a light water reactor -- steps necessary to stop the development of a plutonium nuclear weapon. Nor has Iran agreed to a long-term deal or to adequate inspections to assure that any arrangement is, in fact, enforced.
Iran would not be required to moderate its pursuit of ballistic missile capability nor to halt research and development on nuclear weaponry.
As Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told his people last month: "The centrifuges are spinning and will never stop." His foreign minister echoed his confidence, saying: "I'm confident that any final deal will have a serious and not a token Iranian enrichment program coupled with removal of sanctions."
Until the Republicans won the midterms, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) could be counted upon to kill any Iran sanctions bill and to not allow it to come up for a potentially politically embarrassing vote. Were it to pass, it would put former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a tough spot. If she were to back a congressional sanctions bill, she would split with Obama and legitimize opposition to his diplomacy. But were she to back the president, defying many Democrats, she would ensure that whether we could trust Iran would be a central issue in the elections. And we know how that would come out.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/16/world/middleeast/irans-president-pledges-to-face-down-forces-opposing-a-nuclear-deal.html?emc=edit_th_20141216&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=49641193
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Looks like Iran bought off the Argentine president to cover up its bombing of a synagogue in Buenos Aries in 1994. See today's post at
http://dogbrothers.com/phpBB2/index.php?topic=2417.new#new
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Obama’s Pivot to Iran
With President Barack Obama’s welcome and warmly received trip to India this week, commentators have dusted off the well-worn platitudes associated with the administration’s once-vaunted “pivot to Asia.” The week’s other events, however — from the president’s decision to cut his stay in Delhi short to attend King Abdullah’s funeral in Riyadh to the chaos in Yemen, from ongoing nuclear diplomacy with Iran to Benjamin Netanyahu’s efforts to ensure his relationship with Obama will be seen as the most toxic in the history of Israel and the United States — suggest this administration’s foreign-policy legacy may ultimately center on a different “strategic rebalancing.” This one will benefit, however, in ways once unimaginable in U.S. foreign-policy circles, the Islamic Republic of Iran.
It is quite possible that, by the time Obama leaves office, no other country on Earth will have gained quite so much as Iran. Not all of this will be the doing of the United States, of course, and in fact some of it may prove to be the undoing of our interests in the long run. But there is no doubting that some of the remarkable gains that seem to be on the near horizon for Tehran will have come as a result of a policy impulse that was far closer to the heart of the president than is the on-again, off-again Asia initiative (which was really much more the product of the ideas and efforts of a bunch of his first-term aides and cabinet members than it was of his own impulses or those of his innermost circle).
Consider the gains. First, there’s the issue of legacy. With negotiations continuing at a high simmer behind the scenes, the Obama foreign-policy team sees a nuclear deal with Iran as the one remaining brass ring that is there for them to claim. Elsewhere, there is the possibility of some progress on the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, but promotional rhetoric surrounding it aside, it’s just not as big a game-changer as its proponents suggest. It’d certainly be a welcome development, but it’s incremental and, of course, doesn’t really improve our relations with Asia’s biggest long-term players, China and India. And beyond that, there’s not much else in the pipeline.
A deal with Iran, if it could be translated into action, would in theory produce a freeze on Iran’s nuclear program. That would certainly be a good thing. But it provides no guarantee that Tehran could not reverse course in the future, break its terms, or do as it has done for the past 30 years — namely, stir up mayhem in the region without the benefit of nuclear weapons. What it would provide — even in the midst of a congressional tug of war over Iran policy, with new sanctions coming from the Hill and presidential vetoes pinging and ponging up and down Pennsylvania Avenue — would be some White House-directed relief for Tehran. Presumably, a nuclear deal would further the thaw in the relations between the United States and Iran, while providing a great incentive for other countries to resume normal trading relations (to the extent they don’t have them already).
Iran would gain stature. Iran would have a better seat in the councils of nations. Iran would gain economic benefits. And Iran’s enemies would be furious.
Iran would gain stature. Iran would have a better seat in the councils of nations. Iran would gain economic benefits. And Iran’s enemies would be furious.
If the president thinks a brief drop-by in Saudi Arabia is going to somehow offset the House of Saud’s fury at an Iran deal, he’s not paying attention. Obama can’t charm them into overlooking the chasm between their cultures that has developed over 1,000 years. It will be seen by Sunni allies in the Gulf as a betrayal. They’re pragmatic. Some are already preparing to deal with what they see as the inevitable rapprochement. And they do, in the near term, see Iran as a potential counterweight to their more immediately threatening enemies — extremist Sunnis. (After all, this is the land of the enemy of my enemy is my friend.) But happy they are not. Millennium-long antagonisms endure for a reason.
One reason they are so unhappy is not only that the United States is changing the terms of its relations with Iran and triggering a strengthening of that country economically and politically, but that Washington’s policies — inaction and action, both — have helped contribute to other ways Tehran has gained ground in recent years. Some of this is not Obama’s fault, but his predecessor’s: In case you missed it, blowing up Iraq was a bad thing. It unleashed forces like the Islamic State, but it also replaced a Baathist government in Baghdad with one that is openly dependent on Iranian forces for support and protection. What’s more, the United States is now providing the air power that is enabling Iranian forces to gain and hold ground for their client, effectively putting a big chunk of Iraq even deeper in Iran’s pocket. (It is an especially peculiar development of the past weeks that when America’s historic allies, the Israelis, launched an attack that killed an Iranian general in Syria, they were in fact eliminating a member of a military organization that is currently fighting alongside, and in coordination with, the United States next door in Iraq.)
Iran is the one country in the Middle East that seems to be racking up material gains as a result of the unrest that has beset the region. The Houthi coup in Yemen has brought an Iranian-backed Shiite group to power — at least, in a large part of that country. Baghdad is now more directly dependent on Tehran than ever before; Iran is providing a substantial number of the ground troops fighting the Islamic State and protecting Shiite Iraq from the terrorist fighters. Even in Syria, Iran’s ally Bashar al-Assad has been receiving a steady stream of signals that Washington is increasingly willing to let him remain in place. Meanwhile, Hezbollah remains strong in Lebanon and has carved out gains in southern Syria.
Even with congressional efforts to scuttle the U.S.-Iran nuclear talks by putting in place new sanctions, it seems clear that Iran will someday look back on the Obama years as ones that may have started painfully — with tightening sanctions — but ended considerably better.
That won’t be the view of the two countries the United States fought in to help stabilize, Iraq and Afghanistan, both of which are certain to end up by 2016 riven with divisions and beset by brutal and destabilizing fighting. It won’t be Washington’s Gulf allies, which are feeling the squeeze of increasing global oil and gas production (led by the United States) amplified by the development of renewables and new breakthroughs in energy efficiency. Virtually every Gulf nation is threatened by the spread of extremism and has been harmed by the tepid nature of U.S. support for our traditional alliances with these states. The fact is: They just don’t trust America to be there for them as it once was. Egypt and Turkey, the other two regional powers with historical influence comparable to Iran, have been rocked by internal upheaval.
And Israel? Well, one senior former top Obama administration official confirmed my assertion that the Obama-Netanyahu relationship had deteriorated to the point that it was now the worst relationship in the history of ties between the leaders of the two countries. “It’s not even close,” he said, “Carter and Begin was bad. But this is worse.” That seems about right to me. While Obama has done plenty to damage the relationship (and his staff hasn’t helped with descriptions of the Israeli prime minister as “chickenshit”), the most recent downturn is all Bibi’s fault (with a profoundly unconstructive assist from House Speaker John Boehner). Netanyahu’s decision to accept Boehner’s invitation to address the U.S. Congress on the dangers of the Iran nuclear deal is a case of sending the wrong man at the wrong time to give the wrong speech in the wrong place.
If Bibi really wanted to assure Israel’s security, as he asserts, he would wait and hope — and quietly pressure the administration to make sure — that it’s a good one and a peaceful way to stop Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. If it turns out to be lousy or unenforceable, he can always oppose it. But for a foreign leader to come before Congress to seek to play U.S. politics and derail an ongoing negotiation is unprecedented and inappropriate. Moreover, it’s likely to backfire on many levels — not the least of which is cementing the inclination among many of Obama’s closest advisors that if they’re doing something that really pisses off Bibi, they must be doing something right. This, of course, is deeply unhealthy for a key relationship and only highlights the extent of shared blame and the need for, well, a reset.
When the reset comes (and whoever is the next U.S. president will certainly work to engineer one … and if they are lucky, it will be with someone other than Netanyahu) it will be in the context of a very different Middle East.
It will be a region upon which the world is less dependent. It will be a region in which more countries are less stable and local unrest is a global threat. It will be a region in which the vast majority of the problems that loomed large back in 2008 will be seen as having deteriorated, in which new ones have emerged, and in which U.S. initiatives have largely either exacerbated the problems or kicked the can down the road. And it will be a region in which traditional U.S. alliances are largely weakened.
The changed Iran relationship will be at the center of all this. If an Iran deal helps forestall development of a nuclear weapon, that has to be seen as a benefit. If it has produced a partner in helping to contain Sunni extremism, that will also be seen as a net good. If it forms the foundation for a new U.S. regional policy that is based on enlightened management of the balance of power between key regional actors to maintain stability and contain threats, that is to the net good. If it finds a way to work with traditional allies from Israel to the Gulf, restore stability and promote progress in Egypt, foster reforms in Turkey, fight support for extremists among some of our so-called allies in the Middle East, and move toward the establishment of a Palestinian state that respects Israel’s right to exist, then that is to the net great. Then the Obama vision will be seen as a breakthrough — and he’ll deserve all the credit he gets.
Remember, it was during the 2008 campaign that Obama asserted that one of the ways that his foreign policy would be different would be that he would engage with Iran.
Remember, it was during the 2008 campaign that Obama asserted that one of the ways that his foreign policy would be different would be that he would engage with Iran. If he can make that happen through careful, strategic management of U.S. relations in the region and follow through on all the steps required to make this work, it’ll be quite an accomplishment.
But if Iran receives much-needed economic relief and yet still continues to make mischief in the region, if it cheats on a deal, if it further institutionalizes the spread of Iranian influence threatening the Saudis and other important Gulf allies, if Washington’s empowerment of Shiite Iran becomes a recruiting tool for groups like the Islamic State or al Qaeda, if Israel so distrusts U.S. diplomacy that it triggers conflict with Iran, if key U.S. relationships in the Gulf continue to deteriorate, if American disengagement (or desultory, strategically impaired engagement) stimulates rather than contains the rise of new strongholds of terror, then this pivot to Iran is going to seem like a great blunder. And America is going to feel like its 44th president got played.
I will leave it to you, dear reader, to determine which is more likely given the lessons of recent history. One thing seems certain, though. When you look up Barack Obama’s foreign policy in the history books, far more attention will almost certainly be devoted to his outreach to Iran and his actions and inaction in the volatile Middle East than to his efforts at strategic rebalancing to Asia — or his now poignantly unsuccessful efforts to declare an end to America’s war on terror.
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First question: Who is "FP"
Second is he or she kidding me:
"If an Iran deal helps forestall development of a nuclear weapon, that has to be seen as a benefit. If it has produced a partner in helping to contain Sunni extremism, that will also be seen as a net good. If it forms the foundation for a new U.S. regional policy that is based on enlightened management of the balance of power between key regional actors to maintain stability and contain threats, that is to the net good. If it finds a way to work with traditional allies from Israel to the Gulf, restore stability and promote progress in Egypt, foster reforms in Turkey, fight support for extremists among some of our so-called allies in the Middle East, and move toward the establishment of a Palestinian state that respects Israel’s right to exist, then that is to the net great. Then the Obama vision will be seen as a breakthrough — and he’ll deserve all the credit he gets.
Remember, it was during the 2008 campaign that Obama asserted that one of the ways that his foreign policy would be different would be that he would engage with Iran.
Remember, it was during the 2008 campaign that Obama asserted that one of the ways that his foreign policy would be different would be that he would engage with Iran. If he can make that happen through careful, strategic management of U.S. relations in the region and follow through on all the steps required to make this work, it’ll be quite an accomplishment.
But if Iran receives much-needed economic relief and yet still continues to make mischief in the region, if it cheats on a deal, if it further institutionalizes the spread of Iranian influence threatening the Saudis and other important Gulf allies, if Washington’s empowerment of Shiite Iran becomes a recruiting tool for groups like the Islamic State or al Qaeda, if Israel so distrusts U.S. diplomacy that it triggers conflict with Iran, if key U.S. relationships in the Gulf continue to deteriorate, if American disengagement (or desultory, strategically impaired engagement) stimulates rather than contains the rise of new strongholds of terror, then this pivot to Iran is going to seem like a great blunder. And America is going to feel like its 44th president got played.
I will leave it to you, dear reader, to determine which is more likely given the lessons of recent history
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http://freebeacon.com/national-security/iran-the-americans-are-begging-us-for-a-deal/
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http://freebeacon.com/national-security/iran-the-americans-are-begging-us-for-a-deal/
More of that bowing and groveling our way to world peace.
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http://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/2015/02/obamas-secret-iran-strategy/
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A lot to think about.
Seems like a good summary of Obama's Iran folly. Even Fareed Zakaria is worried, the parties are "miles apart".
If American liberal Jews are anxious about Obama's Iran deal plans they sure are keeping it quiet. I guess they only have to wait a few more months assuming Hillary will save them and to convince us, Israel, from a nuclear Iran.
They share responsibility for the guy in office now though.
I didn't realize the strategy evolved from a group during Bush's term.
Ex SoS James Baker who was part of the group is no lover of Israel that is for sure. I always felt he had a deep dislike of Jews to tell you the truth.
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A lot to think about.
Seems like a good summary of Obama's Iran folly. Even Fareed Zakaria is worried, the parties are "miles apart".
If American liberal Jews are anxious about Obama's Iran deal plans they sure are keeping it quiet. I guess they only have to wait a few more months assuming Hillary will save them and to convince us, Israel, from a nuclear Iran.
They share responsibility for the guy in office now though.
I didn't realize the strategy evolved from a group during Bush's term.
Ex SoS James Baker who was part of the group is no lover of Israel that is for sure. I always felt he had a deep dislike of Jews to tell you the truth.
Obama voters are still deluded that Obama doesn't hate the U.S. or Israel.
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Agreed on Baker's antipathy to Israel.
Somethings to remember here:
1) Having Iran as the bulwark of our geopolitical interests in the Middle East was a key building block of Sec. State and Director of the National Security Council Henry Kissinger. Not a few belief that Kissinger aided and abetted the creation of OPEC as a way for the Shah of Iran to have the money to buy the necessary arms. James Baker was around at the time and it is plausible that he picked up this thought at that time.
2) The fall of the Shah to the Khomeni Revolution under Carter changed all of this. Obama appears not to have noticed!
3) It is worth noting that what Obama is pursuing here is quite similar to what Stratfor has predicted i.e. that the same geopolitical considerations that led Kissinger to his strategy remain and that Iran's nuke program was a bargaining chip for a deal with the US to establish Iran as regional hegemon. I posted here a Strafor piece about all of this either in the US foreign policy thread, this thread, or the FUBAR thread, about all of this several months/one year ago. I'm in a busy morning-- perhaps someone can find it and post its URL and post # here?
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Thanks for some clarification Crafty. I am not yet hearing on the right radio programs or on Fox this theory about Obama's push to make/allow Iran the regional power broker in the Middle East. But this theory to me fills in the pieces of the puzzle of what Obama is doing in the Middle East quite nicely.
I don't have time now but will see if I can find Baker et al panel's consensus and post.
The front runner for winning big on the "war" with Isis is most likely Iran. Isis will be defeated. If not with the President then with the next. Who is ready to fill the void?
First contender:
Iran commander Suleimani says IS 'nearing end'AFP 1 hour ago
. Tehran (AFP) - An influential Iranian general who has reportedly been near the front line against the Islamic State group was quoted Thursday saying the jihadists are "nearing the end of their lives".
No end to Middle East strife without Iran: Rouhani AFP Rights group blasts IS for atrocities Associated Press The Enemy of My Enemy: Islamic State and the Internationalization of the Syrian and Iraqi Civil Wars Part 3 Huffington Post AP Interview: Iraq 'sleeper cells' fight Islamic State group Associated Press Iraq forces 'liberate' Diyala province from IS AFP General Qassem Suleimani, the once rarely seen commander of the powerful Quds Force, has become the public face of Iran's support for the Iraqi and Syrian governments against jihadists.
He has frequently been pictured on social media in Iraq with pro-government forces, including Kurdish fighters and Shiite militia units in battle areas.
"Considering the heavy defeats suffered by Daesh and other terrorist groups in Iraq and Syria, we are certain these groups are nearing the end of their lives," Suleimani was quoted as saying by the semi-official Fars news agency, using an Arabic acronym for IS.
His extremely rare published remarks came in a speech made Wednesday in his home province Kerman to mark the 36th anniversary of Iran's Islamic revolution.
Suleimani also said Tehran's regional influence was growing.
"The arrogants and Zionists have admitted, more than before, to their own weakness and to the Islamic republic's power, following their successive defeats," he said.
Iranian officials often use the term "arrogants" to refer to the United States and other Western powers, while Zionists is used in Tehran to refer to Israel without acknowledging its existence as a state.
IS has seized control of large parts of Syria and Iraq, declaring an Islamic "caliphate" and committing widespread atrocities.
Suleimani reportedly landed in Baghdad hours after IS overran Mosul in June and led the anti-jihadist counter-attack at the head of Iran's deep military involvement in Iraq.
The Quds Force -- the foreign wing of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards -- conducts sensitive security functions abroad, including intelligence, special operations and political action deemed necessary to protect the Islamic republic.***********
PS: and they will get nuclear weapons thanks to Obama. My oft repeated quote from Bolten: "if you think Iran is a problem now just imagine what they will be like with nuclear weapons."
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Though US media, including FOX, have not really covered it, Iran HAS been busy ingratiating itself with the Kurds -- which is a distinct change from previous policy-- and of course the Govt. of Baghdad which underlines what Iran's Suleimani says in CCP's post. If/when ISIS falls, who is going to get the credit? Iran is playing for it to get the credit.
I sure hope someone will be able to find that Stratfor post on the geopolitical logic of a pivot to Iran.
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I post here because a main feature of the report was to encourage engagement with Assad in Syria and Iran which may have been the inspiration for Barack's Middle East policy. If this is his policy than he has not been forthcoming to Americans as such (the most transparent WH guy we ever had), but it would easily explain what he IS doing in the Middle East. Rather than not having a policy in the Middle East as some claim, it makes more sense that Obama has a policy and is simply not forthcoming about it.
http://www.usip.org/publications/iraq-study-group
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http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-asks-un-to-condemn-iran-holocaust-cartoon-contest/
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http://www.wsj.com/articles/israel-benjamin-netanyahu-urges-congress-to-block-iran-nuclear-deal-1425392094?tesla=y
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/congress/israeli-leader-deal-doesnt-block-irans-path-to-nuclear-bomb-it-paves-path-to-bomb/2015/03/03/3ce91b52-c1c4-11e4-a188-8e4971d37a8d_story.html
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Obamster "warns" Benjamin not to release details of the deal he is pushing for .
Yet Obamster had no problem leaking Israel's plans to attack Iran such as releasing the deal to use Khazakastan ( I think) as a base to launch a strike.
It is never a problem what Obamster does but how dare anyone cross him when he does the exact same to anyone else.
Yet the MSM surrounds the sleeze ball in chief.
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The deal that Obama blew up by divulging it was with Azerbaijan IIRC.
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As the US and its allies continue to discuss limiting Iran's nuclear program with Tehran, the Iranian military on Sunday announced that it had developed a new long-range cruise missile with a range of some 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) – putting Israel well within its reach, Israeli sources said. The missile, called the “Soumar,” features “different characteristics in terms of range and pinpoint accuracy in comparison with the previous products,” Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehqan said at the unveiling of the missile Sunday. The missile, Dehqan said, was developed based on the needs of the Iranian Armed Forces, and is “a crucial step towards increasing the country’s defense and deterrence might.” On Saturday, an Iranian military official said that the country would be unveiling yet another missile system will be unveiled on April 18, when the country marks National Army Day. That system, called the Talaash-3, is based on the Russian S-200 missile system, the official said. In his speech in Washington last week, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said that while the world is capitulating to Iranian demands to allow it to continue with its nuclear development program, the issue of its delivery systems – the advanced missiles it is developing – has not even been placed on the agenda yet, because Iran refuses to discuss it at all. Commenting Sunday, Iran's Aerospace Division head Amirali Hajizadeh said that Tehran “will never negotiated the country's defense capabilities, including the development of its ballistic missiles.”
Watch Here
In a statement, Iran's state-controlled Press TV quoted government sources as saying that “Iran has repeatedly assured other countries that its military might poses no threat to other states, insisting that the country’s defense doctrine is entirely based on deterrence” The new Soumar missile is named for a city on the Iraqi border whose inhabitants were nearly all wiped out by an Iraqi chemical attack during the Iran-Iraq war.
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http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/03/08/john-kerry-wraps-up-latest-round-of-nuclear-talks-with-iran-a-few-days-later-iran-unveils-brand-new-missiles/
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http://www.breitbart.com/
Cotton stands firm. There is something strange about Fox News which is doing all it can to make this stand seem to be "misguided". Well, IMO somebody has to make a stand.
Do we just spend the rest of the next 2 yrs watching our country unravel and be given away?
To the contrary of the MSM would have us believe, a couple of hundred thousand signatures means nothing. No question we can find just as many who will sign in support of the 47 Senators who sent the letter to the Iranians.
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I just sent Sen Cotton an email of support. Anyone else interested here is his webpage:
http://www.cotton.senate.gov/content/contact-tom
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Done.
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This has been known on many pak discussion forums for years,,,
Saudi Arabia prepares for Iran nuclear deal
Saudi Arabia is quietly preparing for an international nuclear agreement with Iran that it fears will rehabilitate its Shiite Persian rival. King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud's approach eschews the public spectacle of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to Congress (indeed, the Saudis don't want any association with Israel) and instead focuses on regional alliances to contain an emergent Iran.
Author Bruce RiedelPosted March 8, 2015
The Saudis publicly welcomed US Secretary of State John Kerry's assurances in Riyadh last week that Washington will not accept a bad nuclear deal with Iran, and that a deal will not inaugurate a grand rapprochement between Washington and Tehran. They remain deeply skeptical about the negotiations, however, and are preparing for any outcome in the P5+1 process.
The Saudis recognize that a successful deal between Iran, the US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany will enjoy broad international backing and United Nations endorsement. Riyadh has no interest in being isolated in a dissenting minority with Netanyahu against a deal backed by a global majority. The royal family despises Israel, and Netanyahu is regarded as a war criminal by most Saudis. Any hint of mutual interest with Israel is unpalatable in the kingdom.
So the Saudi approach is to strengthen its regional alliances for long-term confrontation with Tehran. Most immediately, this means strengthening the unity of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). It has strong allies in Abu Dhabi and Manama. In Riyadh's eyes, there are two weak links in GCC collusion against Iran: Oman and Qatar. Neither is likely to give up their bilateral lucrative ties to Iran, but Salman is pressing both to adhere to GCC unity and not facilitate Iranian subversion.
Yemen is the key GCC battlefield. The victory of the Iranian-backed Zaydi Shiite Houthis in seizing control of most of north Yemen, including Sanaa, has led the Saudis and the GCC to move their embassies to Aden, where they are trying to back the tattered remnant of the Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi regime in south Yemen. The inauguration of Sanaa-Tehran air flights last month, a first, only underscores the extent of Iran's success in achieving a key goal in the kingdom's backyard and in its historically weak underbelly. The Saudis are on the defense in Yemen.
Egypt is Riyadh's key Arab partner. The kingdom played an important role in bringing Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to power, and Salman met him a week ago to coordinate closely on regional issues, especially Iran. Cairo is too preoccupied with its own domestic terror threat from the Islamic State (IS) and spillover from Libya's disintegration to be very helpful against Iranian machinations elsewhere, however, and is more of a liability (especially financially) than an asset, albeit one Saudi Arabia is determined to keep afloat.
The Shiite government in Baghdad is regarded as a long-lost Arab partner. The Saudis expect Iran to emerge as the big winner in the war with IS, no matter how long it takes and how bloody it is. The Saudis know history, geography, demography and sectarian affiliation favor Iran in Iraq. They believe that President George W. Bush made a colossal error in 2003 and that President Barack Obama has made an "unholy alliance" today with Iran in Iraq. The only option now is to contain the Shiite breakthrough here, too.
Syria has been lost to Iran as well, but Riyadh still hopes to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The Saudis are pouring money into the Lebanese army, as a potential brake on Hezbollah, along with the French. Salman also recently met with Jordan's King Abdullah to coordinate with Amman on Syria and with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as well.
Riyadh's most crucial ally is Pakistan, the only Muslim nuclear weapons state. Last year, for the first time, the Saudis publicly displayed their vintage Chinese-made intermediate-range ballistic missiles — the only ones they have that can reach Tehran — at a military parade. In the reviewing stands was Pakistani Chief of Army Staff Gen. Rahul Sharif, the man who controls Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. It is the fastest growing nuclear arsenal in the world, and the Saudis have been helping to pay for its development since the 1970s. It was a very calculated signal.
Salman, in late February, summoned the Pakistani prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, to Riyadh. The highly unusual and urgent public invitation was linked in the Pakistani press to "strategic cooperation" against Iran. Salman visited Islamabad a year ago as crown prince and gave Sharif a $1.5 billion grant to reaffirm the Saudi-Pakistani strategic accord. Sharif spent three days in the kingdom last week in response to the king's invitation. He received a royal reception.
One immediate result of the talks is a plan for Pakistan to move its embassy in Yemen to Aden.
The speculation in Islamabad is that the king sought assurances from Sharif that, if the Iran negotiations produce either a bad deal or no deal, Pakistan will live up to its longstanding commitment to Saudi security. That is understood in Riyadh and Islamabad to include a nuclear dimension.
Sharif also visited the kingdom in January of this year. He was apparently told that then-King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud was at death's door, and Sharif came to pay his respects and meet with Salman before the king died. No other leader was given this advance notice — another sign of the critical importance of the Saudi-Pakistani axis.
The exact details of what the Pakistani nuclear commitment to the kingdom includes is, of course, among the most closely held secrets of our world. Both Riyadh and Islamabad prefer to maintain ambiguity and deniability.
The Saudis have not given up on Obama; the United States is still their oldest ally. Washington is too important to irritate with speeches. The Saudis prefer a more subtle approach.
Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/03/saudi-arabia-prepares-for-iran-nuclear-deal.html##ixzz3UN27uGzE
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http://www.jewsnews.co.il/2015/03/27/u-s-to-award-iran-11-9-billion-through-end-of-nuke-talks-another-490-million-released-on-tuesday-under-deal/
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Iran, the Nuclear Deal and ‘The Gathering Storm’
Posted By Francis P. Sempa On April 10, 2015
Historical analogies should always be used with care. Events of many years ago involving different statesmen and countries contending with different issues and circumstances can, at best, shed some light on current events. That being said, the current push for a Nuclear Deal with Iran bears an eerie and troubling resemblance to the Western powers’ efforts in the 1920s and 1930s to ignore and then to accommodate German rearmament. What better place to shed some light on this circumstance than volume one of Winston Churchill’s history of the Second World War, The Gathering Storm.
The theme of The Gathering Storm was “How the English-speaking peoples through their unwisdom, carelessness, and good nature allowed the wicked to rearm.” Churchill recounted how well-meaning statesmen, with a genuine and understandable fear of war and its destructiveness, pursued popular arms control policies designed to maintain peace, but which instead helped create the conditions that led to war.
A key component of the Versailles peace agreement that ended the First World War was German disarmament. Churchill called this the “one solid security for peace.” The arms control regime in place after the First World War involved the Inter-Allied Control Commission and the League of Nations. Churchill wrote that to effectively enforce German disarmament it would be necessary for the Western powers to remain sufficiently armed themselves and “to enforce with tireless vigilance and authority” the disarmament provisions of the Versailles Treaty.
German evasions of the disarmament provisions imposed by the allied powers began in the early 1920s, long before Hitler and the Nazis came to power. An expanded officer corps was created under the guise of staffing civilian departments in Berlin. Soldiers were secretly trained in numbers that exceeded treaty limits. The nucleus of an air corps was hidden in various civilian agencies, and large numbers of German citizens were encouraged to participate in “commercial” flying. Naval restrictions were similarly evaded. “U-boats were illicitly built and their officers and men trained in other countries.” Civilian factories were designed for “speedy conversion to war.” Churchill noted that “every form of deception” was used by the Germans to circumvent treaty rules and restrictions, all under the watchful eye of allied arms control agencies. Meanwhile, Churchill noted, “the virtues of disarmament were extolled in the House of Commons by all parties.”
When the Nazis came to power they continued this subterfuge until Hitler felt confident enough in German strength and Western timidity to openly violate key provisions of the treaty. All the while, Churchill in speech after speech in the House of Commons revealed grave facts about German rearmament that British leaders and most of the world chose to ignore.
Today, the Western powers, led by the United States, are pinning their hopes for peace on an arms control deal with Iran, a regime every bit as aggressive and evil as Hitler’s. Hitler’s racial ideology led him to pursue policies—the extermination of the Jews and the murder or enslavement of Slavic peoples—that were inexplicable to Western minds despite the fact that Hitler had announced his plans in Mein Kampf. The Iranian Mullahs have likewise been open about their goals of destroying the Jewish state, converting or killing infidels, and establishing a worldwide caliphate based on a religious-political ideology that is also seemingly inexplicable to Western minds. Arms control did not work with Hitler and it will not work with Iran.
But the arms control delusion persists. It is based on, in Churchill’s words, “[d]elight in smooth-sounding platitudes, refusal to face unpleasant facts, desire for popularity and electoral success irrespective of the vital interests of the State, [and] genuine love of peace and pathetic belief that love can be its sole foundations . . .”
The much-touted Nuclear Deal with Iran is in reality only a “framework” for a deal. The devil will be in the details. But even the Western interpretation of the framework would leave in place the foundations of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, and as Churchill noted about the arms control arrangements in the 1920s and 1930s, “[t]he opportunities for concealment, camouflage, and . . . evasion are numerous and varied.”
Our desire for a deal with Iran—any deal—is of a piece with our pullout from Iraq, lessening influence in Afghanistan, miscalculations in Libya and Yemen, fumbling response to events in Egypt, and our unwillingness to recognize the religious and ideological roots of our enemies in the Middle East. Churchill’s unforgettable description of British leaders in the 1930s rings all too true today: “So they go on in strange paradox . . . resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent. So we go on preparing more months and years . . . for the locusts to eat.”
Francis P. Sempa is the author of Geopolitics: From the Cold War to the 21st Century and America’s Global Role: Essays and Reviews on National Security, Geopolitics and War. He is a contributor to Population Decline and the Remaking of Great Power Politics. He has written on historical and foreign policy topics for Strategic Review, The National Interest, The Diplomat, the Claremont Review of Books, Joint Force Quarterly, the University Bookman, the Washington Times and other publications. He is an attorney, an adjunct professor of political science at Wilkes University, and a contributing editor to American Diplomacy.
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Anyone else see this?:
*****Saturday April 11, 2015
The United States has bunker-busting bombs that can "shut down, set back and destroy" Iran's nuclear program, and the military option has not been taken off the table when it comes to the ongoing negotiations with that country, according to Defense Secretary Ashton Carter.
"I believe the Iranians know that and understand that," Carter told CNN Friday, stressing that the Obama administration prefers handling the issue of Iran's nuclear weapons potential diplomatically, rather than through military means, "because military action is reversible over time."
The technical name for the powerful weapons Carter referenced is the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), which can explode 20 feet underground and destroy deeply buried and fortified targets, and those weapons are ready for use, he said.
Carter's reference to MOPS is the first made about specific military planning against Iran's fortified underground facilities, reports The Jerusalem Post.
At one of the facilities, Fordow, 20 percent enriched medium-grade uranium is produced, and Iran's government insists it will only be used for civilian purposes. However, other countries fear that the uranium could be further enriched to 90 percent, The Post reports, which would be the amount needed to make material that can be weaponized.
Meanwhile, Carter also told CNN on Friday that any deal the United States and its allies make with Iran will include direct inspection of the country's nuclear facilities, as it must be based on verification and not trust.
On Thursday, though, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameni said through Twitter that "unconventional inspection" would not be an acceptable part of the deal:
He also tweeted that he is "neither for nor against the deal."
Carter also indicated in Friday's interview that Iran and North Korea could be working together, as they have collaborated in the past.
"In fact, North Korea worked with Syria, helped it build a reactor... North Korea is a welcome all-comers kind of proliferator," Carter said.
However, he said that Iran doesn't need North Korea "to teach them nuclear physics. They know plenty of it in Iran."
Carter also discussed another U.S. priority in the Middle East: the ongoing fight to contain and control the Islamic State, and said he "would not hesitate" to advise putting putting boots on the ground, but "we are not at that point yet."
President Barack Obama is open to advice and analysis, Carter said, but that does not mean "when any of us makes a recommendation, he will accept."
But ISIS and al-Qaida are still threats to the United States, said Carter.
"If al-Qaida was the Internet terrorists, these guys (ISIS) are the social media terrorists," he said.
Al-Qaida has been weakened through the past decade of "pounding" by U.S. forces, said Carter, but "they still have a serious preoccupation with direct attacks on the United States."
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Russia Lifts Its Ban on Delivery of S-300 Missiles to Iran
The Kremlin removes ban implemented by Dmitry Medvedev in 2010
By Paul Sonne
Updated April 13, 2015 12:13 p.m. ET
256 COMMENTS
MOSCOW—The Kremlin has lifted its ban on deliveries of S-300 surface-to-air missiles to Iran, setting the legal groundwork for Russia to resume its plans to sell a powerful air-defense system to Tehran.
A decree by President Vladimir Putin posted on the Kremlin website Monday formally removed the Russian ban which has been in place since 2010. The move comes ahead of a June 30 deadline for world powers including the U.S. and Russia to strike a final deal with Iran over the dismantlement of its nuclear program.
Russia signed a contract worth about $800 million to deliver S-300s to Iran in 2007. But the U.S. and Israel pushed the Kremlin to drop the deal, expressing concern that Tehran could use the sophisticated air-defense system to protect its nuclear facilities from an attack.
Russia relented three years later when Russian President Dmitry Medvedev issued a Kremlin decree prohibiting the delivery of any Russian S-300 missiles to Iran. The 2010 order brought Russia in line with United Nations Security Council sanctions passed that year, which established an arms embargo on Iran in an attempt to further impede its nuclear progress.
“At this stage, we believe the need for this kind of embargo, and a separate voluntary Russian embargo, has completely disappeared,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday. “I note that the S-300 air-defense missile system, which is exclusively of a defensive nature, is not suited for the purposes of attack and doesn’t threaten the security of any governments in the region, including, of course, Israel.”
U.N. sanctions don’t restrict the supply of air-defense weapons to Iran, Mr. Lavrov said. Russia applied the S-300 ban in September 2010 as a goodwill gesture to stimulate progress in nuclear talks with Tehran and form a united front with other world powers taking part in negotiations, he said. The recent framework agreed with Iran to eliminate its nuclear program has now removed the need for the ban, Mr. Lavrov argued.
“Taking into account the very tense situation in the surrounding area, modern air defense systems are very important to Iran,” Mr. Lavrov added.
Moscow’s decision comes nearly two months after Russia’s top Russian defense industry executive told reporters that Russia had offered to sell Iran a powerful air-defense system in the S-300 family, but had yet to strike a deal.
Sergei Chemezov, chief executive of the Russian state defense conglomerate Rostec, said in February Iran was still considering Russia’s offer to supply Antey-2500 anti-ballistic missile systems but had not yet made a decision, according to Russian state news agency TASS. Rostec didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
“I don’t hide it, and everyone understands that the more conflicts there are, the more weapons are bought from us,” Mr. Chemezov said at the time, noting that Russia’s foreign weapons sales had totaled $13 billion in 2014. “Our volumes continue to grow, despite sanctions. In particular it is Latin America and the Middle East.”
Mr. Chemezov, a friend of Mr. Putin, is among those sanctioned by the U.S. over the crisis in Ukraine.
Write to Paul Sonne at paul.sonne@wsj.com
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The Islamic Republic of Iran has been in the hostage-taking business since its earliest days, so nobody should be surprised by Tuesday’s news that Iranian warships seized a cargo ship and her crew of 34 in the Strait of Hormuz. But it’s a useful reminder of the kind of regime with which the West is now seeking to strike a nuclear bargain.
The M/V Maersk Tigris, a Marshall Islands-flagged container ship, was transiting the Strait along an internationally recognized maritime route when it was surrounded by gunships of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps. The Iranians ordered the ship to divert into Iranian waters and fired warning shots when the skipper of the Tigris refused, sending out a distress call that was picked up by the destroyer USS Farragut. The Iranians then boarded the ship and steered her toward the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas.
We’ll see how long this “diversion” lasts, and what price Iran will demand for releasing the ship and its crew. The incident comes less than a week after a convoy of Iranian cargo and warships destined for Tehran’s Houthi allies in Yemen were shadowed by U.S. Navy ships, eventually turning away. It also follows an incident on Friday when Iranian warships surrounded, but did not board, another large Maersk ship, the U.S.-flagged Kensington.
Perhaps that means the Iranians are merely trying to score political points by playing a game of payback. But the U.S. effort to turn the Iranian convoy away from Yemen was in the service of a U.N. arms embargo on the Houthis. The Iranian action is effectively identical to the ship-seizing by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean’s Gulf of Aden and Arabian Sea.
It’s also a reminder that Iran has not moderated its rogue behavior during the presidency of Hasan Rouhani, whose own alleged moderation is one of the Obama Administration’s justifications for seeking a nuclear deal.
On the contrary, Mr. Rouhani has presided over renewed domestic repression and redoubled regional aggression. A nuclear deal is supposed to ease Iran’s return to the community of civilized nations, but so far Western concessions seem to have emboldened it into thinking it can do as it pleases. The habit of seizing unarmed ships on the high seas—or innocent foreign reporters working in Iran—is barbarism.
Apologists for Iran will no doubt ascribe the seizure of the Tigris to “hardline factions” within the regime. That might be true, but it only underscores the futility of striking a nuclear deal with a regime in which the hardliners can operate with impunity. What happens when Tehran decides to imprison pesky U.N. inspectors trying to verify Iran’s nuclear promises?
Iran’s disdain for basic maritime conventions is a good indicator of how it will treat any agreement it signs, which is why the Obama Administration is deluding itself that it can draw a line between Iran’s everyday behavior and its nuclear commitments. Pirates don’t keep their word, and it’s dangerous to bargain as if they will.
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Editor's Note: In light of the April 28 boarding of a Maersk Line ship in the Strait of Hormuz by Iranian naval forces belonging to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Stratfor is republishing its detailed October 2012 report on the elite corps. Although details are still emerging, what is known is that the Maersk Tigris was stopped in Iranian waters and boarded, before being redirected to the port of Bandar Abbas under escort. The Maersk Tigris was sailing under a Marshall Islands flag and is managed by Rickmers Ship Management, the Singapore-based arm of Hamburg's Rickmers Group. U.S.-based company Oaktree Capital originally had the ship constructed in the Philippines and retains ownership rights. The crew of 34 is believed to be multinational.
A Pentagon spokesman said that the Maersk Tigris ignored warnings from Iranian vessels to move deeper into Iran's territorial waters but complied after warning shots were fired. The USS Farragut was dispatched on an intercept course as the Maersk Tigris was ordered to steam toward Bandar Abbas. An Iranian source reported that the vessel was boarded after Iran's Ports and Maritime Organization issued a court order to confiscate the vessel. Unconfirmed reports indicate that the vessel has been released to continue on its way, but Stratfor will continue to monitor the situation.
The timing of the incident is far from ideal, coming at a juncture when talks between the United States and Iran over Tehran's controversial nuclear program have reached a critical stage ahead of the July 1 deadline for a final deal. The reasons for the seizure of the vessel remain unclear but it is well known that the IRGC and other hardline clerical elements in Iran are unhappy with the nuclear negotiations.
Part 1 of this special report lays out the origins of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and explains how it has become Iran's most powerful institution. Part 2 discusses the external pressures facing the IRGC, how that pressure is affecting the group, and what a weakened IRGC would mean for Iran.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, commonly referred to as the IRGC, is the most influential institution in the Iranian political system. To a large extent, Iran's ability to project power internationally and maintain domestic stability rests with this elite military institution. Of course, the IRGC functions somewhat like other conventional militaries; it is not completely immune to political infighting or institutional rivalry. While the disproportionate amount of power it wields will help the group overcome any factionalization to retain its pre-eminence, there are early signs of problems within its ranks.
Origin and Evolution
With several powerful and often competing institutions, the Iranian political system is extremely complex. But undoubtedly the most powerful institution in that system is the IRGC, which was created by the clerical elite after the 1979 revolution to protect the newly founded regime. During the 1980s, it fought against insurgencies (most notably against the Mujahideen-e-Khalq) and took a lead role in the Iran-Iraq War. These experiences helped the IRGC become the core of the Iranian national security and foreign policy establishment.
Visit our Iran page for related analysis, videos, situation reports and maps.
Currently, the IRGC comprises some 125,000 members and continues to derive its legitimacy from the clerical elite, led by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who maintains ultimate authority in Iranian politics. In fact, IRGC generals are appointed by Khamenei, the group's commander in chief, not the civilian government. While the clerics manage important state institutions, such as the Guardians Council, the judiciary, and the Assembly of Experts, they rely on the IRGC to maintain control of those institutions. This reliance likewise has contributed to the IRGC's power.
As a result, the IRGC has gained an edge over other institutions, such as the Artesh, or the conventional armed forces; various clerical institutions; the executive branch, led by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; and the main civilian intelligence service, the Ministry of Intelligence and National Security. In recent decades the IRGC has further expanded to gain influence — in some cases, control — over domestic law enforcement, foreign intelligence operations, strategic military command and the national economy.
Iran
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In fact, the group has developed a robust economic portfolio. Many IRGC commanders retire relatively early — usually at 50 years old — and join Iran's political and economic elite. Former IRGC commanders now dominate heavy industries, including the construction industry, and civilians operating in these industries are subordinate to IRGC elements.
The group also generates revenue through illicit channels. Its mandate for border security enables the group to run massive smuggling operations. In these operations, IRGC troops move luxury goods and illegal drugs (especially Afghan heroin), charge port fees and receive bribes. The proceeds from these activities augment the funds appropriated to the IRGC by the civilian government.
Like other conventional militaries, the IRGC is susceptible to internal rivalry over budgets, turf and connections. However, professional discipline has prevented it from succumbing to outright factional infighting. Moreover, Khamenei has taken steps to avoid factionalization, including the constant rotation of senior leadership of the IRGC's various branches (except in instances where a particular branch requires specialized institutional knowledge). However, the position of overall commander has been mostly static. In fact, only three individuals have held the post since the IRGC became the protector of the regime: Maj. Gen. Mohsen Rezaie (1981-1997); Maj. Gen Yahya Rahim Safavi (1997-2007); and Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari (2007-present).
An Inevitable Political Entity
As a political entity, the IRGC has become more than what its founders intended. The Iranian Constitution prohibits the IRGC from engaging in politics. More important, the group has avoided political activity so as not to be construed as seditious. But given its ubiquity in political, economic and security affairs, its evolution as a political entity probably was inevitable.
IRGC commanders and officers naturally have differing political leanings. Some IRGC members openly support or sympathize with various political causes and individuals. Others do so more discreetly. But to varying degrees, all politicians have followings in the officer corps, whose support is far from uniform.
In theory, the commanders and officers pay fealty to Khamenei and the wider clerical establishment. But in practice, the IRGC is not really beholden to any entity or faction. The IRGC regards itself as the rightful heir to the revolution and the savior of the republic. It considers itself uniquely capable and worthy of ruling the country. That belief may be well-founded. As the most well-organized and efficient institution in the state, the IRGC has long supplied experienced administrators to the civilian sector. Some notable example include:
Former overall commander Rezaie, now the secretary of the Expediency Council.
Former IRGC air force commander Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf, the current mayor of Tehran.
Brig. Gen. Mostafa Mohammad Najjar, the current interior minister, through whom the IRGC has gained greater leverage over internal security affairs.
Gen. Ahmad Vahidi, the current defense minister. His position benefits the IRGC even though the corps and the Artesh are under the purview of the Joint Staff Command, led by IRGC Maj. Gen. Hassan Firouzabadi.
Gen. Rostam Qasemi, the current oil minister. Formerly in charge of the IRGC's engineering and construction arm, Qasemi has seen to the IRGC's domination of the oil and natural gas sector.
Even though these former commanders and officers belong to the wider IRGC community, they form their own factions upon retirement. As an institution, the IRGC mostly has a unified stance on political issues. But individuals belonging to different institutions after retirement may dissent somewhat. The process resembles that of Israel; former members of Israel Defense Forces often emerge as key political leaders.
Consequently, any reference to the IRGC's stance on a particular issue represents the majority, not the entirety, of the group. And any reference to IRGC institutional interests represents the majority of commanders and officers with similar values. Differences of opinion certainly exist, but so far these differences have not manifested as fundamental divisions within the elite military institution. While its cohesion may be challenged in the future, the IRGC appears to be uniquely intact, at least for now.
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http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/05/08/iranian-general-talks-hypothetical-war-with-u-s-uses-these-three-words-to-describe-it/
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As always, Stratfor is quite intelligent but my mind boggles at the absence of consideration of the nuclear issue, world-wide Islamic Fascism, etc.
Iranian Power Is Not Inevitable
Global Affairs
May 27, 2015 | 08:00 GMT
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By Ian Morris
Of all the upheavals in the Middle East since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Iran's growing regional power might turn out to be the one with the greatest geopolitical effects.
Some governments see Iranian preeminence as inevitable, leading them to react by leaning toward Tehran. Others are doing just the opposite, talking darkly of preemptive strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities or plunging into a Middle Eastern arms race. "Whatever the Iranians have, we will have, too," former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki bin Faisal said just a few weeks ago. But in some ways the most radical move of all has been the willingness of the Great Satan to consider partially normalizing relations with a founder member of the Axis of Evil. "If it evolves into something solid," George Friedman observed of the diplomatic efforts in his Geopolitical Diary on April 2, "then we can look at this as the day the United States kicked over the table and started a new game."
Everything seems to be up in the air, but — as is so often the case — taking a long-term perspective can help us make sense of the shifting strategic landscape.
Iran's Historical Role
Those who see Iranian regional hegemony as inevitable often appeal to history. Iran, they argue, has always held such a position unless prevented by exceptional circumstances. Such circumstances prevailed in the 20th century, they suggest, but are now passing away, and so Iran is bound to regain its dominance the Middle East.
This argument, however, is not entirely correct. In the 5,500 years since cities and organized governments first appeared, Iran has been a major Middle Eastern power for less than one-third of that time. Although Susa, located in the modern Khuzestan province of southwestern Iran, arose as one of the first proper states in the region around 3500 B.C., Iran still remained peripheral for many centuries. That began to change in 2004 B.C., when Elamites, whose capital city was at Susa, raided Mesopotamia and sacked Ur, then the greatest city in the world. By the 12th century B.C., Elam had become a significant player in regional politics, but it was not until the 7th century B.C. that Iran really took center stage.
In 612 B.C., the Medes of northwestern Iran helped overthrow the Assyrian Empire; less than 70 years later, another group from the Khuzestan region, the Achaemenid Persians, overthrew the Medes in turn. The Persians went on to create an empire that stretched from India to Greece, the largest the world had yet seen. Iran remained a major power for the next 1,200 years, until the Arabs destroyed the Sassanid Persian Empire in A.D. 651. After that, a fragmented Iran was subordinate to Egyptian, Iraqi and Turkic powers for nearly a millennium, until the Shiite Safavid dynasty — which reigned from the 16th to the mid-18th century — challenged the Sunni Ottoman Turks for supremacy. By the end of the 18th century, however, Iran had once again been eclipsed. The 19th and 20th centuries were times of retreat and humiliation for Iran's rulers, with at best a partial revival under the Pahlavis in the 1960s and 70s.
There is nothing inevitable about Iranian dominance. Even if we look at Middle Eastern history in the most pro-Iranian manner, starting the story with the rise of the Achaemenid Persian Empire in 550 B.C., Iran has only been one of the Middle East's dominant powers 60 percent of the time. The other 40 percent observed hegemons based farther West, or no regional hegemon at all. This calendrical arithmetic suggests that, while it is perfectly plausible that Iran might re-emerge as a regional power in the 21st century, Iranian dominance is by no means the default setting of the Middle East.
Long-term history, then, shows that there are no timeless geostrategic forces that locked Iranian power into place thousands of years ago. But it can do more: It can also explain what conditions brought the last great era of Iranian hegemony to an end in the 18th century and whether these conditions will continue to apply in the 21st century.
In 1904, when Iran was at its weakest, the geographer and explorer Halford Mackinder argued in an address to London's Royal Geographical Society that the key to global strategy lay in the interactions between three broad regions of Eurasia. Mackinder, I think, was largely right, and thanks to another century of archaeological and historical study, we can now expand his insights into a general theory of geopolitics that says much about Iran's situation.
Inner vs. Outer Rims
In the last 10,000 years, the world's most developed societies have almost always been in the band of latitudes that Mackinder called Eurasia's "inner rim," running from the Mediterranean to China. Farming was invented in this area, with the Middle East leading the way around 9500 B.C. and the rest of the inner rim following its example over the next several thousand years. Along with farming came cities and governments, which most parts of the inner rim had developed by 500 B.C. Two hundred and fifty years later, the world's first multiethnic empires comprising tens of millions of subjects controlled most of the inner rim.
Because ancient empires could not project their power very far, at any one time the inner rim tended to have four or five regional hegemons, jostling with each other but rarely extending their power into what Mackinder called Eurasia's "outer rim," facing toward the oceans, or its "heartland," far from the seas. However, because Eurasia's inner rim held 75 percent of the world's population and 90 percent of its wealth, its imperial rivalries became the most significant issues in global geopolitics.
The planet's balance of power began to change around 1000 B.C., when pastoral nomads on the steppes — the arid, treeless grasslands running from Manchuria to Hungary — first bred horses able to carry riders for long distances. These horsemen in the Eurasian heartland, far more mobile than the armies of the inner rim empires, were able to plunder almost at will and then gallop away before the imperial infantry could respond.
For the next 2,500 years, Eurasian history was dominated by a struggle between predators from the heartland — Scythians, Huns, Turks and Mongols, to name just a few — and the empires of the inner rim. China and Iran, which had relatively open frontiers along the steppes, were the regions most exposed to devastation, and their ruling dynasties were regularly overthrown by invaders. India and Europe, shielded by mountains and forests, generally suffered less.
The contest between the inner rim and the heartland was eventually overtaken by a new strategic struggle, which pitted the inner rim against the outer, after A.D. 1500. Mackinder labeled this new situation, which still prevailed in his own day, "the Columbian epoch." The great shift was driven by two inventions, both of them pioneered in China but quickly adopted and adapted all along the inner rim. When the new inventions reached Europe, they merged to form a world-conquering package.
The first invention was the gun, which military men gradually improved upon until muskets could be fired fast enough to counter nomadic archers on horseback. In 1500, steppe cavalry could still normally defeat volleying infantry; in 1600, they could sometimes win the same victories. But by 1700, they hardly ever could. After that, riders from the heartland no longer seriously threatened the inner rim.
The second invention was the oceangoing ship, which could fairly reliably sail for thousands of miles. These ships transformed the balance between the inner and outer rims just as decisively as the gun had altered the dynamic between the inner rim and the heartland. Armed with the new ships and guns, outer rim states could now project power farther and strike harder than any civilization before. The Columbian epoch had arrived.
Thanks to their long coastlines, India and the western parts of the Ottoman Empire were the most exposed to outer rim sailors and their guns, while distance and difficulty of access made China and Iran less vulnerable. By 1600, Western Europeans had overrun much of the Americas, built dozens of fortresses around the shores of the Indian Ocean and penetrated the Pacific. This, however, was just the beginning. In the 1750s, they began conquering India, and by the 1850s, Western Europeans and their former colonists in North America directly or indirectly controlled almost all territory from Turkey to Japan. The outer rim had overwhelmed the inner rim, turning the 19th century into an age of catastrophe for these ancient lands. By 1900 British troops had even pushed right through the inner rim and were playing a "Great Game" against Russia for control of the heartland.
But during these very years, right around the time Mackinder was lecturing in London, the pendulum began swinging back. The outer rim's financial, military and technological advantages over the inner rim remained enormous, but not enormous enough to sustain 19th-century levels of inequality. As the 20th century went on, inner rim nations slowly caught up with the outer rim as they underwent their own industrial revolutions. In 1916, when he was leading Turkish troops to defend Iraq against a largely Indian army fighting for Britain, the German general Wilhelm Leopold Colmar von der Goltz (known to the Turks as Goltz Pasha) could already prophesy that "the hallmark of the 20th century must be the revolution of the colored races against the colonial imperialism of Europe."
Iran in a Post-Columbian World
By 1950, outer rim power, now wielded more by Americans than by Europeans, was already being challenged in much of the inner rim, and since the beginning of the new millennium, this trend has only become clearer. Many forecasters suspect that by 2050 the Columbian epoch will be over: China and India will be the world's greatest powers, and the global strategic balance will once again look like it did before Columbus.
This story seems to point toward two conclusions. First, the Columbian epoch will prove to have been a brief phase that is already drawing to a close. Outer rim societies already relate to China, India, and Japan as peers, and they will very probably have to cultivate a similar relationship with Iran within the next few decades.
Second, despite all the local variations, the Columbian epoch unfolded in broadly similar ways all along the inner rim. Everywhere, the core problem in the 18th and 19th centuries was the inability of the inner rim's pre-modern imperial structures to respond to the energies of the modern societies that had taken shape in Europe and America. Only after going through a painful transition to modernity, liberalizing their economies and engaging with the outer rim's markets could inner rim societies re-establish themselves as regional powers.
India represents one extreme on the spectrum of experiences. Europeans exploited India's open coasts to establish numerous beachheads in the 16th and 17th centuries, and when dynastic chaos weakened the Mughal Empire in the 18th century, Britain's East India Company established financial dominance and, later, military control. In 1951, four years after winning independence, India's literacy rate was still just 16 percent, and the average person's life expectancy at birth was just 32 years. Only in the 1990s did India begin liberalizing its economy, integrating its markets with those of the outer rim and emerging as a true regional power.
Japan falls at the other end of the spectrum. Although distance made it one of the last Asian states to crumble under the outer rim's power, in the first few years after the arrival of U.S. Naval Commodore Matthew Perry in 1853 and the opening of Japan to the West, the country seemed to be following the Indian path. Tokugawa rule collapsed into civil war, and European and American financiers and military advisers began moving in. However, as early as the 1870s, a new Japanese elite had seized control of its own affairs, using indigenous rather than outer rim capital to finance industrialization, strongly resisting territorial partition and liberalizing its economy. It emerged as a regional power in the 1890s.
Iran does not fall at either of these extremes, and in fact, its experience of the Columbian epoch more closely resembles that of China. Less exposed to the outer rim than India, but more exposed than Japan, China suffered devastating defeats at British hands in the 1840s. Qing dynasty governance disintegrated amid civil wars, and corrupt rulers squandered huge Western loans. Westerners reacted by partitioning the country and taking over parts of its government's functions. Mao's victory in 1949 ushered in a revolutionary era in which China pulled sharply away from the outer rim, only to begin leaning back toward the United States in 1972. Economic liberalization took off in the 1980s, and by 2000 China was once again a regional power.
Iran's sheltered coastline meant that it, too, enjoyed more protection from the outer rim than India, but less than Japan. It had its own military disaster at British hands in 1857, and, following the Chinese path, its Qajar dynasty dissolved into weak and ineffective rule, squandering its own huge European loans and granting monopolistic concessions over much of its economy. In 1901, Mozaffar ad-Din Shah signed away most of the country's oil for 20,000 pounds in cash and one-sixth of the country's future oil revenues. Britain occupied parts of Iran from 1915 to 1921, returned again in 1941 for five more years and then helped the United States overthrow an elected government in 1953. The strongly pro-Western Pahlavi regime subsequently began limited economic liberalization, only to fall in the Islamist revolution of 1979. As in China, the revolutionary government then pulled sharply away from the outer rim; but unlike China, it has not yet reversed course to liberalize its economy.
The recipe for success in the inner rim has been to replace premodern dynastic rulers with economic liberalizers who lean toward the outer rim, not with revolutionaries who turn inward, blame the outer rim for their problems and seek solutions in extreme ideologies. Iran's revival as a regional power, we should conclude, is likely but not inevitable. It will depend on the choices its leaders and people make and on the willingness of the outer rim to trust them.
This analysis has optimistic short-term implications. The more that Iran remains a revisionist power, challenging the status quo, the less likely it is to revive as a regional power. And the more it wants to revive as a regional power, the less likely Iran is to pose a continuing threat to the stability of the region.
In the longer run, however, the picture may darken. During the 20th century, the outer rim worked out an implicit deal with the inner rim's reviving regional powers, effectively exchanging direct or indirect rule for cooperation and commitment to peaceful engagement with the outer rim's markets. However, as regional powers waxed stronger, they regularly found themselves chafing under these terms. In the 1930s, Japanese leaders decided war was the only solution; in the 2010s, many analysts worry that Chinese leaders may come to a similar conclusion. If Iran does liberalize and take its place as a regional power in the 2020s, after a decade or so it too might strain against the limits of the new dynamic between inner and outer rim. And, Iran's rivalries with Turkey or Saudi Arabia over influence in the Arab world — or with India over control of the Arabian Sea — might well be making strategic forecasters long for the simpler days of the ayatollahs.
That, however, will be a problem for a new generation of statesmen to resolve.
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The Iranian Nuclear Paradox
Once an agreement is reached, a U.S.-Iran confrontation becomes more likely, more quickly.
By Reuel Marc Gerecht and Mark Dubowitz
July 8, 2015 7:25 p.m. ET
The lines are clearly drawn in Washington on President Obama’s plan for a nuclear deal with Iran. As negotiations for a final agreement continue well past their June 30 deadline, most Republicans oppose the deal and Democrats will not block it.
Many critics claim to believe that a “good deal,” which would permanently dismantle the clerical regime’s capacity to construct nuclear weapons, is still possible if Mr. Obama would augment diplomacy with the threat of more sanctions and the use of force. Although these critics accurately highlight the framework’s serious faults, they also make a mistake: More sanctions and threats of military raids now are unlikely to thwart the mullahs’ nuclear designs. We will never know whether more crippling sanctions and force could have cracked the clerical regime. We do know that the president sought the opposite path even before American and Iranian diplomats began negotiating in Europe.
But hawks who believe that airstrikes are the only possible option for stopping an Iranian nuke should welcome a deal perhaps more than anyone. This is because the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is tailor-made to set Washington on a collision course with Tehran. The plan leaves the Islamic Republic as a threshold nuclear-weapons state and in the short-term insulates the mullahs’ regional behavior from serious American reproach.
To imagine such a deal working is to imagine the Islamic Republic without its revolutionary faith. So Mr. Obama’s deal-making is in effect establishing the necessary conditions for military action after January 2017, when a new president takes office.
No American president would destroy Iranian nuclear sites without first exhausting diplomacy. The efforts by Mr. Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry to compromise with Tehran—on uranium enrichment, verification and sanctions relief, among other concerns—are comprehensive, if nothing else. If the next president chose to strike after the Iranians stonewalled or repeatedly violated Mr. Obama’s agreement, however, the newcomer would be on much firmer political ground, at home and abroad, than if he tried without this failed accord.
Without a deal the past will probably repeat itself: Washington will incrementally increase sanctions while the Iranians incrementally advance their nuclear capabilities. Without a deal, diplomacy won’t die. Episodically it has continued since an Iranian opposition group revealed in 2002 the then-clandestine nuclear program. Via this meandering diplomatic route, Tehran has gotten the West to accept its nuclear progress.
Critics of the president who suggest that a much better agreement is within reach with more sanctions are making the same analytical error as Mr. Obama: They both assume that the Iranian regime will give priority to economics over religious ideology. The president wants to believe that Iran’s “supreme leader” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Hasan Rouhani can be weaned from the bomb through commerce; equally war-weary sanctions enthusiasts fervently hope that economic pain alone can force the mullahs to set aside their faith. In their minds Iran is a nation that the U.S., or even Israel, can intimidate and contain.
The problem is that the Islamic Republic remains, as Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif proudly acknowledges in his memoirs, a revolutionary Islamic movement. Such a regime by definition would never bend to America’s economic coercion and never gut the nuclear centerpiece of its military planning for 30 years and allow Westerners full and transparent access to its nuclear secrets and personnel. This is the revolutionary Islamic state that is replicating versions of the militant Lebanese Hezbollah among the Arab Shiites, ever fearful at home of seditious Western culture and prepared to use terrorism abroad.
Above all, the clerical regime cannot be understood without appreciating the centrality of anti-Americanism to its religious identity. The election of a Republican administration might reinvigorate Iranian fear of American military power, as the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 did for a year or two. But it did not stop Iran’s nuclear march, and there is no reason to believe now that Mr. Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guards, who oversee the nuclear program, will betray all that they hold holy.
But a nuclear deal is not going to prevent conflict either. The presidency of the so-called pragmatic mullah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani from 1989 to 1997 was an aggressive period of Iranian terrorism. If President Rouhani, Mr. Rafsanjani’s former right-hand man, can pull off a nuclear agreement, we are likely to see a variation of the 1990s Iranian aggression.
Such aggression has already begun. Revolutionary Guards are fighting in Syria and Iraq, and Iranian aid flows to the Shiite Houthis in Yemen. Wherever the Islamic Republic’s influence grows among Arab Shiites, Sunni-Shiite conflict grows worse. With greater internecine Muslim hostility, the clerical regime inevitably intensifies its anti-American propaganda and actions in an effort to compete with radical Sunnis and their competing claims to lead an anti-Western Muslim world.
Iranian adventurism, especially if it includes anti-American terrorism, will eventually provoke a more muscular U.S. response. The odds of Tehran respecting any nuclear deal while it pushes to increase its regional influence—unchecked by Washington—aren’t good.Mr. Obama may think he can snap back sanctions and a united Western front to counter nefarious Iranian nuclear behavior, but the odds aren’t good once European businesses start returning to the Islamic Republic. Washington has a weak track record of using extraterritorial sanctions against our richest and closest allies and trading partners. The French alone may join the Americans again to curtail Iran and European profits.
With a failed deal, no plausible peaceful alternatives, and Mr. Obama no longer in office, Republicans and Democrats can then debate, more seriously than before, whether military force remains an option. Odds are it will not be. When contemplating the possibility that preventive military strikes against the clerical regime won’t be a one-time affair, even a hawkish Republican president may well default to containment. But if Washington does strike, it will be because Mr. Obama showed that peaceful means don’t work against the clerics’ nuclear and regional ambitions.
Mr. Gerecht, a former Iranian-targets officer in the Central Intelligence Agency’s clandestine service, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Mr. Dubowitz is the foundation’s executive director and heads its Center on Sanctions and Illicit Finance.
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Iran will be a nuclear power and nothing will be done.
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http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/07/13/iranian-newspaper-says-iran-could-destroy-the-white-house-in-under-10-minutes/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Firewire&utm_campaign=Firewire%20-%20HORIZON%207-13-15%20Build-MON
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second post
http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/07/13/iranian-official-we-will-take-1000-americans-hostage-if-us-considers-military-action/
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And the Republicans let him:
http://time.com/3956853/iran-michael-oren-israel/
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And the Republicans let him:
http://time.com/3956853/iran-michael-oren-israel/
Yup. We, and Israel are fcuked.
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Today is a very dark day. Mark your calendars, boys and girls. Today Obama successfully pushed through a "deal" with Iran that will guarantee - actually expedite - its acquisition of nuclear weapons. It follows that today marks the day on which it has been assured that both Israel and the U.S. will face nuclear attacks on their soil at the hands of the Iranians. 1938 - Chamberlain - death pact with Hitler. Today we witness a similar act of insanity. Prepare yourselves.
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If you live on either coast, it would be advisable to relocate.
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I don't know. People confuse racism with culture all of the time. It is a mistake to do so.
I have a very select few of Muslims (in Bashkortostan, Russia to be specific), that I am friends with. Other than that, I don't like them. There is a good reason why. I went base jumping at Mount Shakhan with them. We drove the way there, them making jokes about cutting off non muslim's heads. We were with an instructor from the military there, so there was no real danger (Muslims are obliged to serve in the Russian military as well), but the point being is that people avoid talking about multiculturalism due to skin tone being confused with it, in an effort to avoid being labeled as a racist.
Muslims do not share western culture. I know because I have read the Qu'ran AND lived amongst them, albeit in an area of Russia where radical Muslims are almost non existent.
I think we should embrace Iran having weapons, because as noted above, they will certainly use them sooner or later. Their beliefs dictate that they have to.
In then end, there will be a war of cultures and perhaps for water (that is another matter), and whatever brings it to a head, so that our progeny doesn't have to fight the same fight, I'm ok with.
Let them have the weapons, let them make war, and let western culture finish it. Unfortunately, many in society lack the stomach to effect such policies, but even in the Bible and the Torah, there are some things God just doesn't let go. I don't think He expects us to let them go either.
My thoughts.
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Really no way to know if Iran is a terrorist nation bent on destroying the world until we test it (with nuclear weapons)
Gallows humor for Israel and the world. Better analysis here than in most liberal publications.
FOR
Creates room for some fresh new up-and-coming state sponsors of terrorism
Breathes new life into decades-old animosity between U.S. and Saudi Arabia
Nice to see John Kerry so engaged at work
Frees Iran to brainstorm all sorts of exciting, outside-the-box ways to destroy Israel
Fresh material for Rabbi Cohen’s sermon
Really no way to know if Iran is a terrorist nation bent on destroying the world until we test it
Just feels kind of empty without current U.S. military intervention in Muslim world
AGAINST
Zero people involved with this are to be trusted
Uranium only fun if enriched beyond 3.67 percent
Stand-your-ground provision allows Iran to fast-track construction of nuclear missile in event it feels at all threatened
Might lose the comfort and familiarity of unbearably high tensions in Middle East
Complete waste of perfectly good centrifuges
Possibility that closer cooperation will humanize Iranian people in Americans’ eyes
Not complete and utter surrender to demands of U.S.
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http://pamelageller.com/2015/07/u-s-will-teach-iran-to-thwart-israeli-threats-to-its-nuclear-program.html/
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http://pamelageller.com/2015/07/u-s-will-teach-iran-to-thwart-israeli-threats-to-its-nuclear-program.html/
No worries, bigdog says Iran is a rational actor.
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Forget Congress, Obama's Taking the Iran Deal to the UN
(http://patriotpost.us/posts/36421)
It took years to get other nations on board with sanctions against Iran, and
Barack Obama has done his best to undo all that work — for nothing in return
(http://patriotpost.us/articles/36405). Meanwhile, Congress tried to insert
itself into the process, but all it got was an empty political victory.
Congress now needs a two-thirds majority to disapprove of Obama's bad deal.
But it might not even matter, as Obama could essentially skip Congress
altogether. CNS News reports
(http://cnsnews.com/news/article/patrick-goodenough/obama-not-waiting-congress-review-iran-deal-going-un),
"Despite a legal obligation to allow Congress to review the Iran nuclear
agreement for 60 days, the Obama administration will press ahead with a U.N.
Security Council resolution enshrining the deal, likely within days."
According to Secretary of State John Kerry, implementation of the agreement
will begin "within 90 days of the UN Security Council endorsing the deal."
Obama has worked his deal, declared it's awesome, threatened to veto any
congressional measure of disapproval, and wants to get on with securing the
UN's seal of approval for his legacy-building enterprise. And yet he had the
temerity to say, "I welcome a robust debate in Congress on this issue and I
welcome scrutiny of the details of this agreement." As long as he can ignore
the debate, that is.
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Does anyone REALLY think for one second Schumer won't vote the party Obama line??? If he did it wouldn't be until he was sure they have enough votes to keep the Senate from getting to 67 anyway. The Dems stick together like a Roman phalynx:
Jul 16, 5:41 PM EDT
Sen. Schumer squeezed on Obama's Iran nuclear deal
By ERICA WERNER
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) -- No sooner had President Barack Obama announced a nuclear deal with Iran than Sen. Chuck Schumer issued a statement pledging to go through it with a fine-tooth comb, talk with administration officials, listen to experts on all sides and carefully study it.
Everything, that is, except provide even a whisper of a hint of how he will vote on it.
It's a political straddle that reflects the 64-year-old New York senator's competing roles as next-in-line Senate Democratic leader, unquestioned congressional ally of Israel, leading fundraiser and strategist for his party, and lawmaker from a state that is home to more than a million-and-a-half Jews.
"Sen. Schumer is going to be instrumental in helping to determine where this lands," said Rep. Steve Israel, a fellow Jewish Democratic lawmaker from New York who's been an outspoken skeptic on the deal. As the White House lobbies senators to support the pact, "He's going to have a major role in determining where they end up."
Indeed, with the leaders of Israel and their supporters in the U.S. strongly opposed to the accord, observers on and off Capitol Hill say that the only chance congressional opponents have is if they get Schumer in their corner.
Sometime in the fall, Congress will vote on whether to approve or disapprove of the Iran deal. If enough hawkish Democrats join Republicans and the disapprove side prevails, Obama would veto the legislation.
At that point the focus would turn to whether Congress could override Obama's veto, which takes a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate. Chances of that are slim, but with Schumer on their side opponents might stand a chance.
"There is no way a veto would be overridden without Sen. Schumer," said Aaron Keyak, a consultant to several Jewish groups and former Democratic congressional aide. "Finding 67 votes to override a presidential veto is a very high threshold and there is no way to get to that number without Sen. Schumer."
That helps explain the intense pressures on Schumer and a handful of other key senators in a debate that pro-Israel groups have made clear will be their top focus, bar none, in the months to come.
With the deal just a few days old, Schumer is already being targeted in advertising, news releases and social media from both sides.
The Emergency Committee for Israel announced an ad campaign on New York City cable television encouraging New Yorkers to "Call Sen. Schumer and tell him he must stand firm" on his insistence that the deal allow nuclear inspections anytime and anywhere, which opponents contend it does not. Another group, Secure America Now, has been urging supporters over Twitter to call Schumer and tell him to oppose the deal.
On the opposite side, the progressive group Credo issued a statement warning that "Democrats who sabotage the Iran deal will face consequences," and listed Schumer, who likely will win re-election next year, as a top target. Adding to the pressure, the Democrats' likely presidential nominee, Hillary Rodham Clinton, has cautiously embraced the deal.
At the middle of the storm, the famously media-friendly Schumer has gone uncharacteristically quiet. Questioned at an unrelated news conference this week, he repeated his initial written statement nearly word for word.
"I will sit down, I will read the agreement thoroughly, and then I'm going to speak with officials, administration officials, people all over, on all different sides," Schumer said. "This is a decision that shouldn't be made lightly, and I am going to just study this agreement and talk to people before I do anything else."
Congressional allies say Schumer seems genuinely torn.
"He's obviously got pressures and I assume he's going to do the right thing," said Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., who is undecided and facing similar pressures. "There are very severe upsides and very severe downsides."
Obama argues the deal closes off Iran's pathway to a nuclear bomb for the next decade, and has challenged opponents to come up with an alternative. The liberal Jewish group J Street is backing the deal, and the group's vice president of government affairs, Dylan Williams, said Schumer risks angering progressive voters if he breaks with the White House.
"This deal is and will continue to be supported by an overwhelming majority of Sen. Schumer's Democratic base and if there is a political consideration here that would be the overriding one," Williams said.
But the powerful pro-Israel lobby American Israel Public Affairs Committee is vehemently opposed to the deal, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is denouncing all over U.S. media as undermining the security of Israel and the region.
Steven J. Rosen, a former longtime senior official with the group, said that backing the deal could hurt Schumer with the pro-Israel community - and with donors in New York.
"I think he wants to be seen as one of Israel's most important friends in the United States. A bad vote here could have lasting damage on his standing in that regard," Rosen said. "The White House has put him in a very, very tough position here."
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http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/248225-cruz-threatens-to-block-nominees-funding-over-iran-maneuver
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(http://neveryetmelted.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/DeathtoAmerica.jpg)
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"STOP IRAN" PROTEST IN TIMES SQUARE
Steven Emerson, Executive Director
July 19, 2015
"STOP IRAN" PROTEST IN TIMES SQUARE
WEDNESDAY, JULY 22, AT 5:30 p.m
IPT News
July 19, 2015
http://www.investigativeproject.org/4915/stop-iran-protest-in-times-square
Thousands of Americans Rally to Demand Congress Vote Down Iran Nuke Deal
July 22, 2015 -- New York City -- The "STOP IRAN RALLY," the largest, grassroots
bipartisan American protest against the deal granting Iran a fast track to a nuclear
bomb, will be held in Times Square on Wednesday, July 22, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
Thousands of Americans from all faith traditions, political interests and
communities, including Christians, Muslims, Jews, registered Democrats and
Republicans, LGBT, Iranian-Americans, and others will demand that Congress vote down
the Iran deal.
Under the umbrella of the STOP IRAN RALLY COALITION, more than 100 organizations
spanning the nation's political, religious and social spectrum will participate. A
roster of preeminent experts from senior levels of the military, government,
academic, and media establishments will speak at the rally.
"Strip away the administration's rhetoric and it's clear this deal gives the Mullahs
-- the world's foremost sponsors of terrorism, $150 billion in return for
effectively nothing: no dismantlement of Iran's nuclear program; no anytime or
anywhere inspections; no eradication of Iran's ballistic missile program; no
maintenance of the arms embargo; and no halt to Iran's sponsorship of terror," said
Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, STOP IRAN RALLY's co-organizer.
Wiesenfeld added, "Washington is prepared to give Iran virtually all that it needs
to get to the bomb. To release $150 billion to Iran will result in the expansion of
worldwide terror. New York Senator Charles Schumer has the votes as presumptive
leader to override this deal if he wants. To do anything less is cynical and
disgraceful, and the public will not be fooled this time. Americans will not stand
for another North Korea. If this deal is not stopped, New York voters will know whom
to blame."
"The Administration uses scare tactics in falsely claiming that the alternative to
this deal is war," said Steve Emerson, Executive Director of The Investigative
Project on Terrorism and a speaker at the STOP IRAN RALLY. "This deal would actually
lead to more war, many more deaths of Americans and our allies and much more
international terrorism."
"This is a bipartisan issue, not a political one," said Richard Allen, a local
activist leading the STOP IRAN RALLY volunteers. "Now, Congress must rise to the
occasion and expose evisceration of U.S. national security and pass a resolution of
disapproval. Congress must also override President Obama's threatened veto, and
return America's Iran policy to dealing from a position of strength rather than
appeasement. We are mobilizing nationwide to let our lawmakers know we will hold
each and every one of them to account for the consequences of this dangerous deal
being foisted on the American people."
SPEAKERS AT THE "STOP IRAN" RALLY WILL INCLUDE:
* James Woolsey, Former Director of the CIA and Chairman of the Foundation for
Defense of Democracies
* Gov. George Pataki, Former Three-Term Governor of New York
* Robert Morgenthau, Manhattan District Attorney from 1975 to 2009, and Of Counsel,
Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz
* Allen West, Former Congressman and retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel
* Prof. Alan Dershowitz, Attorney and Professor at the Harvard School of Law
* Pete Hoekstra, Former U.S. Congressman and Chair of the House Intelligence Committee
* U.S. Navy Admiral James A. "Ace" Lyons, Former Commander in Chief of the U.S.
Pacific Fleet and Senior U.S. Military Representative to the United Nations
* General Paul E. Vallely, Former U.S. Army Major General and Chairman of Stand Up
America
* Mortimer Zuckerman, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of U.S. News & World Report and
the publisher of the New York Daily News and former Chairman of the Conference of
Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations
* John Batchelor, Radio Talk Host, WABC-AM
* Steven Emerson, Executive Director of The Investigative Project on Terrorism
* David Brog, Executive Director, Christians United for Israel
* Frank Gaffney, Founder of the Center for Security Policy
* Caroline Glick, Deputy Managing Editor of The Jerusalem Post
* Kasim Hafeez, Founder of "The Israel Campaign" and Christians United for Israel's
Outreach Coordinator
* Tony LoBianco, Actor and Activist
* Clare M. Lopez, Former CIA officer, Terrorism and Iran Expert at Center for
Security Policy
* Herbert I. London, President Emeritus of Hudson Institute and former Dean of New
York University
* Colonel Richard Kemp, Former Commander of the British Forces in Afghanistan
* Genevieve Wood, Senior Fellow, The Heritage Foundation
SUPPORTING QUOTES:
"Whatever happened to the President's claim that 'No (Iran) deal is better than a
bad deal?' Well, this is a bad deal. Now is the time for the American Congress to
stand up and protect the security of the American people and our future generations.
This is a pivotal moment in American history. Will our leaders rise above politics
and demonstrate the courage to do what is right for our country?" -- Jeffrey
Wiesenfeld, co-organizer of the STOP IRAN RALLY
"The President publicly asserts that the U. S. 'will maintain our own sanctions
related to Iran's support for terrorism, its ballistic missile program, and its
human rights violations.' In reality, this deal removes the most severe terrorist
sanctions in place against Iran for years; it removes the embargo on weapons sales
to Iran against the explicit warnings of our own Secretary of Defense and head of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff; it allows for Iran to continue developing its
intercontinental ballistic missile program that can only have one mission --
attaching nuclear warheads; it provides Iran with billions of unfrozen assets that
Iran will surely pour into worldwide terrorism as it has done for 30 years; and it
shamefully decouples any linkage to Iran's continuing imprisonment of an American
Marine and four other American civilians not to mention its brutal suppression and
execution of its own dissidents.
This deal would enable Iran to spend tens of billions of new dollars on its vast
state supported terrorist apparatus: from its Iranian Revolutionary Guards who have
been responsible for killing hundreds of Americans to supplying their Hezbollah
terrorist proxies with vast amounts of sophisticated weapons to threaten American
interest and allies throughout the Middle East, Persian Gulf and Latin America." --
Steve Emerson, Executive Director, Investigative Project on Terrorism, Speaker at
Stop Iran Rally
"This is a good deal for Iran. Not the American people. This deal abandons every red
line the administration said was essential for any acceptable deal to block all
pathways to an Iranian bomb. If Iran, the world's leading state sponsor of
terrorism, wants to be treated with 'respect,' let them earn it by agreeing to
robust spot inspections, ending their missile programs and proving to us that they
mean no harm." -- Richard Allen, Co-organizer, STOP IRAN RALLY
ABOUT STOP IRAN RALLY ORGANIZERS:
The STOP IRAN RALLY is coordinated by the STOP IRAN RALLY COALITION, a grassroots
movement of volunteer citizens, in partnership with more than 100 organizations
spanning the entire political, religious and social spectrum. More information can
be found at www.stopiranrally.org. Follow updates about the rally on Twitter
@stopiranrally and #stopiranrally.
LOCATION AND TIME:
Wednesday, July 22, 2015 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
Times Square, at 42nd Street and Seventh Avenue
MEDIA INQUIRIES AND INTERVIEWS CONTACT:
Eve Epstein, 516-343-0543516-343-0543; [email protected]
Sakura Amend, 917-355-3531917-355-3531; [email protected]
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The agreement states: Co-operation…to strengthen Iran's ability to prevent, protect and respond to nuclear security threats to nuclear facilities and to protect against… sabotage.
By: Tzvi Ben-Gedalyahu
“ObamaDeal” explicitly states that the United States and the other P5+1 powers can help Iran deflect and even “respond” to sabotage and nuclear threats to its nuclear sites.
The damming evidence that ObamaDeal directly allows Western powers to help Iran to protect its nuclear sites, and possibly even to stage a counter-attack on the source of the threat, is stated in Annex III of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Congress is reviewing the agreement and has the option to cancel America’s commitments under the deal.
You have to reach page 142 of the JCPOA until you reach “Annex III: Civil Nuclear Cooperation,” where Section “D 10 states that the P5+1 “and possibly other states are prepared to cooperate with Iran on the implementation of nuclear security guidelines and best practices. Cooperation in the following areas can be envisaged:
Co-operation in the form of training courses and workshops to strengthen Iran’s ability to prevent, protect and respond to nuclear security threats to nuclear facilities and systems as well as to enable effective and sustainable nuclear security and physical protection systems [boldface added];
Co-operation through training and workshops to strengthen Iran’s ability to protect against, and respond to nuclear security threats, including sabotage, as well as to enable effective and sustainable nuclear security and physical protection systems.
Emphasis should be placed on the word “respond.” It leaves open for interpretation the possibility that the United States and other P5 +1 countries can take action in the form of training and preparing Iran to stage a cyber attack or retaliation in the event of a third-party assault on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Israel is assumed to have been behind the Stuxnet cyber attacks on Iran’s centrifuges at the Natanz nuclear facility in 2010, which set back the Iranian nuclear weapons program. The agreement provides for assistance from the United States and the other P5+1 countries to thwart “sabotage” on Iran’s nuclear sites.
Al Jazeera reported earlier this year that President Barack Obama threatened Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in 2014 that he would order American fighter planes to down Israeli aircraft if the Israeli Air Force tried to carry out an attack, which reportedly was about to happen.
If (or when) it was discovered that Iran has cheated and is close to developing a nuclear weapon, the complicated review methods in the agreement could take several months or even a year before the United States and other P5+1 nations could prove their findings. In the meantime, Israel could be met by the United States as well as Iran as enemies in the event of an attempt to sabotage or attack the sites where Iran violated the agreement.
Even without the agreement, Iran is on the way to receiving from Russia, one of the P5+1 powers, S-300 anti-missile systems that could possibly deter any Israeli missile attack on Iranian nuclear sites, in which Russia has a heavy investment.
Prime Minister Netanyahu has argued that ObamaDeal not only does not prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon but actually paves the way for a nuclear-armed Islamic Republic.
But the agreement does more than that. It helps make Iran impervious to an attack, whether from the air or from cyber space, and ObamaDeal also ratifies a possible Iranian counter-attack on Israel
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM4KsKLKF_A&feature=youtu.be
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http://www.frontpagemag.com/point/259529/kerry-iran-cant-use-140-billion-sanctions-relief-daniel-greenfield
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third post of the day
http://www.thediplomad.com/2015/07/the-great-con-iran-deal.html
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4th post of the day:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/iran-inspections-in-24-days-not-even-close-1437521911
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http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/192364/hillary-clinton-important-decision?utm_source=tabletmagazinelist&utm_campaign=aa4b5c506b-7_23_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c308bf8edb-aa4b5c506b-207194629
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http://www.vice.com/read/the-boring-chinese-businessman-accused-of-selling-ballistic-missile-parts-to-iran-722?utm_source=vicefbus
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By
David B. Rivkin Jr. And
Lee A. Casey
July 26, 2015 6:32 p.m. ET
294 COMMENTS
The Iranian nuclear agreement announced on July 14 is unconstitutional, violates international law and features commitments that President Obama could not lawfully make. However, because of the way the deal was pushed through, the states may be able to derail it by enacting their own Iran sanctions legislation.
President Obama executed the nuclear deal as an executive agreement, not as a treaty. While presidents have used executive agreements to arrange less-important or temporary matters, significant international obligations have always been established through treaties, which require Senate consent by a two-thirds majority.
The Constitution’s division of the treaty-making power between the president and Senate ensured that all major U.S. international undertakings enjoyed broad domestic support. It also enabled the states to make their voices heard through senators when considering treaties—which are constitutionally the “supreme law of the land” and pre-empt state laws.
The Obama administration had help in its end-run around the Constitution. Instead of insisting on compliance with the Senate’s treaty-making prerogatives, Congress enacted the Iran Nuclear Agreement Act of 2015. Known as Corker-Cardin, it surrenders on the constitutional requirement that the president obtain a Senate supermajority to go forward with a major international agreement. Instead, the act effectively requires a veto-proof majority in both houses of Congress to block elements of the Iran deal related to U.S. sanctions relief. The act doesn’t require congressional approval for the agreement as a whole.
Last week the U.N. Security Council endorsed the Iran deal. The resolution, adopted under Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter, legally binds all member states, including the U.S. Given the possibility that Congress could summon a veto-proof majority to block the president’s ability to effect sanctions relief, the administration might be unable to comply with the very international obligations it has created. This is beyond reckless.
On March 11 Secretary of State John Kerry defended the administration’s decision not to take the treaty route with Iran, saying it had “been clear from the beginning we’re not negotiating a legally binding plan.” The Security Council gambit has enabled the administration, without Senate consent, to bind the U.S. under international law.
The U.N. Charter resolution has trapped the U.S. into a position where it can renounce its obligations only at the cost of being branded an international lawbreaker. The president has thus handed the legal high ground to Tehran and made undoing the deal by his successor much more difficult and costly.
Yet the nuclear agreement’s legitimacy in international law is far from clear. The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide imposes an affirmative obligation on all convention parties to prevent genocide and threats of genocide. Iran remains publicly committed to Israel’s elimination, an unequivocal threat of genocide in violation of the Convention.
Since nuclear weapons delivered by ballistic missiles are the most likely means by which Iran could implement its genocidal policy, an agreement that calls for lifting the Security Council resolutions banning the sale of ballistic missiles to Iran after eight years—as this nuclear deal does—also seems to contravene the genocide convention.
A further legal complication: Even if Congress doesn’t vote to bar President Obama from lifting sanctions on Iran, the president still wouldn’t be able to deliver fully on the deal’s unprecedented sanctions-lifting commitments. They were promised regardless of any future Iranian aggression in the region, sponsorship of terrorist acts or other misconduct.
Some of the U.S. statutes allow the president to lift certain sanctions on Iran. But many of the most important sanctions—including sanctions against Iran’s central bank—cannot be waived unless the president certifies that Iran has stopped its ballistic-missile program, ceased money-laundering and no longer sponsors international terrorism. He certainly can’t do that now, and nothing in the deal forces Iran to take either step. The Security Council’s blessing of the nuclear agreement has no bearing on these U.S. sanctions.
The administration faces another serious problem because the deal requires the removal of state and local Iran-related sanctions. That would have been all right if Mr. Obama had pursued a treaty with Iran, which would have bound the states, but his executive-agreement approach cannot pre-empt the authority of the states.
That leaves the states free to impose their own Iran-related sanctions, as they have done in the past against South Africa and Burma. The Constitution’s Commerce Clause prevents states from imposing sanctions as broadly as Congress can. Yet states can establish sanctions regimes—like banning state-controlled pension funds from investing in companies doing business with Iran—powerful enough to set off a legal clash over American domestic law and the country’s international obligations. The fallout could prompt the deal to unravel.
For now, though, we are left with another reminder from the administration that brought ObamaCare: Constitutional shortcuts almost invariably lead to bad policy outcomes.
Messrs. Rivkin and Casey are constitutional lawyers at Baker Hostetler LLP and served in the Justice Department under Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Mr. Rivkin is also a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
Popular on WSJ
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View from the top. During a long, and at times contentious, Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Wednesday, Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey admitted some deep disagreements with the White House over Iran policy. One big argument the chief lost was over lifting sanctions on weapons and ballistic missile shipments to Iran as part of the nuclear deal reached earlier this month. He opposed it, but the provisions made it into the final agreement anyway. He also rejected President Barack Obama’s July 15 statement that, “Without a deal, we risk even more war in the Middle East.” Dempsey flatly told Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) that “at no time did that come up in our conversation, nor did I make that comment.”
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http://nypost.com/2015/08/01/iran-publishes-book-on-how-to-outwit-us-and-destroy-israel/
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http://nypost.com/2015/08/01/iran-publishes-book-on-how-to-outwit-us-and-destroy-israel/
Wait, I thought they were our partners in peace?
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y
Tom Cotton And
Mike Pompeo
Aug. 2, 2015 5:40 p.m. ET
209 COMMENTS
For those of us who are elected officials, few votes will be more consequential than whether to approve or disapprove the nuclear agreement President Obama has reached with Iran. Yet the president expects Congress to cast this vote without the administration’s fully disclosing the contents of the deal to the American people. This is unacceptable and plainly violates the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act—a law the president signed only weeks ago.
During a recent trip to Vienna to meet with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the organization charged with verifying Iran’s compliance, we learned that certain elements of this deal are—and will remain—secret. According to the IAEA, those involved with the negotiations, including the Obama administration, agreed to allow Iran to forge the secret side deals with the IAEA on two issues.
The first governs the IAEA’s inspection of the Parchin military complex, the facility long suspected as the site of Iran’s long-range ballistic-missile and nuclear-weapons development. The second addresses what—if anything—Iran will be required to disclose about the past military dimensions of its nuclear program.
Yet the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act specifically says that Congress must receive all nuclear agreement documents, including any related to agreements “entered into or made between Iran and any other parties.” It expressly includes “side agreements.” This requirement is not strictly limited to agreements to which the U.S. is a signatory. This law passed in May, well before the nuclear negotiations ended. The Obama administration should have held firm in negotiations to obtain what was necessary for Congress to review the agreement. Iran, not the U.S., should have conceded on this point.
Weaponization lies at the heart of our dispute with Iran and is central to determining whether this deal is acceptable. Inspections of Parchin are necessary to ensure that Iran is adhering to its end of the agreement. Without knowing this baseline, inspectors cannot properly evaluate Iran’s compliance. It’s like beginning a diet without knowing your starting weight. That the administration would accept side agreements on these critical issues—and ask the U.S. Congress to do the same—is irresponsible.
The response from the administration to questions about the side deals has brought little reassurance. At first the administration refrained from acknowledging their existence. Unable to sustain that position, National Security Adviser Susan Rice said on July 22 during a White House press briefing that the administration “knows” the “content” of the arrangements and would brief Congress on it.
Yet the same day Secretary of State John Kerry, in a closed-door briefing with members of Congress, said he had not read the side deals. And on July 29 when pressed in a Senate hearing, Mr. Kerry admitted that a member of his negotiating team “may” have read the arrangements but he was not sure.
That person, Undersecretary of State and lead negotiator Wendy Sherman, on July 30 said in an interview on MSNBC, “I saw the pieces of paper but wasn’t allowed to keep them. All of the members of the P5+1 did in Vienna, and so did some of my experts who certainly understand this even better than I do.”
A game of nuclear telephone and hearsay is simply not good enough, not for a decision as grave as this one. The Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act says Congress must have full access to all nuclear-agreement documents—not unverifiable accounts from Ms. Sherman or others of what may or may not be in the secret side deals.How else can Congress, in good conscience, vote on the overall deal?
On July 30 we sent a letter to the Obama administration asking for a “complete and thorough assessment of the separate arrangements” and the names of anyone who has reviewed them. Iran’s ayatollahs have access to the side agreements. The American people’s representatives in the U.S. Congress should too.
When he announced his nuclear deal with Iran on July 14, President Obama said, “This deal is not built on trust, it is built on verification.” Those words are hollow unless Congress receives the full text of all documents related to the nuclear agreement.
Mr. Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, is a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Mr. Pompeo, a Republican from Kansas, is a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
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If you believe Iran is going to comply with the terms of the 'treaty' if we do approve it but then if the US votes it down, Iran will have to comply with the terms of it anyway.
Iran will still want the sanctions dropped by Russia, China, Germany, Britain, the UN etc. even if the US doesn't join in and drop ours. They are not going to turn down all that money and trade with all those other countries over a rebuke by the US Congress. Even US companies would face no prosecution by this administration for violating old law they don't agree with.
We've gone from 'leading from behind' to just being irrelevant.
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The agreement with Iran is not a treaty because ... ... ... ... ... . (?)
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Obama: Rockets will fall on Tel Aviv if Congress kills Iran nuke deal
AUGUST 5, 2015 11:25 AM BY ROBERT SPENCER
As if this deal would prevent that. And would the rockets come from Iran or the U.S.?
Seriously, this posturing about being pro-Israel after agreeing to a deal that severely compromises Israel’s security is obscene.
“Obama tells US Jews: Rockets will fall on Tel Aviv if Congress kills Iran nuclear deal,” by Michael Wilner and Herb Keinon, Jerusalem Post, August 5, 2015 (thanks to Blazing Cat Fur):
WASHINGTON — Rockets would fall on Tel Aviv and Israel would “bear the burden” of a US military attack on Iran that would result from a scuttling of the Iran nuclear deal, US President Barack Obama told a delegation of Jewish leaders at the White House on Tuesday.
The meeting, held in the Cabinet Room for over two hours, featured a passionate president intent on winning over skeptics of the signature agreement. The nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, is intended to cap, restrict, monitor and partially roll back Iran’s nuclear work for a fifteen year period in exchange for sanctions relief.
According to Greg Rosenbaum, the chairman of the National Jewish Democratic Council and one of nearly two dozen heads of Jewish organizations in the meeting, when one of the participants took umbrage with Obama’s characterization of those who are opposed to the deal as warmongers, Obama launched into an explanation of why he believed that the rejection of the deal would ultimately lead to a US military attack. Obama said that if Congress rejected the deal, the Iranians would walk away from negotiations, and he would be under intense pressure to take military action.
This, Rosenbaum quoted Obama as saying, would be disastrous for Israel and the US.
Iran, with its annual $15 billion military budget, would not go to war with the US, with a defense budget of nearly $600 billion a year, but would fight an “asymmetrical” war, the president said.
Another participant in the meeting, Robert Wexler, president of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace, confirmed the conversation. Obama noted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s support for the invasion of Iraq, as well as his skepticism over the JPOA, an interim nuclear accord that was in place during the negotiations, he said.
“He approached it in a lawyerly fashion,” Wexler said, who thought some minds may have been changed during the meeting.
But yet a third participant disagreed. Few skeptics were converted, he said, noting that nearly half of the meeting focused on the president’s tone in describing critics of the agreement.
“He acknowledged how people in Israel and people who love Israel are deeply concerned and skeptical. He wasn’t dismissive of that,” the third source said, who requested anonymity to express frankness.
Several figures in the room questioned Obama’s equating skeptics of the deal as “neocons” responsible for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. “He said he would be sensitive and careful about this,” the source said. “But recognizing that it makes folks uncomfortable, he basically said he really does believe that a rejection of the agreement would lead to war.”
Rosenbaum, who supports the deal, said that Obama mentioned the possibility of suicide speed boats ramming into a US aircraft carrier, but that Israel would “bear the brunt of the burden” and rockets would fall on Tel Aviv.
Referring to AIPAC plans to spend some $20 million in a public campaign against the deal, Obama said that it was that organization’s right to lobby Congress, but the arguments must be made on the merits of the case, and should not be personal, including attacks on other Jews who supported the deal.
If the attacks turn personal, he cautioned, then it would weaken the American Jewish community and as a result the strength of the US-Israel relationship. Rosenbaum said that he himself spoke at the meeting about how his organization, which supports the accord, received extremely hateful messages from other Jews opposed to the deal.
Obama, according to Rosenbaum, bewailed that AIPAC brought some 600 people to Washington last friday to lobby Congress against the accord, but were willing to give White House officials only some 30 minutes to meet with the group. Then, the president said, the lobbyists gave fact sheets to the congressmen that he said were factually incorrect.
The result, Obama complained, was that he then had to spend 45 minutes with each congressman disputing AIPAC’s claims.
Obama, who was accompanied by Vice President Joe Biden as well as key advisors such as Ben Rhodes, met with the group for more than two hours and, according to Rosenbaum, spoke at the outset for 20 minutes, going through the history of the deal.
Obama said that when he came into office he came in with three guiding principles on the Mideast: that Iran not achieve a nuclear bomb, that the “unbreakable”bond [sic] with Israel be made even stronger, and that the US achieve its foreign policy objectives through diplomacy, not military action….
And he has failed abysmally at all three.
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http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/08/05/u-s-has-photographic-proof-iran-is-trying-to-cheat-on-the-nuclear-deal/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social
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Does that mean that everything Pres. Obama said about Republicans applies to the de facto Dem leader of the Senate?
http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/06/politics/chuck-schumer-oppose-iran-nuclear-deal/
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I admit I am shocked that Schumer will oppose Brock. Where does the Hill stand on this issue of the deal?
If and only if enough Dems oppose the deal to get to the magic number of 67 to override a bamster veto will I really say I was wrong about Schumer. If they don't than his nay means nothing to me and was just a show time vote knowing full well Obama would win in the end.
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Obama: Rockets will fall on Tel Aviv
“Obama tells US Jews: Rockets will fall on Tel Aviv.
Fixed it!
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"“Obama tells US Jews: Rockets will fall on Tel Aviv"
Instead nuclear warheads will drop on Tel Aviv some day.
Thanks BROCK.
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http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-08-10/white-house-should-leave-politics-out-of-iran-deal
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I am not sure how a normal person could not read this and wonder what kind of organic brain disorder this woman suffers from but I post because this is one of the crazy liberals we are dealing with:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dana-beyer/baseless-hatred---the-sum_b_7972338.html
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By
Orde Kittrie
Aug. 12, 2015 6:39 p.m. ET
116 COMMENTS
President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry claim that Congress has only two options for the Iran nuclear agreement: Approve it as is, or block it, and war results. Last week Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) recommended a third option, to renegotiate the agreement. Noting the Iran deal’s many weaknesses, Mr. Schumer called for the U.S. government to strengthen sanctions and “pursue the hard-trodden path of diplomacy once more, difficult as it may be.”
This is a nonstarter for the administration. Mr. Obama warns that failure to approve the deal as is means that America will lose its “credibility as a leader of diplomacy,” indeed “as the anchor of the international system.” Mr. Kerry asserts that refusing to approve the deal would be inconsistent with “the traditional relationship” that has existed “between the executive and Congress.”
Nonetheless, Congress has flatly rejected international agreements signed by the executive branch at least 130 times in U.S. history. Twenty-two treaties were voted down. According to 1987 and 2001 Congressional Research Service reports, the Senate has permanently blocked at least 108 other treaties by refusing to vote on them.
Moreover, the 1987 CRS report and an earlier study in the American Journal of International Law note that more than 200 treaties agreed by the executive branch were subsequently modified with Senate-required changes before receiving Senate consent and finally entering into force (examples below).
In the case of treaties, as the Senate website explains, the Senate may “make its approval conditional” by including in the resolution of ratification amendments, reservations, declarations, and understandings (statements that clarify or elaborate agreement provisions but do not alter them). “The president and the other countries involved must then decide whether to accept the conditions . . . in the legislation, renegotiate the provisions, or abandon the treaty.”
The Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, which Mr. Obama signed in May, does not contain a provision for approval subject to conditions. However, a resolution of disapproval or separate legislation could specify what changes would be needed to meet congressional requirements. Since Congress can under the law reject the nuclear agreement outright, Iran and our negotiating partners should not be surprised if Congress takes the less drastic step of returning it to the president for renegotiation.
The historical precedents for Congress rejecting, or requiring changes to, agreements involve treaties or other legally binding international agreements. The Iran deal, formally titled the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, is unsigned and not legally binding. Mr. Kerry has repeatedly referred to it as a “political agreement.” Nonbinding, unsigned political agreements receive less deference and are considered more flexible than treaties or other legally binding international agreements. Congress should be comfortable sending one back for renegotiation.
Several treaties that the Senate required be modified before ratification were with the Soviet Union. For example, the Threshold Test Ban Treaty and the Peaceful Nuclear Explosion Treaty, both of which entered into force in 1990, had been blocked by senators who insisted on new provisions enhancing the U.S. ability to verify Soviet compliance. The Senate consented to ratification only after the two treaties were each augmented by new U.S.-Soviet side agreements making it easier for the U.S. to detect Soviet cheating. These renegotiations succeeded despite the fact that the Soviet Union, with its nuclear-armed missiles pointed at U.S. cities, had far more leverage than Iran does now.
The Obama administration has itself already renegotiated at least one international agreement in response to congressional opposition. In January 2009, the U.S. secretary of state and the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates signed a nuclear cooperation agreement. Some in Congress, including Rep. Howard Berman (D., Calif.), then House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman, objected that the agreement didn’t ensure that the U.A.E. wouldn’t follow Iran’s footsteps and engage in uranium enrichment and spent-fuel reprocessing.
The Obama administration reopened the negotiations and by May 2009 had extracted from the U.A.E. a legally binding commitment not to engage in enrichment and reprocessing. The revised agreement soon entered into force.
In many other cases, the Senate has insisted on conditioning its consent to agreements even when they included numerous other participating countries. In 1997, the Senate resolution approving a modification to the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty with 22 participating countries (including Russia) contained 14 conditions, two of which addressed verification and compliance. The 1997 Senate resolution approving the Chemical Weapons Convention, with 87 participating countries, contained 28 conditions, many relating to verification and compliance. Neither agreement was derailed by the Senate’s conditions.
As Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge said many years ago, a Senate amendment to a treaty is “offered at a later stage of the negotiation by the other part of the American treaty-making power.”
Presidents typically resist when Congress sends them back to the negotiating table. As a 2001 CRS report put it, they regularly claim that an agreement “has been so delicately negotiated that the slightest change . . . would unbalance the package and kill the treaty.” That has not been true in an overwhelming majority of cases.
The Iran nuclear deal could be significantly improved by a supplementary agreement containing amendments and understandings designed to mitigate the deal’s key gaps and ambiguities regarding verification and compliance. This step would be consistent with the Constitution, the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act and past U.S. diplomatic practice, and would be no surprise to the international community.
Mr. Kittrie is a law professor at Arizona State University, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and former lead State Department attorney for nuclear affairs.
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http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/08/12/36-retired-top-ranking-military-officers-just-told-congress-to-back-obama-on-iran-deal/
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What an admission of weakness! :x :cry:
"There is no better option to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapon. Military action would be less effective than the deal, assuming it is fully implemented. If the Iranians cheat, our advanced technology, intelligence and the inspections will reveal it, and U.S. military options remain on the table. And if the deal is rejected by America, the Iranians could have a nuclear weapon within a year. The choice is that stark."
Well yeah it is stark. We've said on this board the only way to stop them is military. "assuming it is fully implemented". We know it will not be. We know this will not stop them. If they are only a year away this deal will certainly not stop them from finishing what they spent decades working towards now at the last second.
For God's sake stop yanking our F'in chains. Ain't it obvious the military and Obama have decided to let them get a weapon and try containment?
This deal is a last second desperate waste of time.
Will Israel alone be able to do it? Probably not.
We all lose with a nuclear Iran.
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http://mobile.reuters.com/article/middle-east/idUSKCN0QL0CV20150816
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http://mobile.reuters.com/article/middle-east/idUSKCN0QL0CV20150816
More money to do all the wonderful things they do! What could go wrong?
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http://www.israelvideonetwork.com/israel-must-be-obliterated-new-iranian-video-imagines-muslim-invasion-of-jerusalem/?omhide=true&utm_source=MadMimi&utm_medium=email&utm_content=New+Iranian+Video+Imagines+Muslim+Invasion+of+Jerusalem&utm_campaign=20150818_m127003142_8%2F19+Breaking+Israel+Video%3A+New+Iranian+Video+Imagines+Muslim+Invasion+of+Jerusalem&utm_term=New+Iranian+Video+Imagines+Muslim+Invasion+of+Jerusalem
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http://www.israelvideonetwork.com/israel-must-be-obliterated-new-iranian-video-imagines-muslim-invasion-of-jerusalem/?omhide=true&utm_source=MadMimi&utm_medium=email&utm_content=New+Iranian+Video+Imagines+Muslim+Invasion+of+Jerusalem&utm_campaign=20150818_m127003142_8%2F19+Breaking+Israel+Video%3A+New+Iranian+Video+Imagines+Muslim+Invasion+of+Jerusalem&utm_term=New+Iranian+Video+Imagines+Muslim+Invasion+of+Jerusalem
New partners in peace!
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New report the UN will allow Iran to inspect themselves at least at one site.
The whole "deal" is a total sham.
It is a facade trying to hide the reality that military option is really off not on the table and a saving face attempt rather than admit Iran will get nuclear weapons.
The worst part is Obama's efforts to isolate Israel.
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"New report the UN will allow Iran to inspect themselves at least at one site."
Maybe they got the idea by lurking here, where we reported this a couple of weeks ago , , , :wink:
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http://www.clarionproject.org/news/bombshell-un-allow-iran-inspect-own-military-sites#
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https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/08/20/wave-anti-iran-deal-tv-ads-organized-saudi-arabian-lobbyist/
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http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/27/us-iran-nuclear-iaea-idUSKCN0QW1M720150827
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http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/27/us-iran-nuclear-iaea-idUSKCN0QW1M720150827
No way. They gave us a solemn promise.
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http://allenbwest.com/2015/08/well-this-is-embarrassing-look-who-wont-back-iran-deal/
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"Wait a second… did hell just freeze over? An area where we actually AGREE with DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz? (Even if her move was purely to protect her own political future with her largely Jewish constituency in South Florida.)"
Obviously Schultz does what is good for the Party and herself so 2 explanations come to mind one being that it is to protect her own political future (though I still don't believe most Jews will abandon the party no matter what) and the other making for Hillary who may come out as more of a hawk on the issue. It is all about protecting the felon now and the Party. Less so much Brock.
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https://www.facebook.com/SenatorTomCotton/videos/486562241505316/
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Andrew McCarthy had a column Saturday asserting that Republicans still have the power to stop this. (Others disagree, see Powerlineblog.com)
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/423613/obama-iran-deal-kill
by ANDREW C. MCCARTHY September 5, 2015 4:00 AM
The review process under the Corker law never began — by the law’s own terms.
To undermine President Obama’s atrocious Iran deal despite the Republican-controlled Congress’s irresponsible Corker legislation, it will be necessary to follow, of all things, the Corker legislation.
On Wednesday, Barbara Mikulski became the 34th Senate Democrat to announce support for the deal, which lends aid and comfort to a regime that continues to call for “Death to America.” Under the Corker Roadmap to Catastrophe, Mikulski’s assent ostensibly puts President Obama over the top. After all, the legislation sponsored by Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Corker (R., Tenn.) and other Beltway GOP leaders reverses the Constitution’s presumptions against international agreements that harm national security. In essence, Corker requires dissenters from the Iran pact to round up a two-thirds supermajority opposition in both congressional chambers (67 senators and 290 House members). If the Constitution were followed, the burden would be on the president to convince either 67 senators to support a treaty, or majorities of both chambers to make the pact legally binding through ordinary legislation.
Mikulski’s announcement meant that dissenters would now be able to muster no more than 66 Senate votes against the deal. In fact, they won’t get that many. Additional Democrats, such as Cory Booker (N.J.) and Mark Warner (Va.), have dutifully trudged into Obama’s camp.
As things are trending, Democrats may even be spared the embarrassment of having to cast formal votes in favor of the appalling deal they gently describe as “flawed.” There are 46 Senate Democrats (including a pair of nominal “independents”). Only three Democrats — Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), Robert Menendez (N.J.), and Ben Cardin (Md.) — have committed to voting “no.” Thus, Obama may well amass the 41 votes needed to filibuster Senate consideration of the Iran deal. He would then avoid the humiliation of having to veto a “resolution of disapproval” that would illustrate how intensely unpopular his deal is with Congress and the public.
So game over, right?
Wrong.
While maddening, the Corker bill is not an abject congressional surrender to Obama and Tehran. It is a conditional surrender. It would grant Obama grudging congressional endorsement of the deal in the absence of a now unattainable veto-proof resolution of disapproval, but only if Obama fulfills certain basic terms. Obama has not complied with the most basic one: the mandate that he provide the complete Iran deal for Congress’s consideration. Therefore, notwithstanding Washington’s frenzied assumption that the 60-day period for a congressional vote is winding down, the clock has never actually started to run. Congress’s obligations under Corker have never been triggered; the Corker process is moot. Obama has withheld from Congress the Iran deal’s key inspection and verification provisions. As is his wont, the president is engaged in a fraud.
As I have previously outlined, Obama has withheld from Congress the Iran deal’s key inspection and verification provisions. As is his wont, the president is engaged in a fraud. He and his underlings repeatedly promised the public that there would be aggressive inspections and that Iran would have to come clean about its prior nuclear work so we could have an accurate baseline to determine whether the mullahs cheat in the future. But Iran was never going to agree to such terms.
Our legacy-hunting ideologue of a president naturally capitulated on this point, but he also understood that if his capitulation were obvious — if the inspection and verification terms were revealed to be a joke — even Democrats might abandon him. So Obama and his factotum, Secretary of State John Kerry, snuck these terms into a “side deal” that is purported to be strictly between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Notwithstanding that they are the crux of the deal from the American perspective, Obama takes the position that these terms may not be revealed to Congress, a stance the IAEA has dutifully backed.
Sorry, Mr. President, too-clever-by-half won’t get it done this time — or at least it shouldn’t, as long as Republicans follow the law they wrote and Obama signed.
The Corker legislation — formally known as the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015 — is crystal clear. In its very first section, the act requires the president to transmit to Congress “the agreement. . . . including all related materials and annexes.” It is too late to do that now: the act dictates that it was to have been done “not later than five days after reaching the agreement” — meaning July 19, since the agreement was finalized on July 14.
Underscoring the mandate that all relevant understandings in the Iran deal — including, of course, the essential understandings — must be provided to lawmakers, the act explicitly spells out a definition of the “Agreement” in subsection (h)(1). Under it, this is what the administration was required to give Congress over six weeks ago in order to trigger the afore-described Corker review process:
The term ‘agreement’ means an agreement related to the nuclear program of Iran . . . regardless of the form it takes, . . . including any joint comprehensive plan of action entered into or made between Iran and any other parties, and any additional materials related thereto, including annexes, appendices, codicils, side agreements, implementing materials, documents, and guidance, technical or other understandings, and any related agreements, whether entered into or implemented prior to the agreement or to be entered into or implemented in the future.
The act could not be more emphatic: To get the advantage of the favorable Corker formula that allows him to lift the anti-nuclear sanctions with only one-third congressional support, the president was required to supply Congress with every scintilla of information regarding verification. In particular, the act expressly demands disclosure of the terms pertinent to whether the IAEA is capable of executing aggressive inspections in Iran and has a plausible, enforceable plan to do so.
That is why, in conjunction with providing Congress the entire agreement, including any and all “side deals” between Iran and the IAEA, the act mandates that Secretary Kerry provide a “verification assessment report.” In it, the Obama administration must demonstrate not only how it (i) “will be able to verify that Iran is complying with its obligations and commitments” and (ii) will ensure the “adequacy of the safeguards and other control mechanisms” to ensure that Iran cannot “further any nuclear-related military or nuclear explosive purpose.” The administration must further explain: the capacity and capability of the International Atomic Energy Agency to effectively implement the verification regime required by or related to the agreement, including whether the International Atomic Energy Agency will have sufficient access to investigate suspicious sites or allegations of covert nuclear-related activities and whether it has the required funding, manpower, and authority to undertake the verification regime required by or related to the agreement.
Nor is that all. In making this report, the administration is required to rebut a presumption, based on solid experience, that Iran will cheat. Specifically, it is to be presumed that the jihadist regime will “use all measures not expressly prohibited by the agreement to conceal activities that violate its obligations,” and that it will “alter or deviate from standard practices in order to impede efforts that verify that Iran is complying with those obligations and commitments.”
Understand: It is indisputable that (a) the administration has not provided the Iran–IAEA side deal; (b) the IAEA is not up to the inspection task; (c) the Iranian regime is drastically restricting the IAEA’s access to suspect sites, even to the point of insisting that it will “self-inspect” by providing its own site samples rather than permitting IAEA physical seizures, a point on which Obama and the IAEA have remarkably acquiesced; and (d) Obama claims the Iranian regime can be trusted despite his deal’s laughably inadequate verification standards. To the contrary, the act dictates that (a) the administration must provide the side deal, (b) the IAEA must be capable of doing credible inspections; (c) the IAEA must be permitted by Iran to do credible inspections; and (d) the Iranian regime must not be trusted and will presumptively cheat.
Do you sense something of a disconnect between what Obama has proposed and what the act requires? It is not enough to say that Congress has no obligation to proceed with the Corker review process. It would, under the act, be impermissible for Congress to do so.
This is not a close call. To make it even simpler, even if the side deal were not critical to any assessment of the overall agreement (and it plainly is), the act explicitly required the administration to transmit it to Congress by July 19 (five days after the deal was reached). The side deal has never been provided. The administration’s failure to comply with the Corker legislation’s conditions means Congress’s reciprocal obligation to review the agreement and enable Obama to lift sanctions — in the teeth of massive majority opposition — has never been triggered.
It is not enough to say that Congress has no obligation to proceed with the Corker review process. It would, under the act, be impermissible for Congress to do so. This, by the way, is not just a straightforward legal fact; it is a matter of integrity.
Over deep opposition from the base voters who gave the GOP control of both houses of Congress, Republican leaders insisted on passing the anti-constitutional, Obama-backed Corker legislation on the (absurd) rationale that only by doing so could they make sure that the full agreement, every bit of it, would be revealed to Congress and the American people. This was a meager objective, since revelation of a disastrous deal is useless if, to get it, Congress had to forfeit its power to reject the deal. But regardless of where one stood in the intramural debate over whether achieving full exposure of Obama’s Iran deal was worth surrendering Congress’s constitutional advantages, the blunt fact is that full exposure has not been achieved.
The mandate that the Iran deal must be revealed in its entirety represents both a solemn political commitment by Republicans and an explicit legal requirement of the act. Obama has failed to comply with that mandate. Therefore, the Corker review process must not go forward.
There are many more things to be said about this. For example, it remains true, as I have previously asserted, that the Corker process should be deemed null and void because Obama’s indefensible deal is fundamentally different from the narrow nuclear-weapons pact that the Corker legislation assumed. Obama’s deal purports to relieve our enemies of restrictions against their promotion of terrorism and acquisition of ballistic missiles and conventional weapons. The Act prohibits this. Under its provisions, the Corker review process may be applied only to an agreement restricted to Iran’s nuclear program. See subsection (d)(7): “United States sanctions on Iran for terrorism, human rights abuses, and ballistic missiles will remain in place under an agreement.” (As we’ve seen, “agreement” is defined in subsection (h)(1) to relate only to “the nuclear program of Iran.”)
There is, moreover, a solid case, posited by Harold Furchtgott-Roth in Forbes, that Obama’s Iran deal effectively amends the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) by dramatically altering Iran’s obligations under it. Because the Constitution makes treaties the law of the land, the legal equivalent of congressional statutes, a treaty can be superseded only by another treaty or an act of Congress. An executive agreement with minority congressional assent is insufficient.
The Corker review process, even if it were to go forward in contravention of the act’s terms, would apply only to the sanctions. It would not address the separate and profound question of whether Iran remains bound by its legal NPT obligations. That is a question the United States must resolve under our constitutional law, not based on bloviating by Obama, Kerry, or Iran’s foreign minister about purported dictates of international law.
Still, despite all the strong arguments to be made against the Iran deal, we must be realistic about what can be achieved here.
As I have been arguing for weeks, Congress must scrap the Corker process and treat Obama’s Iran deal as either a treaty or proposed legislation. Consequently, I could not agree more with my friend Jim Geraghty that the Senate should regard the deal as a treaty and vote it down decisively — as I’ve pointed out, senators don’t need the president’s cooperation to do this; their authority to review international agreements as treaties comes from the Constitution, not from Obama.
Yet I differ slightly with Jim on why it is important to do this. It is not for the purpose of influencing judicial consideration of the Iran deal. The courts are unlikely to referee a dispute regarding the relative power of the political branches to bind the nation to international agreements — even though the judges may have to get involved to the extent the sanctions affect the rights of private parties. RELATED: No Trust, No Verification, No Sanctions: Obama’s Humiliating Capitulation to the Mullahs
No, the reason to reject the Iran deal as a treaty is to lay the groundwork for the next president to abandon the deal. That involves putting other countries on notice, immediately, that the U.S. statutory sanctions are still in effect; that Obama is powerless to lift them permanently; that the next president is likely to enforce them; and that countries, businesses, and individuals that rely on Obama’s mere executive agreement as a rationale for resuming commerce with Tehran do so at their peril.
It is crucial to understand the state of play here. First, there is no stopping Obama from making an executive agreement with Iran, as long as the agreement does not violate the Constitution, federal statutes, and ratified treaties. He is the president, and he gets to conduct foreign policy as long as that is the case — but only while that is the case. Unlike treaties and statutes, Obama’s executive agreements do not bind our nation once he is gone. Second, because Congress never anticipated an Iran-friendly president like Obama, it provided presidents with authority to waive the existing sanctions — although not to lift them permanently. For now, this authority is Obama’s and he is entitled to use it, however reckless this may be.
Thus, Congress cannot “defeat” Obama’s Iran deal in the sense of eradicating it. As long as he is president, Obama can try to carry out his executive agreement even if Congress refuses to give it the force of binding law.
Congress can, nevertheless, delegitimize the deal by illustrating in a powerful way that it is merely an executive agreement between Iran and Obama. The sovereign — the American people — remains overwhelmingly opposed. The party to which the people have given a majority in Congress must make clear that the Iran deal is not the law of the land, and that the deal will be renounced the minute a new Republican president takes office. Congress can delegitimize the deal by illustrating in a powerful way that it is merely an executive agreement between Iran and Obama.
To do this, a preliminary step must be taken: Congress must undo the Corker legislation’s damage.
The Corker legislation was a lapse in judgment because it gave congressional assent to the permanent lifting of U.S. sanctions absent a veto-proof majority for maintaining them — which Republicans should have known was unattainable. The fallout of this lapse could be significant if the Corker review process is allowed to proceed.
From a legal standpoint, by going forward with the review process despite Obama’s failure to comply with the Corker legislation’s terms, Congress could be seen as forgiving Obama’s default. If lawmakers then go ahead with the vote on the Iran deal that the Republican opposition must inevitably lose because of Corker’s “minority wins” process, there would be a very reasonable legal argument that the sanctions have been repealed.
Republicans cannot let that happen. If the sanctions were deemed repealed, then the next president’s position would be dramatically weakened: Not only would the sanctions have to be reinstated by new law; it would be much more difficult politically for the next president to renounce Obama’s deal. Other countries would forcefully contend that the U.S. double-crossed them — that they lifted their sanctions, and commenced commerce with Iran, in reliance on Congress’s Corker-skewed “approval” of Obama’s deal.
As I have demonstrated above, it would be a violation of law to proceed with the Corker review process because (a) the administration has not complied with the Corker legislation’s mandate that the entire Iran deal be supplied to Congress by July 19 and (b) the Corker review process is explicitly limited to Iran’s nuclear program, while Obama’s deal, by contrast, goes far beyond nukes, eliminating anti-terrorism, anti–ballistic missile, and anti-weapons restrictions that the Corker legislation requires to be kept in place. So the preliminary step that must be taken is a resolution by Congress stating that (a) the Corker review process cannot proceed because the Obama administration has failed to comply with the Corker legislation’s express conditions; (b) therefore, under the legislation’s terms, Congress cannot proceed with an up-or-down vote on the Iran deal; and (c) the sanctions remain in effect, even if they are temporarily dormant
because Obama won’t enforce them.
Yes, Obama would veto the resolution (even though it is undeniable that he has not complied). But his veto would be irrelevant. Congress’s resolution explaining why no vote was taken on the Iran deal, which would pass overwhelmingly, would stand as the definitive statement to Iran and the rest of the world of why Congress has not attempted to pass a resolution of disapproval under the Corker process: It is not a matter of not having the votes; it is a matter of the president’s default. The Senate could then immediately follow that up by deeming Obama’s Iran deal as a treaty and voting it down by a wide margin.
Of course Obama would go characteristically demagogic in response. He would pretend that his default never happened and insist that Congress’s failure to enact a resolution of disapproval under the Corker framework means the sanctions are lifted forever. He would declaim that, under international law, the Security Council resolution he orchestrated before going to Congress binds our country to his Iran deal — to his empowerment of our enemies — even if our own Constitution has been flouted.
Let him rant and rave. He will only be president for another 16 months. This is now about what happens when he is gone. Obama’s arrogance and overreach have given Republicans a golden opportunity to correct their Corker misstep. They can still preserve the sanctions, preserve the NPT, and clarify that Obama’s green light to Iran on terrorism promotion and military build-up will not be worth the paper it is written on once he vacates the Oval Office.
By doing so, the GOP would not only reclaim the mantle of national security leadership; they would tee the 2016 election up as a referendum on the deeply unpopular Iran deal: Whom should the nation trust, Republicans who would sweep the Iran deal aside or Democrats who favor giving material support to an incorrigible enemy braying “Death to America”?
Even today’s breed of Republican ought to see the sense in that.
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http://www.timesofisrael.com/khamenei-israel-wont-survive-next-25-years/
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http://www.timesofisrael.com/khamenei-israel-wont-survive-next-25-years/
Who could have foreseen this?
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Opinion
Commentary
Cleaning Up After the Obama Team’s Iran Deal
Show Tehran the ways it may lose what it won at the gaming tables in Vienna.
By Michael B. Mukasey
Sept. 13, 2015 6:25 p.m. ET
WSJ
‘We couldn’t have negotiated a better deal.” That is one of the two pillars of the Obama administration’s argument in favor of its nuclear arrangement with Iran, the other being, “there’s no alternative but war.” Those two propositions appear to have won the day—at least with enough Democrats in Congress to prevent a vote disapproving of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. The Iran deal remains deeply unpopular with the American public and with the Republican majority in Congress.
Over the past few months, the two propositions regarding the deal left opponents sputtering a catalog of its numerous defects. But it must be admitted that the first proposition—“we couldn’t have negotiated a better deal”—is plainly true.
Consider who the “we” are. President Obama, the deal’s principal proponent, has repeatedly refused to recognize the existence of Islamist radicalism and failed to enforce even his own red line against Bashar Assad’s use of poison gas in Syria.
The leader of the U.S. delegation, Secretary of State John Kerry, airily endorsed an inspections regimen agreed to between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency—an agreement whose wording he concedes the U.S. doesn’t have, although he thinks one member of the U.S. delegation may have seen it. Not providing the text of this side deal to Congress violates directly the statutory requirement that the administration supply “annexes, appendices, side agreements” and “any related agreements.”
Mr. Kerry also concedes that Iran will prevent access to what it calls defense sites. These include the Parchin facility, where Iran carries out weaponization experiments, and at which Iran will be permitted to take its own soil samples for presentation to the IAEA.
Finally, there is Wendy Sherman, the lead U.S. negotiator. What was her response to the suggestion that Congress should have had a chance to review the deal—as the president promised and U.S. law requires—before it was submitted to the U.N. Security Council? “It would have been a little difficult when all of the members of the P5+1 wanted to go to the United Nations to get an endorsement . . . for us to say, ‘Well excuse me, the world, you should wait for the United States Congress.’ ”
Given that team, “we” really could not have negotiated a better agreement and can’t now.
Which leaves the claim that the only alternative to the nuclear deal is war. That is a half-truth. It is true that unless the U.S. presents a credible threat that at some point force will be used if the deal is violated, no arrangement with Iran means anything. It is not true that the deal sets out the only alternatives to the immediate use of force against Iran’s nuclear program, or that the deal threatens the use of force at all.
The only downside for Iran in the deal is that after a lengthy process, the regime might be found to have cheated, and economic sanctions would “snap back” into place. Even if that actually happens, whatever contracts Iran negotiates before such a finding—whether for the sale of oil, for instance, or for the purchase of “dual use” materials suitable for nuclear applications—the contracts are given immunity from sanctions under the deal, and would help the regime continue its quest for a bomb.
What alternatives are available that might convince Iran that it may not be able to keep what it won at the gaming tables in Vienna, and that force is a possibility if it cheats? One is that a later U.S. president could repudiate the deal. Against this is set the bogus claim that if the U.S. were to do so, the world would lose confidence that this country will live up to its word.
The Iran deal is not a treaty and has no constitutional status. Congress should declare, and try to get a court to declare, that President Obama has no authority to lift sanctions in Iran because he failed to comply with the Iran Nuclear Review Act he signed earlier this year—specifically, the legal requirement that he show to Congress the entire agreement including “side agreements” like the one between Iran and the IAEA.
There are other steps to take. Gen. Michael Hayden, a former CIA director, has suggested an immediate congressional authorization for the use of force if Iran violates the deal; beefing up U.S. defenses in a meaningful way; and perhaps providing Israel with the Massive Ordnance Penetrator. This “bunker buster” could penetrate even the underground Iranian enrichment facility at Fordow, which is suitable principally for creating an atomic weapon.
Has the Tehran regime ever done anything to suggest that Iran will yield to that kind of pressure? The evidence is slim, but there is some. On Jan. 20, 1981, as the resolute Ronald Reagan was sworn in to succeed Jimmy Carter, the Iranians released the 52 U.S. hostages who had been seized in 1979 at the U.S. Embassy.
Another hint comes from 2003, after the U.S. started asking questions about an until-then secret nuclear facility at Natanz—and notably after the U.S. had invaded Iraq based in part on a belief that Saddam Hussein had an active WMD program. According to the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, Iran in 2003 suspended its weaponization and weapons-design program, although not the enrichment going on at its declared facilities.
To be credible, the force that is contemplated must—at a minimum—be able to cripple Iran’s nuclear program for the long term. Some have suggested that Iran has sufficient know-how to quickly rebuild any damaged facilities. Yet as former Defense Department analyst Matthew Kroenig and others have noted, Iran doesn’t have the kind of robust industrial base necessary to produce from scratch the infrastructure embedded at its nuclear facilities. Rather, it bought and smuggled hardware from North Korea, from the Pakistani A.Q. Khan network and elsewhere, and took about 30 years to reach its current level. Following a strike, with intense surveillance and enforcement when necessary, Iran could be kept decades from a bomb.
However, before Iran can respond to a credible threat of force there must be a U.S. administration with enough steel to do more than talk about whether a vague military option is on or off a metaphoric table. That is assuredly not the current “we.”
Mr. Mukasey is a former U.S. attorney general (2007-09) and a former U.S. District Judge (1988-2006).
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http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/iran-soccer-womens-national-team-ian-tuttle
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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/12/world/middleeast/iran-tests-long-range-missile-possibly-violating-nuclear-accord.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/foreign-policy/middle-east/iran/iran-deal-violations-missile-test/
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By Bret Stephens
Oct. 26, 2015 6:51 p.m. ET
215 COMMENTS
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action—better known as the Iran nuclear deal—was officially adopted Sunday, Oct. 18. That’s nine days ago. It’s already a dead letter.
Not that you would have noticed by reading the news or tuning in to State Department or White House briefings. It’s too embarrassing to an administration that has invested all of its diplomatic capital in the deal. Also, too inconvenient to the commodity investors, second-tier banks, European multinationals and everyone else who wants a piece of the Iranian market and couldn’t care less whether Tehran honors its nuclear bargain.
Yet here we are. Iran is testing the agreement, reinterpreting it, tearing it up line by line. For the U.S.—or at least our next president—the lesson should be clear: When you sign a garbage agreement, you get a garbage outcome.
Opinion Journal Video
The Israel Project Managing Director of Press & Strategy Omri Ceren discusses the Iranian ballistic missile test and the White House response. Photo credit: Getty Images.
Earlier this month Iran test-fired a new-generation ballistic missile, called Emad, with an estimated 1,000-mile range and a 1,600-pound payload. Its only practical military use is to deliver a nuclear warhead. The test was a bald violation of the Security Council’s Resolution 2231, adopted unanimously in July, in which “Iran is called upon not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons” for at least eight years.
Then Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei weighed in on the nuclear deal by way of a public letter to President Hassan Rouhani. “The behavior and words of the U.S. government in the nuclear issue and its prolonged and boring negotiations,” he wrote, “showed that [the nuclear issue] was also another link in their chain of hostile enmity with the Islamic Republic.”
The Supreme Leader’s comments on the nuclear deal have been billed by some reporters as a cautious endorsement of the agreement. Not exactly. They are a unilateral renegotiation of the entire deal, stipulating that the U.S. and everyone else must accept his rewrite—or else.
The best analysis of Mr. Khamenei’s demands comes from Yigal Carmon and Ayelet Savyon of the Middle East Media Research Institute. Demand One: The U.S. and Europe must completely lift, rather than temporarily suspend, their economic sanctions, putting an end to any possibility that penalties could “snap back” in the event of Iran’s noncompliance. Demand Two: Sanctions against Iran for its support of terrorism and its human-rights abuses must also go, never mind the Obama administration’s insistence that it will continue to punish Iran for its behavior.
Next Mr. Khamenei changes the timetable for Iran to ship out its enriched uranium and modify its plutonium reactor in Arak until the International Atomic Energy Agency gives Iran a pass on all “past and future issues (including the so-called Possible Military Dimensions or PMD of Iran’s nuclear program).” So much for the U.N. nuclear watchdog even pretending to monitor Iran’s compliance with the deal. He also reiterates his call for a huge R&D effort so that Iran will have at least 190,000 centrifuges when the nuclear deal expires.
“The set of conditions laid out by Khamenei,” Mr. Carmon and Ms. Savyon note in their analysis, “creates a situation in which not only does the Iranian side refrain from approving the JCPOA, but, with nearly every point, creates a separate obstacle, such that executing the agreement is not possible.”
That’s right, though it doesn’t mean Mr. Khamenei intends to stop negotiating. Instead, like in some diplomatic version of Lord Beaverbrook’s indecent proposal—“Madam, we have established what you are; now we’re just haggling over the price”—Mr. Khamenei has discovered what the administration is. Now he wants to pocket the concessions he has already gained and wheedle for a bit more.
Little wonder that Iran has upped the contempt factor since the agreement was signed. A day after the missile test, Iran convicted Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian. On Monday came reports that Iran may have arrested an Iranian-American businessman in Tehran. Expect similarly brutish insults in the months ahead, all to underline how little Mr. Khamenei thinks of the American president and his outstretched hand.
As for the administration, it would be nice to imagine that it is starting to sense the Ayatollah’s disdain. But it isn’t. The missile test was met by a wan effort to take “appropriate action” at the U.N., whatever that might be. Mr. Khamenei’s letter has been met with almost complete silence, as if ignoring it will make it go away.
Perhaps none of this matters. For all the promises and warnings about the Iran deal, it is nothing more than surrender dressed up as diplomacy. The correlation of forces in the Middle East has shifted in the past year, and Mr. Obama will not lift a finger to restore the balance. Mr. Khamenei knows this, and he is not about to give the U.S. a dignified surrender. Then maybe Mr. Obama knows it, too. He doesn’t seem to mind the ignominy.
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The Iranian nuclear deal could lead to improved relations between the Tehran and Washington, including the eventual reopening of embassies in both capitals, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Nov. 12, Reuters reported, citing Italy’s Corriere della Sera. However, the United States would need to correct errors committed in the past 37 years and apologize to the Iranian people, Rouhani said. One day the embassies will reopen, he said, but if Washington does not respect its end of the nuclear deal, relations will remain the same. Washington and Tehran are entering a much broader, more public strategic dialogue.
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http://www.nationalreview.com/article/427619/state-department-iran-deal-not-legally-binding-signed
State Department: Iran Deal Is Not ‘Legally Binding’ and Iran Didn’t Sign It
resident Obama didn’t require Iranian leaders to sign the nuclear deal that his team negotiated with the regime, and the deal is not “legally binding,” his administration acknowledged in a letter to Representative Mike Pompeo (R., Kan.) obtained by National Review. “The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is not a treaty or an executive agreement, and is not a signed document,” wrote Julia Frifield, the State Department assistant secretary for legislative affairs, in the November 19 letter
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What's wrong with putting Iran on the honor system?
[BTW, he prosecuted the tea party more vigorously than the world's largest state sponsor of terror.]
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By
Asa Fitch in Dubai and
Aresu Eqbali in Tehran
Dec. 19, 2015 10:06 a.m. ET
6 COMMENTS
Iran will ship nine tons of enriched uranium to Russia as it seeks to speed the removal of economic sanctions following July’s historic nuclear deal, the head of its nuclear agency said Saturday.
The transfer would happen “in the coming few days,” Ali Akbar Salehi was quoted as saying by the official Islamic Republic News Agency.
Iran had reached an agreement to sell the enriched uranium to Russia, IRNA reported in November, part of an exchange under which the Islamic Republic would also import roughly 140 tons of Russia’s lower-enriched uranium.
The deal is intended to reduce the amount of higher-enriched uranium in Iran’s stockpile.
Exporting the material is one of several steps Iran must take to secure sanctions relief under the nuclear deal, reached with the U.S. and five other world powers this summer.
Under the deal, Iran agreed to put curbs on its nuclear program in exchange for relief from sanctions that have isolated it economically.
Iranian officials have said they hope to complete the other steps next month, including removing the core of the heavy-water reactor at the Arak nuclear facility and decommissioning thousands of enrichment centrifuges.
Preparations had been made for removal of the reactor core at Arak, Mr. Salehi said on Saturday, and this could proceed after documents were signed in Vienna on Monday. He didn’t elaborate on the nature of the documents.
Iran crossed an important hurdle on Tuesday after the International Atomic Energy Agency closed a long-running inquiry into the possible military dimensions of its nuclear program.
The IAEA found that Iran had tried to develop nuclear weapons in the past, but that there was no evidence of such activity taking place after 2009.
But Iran tested ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads in October and November, which U.S. officials called clear violations of United Nations Security Council resolutions. A State Department official said Thursday that the U.S. was still considering its response.
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By Jay Solomon
Dec. 20, 2015 6:37 p.m. ET
53 COMMENTS
WASHINGTON—The Obama administration, pushing to support international trade with Iran, has advised the country’s rulers not to worry about new U.S. legislation that clamps visa restrictions on people who have traveled to Iran.
Iranian officials have publicly complained the new U.S. rules will unfairly target travelers who visit Iran and could dampen investment interest in their country.
Secretary of State John Kerry wrote his Iranian counterpart on Saturday to assure him the visa changes approved by Congress last week won’t undermine business opportunities in Iran or violate the terms of the nuclear agreement between global powers and Tehran in July. Mr. Kerry said the administration was exploring ways to ensure visitors to Iran aren’t unfairly blocked from entering the U.S.
He specifically cited the State Department’s ability to expedite visa applications and to issue longer-term, multiple-entry travel documents. He also said the White House had the power to issue waivers to potentially exempt individuals from the new travel laws.
“I am also confident that the recent changes in visa requirements passed in Congress…will not in any way prevent us from meeting our” commitments under the nuclear deal, Mr. Kerry wrote. “We will implement them so as not to interfere with legitimate business interests in Iran.”
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Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said in New York on Friday that the visa regulations could serve as a de facto new sanction on Iran, in violation of the nuclear deal. He also said Tehran could declare the visa rules a breach of that agreement.
“Now it is clear that this new legislation is simply absurd because no Iranian nor anybody who visited Iran had anything to do with the tragedies that have taken place in Paris or in San Bernardino or anywhere else,” Mr. Zarif told the Middle East-focused website Al Monitor on Friday.
On Sunday, Iranian state TV quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi as saying the legislation contradicts the nuclear agreement.
“Definitely, this law adversely affects economic, cultural, scientific and tourism relations."
Under the nuclear deal, the U.S. and European Union agreed to lift most sanctions on Iran in exchange for it significantly scaling back its nuclear infrastructure. U.S. officials said they believe Tehran could complete these steps by next month.
The U.S. Treasury Department has, subsequently, increased its consultations with international businesses, both inside the U.S. and out, to clarify what types of trade will become legal once the deal is implemented.
The U.S. will continue to block American firms from doing most types of business with Iran, except for the sale of airplane parts and the importing of Iranian carpets and some foodstuffs.
European and Asian firms will be allowed for the first time in a decade to conduct transactions with most Iranian banks and trade firms, according to U.S. officials. These foreign firms will face almost no restrictions on buying Iranian oil and gas.
“The U.S. will not stand in the way of business activities in Iran that are consistent with the [nuclear agreement],” the Treasury Department’s top sanctions official, acting Undersecretary Adam Szubin, said last week.
Some U.S. officials have said in private that they hope sanctions relief can give a boost to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate in Tehran’s Islamist political system. Iran is holding crucial national elections in late February. Politicians aligned with the president are expected to campaign on the success of the nuclear deal and the sanctions relief.
“It will certainly affect the political mood in Iran,” Mr. Zarif told the New Yorker magazine on Friday.
Congressional opposition to the Iran deal and the lifting of sanctions, however, remains stiff. A number of U.S. lawmakers, including Democrats and Republicans, have pressed the Obama administration to impose new sanctions on Iran in response to its launching of two ballistic missiles in the past two months.
The United Nations has concluded that at least one of the tests violated a Security Council resolution that bars Tehran from testing missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads. U.S. lawmakers said the White House needs to punish Iran for the missile tests in order to ensure it abides by the broader nuclear deal.
“If we fail in any way to relentlessly enforce what we’ve got in terms of both U.S. unilateral and multilateral abilities to constrain Iran’s actions, they will take that as a clear signal that we’ve taken our eye off the ball,” Sen. Chris Coons (D., Del.), who supported the agreement, said Thursday.
Obama administration officials said they are reviewing the missile tests and wouldn’t rule out imposing new sanctions on Tehran. Iranian officials have claimed that any sanctions focused on the missile tests would also violate the nuclear agreement.
Write to Jay Solomon at jay.solomon@wsj.com
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2015 may well have marked a turn in a downward direction for America and for Western civilization.
This was the year when we essentially let the world know that we were giving up any effort to try to stop Iran -- the world's leading sponsor of international terrorism -- from getting a nuclear bomb. Surely it does not take much imagination to foresee what lies at the end of that road.
It will not matter if we have more nuclear bombs than they have, if they are willing to die and we are not.
Thomas Sowell, Dec 2015
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/12/29/remembering_2015_129149.html
More from this column going into other threads.
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I see that for the third time Iran has test fired missiles near US Navy ships, this time a mere 1,500 yards away, and yet it appears we do nothing.
Appeasement ends badly. :cry: :cry: :cry: :x :x :x :x :x :x :x :x :x
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I see that for the third time Iran has test fired missiles near US Navy ships, this time a mere 1,500 yards away, and yet it appears we do nothing.
Appeasement ends badly. :cry: :cry: :cry: :x :x :x :x :x :x :x :x :x
Hey, Iran is a friend now!
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I'm confused. Our speedy two boats were captured because one was disabled, but 24 hours later both were sufficiently operational to bring our guys home?
I've seen footage of the Iranians going through all of the armament on our two vessels, and now this:
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/iran-releases-video-of-u-s-sailor-apologizing-that-was-our-mistake/
I'm a civilian, so someone knowledgeable please explain all of this to me.
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http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/01/iranian-regime-warns-missiles-are-locked-on-us-aircraft-carrier-uss-truman/
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http://theresurgent.com/what-reagan-did-when-iran-assaulted-a-navy-ship/
Instead, we are going to give them $100-150 BILLION and empty Gitmo of enemy operators.
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No URL for this but it rings true to me:
"I hope there are none of my FB friends gullible enough to believe the "strayed into Iranian waters and had mechanic problems" nonsense. But if so:
Matt Bracken's thoughts: "I rarely pull out my dusty old trident, but in this case, here goes. I was a Navy SEAL officer in the 1980s, and this kind of operation (transiting small boats in foreign waters) was our bread and butter. Today, these boats both not only had radar, but multiple GPS devices, including chart plotters that place your boat's icon right on the chart. The claim by Iran that the USN boats "strayed into Iranian waters" is complete bull$#it.
For an open-water transit between nations, the course is studied and planned in advance by the leaders of the Riverine Squadron, with specific attention given to staying wide and clear of any hostile nation's claimed territorial waters. The boats are given a complete mechanical check before departure, and they have sufficient fuel to accomplish their mission plus extra. If, for some unexplainable and rare circumstance one boat broke down, the other would tow it, that's why two boats go on these trips and not one! It's called "self-rescue" and it's SOP.
This entire situation is in my area of expertise. I can state with complete confidence that both Iran and our own State Department are lying. The boats did not enter Iranian waters. They were overtaken in international waters by Iranian patrol boats that were so superior in both speed and firepower that it became a "hands up!" situation, with automatic cannons in the 40mm to 76mm range pointed at them point-blank. Surrender, hands up, or be blown out of the water. I assume that the Iranians had an English speaker on a loudspeaker to make the demand. This takedown was no accident or coincidence, it was a planned slap across America's face.
Just watch. The released sailors will be ordered not to say a word about the incident, and the Iranians will have taken every GPS device, chart-plotter etc off the boats, so that we will not be able to prove where our boats were taken.
The "strayed into Iranian waters" story being put out by Iran and our groveling and appeasing State Dept. is utter and complete BS from one end to the other." - Matt Bracken
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Why U.S.-Iran Relations Can Survive an Election Year
Geopolitical Diary
January 14, 2016 | 01:55 GMT Text Size
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(Stratfor)
As soon as U.S. President Barack Obama highlighted his diplomatic approach to reaching a nuclear deal with Iran in his final State of the Union Address Tuesday night, social media erupted with attacks on the president for touting a deal when Iran was holding 10 U.S. sailors whose vessels had strayed into Iranian waters. Between the Dec. 26 firing of unguided rockets near U.S. and French naval vessels and the Jan. 12 detention of the sailors, some observers in the United States — particularly those with a political interest in disparaging Obama's handling of Iran in an election year — could easily draw the conclusion that Iran is up to its old tricks and that the nuclear agreement is cracking even before its implementation.
In reality, though, the sailors were not mistreated during their detention. After a swift diplomatic intervention from Washington and Tehran, the crew was released, and both sides recognized that the naval intrusion was made in error. Rather than underscoring the problems between the two sides, the incident revealed, arguably, just how much progress has been made in the U.S.-Iranian relationship.
What is a Geopolitical Diary?
Unsurprisingly, hard-liners in Tehran and hawks in Washington seized on the public relations opportunity. Clearly echoing the U.S. Navy's recent admonishment of Iran's naval forces over their recent rocket test, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy Commander Rear Adm. Ali Fadavi described the U.S. Navy's initial reaction to the incident as "unprofessional" and "irresponsible." The IRGC also took the opportunity to extract and film an apology from one of the U.S. sailors, and in a series of statements made by Iranian officials, he portrayed the IRGC as taking the political and moral high ground against the all-powerful U.S. Navy.
This will be useful political capital for the IRGC ahead of elections for the parliament and for the Assembly of Experts, Iran's most powerful clerical institution. The elections, which are scheduled for Feb. 26, are expected to feature a close race between hard-liners and moderates within Iran's conservative political camp. Moderate clerics, led by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, want to stack both institutions with enough political allies to sustain the more diplomatically measured and more economically liberal approach of the Rouhani government. But that approach involves the difficult task of minimizing the IRGC's role in the state's political affairs. In recent years, the IRGC has been very active in positioning candidates for the parliament, using the institution to shape the nuclear negotiations and other foreign policy matters. Influence in the parliament will be critical to safeguarding IRGC business interests during Iran's economic opening. Given Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's advanced age and health concerns, it is quite likely that the Assembly of Experts, which serves eight-year terms, will decide the ayatollah's successor, making the vote all the more pivotal.
The name "Khomeini" may not evoke an image of moderation in the West, but Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, may be Rouhani's most important asset. Khomeini is closely aligned with Rouhani and former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Hard-liners' attempts to delegitimize and disqualify Khomeini from the Assembly of Experts election only validate the IRGC's concerns with the young cleric, who will try to claim true revolutionary credentials while the IRGC has enriched itself during the sanctions regime. The IRGC, meanwhile, will try to take the shine off the moderate campaign by arguing that economic life in Iran is no better under Rouhani than before. (Of course, with oil priced at $30 per barrel, life would be just as difficult for Iran under any leader, and it will take time for the economic benefits of eased sanctions to take effect.)
Resuming a hostile relationship with Iran amid growing foreign policy challenges worldwide would severely constrain the United States and sap Washington's ability to deal with emerging threats that extend beyond the Middle East. Iran, too, would rather focus its energies on repairing its economy and defending its sphere of influence as Sunni forces in the region coalesce to push back against Tehran and its Shiite allies. There will be disruptions in the implementation of the nuclear deal — irregularities that will be more pronounced if more radical elements in Washington and Tehran gain political strength. Still, the geopolitical forces underpinning this diplomatic arrangement should not be underestimated.
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Analysis
Editor's Note: Iran and the group of six major powers reached an agreement July 14 after a two-week extension and more than 20 months of negotiations. But the deal is really the culmination of more than a decade of careful diplomacy, at times carefully conducted behind the scenes, following the revelation of the Iranian nuclear program in 2002. In the coming months, the U.S. Congress, the Iranian Supreme Leader and the U.N. Security Council will have to review and approve the deal, which exchanges phased sanctions relief for guarantees and verification of Iran’s commitment to a peaceful nuclear program. Stratfor has long maintained that a nuclear deal between Iran and the United States was inevitable and that such an accord — though unnerving to many of Washington’s traditional partners in the Middle East — would form a cornerstone of the U.S. strategy of maintaining a balance of power in the region.
In light of this historic accord, Stratfor is publishing this chronology of analyses that foresaw this previously unthinkable event.
Thinking About the Unthinkable: A U.S.-Iranian Deal
March 1, 2010: The United States apparently has reached the point where it must either accept that Iran will develop nuclear weapons at some point if it wishes, or take military action to prevent this. There is a third strategy, however: Washington can seek to redefine the Iranian question. As we have no idea what leaders on either side are thinking, exploring this represents an exercise in geopolitical theory. Let's begin with the two apparent stark choices.
U.S., Iran: Why They Will Now Likely Negotiate
Aug. 2, 2013: Diplomatic relations between Tehran and Washington will improve after Iran's new president assumes office Aug. 4, ending months of speculation over whether Iran and Washington will find accommodation in their nuclear standoff. In fact, in recent weeks both sides have expressed interest in resuming bilateral nuclear talks. Those talks never took place simply because Iran never had to participate in them. Its economy was in decent shape despite the sanctions, its regional geopolitical position had been secure and its domestic political environment was in disarray. But now things are different. Tehran is devoting an unsustainable amount of resources to Syrian President Bashar al Assad in his fight against the Syrian rebellion. And while economic sanctions have not yet forced Iran to the negotiating table, Iranian leaders will likely choose to engage the United States voluntarily to forestall further economic decline. The inauguration of President-elect Hassan Rouhani provides an ideal opportunity for them to do so.
Next Steps for the U.S.-Iran Deal
Nov. 25, 2013: What was unthinkable for many people over many years happened in the early hours of Nov. 24 in Geneva: The United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran struck a deal. After a decadelong struggle, the two reached an accord that seeks to ensure that Iran's nuclear program remains a civilian one. It is a preliminary deal, and both sides face months of work to batten down domestic opposition, build convincing mechanisms to assure compliance and unthread complicated global sanctions.
Iran Reaches a Nuclear Agreement With the West
April 2, 2015: After double overtime negotiations in Lausanne, Iran and the six world powers announced a framework deal that largely covers the key sticking points of a nuclear agreement, leaving the technical details to be worked out over the next three months. Though there are several critical ambiguities in the joint statement, on the whole this statement is highly favorable to Iran. The careful wording was designed to enable Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to sell this deal at home and could help stave off U.S. congressional dissent in the months leading up to the June 30 deadline — though this deal will not depend on congressional approval for implementation.
Kicking Over the Table in the Middle East
April 2, 2015: The United States and Iran, along with other members of the Western negotiating coalition, reached an agreement whose end point will be Iran's monitored abandonment of any ambition to build nuclear weapons, coupled with the end of sanctions on Iran's economy. It is not a final agreement. That will take until at least June 30. There are also powerful forces in Iran and the United States that oppose the agreement and might undermine it. And, in the end, neither side is certain to live up the agreement. Nevertheless, there has been an agreement between the Great Satan and a charter member of the Axis of Evil, and that matters. But it matters less for what it says about Iran's nuclear program, or economic sanctions, than for how it affects the regional balance of power, a subject we wrote on in this week's Geopolitical Weekly.
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http://www.allenbwest.com/2016/01/folks-heres-what-i-find-very-odd-about-what-happened-with-iran-and-our-navy-yesterday/
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Fourth post
http://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2016/01/14/exclusive-days-before-sanctions-relief-iran-offers-to-upgrade-relations-with-hamas-terrorists/
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http://freebeacon.com/national-security/obama-admin-blocked-visa-waiver-reforms-upsetting-iran/
From bowing to groveling...
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More Than Humiliation: What Did Iran Find?
By Jordan Candler · Jan. 14, 2016
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On the same day Barack Obama gave his final State of the Union, Iran humiliated the U.S. by apprehending 10 U.S. Navy personnel and two vessels. Most amazingly, not a word about it was mentioned by the commander in chief. His team and media lapdogs went immediately into damage control, going so far as to spin the situation as a positive development with the sailors' release. “I’m appreciative for the quick and appropriate response of the Iranian authorities,” remarked Secretary of State John Kerry. “Iran has moved from being one of the most despised nations in our history to something that’s a much more comfortable potential partner,” asserted Atlantic editor Steve Clemons. “Iran’s Swift Release of U.S. Sailors Hailed as a Sign of Warmer Relations,” lauded a New York Times headline. Yet hardly anybody stopped to contemplate one reason why Iran may have turned over our soldiers as easily as it did. What if the Islamic regime found all that it needed, something far more valuable — like a trove of sensitive military information?
That’s what one congressman is wondering. According to Defense News, “Rep. Duncan Hunter, a former US Marine and Iraq War veteran, said Iran — a ‘terrorist-sponsoring’ existential threat to the US — accessed US cryptographic and satellite communications, sensors and jammers Hunter believes were aboard the two Navy patrol boats. ‘We’d be stupid to think that they didn’t,’ said Hunter, R-Calif. ‘I’m glad that the sailors are back safe, but there’s no way [the Iranian military] just let those boats sit there, and didn’t reverse engineer, or look at and copy everything that they possibly could.’” Hunter has no concrete evidence, but his suggestion isn’t hyperbolic, either. In 2011, Iran got hold of a CIA drone, the Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel, every inch of which was (and probably still is) studied by the Iranians. The Navy vessels were probably icing on the cake.
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http://dailycaller.com/2016/01/17/state-department-agrees-to-pay-1-7-billion-in-us-taxpayer-dollars-to-iran/
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(http://i0.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2016/01/Barack-Chamberlain-copy.jpg)
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Apparently Kerry is now stating that we are not giving (releasing) $100-150 Billion to Iran, but rather only $55 B.
That is one helluva discrepancy!
One of the commentators on FOX explained the Kerry is not counting the loans/debts that Iran is paying off with the money, and simply stating the net cash transfer. In other words Iran owes $95 and is paying it off while receiving $55 more in cash and this should be called Iran is benefiting only $55.
:x :x :x
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Can Iran Change?
By ADEL BIN AHMED AL-JUBEIRJAN. 19, 2016
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia — THE world is watching Iran for signs of change, hoping it will evolve from a rogue revolutionary state into a respectable member of the international community. But Iran, rather than confronting the isolation it has created for itself, opts to obscure its dangerous sectarian and expansionist policies, as well as its support for terrorism, by leveling unsubstantiated charges against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
It is important to understand why Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies are committed to resisting Iranian expansion and responding forcefully to Iran’s acts of aggression.
Superficially, Iran may appear to have changed. We acknowledge Iran’s initial actions regarding the agreement to suspend its program to develop a nuclear weapon. Certainly, we know that a large segment of the Iranian population wants greater openness internally and better relations with neighboring countries and the world. But the government does not.
The Iranian government’s behavior has been consistent since the 1979 revolution. The constitution that Iran adopted states the objective of exporting the revolution. As a consequence, Iran has supported violent extremist groups, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and sectarian militias in Iraq. Iran or its proxies have been blamed for terrorist attacks around the world, including the bombings of the United States Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 and the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996, and the assassinations in the Mykonos restaurant in Berlin in 1992. And by some estimates Iranian-backed forces have killed over 1,100 American troops in Iraq since 2003.
Iran uses attacks on diplomatic sites as an instrument of its foreign policy. The 1979 takeover of the American Embassy in Tehran was only the beginning. Since then, embassies of Britain, Denmark, Kuwait, France, Russia and Saudi Arabia have been attacked in Iran or abroad by Iranian proxies. Foreign diplomats and domestic political opponents have been assassinated around the world.
Hezbollah, Iran’s surrogate, tries to control Lebanon and wages war against the Syrian opposition — and in the process helps the Islamic State flourish. It is clear why Iran wants Bashar al-Assad of Syria to remain in power: In its 2014 report on terrorism, the State Department wrote that Iran views Syria “as a crucial causeway to its weapons supply route to Hezbollah.” The report also noted, citing United Nations data, that Iran provided arms, financing and training “to support the Assad regime’s brutal crackdown that has resulted in the deaths of at least 191,000 people.” The same report for 2012 noted that there was “a marked resurgence of Iran’s state sponsorship of terrorism,” with Iranian and Hezbollah’s terrorist activity “reaching a tempo unseen since the 1990s.”
In Yemen, Iran’s support for the takeover of the country by the Houthi militia helped cause the war that has killed thousands.
While Iran claims its top foreign policy priority is friendship, its behavior shows the opposite is true. Iran is the single-most-belligerent-actor in the region, and its actions display both a commitment to regional hegemony and a deeply held view that conciliatory gestures signal weakness either on Iran’s part or on the part of its adversaries.
In that vein, Iran tested a ballistic missile on Oct. 10, just months after reaching an agreement on its nuclear program, in violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions. In December, an Iranian military ship fired a missile near American and French vessels in international waters. Even since signing the nuclear accord, the supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has defended the country’s ubiquitous slogan “Death to America.”
Recent Comments
American 22 hours ago
Mr. Saudi ambassador should be ashamed of himself. The question really is: Can Saudi Arabia change. Iran is better than Saudi Arabia in...
D. R. Van Renen 22 hours ago
Can Saudi Arabia change by ending dependence on oil the source of Global Warming, beheadings by the dozen, and the terrorist bombing of...
M 22 hours ago
It's stupid how the whole world crying about Al-Nimr and say nothing about the whole terrorism done by Iran since 1979.. The west's problem...
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Saudi Arabia will not allow Iran to undermine our security or the security of our allies. We will push back against attempts to do so.
In an outlandish lie, Iran maligns and offends all Saudis by saying that my nation, home of the two holy mosques, brainwashes people to spread extremism. We are not the country designated a state sponsor of terrorism; Iran is. We are not the nation under international sanctions for supporting terrorism; Iran is. We are not the nation whose officials are on terrorism lists; Iran is. We don’t have an agent sentenced to jail for 25 years by a New York federal court for plotting to assassinate an ambassador in Washington in 2011; Iran does.
Saudi Arabia has been a victim of terrorism, often at the hands of Iran’s allies. Our country is on the front line of fighting terrorism, working closely with our allies. Saudi Arabia has arrested thousands of terrorism suspects and prosecuted hundreds. Our fight against terrorism is continuing as we lead multinational efforts to pursue those who participate in terrorist activities, those who fund them and those who foment the mind-set that promotes extremism.
The real question is whether Iran wants to live by the rules of the international system, or remain a revolutionary state committed to expansion and to defiance of international law. In the end, we want an Iran that works to solve problems in a way that allows people to live in peace. But that will require major changes in Iran’s policy and behavior. We have yet to see that.
Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir is the foreign minister of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
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No Prosperity for Iran after Nuclear Deal
by David P. Goldman
Asia Times
January 27, 2016
http://www.meforum.org/5814/iran-no-prosperity
As a matter of arithmetic, Iran is flat broke at the prevailing price of hydrocarbons. Under the P5+1 nuclear deal, Iran will recoup somewhere between $55 and $150 billion of frozen assets, depending on whether one believes the Secretary of the US Treasury or one's own eyes. The windfall is barely enough to tide Iran over for the next two years.
P5+1 nuclear diplomacy with Iran went forward on the premise that Iran would trade its strategic ambitions in the region for economic prosperity. The trouble is that prosperity is not a realistic outcome for Iran, which has nothing to gain by abandoning its strategic adventures.
Iran now exports 1.2 million barrels a day of oil. At $30 a barrel, that's $14 billion year (and perhaps a bit more, given that some Iranian light crude goes at a higher price). Iran also sold (as of 2014) about 9.6 billion cubic meters of natural gas, which might bring in another $4 billion at today's market prices.
As of 2014, the Iranian government spent $63 billion a year, according to western estimates. No data is available for 2015, and the Iran Central Bank doesn't publish data past mid-2013. That brought in a bit over $40 billion a year (not counting gas exports). Iran has a $40 billion hole to fill. Unfrozen assets will tide the country over for a couple of years, but won't solve its problems. This year Iran plans to spend $89 billion, the government announced Dec. 22.
Iran's windfall from the nuclear agreement will barely tide it over for the next two years.
Iran's government plans to raise taxes across the board, supposedly to decrease dependency on oil in the government budget. But tax revenues for the fiscal year starting March 2016 are estimated at only $28 billion. Even under the assumption that Iran can sell $22 billion worth of oil, the budget gap will rise to about $40 billion, or about 10% of GDP. In nominal dollar terms, Iran's GDP shrank from $577 billion to $415 billion in 2014, and almost certainly shrank further in 2015.
None of the big projects now under discussion will move the needle far from the empty mark. The long-discussed Iran-Pakistan pipeline might produce revenues of about $3.5 billion a year under ideal conditions, and Iran would pocket a fraction of that.
In December, Iran said that it hoped to increase oil production by 500,000 barrels, earning $22 billion a year, a 50% increase from its present rate. But on Jan. 16, Iran's oil minister Bijan Zaganeh told an incredulous CNN interviewer that it would boost oil output by 1.6 million barrels a day by the end of 2016. Most experts believe that Iran can't pump that much oil if it wanted to, and if it did, it couldn't sell it if it tried.
There are a lot of countries that need to sell more oil, notably Russia. Russia's oil exports to China now exceed Saudi Arabia's. China has good reasons to buy more from Russia, given the convergence of Russian and Chinese strategic objectives in Syria and elsewhere. China clearly wants to improve relations with Iran. President Xi Jinping's Jan. 23 visit to Tehran featured an agreement to increase trade by $600 billion over the next ten years. The question is not whether China wants to trade with Iran, but whether Iran can pay for it. Like Russia, China fears the expansion of radical Sunni Islam in the region, with the potential to spill over into China's Western province of Xinjiang. There are no Shia Muslims in Russia or China, and Iran's sponsorship of Shia jihadists is of little concern to the two Asian powers.
It seems unlikely that China would shift oil purchases away from Russia to Iran in order to help the Tehran regime. China will invest in Iranian extraction, petrochemicals, and infrastructure, but even the most optimistic projections won't do much for Iran's finances.
Unless oil prices rise sharply, Iran's windfall from the P5+1 deal will cover two years' worth of deficits, with little left over for urgently-needed maintenance of existing oil and gas capacity. That may explain why the Tehran regime has played down the importance of the nuclear agreement with the West. The end of sanctions is unlikely to yield much improvement in ordinary Iranians' conditions of live, and the government did not want to raise expectations.
Iran's economy is bad stressed. The official unemployment rate is 11%, but only 37% of the population is considered economically active, an extremely low ratio given the concentration of Iran's population in working-age brackets. Some social indicators are alarming. The number of marriages has fallen by 20% since 2012. "In Iran, the customary marriage age range is 20-34 for men and 15-29 for women...46% of men and 48% of women in those age ranges remain unmarried," according to the national statistics agency. So-called "white marriage," or cohabitation out of wedlock, is so common and controversial that the regime banned a women's magazine last year for reporting on it.
The end-of-sanctions bonanza won't lift Iran out of the economic doldrums.
Economic problems explain part of the falling marriage rate, but the corrosion of traditional values also is a factor. Iranian researchers estimated late in 2015 that one out of eight Iranian women was infected by chlamydia, a common venereal disease that frequently causes infertility. According to the Center for Disease Control, one out of 170 American women carry the infection. The combination of falling marriage rates and epidemic rates of venereal infection point to a society that is losing cohesion. Iran's theocratic leaders are too prissy to gaze at statues of nudes in Italy, but they are presiding over a disintegration of family values unlike anything in the world.
That is especially disappointing to the regime, which has tried to raise Iran's fertility rate from just 1.6 children per female by offering incentives to prospective parents and by reducing availability of contraceptives. If anything, Iran's demographic spiral seems likely to worsen. Iran's population is already aging faster than any in the world, and the young generation's rejection of family life points to catastrophic economic problems twenty years from now.
From a financial vantage point, Iran faces something of a Red Queen effect: it needs more money from abroad merely in order to stay in place, that is, to maintain its existing energy infrastructure. The end-of-sanctions bonanza saves Iran from an economic crash after the oil price collapse, but it doesn't lift the country out of the doldrums.
David P. Goldman is a senior fellow at the London Center for Policy Research and the Wax Family Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
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http://patriotpost.us/posts/41156
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Our allies in the Middle East? Our ally of our ally (Putin)? Is it because crime is up a totalitarian, Sharia Law governed regime?
I thought they just "elected" a "moderate" "reformer"!
(It isn't democracy folks. They didn't elect anyone and they aren't reforming except if that means to become more radical and extreme.)
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2016/03/18/Why-executions-in-Iran-have-hit-a-27-year-high.html
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By Mark Dubowitz and
Jonathan Schanzer
March 27, 2016 5:47 p.m. ET
105 COMMENTS
The bruising battle between the president and Congress surrounding the Iran nuclear deal is over. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, despite its many troubling flaws, is already being implemented. Yet now another nasty battle is brewing.
Even as Washington prepared to release an estimated $100 billion in restricted Iranian oil assets and paved the way for Tehran to regain access to the Swift network (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication)—allowing it to transfer funds across the global electronic banking system—the Obama administration vowed that the Islamic Republic would never get the ultimate prize: access to the U.S. financial system or dollar transactions.
Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew was adamant during a congressional grilling last July. “Iranian banks will not be able to clear U.S. dollars through New York,” he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, or “hold correspondent account relationships with U.S. financial institutions, or enter into financing arrangements with U.S. banks.”
Yet as Rep. Ed Royce (R., Calif.) noted in a March 22 letter to the White House, Mr. Lew, during a Financial Services Committee hearing earlier that day, “appeared to leave the door open” to Iran getting access to the U.S. financial system. Mr. Royce reminded Mr. Lew of what he said last year, then said he had “received reports from the administration that it is now considering providing Iran with access to the U.S. financial systems.” He repeatedly pressed Mr. Lew: “Specifically, are you considering permitting Iranian banks to clear transactions in dollars with U.S. banks or foreign financial institutions including offshore clearing houses?”
Mr. Lew avoided a direct answer, instead stating that the administration continues to explore ways “to make sure Iran gets relief” from sanctions. With this non-answer, Congress is getting ready for a fight.
It’s not hard to understand why. The Financial Action Task Force, a global antiterrorism finance body, maintains a severe warning about Iranian financial practices. Last month it warned that Iran’s “failure to address the risk of terrorist financing” poses a “serious threat . . . to the integrity of the international financial system.” The Treasury Department also recognizes the danger, in 2011 labeling the Islamic Republic a “jurisdiction of primary money laundering concern.” That finding, which remains in place, cites Iran’s “support for terrorism,” and “illicit and deceptive financial activities.”
What explains this possible reversal? Most likely, Iran demanded it. Secretary of State John Kerry and Foggy Bottom, always fearful that Tehran will walk away from the nuclear deal, may be ready to comply.
Don’t expect the White House to admit this; the administration is more likely to offer a feeble claim that its ability to oversee Iranian dollar transactions could yield better intelligence.
In 2008, however, the Treasury Department banned U.S. financial institutions from processing “U-turns”—temporary dollar transactions between non-U.S. banks and Iranian banks. Treasury determined that the risks simply outweighed the intelligence benefits. Four years later Treasury pushed to ban several Iranian banks, including the central bank, from the Swift messaging system. The threat to the integrity of the global financial system from Iranian banks, it again determined, was too grave, despite the intelligence that could be gathered.
The administration might claim that Treasury could capture dollar-denominated assets when Iran violates the nuclear agreement or uses the greenback to finance terrorism or ballistic missiles. This wouldn’t be realistic. Iran knows the U.S. can freeze transactions that are even temporarily converted to dollars, making it unlikely that they would hold registered dollar accounts in sufficient quantities in banks where U.S. authorities have reach. If anything, they will keep their dollar holdings in offshore accounts or in pallets of cash. If the regime contemplates a nuclear violation or gets wind of new sanctions, it would dump whatever traceable dollar assets it holds.
We may also hear via the administration that we need to provide economic incentives for Tehran to comply with the nuclear deal. Yet during last summer’s debate, administration officials claimed that denying Iran access to the dollar and the U.S. financial system would provide Washington with leverage after the deal was done. Why throw away that leverage in exchange for no new concessions?
The Europeans are permitting Iranian banks to rejoin Swift. That’s their decision. But until Congress can get the intelligence community to verify that Iranian banks have stopped financing terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas—not to mention money laundering and other financial crimes—you can bet that Congress will oppose Iran’s access to the U.S. financial system.
Messrs. Dubowitz and Schanzer are, respectively, executive director and vice president for research at Foundation for Defense of Democracies and its Center on Sanctions and Illicit Finance.
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The U.S., Britain, France, and Spain have sent a joint letter to the United Nations alleging that Iran's recent ballistic missile tests are in violation of U.N. Security Council resolution 2331, arguing that Iran's tested missiles are "inherently capable of delivering nuclear weapons." The U.S. and its allies contend that 2331 banned Tehran from conducting ballistic missile tests. Nonetheless, the phrasing of the resolution, part of a last minute concession made by the U.S, has given an opening to opponents of further sanctions to argue that the text doesn't explicitly prohibit missile activities.
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http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2016/04/04/iran-sending-warships-support-hostile-latin-american-nations/
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http://freebeacon.com/national-security/iran-shows-off-third-underground-missile-site/
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:-o :-o :-o
I note that Trump's foreign policy speech sure sounded like he said we would war to stop Iran from going nuke , , ,
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:-o :-o :-o
I note that Trump's foreign policy speech sure sounded like he said we would war to stop Iran from going nuke , , ,
But no problem if Saddam had done the same. Stopping that is called nation building, creating a power imbalance, lying our way into war.
With Iran, Trump had seemed more concerned with the billions than with the threat. Seems happy to have them sort out Syria for us. Remove ISIS set up a shia caliphate terror state in it's place.
If you find a guiding principle in his proposed foreign (or domestic policies), let us know.
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Hi, Doug
Playing devils' advocate Trump would reply that Hussain was NOT building nukes as we thought and WMD were not found (though I think chemical weapons may have been and most I guess were moved into Syria). To be fair I was for the Iraq invasion and ousting Hussain WMD or not. I didn't realize the sectarian violence that would ensue and thought most Iraqis would actually be grateful to the US.
His guiding principle is to do what is best for America. Each foreign situation has to be assessed individually and risk/benefit assessment made for each situation. Whether Korea Iran Isis, China , Russia, etc
Just my one cent.
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There is another rivalry developing in the region. China developed Gwadar port in Pak to get access to the warm waters and open trade to central asia. India is doing the same, about 70 km to the west via Iran's Chabahar port. Question is which port route will survive and prosper. the security situation is worse in Pak, so I expect China's supposed 45 B$ investment in Pak will not go very far.
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/tale-two-ports (http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/tale-two-ports)
A Tale of Two Ports
Gwadar and Chabahar display Chinese-Indian rivalry in the Arabian Sea
Christophe Jaffrelot
YaleGlobal, 7 January 2011
PARIS: Sino-Indian rivalry in the Indian Ocean and India’s naval cooperation with the US draw the world’s attention. But quietly, out of sight, a contest has been building in the Arabian Sea centered between two ports, one based in Pakistan and the other in Iran. The first is backed by China, the second by India. The first, located in Gwadar, is intended to give China access to the Indian Ocean; the second, Chabahar, is supposed to connect India to Afghanistan and counter the first. The two ports represent longstanding rivalries in the region and anticipation for intense geo-strategic competition.
Gwadar, with its proximity to the vital sea lane between the Middle East and China, has strategic importance for China, especially for oil trade. If China wants to emancipate itself from transportation or military problems along Asia’s southern coastline, direct access to the Indian Ocean may be the solution.
Direct access to the India Ocean would give China a strategic post of observation and a key location for its navy. While Myanmar and Sri Lanka can offer substantial support, the country that can best help Beijing is Pakistan because of its location and long-time friendship.
India, feeling encircled, reacted to this development. In his recent book on the Indian Ocean, journalist Robert Kaplan writes that “the Indians’ answer to Sino-Pakistani cooperation at Gwadar was a giant new $8 billion naval base at Karwar, south of Goa on India’s Arabian coast, the first phase of which opened in 2005.”
Karwar was only one part of the response to Gwadar. The other one is Chabahar. In 2002 India helped Iran to develop the port of Chabahar, located 72 kilometers west of Gwadar, soon after China began work at Gwadar.
Chabahar should provide India with access to Afghanistan via the Indian Ocean. India, Iran and Afghanistan have signed an agreement to give Indian goods, heading for Central Asia and Afghanistan, preferential treatment and tariff reductions at Chabahar.
Gwadar is located on the Gulf of Oman, close to the entrance of the Persian Gulf. Until 1958 it belonged to Oman, which gave this land to Pakistani rulers who expected that the location would contribute to what Kaplan calls “a new destiny.”
When President Richard Nixon visited Pakistan in 1973, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto sought US help to construct a new port at Gwadar, and reportedly offered the US Navy use of the facility. He was unsuccessful, and Pakistan then turned to China for help. Work started in 2002, and China has invested $200 million, dispatching 450 personnel for the first phase of the job completed in 2006 and resulting in a deep-sea port.
Direct access to the India Ocean, with Gwadar, would give China a strategic post of observation and a
key location for its navy.
The Port of Singapore Authority was selected to manage Gwadar in 2007. But it did not invest much money, and Pakistan decided to transfer port management to another institution, not yet selected but which will probably be Chinese. On 6 November 2010 the Supreme Court of Pakistan asked the Gwadar Port Authority to seek cancellation of the concession agreement with the Port of Singapore Authority.
At the same time, Pakistan and China contemplate developing the Karakorum Highway to connect China’s Xinjiang and Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan. In 2006, a memorandum of understanding was signed between both countries to upgrade this road and connect Kashgar and Abbottabad. But the Karakorum Highway, the highest point of which passes at 4,693 meters, can open between May and December. It’s also vulnerable to landslides, so large trucks may not use it easily.
Pakistan and China also discussed building a 3,000-kilometer rail line between Kashgar and Gwadar, during President Asif Ali Zardari’s July 2010 visit with President Hu Jintao in Beijing. The cost would be enormous, up to $30 million per kilometer in the highest mountains.
In addition, Baluchistan is one of Pakistan’s most unstable provinces today because of the development of a nationalist movement with separatist overtones. Insurgents have already kidnapped and killed Chinese engineers in Gwadar.
Soon after China began work at Gwadar, India helped Iran to develop the port of Chabahar, located 72 kilometers west of Gwadar.
But China persists. More than a gateway to the Indian Ocean, Gwadar, at least, will provide Beijing with, first, a listening post from where the Chinese may exert surveillance on hyper-strategic sea links as well as military activities of the Indian and American navies in the region, and second, dual-use civilian-military facilities providing a base for Chinese ships and submarines.
For the Indians, this is a direct threat. The Delhi-based Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis recently published a report on Pakistan: the “Gwadar port being so close to the Straits of Hormuz also has implications for India as it would enable Pakistan to exercise control over energy routes. It is believed that Gwadar will provide Beijing with a facility to monitor US and Indian naval activity in the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea, respectively, as well as any future maritime cooperation between India and the US.”
India responded by helping Iran with the port of Chabahar. Work on the Chabahar-Milak-Zaranj-Dilaram route from Iran to Afghanistan is in progress. India has already built the 213-kilometer Zaranj-Dilaram road in Afghanistan’s Nimroz province and helps Iran to upgrade the Chabahar-Milak railroad. Developing railroads and port infrastructure near the border of Afghanistan could strengthen Iranian influence in Afghanistan, especially among the Shia and non-Pashtun ethnic groups.
In developing Chabahar, India must factor in US attempts at isolating Iran because of Tehran’s nuclear policy.
However, this Indo-Iranian project is bound to suffer from two problems:
First, politically, Afghanistan is unstable and may not oblige Iran and India if the Taliban or any Pakistan-supported government is restored. Chabahar is also part of one of Iran’s most volatile regions where anti-regime Sunni insurgents have launched repeated attacks. Don't agree with this, YA
Secondly, the work is far behind schedule. In July 2010, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mohd Ali Fathollahi said the port was functional, but has a capacity of only 2.5 million tons per year, whereas the target was 12 million tons. Speeding work on the port was urged during the 16th Indo-Iranian Joint Commission meeting, attended by Iranian Finance Minister Seyed Shamseddin Hosseini and India’s External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna, who pointed out that “Iran’s assistance in developing the Chabahar port has been slow ‘til now.”
The connection between Gwadar and China remains distant, but could be the Suez Canal of the 21st century. At the minimum, this deep-sea port should provide Beijing with a strategic base soon.
The Chinese move prompted India to react – hence the development of Chabahar. But in developing this port, New Delhi must factor in US attempts at isolating Iran because of Tehran’s nuclear policy. How far the Indo-Iranian rapprochement is compatible with the growing Indo-American alliance remains to be seen.
The US and India may agree on the need to counter growing Chinese influence in Gwadar, but may also disagree on the policy India wants to pursue by joining hands with Iran.
Iran itself may not want to take any risk at alienating China, a country which has supported Tehran, including its nuclear policy, until recently.
Christophe Jaffrelot is a senior research fellow with the Centre for International Studies and Research, Sciences Po/CNRS.
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http://www.jpost.com/printarticle.aspx?id=455779
:-o :-o :-o :-o :-o :-o :-o :-o :-o
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http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-06-09/u-s-taxpayers-are-funding-iran-s-military-expansion
U.S. Taxpayers Are Funding Iran's Military Expansion
1118
JUNE 9, 2016 6:00 AM EDT
By
Eli Lake
One of the unexpected results of President Barack Obama's new opening to Iran is that U.S. taxpayers are now funding both sides of the Middle East's arms race. The U.S. is deliberately subsidizing defense spending for allies like Egypt and Israel. Now the U.S. is inadvertently paying for some of Iran's military expenditures as well.
UNEXPECTED?
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http://uk.mobile.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKKCN0Z60U5
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http://www.jpost.com/Jerusalem-Report/The-Iran-nuclear-deal-One-year-on-457447
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http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/07/18/secret-document-iran-nuclear-constraints/87256214/
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani waves to the crowd at the Azadi stadium in Kermansheh, west of Iran, on July 17, 2016. EPA/PRESIDENCY OF IRAN / HANDOUT HANDOUT EDITORIAL USE ONLY ORG XMIT: ABD01(Photo: Presidency of Iran / Handout, EPA)
VIENNA (AP) — A document obtained by The Associated Press shows that key restrictions on Iran's nuclear program will ease in slightly more than a decade, halving the time Tehran would need to build a bomb.
The document is the only secret text linked to last year's agreement between Iran and six foreign powers. It says that after a period between 11 to 13 years, Iran can replace its 5,060 inefficient centrifuges with up to 3,500 advanced machines.
Since those are five times as efficient, the time Iran would need to make a weapon would drop from a year to six months.
Iran says its enrichment is peaceful, but the program could be used for nuclear warheads.
Two diplomats providing the information Monday demanded anonymity because they weren't authorized to do so.
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http://twitchy.com/brettt-3136/2016/08/02/wsj-obama-administration-airlifted-400-million-to-tehran-in-another-less-publicized-iran-deal/
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http://dailycaller.com/2016/08/22/iran-says-new-missiles-will-be-designed-specifically-to-kill-us-ships/
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http://dailycaller.com/2016/08/22/iran-says-new-missiles-will-be-designed-specifically-to-kill-us-ships/
Yeah, but do they have the cash to build them? Oh, well they do now....
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http://www.weeklystandard.com/the-white-house-is-hiding-the-missing-link-of-the-iran-ransom-payment/article/2003928
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Iran Arrests Person Linked to Negotiations on Nuclear Deal
By RICK GLADSTONEAUG. 28, 2016
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Iran said on Sunday that a person close to the government team that negotiated its nuclear agreement with foreign powers had been arrested on accusations of espionage and released on bail.
The disclosure, reported in the state news media, appeared to be the latest sign of the Iranian leadership’s frustration over the agreement, which has failed so far to yield the significant economic benefits for the country that its advocates had promised. Iranian officials have blamed the United States for that problem.
Despite the relaxations of many sanctions under the accord, which took effect in January, Iran faces enormous obstacles in attracting new investments and moving its own money through the global financial system.
The Iranians are still blocked from using American banks, an important transit point for international capital, because of non-nuclear-related sanctions imposed by the United States.
There were unconfirmed reports last week that the Iranian authorities had arrested Abdolrasoul Dorri Esfahani, who has dual Iranian and Canadian citizenship, on espionage suspicions.
Mr. Esfahani, an adviser to Iran’s central bank, helped the Iranian nuclear negotiators bargain for sanctions relief in exchange for Iran’s pledges of verifiably peaceful nuclear work.
The official Islamic Republic News Agency said a spokesman for Iran’s judiciary, Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei, speaking at a weekly news conference on Sunday in Tehran, had “confirmed the arrest of an individual from the negotiating team.”
But the spokesman also said that “his charge of spying has not been proved” and that the suspect had been released on bail pending an investigation.
The spokesman did not identify the suspect by name, which was considered unusual.
He also did not explain why bail had been granted for an espionage charge, regarded as one of the gravest offenses. Nonetheless, it seemed clear that he was referring to Mr. Esfahani.
Western analysts following the progression of the nuclear agreement said the arrest was worrisome.
Cliff Kupchan, the chairman of the Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy in Washington, said in an email that it was a clear sign that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, “is unhappy over the slow pace at which the deal has been implemented.”
There was no immediate comment on Mr. Esfahani’s fate from the government of Canada, which has been contending with the arrest of another dual citizen in Iran in recent weeks.
In July, the Iranian authorities arrested Homa Hoodfar, a Canadian-Iranian anthropologist who studies the role of women in Muslim societies. The reason for her incarceration has not been made clear.
The nuclear-related arrest was one of a number of hostile signals from Iran recently.
Three weeks ago, the authorities announced the execution of a nuclear scientist who had returned home from the United States, where, he claimed, he had been kidnapped by the C.I.A. The Iranians said the scientist had betrayed secrets to the enemy.
And last week, high-speed boats from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy harassed American warships patrolling international waters in the Persian Gulf region at least four times, United States officials said, calling the actions dangerous and illegal.
Ayatollah Khamenei, who supported the nuclear agreement, has increasingly denounced what he calls American duplicity in the negotiation and other matters.
In a speech on Sunday reported by the state news media, for example, he criticized the United States for opposing Iran’s purchase of a Russian-made missile-defense system.
“We face such an enemy that does not recognize any right of defense for our nation,” the state news media reported Ayatollah Khamenei saying in the speech to air force commanders. “In fact, it says you should remain defenseless so that when we wish, we can invade you.”
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second post
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/23/world/middleeast/iran-russia-syria.html?action=click&contentCollection=Middle%20East&module=RelatedCoverage®ion=EndOfArticle&pgtype=article
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Multiply this by 1.7 and this is what we sent to Iran in $100 bills. At the same time Iran sends back $100 counterfeit bills to circulate here:
http://thehustle.co/how-much-is-a-billion-dollars
How much will bRoCkS book deal be for?
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Oct. 21, 2016 7:23 p.m. ET
89 COMMENTS
Until recently, the United States had a firm policy of never paying ransom for hostages on the sensible view that it would encourage more kidnappings. Then came the Iran nuclear deal—and a lesson in the human costs of President Obama’s foreign policy.
We say this following Tuesday’s news that an Iranian court has sentenced Iranian-Americans Siamak Namazi and his 80-year-old father Baquer to 10 years in prison on trumped-up espionage charges. The younger Mr. Namazi, a businessman, was arrested last September, shortly after the nuclear deal was finalized. His father, a retired United Nations official, was arrested in February while visiting his son in prison.
At least one other Iranian-American, Reza Shahini of San Diego, was arrested earlier this year, and former FBI agent Robert Levinson, who vanished in Iran in 2007, has never been accounted for. Tehran has a long history of imprisoning Iranian-Americans on spurious charges, often for domestic political reasons. But the $1.7 billion cash payment they received in January on the same day they released the last batch of U.S. hostages has created an incentive for them to imprison more Americans to trade for some future concession.
The Obama Administration says the January payment was part of a legal settlement and in no way an act of ransom. The Iranians beg to differ, with defense officials telling Iranian media that the cash was a ransom payment.
“U.S. officials also acknowledge that Iranian negotiators on the prisoner exchange said they wanted the cash to show they had gained something tangible,” Journal reporters Jay Solomon and Carol Lee reported in August. You can be sure Tehran will again demand “something tangible” the next time the fate of their American hostages reaches a negotiating table.
It’s worth noting that, prior to his arrest, Siamak Namazi was a strong advocate of closer U.S. economic ties to Iran, a view shared by his friends at the National Iranian American Council, a pro-Tehran lobby based in Washington. Mr. Namazi had publicly criticized U.S. sanctions against Iran. But the mullahs put their need for U.S. hostages above gratitude for such political assistance. Revolutions tend to devour their foreign sympathizers.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YO19_z3374E
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YO19_z3374E
Our new best friends! Thanks Obama!
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Thanks to Brock, Iran's latest hero:
http://www.investopedia.com/news/shell-next-oil-co-return-iran-rdsa-tot/?partner=YahooSA&yptr=yahoo
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Trump’s Iran Notice
Tehran tests the new President with another ballistic missile launch.
0:00 / 0:00
Opinion Journal Video: Foundation for Defense of Democracies Senior Iran Analyst Behnam Ben Taleblu on Tehran’s latest provocation. Photo credit: AFP/Getty Images.
Jan. 31, 2017 7:30 p.m. ET
77 COMMENTS
One early test for the Trump Administration will be how it enforces the nuclear deal with Iran, and that question has become more urgent with Iran’s test last weekend of another ballistic missile.
The test of a medium-range, home-grown Khorramshahr missile is Tehran’s twelfth since it signed the nuclear deal with the U.S. and its diplomatic partners in 2015. John Kerry, then Secretary of State, insisted that the deal barred Iran from developing or testing ballistic missiles. But that turned out to be a self-deception at best, as the U.N. Security Council resolution merely “called upon” Iran not to conduct such missile tests, rather than barring them.
Iran has little reason to stop such tests because the penalties for doing them have been so light. The Obama Administration responded with weak sanctions on a few Iranian entities and individuals, even as it insisted that Iran is complying with the overall deal and deserves more sanctions relief. In December Boeing signed a $16 billion deal to sell 80 passenger planes to Iran, never mind that the regime uses its airliners to ferry troops and materiel to proxies in Syria.
President Trump has offered contradictory opinions about that sale, but he has been unequivocal in his opposition to what he calls the “disastrous” Iran deal. In a call Sunday with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman, the President pledged to enforce the Iran deal “rigorously,” and on Monday the Administration requested an emergency Security Council meeting to discuss the latest test.
That meeting probably won’t yield much, thanks to the usual Russian obstruction, but it will put a spotlight on the willingness of allies such as Britain to do more to uphold an agreement the enforcement mechanisms of which they were once eager to trumpet. Whatever happened to the “snapback economic sanctions” that were supposed to be the West’s insurance policy against Iran’s cheating?
The Administration could also warn Iran that the Treasury Department will bar global banks from conducting dollar transactions with their Iranian counterparts in the event of another test, and that it will rigorously enforce “know your customer” rules for foreign companies doing business with counterparts in the Islamic Republic, many of which are fronts for the Revolutionary Guards.
The U.S. needs to provide allies with military reassurance against the Iranian threat. Supplying Israel with additional funds to develop its sophisticated Arrow III anti-ballistic missile system would send the right message, as would an offer to Saudi Arabia to sell Lockheed Martin’s high-altitude Thaad ABM system. The State Department and Pentagon will have to explore diplomatic and military options in case the deal unravels.
What the Administration can’t afford is to allow the latest test to pass without a response. That would tell Iranians they can develop missiles and threaten neighbors with impunity. Mr. Trump is keen to show he will honor his campaign promises, and charting a tougher course against Iran is one of them.
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If true :-o :lol: :lol:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a25779/iran-complains-russia-sold-out-its-air-defenses-to-israel/
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http://www.thetower.org/4707-iran-sentences-american-citizen-wife-to-death-for-holding-mixed-parties-with-alcohol/
and one more:
http://www.dailywire.com/news/14966/iran-sentences-21-year-old-death-after-insulting-michael-qazvini?utm_source=WilandNewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=040117-news-title
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http://www.thetower.org/4707-iran-sentences-american-citizen-wife-to-death-for-holding-mixed-parties-with-alcohol/
and one more:
http://www.dailywire.com/news/14966/iran-sentences-21-year-old-death-after-insulting-michael-qazvini?utm_source=WilandNewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=040117-news-title
It appears Iran does not have "Coexist" bumperstickers.
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By Michael Oren
April 14, 2017 6:53 p.m. ET
66 COMMENTS
The U.S. has signed agreements with three rogue regimes strictly limiting their unconventional military capacities. Two of those regimes—Syria and North Korea—brazenly violated the agreements, provoking game-changing responses from President Trump. But the third agreement—with Iran—is so inherently flawed that Tehran doesn’t even have to break it. Honoring it will be enough to endanger millions of lives.
The framework agreements with North Korea and Syria, concluded respectively in 1994 and 2013, were similar in many ways. Both recognized that the regimes already possessed weapons of mass destruction or at least the means to produce them. Both assumed that the regimes would surrender their arsenals under an international treaty and open their facilities to inspectors. And both believed that these repressive states, if properly engaged, could be brought into the community of nations.
All those assumptions were wrong. After withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Pyongyang tested five atomic weapons and developed intercontinental missiles capable of carrying them. Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, less than a year after signing the framework, reverted to gassing his own people. Bolstered by the inaction of the U.S. and backed by other powers, North Korea and Syria broke their commitments with impunity.
Or so it seemed. By ordering a Tomahawk missile attack on a Syrian air base, and a U.S. Navy strike force to patrol near North Korea’s coast, the Trump administration has upheld the frameworks and placed their violators on notice. This reassertion of power is welcomed by all of America’s allies, Israel among them. But for us, the most dangerous agreement of all is the one that may never need military enforcement. For us, the existential threat looms in a decade, when the agreement with Iran expires.
Like the frameworks with North Korea and Syria, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action of 2015 assumed that Iran would fulfill its obligations and open its facilities to inspectors. The JCPOA assumed that Iran would moderate its behavior and join the international community. Yet unlike its North Korean and Syrian allies, Iran was the largest state sponsor of terror and openly vowed to destroy another state—Israel. Unlike them, Iran systematically lied about its unconventional weapons program for 30 years. And unlike Damascus and Pyongyang, which are permanently barred from acquiring weapons of mass destruction, Tehran can look forward to building them swiftly and legitimately in the late 2020s, once the JCPOA expires.
This, for Israel and our neighboring Sunni states, is the appalling flaw of the JCPOA. The regime most committed to our destruction has been granted a free pass to develop military nuclear capabilities. Iran could follow the Syrian and North Korean examples and cheat. Or, while enjoying hundreds of billions of dollars in sanctions relief, it can adhere to the agreement and deactivate parts of its nuclear facilities rather than dismantle them. It can develop new technologies for producing atomic bombs while testing intercontinental ballistic missiles. It can continue massacring Syrians, Iraqis and Yemenis, and bankrolling Hamas and Hezbollah. The JCPOA enables Iran to do all that merely by complying.
A nuclear-armed Iran would be as dangerous as “50 North Koreas,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the U.N. in 2013, and Iran is certainly many times more dangerous than Syria. Yet Iran alone has been granted immunity for butchering civilians and threatening genocide. Iran alone has been guaranteed a future nuclear capability. And the Iranian regime—which brutally crushed a popular uprising in 2009—has amassed a million-man force to suppress any future opposition. Rather than moderating, the current regime promises to be more radical yet in another 10 years.
How can the U.S. and its allies pre-empt catastrophe? Many steps are possible, but they begin with penalizing Iran for the conventions it already violates, such as U.N. restrictions on missile development. The remaining American sanctions on Iran must stay staunchly in place and Congress must pass further punitive legislation. Above all, a strong link must be established between the JCPOA and Iran’s support for terror, its pledges to annihilate Israel and overthrow pro-American Arab governments, and its complicity in massacres. As long as the ayatollahs oppress their own population and export their tyranny abroad, no restrictions on their nuclear program can ever be allowed to expire.
In responding forcibly to North Korean and Syrian outrages, President Trump has made a major step toward restoring America’s deterrence power. His determination to redress the flaws in the JCPOA and to stand up to Iran will greatly accelerate that process. The U.S., Israel and the world will all be safer.
Mr. Oren is Israel’s deputy minister for diplomacy and a Knesset member for the Kulanu Party.
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The safest, most effective way to scuttle the plans of today's would be destroyers of the Jews -- the evil nuclear bomb builders and terror supporters in Iran -- is to support their domestic opposition.
I have received multiple reports over the past 24 hours that there are anti-regime demonstrations taking place in every major city in Iran.
Look at the young student in the clip below and you see what the face of courage looks like. The men standing next to him, pacing angrily back and forth as he speaks are a less than subtle indication that this student has already been carted off, jailed and tortured for his heroic remarks.
Millions of Iranians oppose the regime and have openly demonstrated against it in recent years. They have repeatedly, desperately turned to the West -- even to Israel -- for help in their bid to overturn the regime that will, if left in place, bring about a global cataclysm the likes of which humanity has never seen.
Under Obama, the US sided with the regime. Israel saw its anti-regime efforts leaked to the New York Times by Obama officials.
Now is the time for the US to work with Israel to right Obama's wrongs. Now is the time to stand with the Iranians who willingly risk -- and often sacrifice -- their lives to bring down their evil regime.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esvAwA75IJ0
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http://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/24/obama-iran-nuclear-deal-prisoner-release-236966
Obama’s hidden Iran deal giveaway
www.politico.com
By dropping charges against major arms targets, the administration infuriated Justice Department officials — and undermined its own counterproliferation task forces.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4440812/Obama-dropped-charges-against-arms-smugglers-Iran-deal.html
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http://freebeacon.com/national-security/intel-report-iran-refining-nuke-delivery-system-flagrant-violation-ban/
ps: that means surprise in Persian.
what say you BROCK/KERRY?
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http://freebeacon.com/national-security/intel-report-iran-refining-nuke-delivery-system-flagrant-violation-ban/
ps: that means surprise in Persian.
what say you BROCK/KERRY?
Exactly as planned.
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http://www.businessinsider.com/iran-laser-spotlight-us-navy-bataan-2017-6?utm_content=bufferb0266&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer-bi
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Looks like we have another lurker on the forum :-D
http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/238409/north-korea-and-iran-weapons-of-mass-destruction?utm_source=tabletmagazinelist&utm_campaign=02ea17d165-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_06_27&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c308bf8edb-02ea17d165-207194629
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http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/239003/parsi-niac-advance-irans-agenda?utm_source=tabletmagazinelist&utm_campaign=a629f36eb7-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_06_29&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c308bf8edb-a629f36eb7-207194629
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http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/239468/jay-solomon-farhad-azima-iran?utm_source=tabletmagazinelist&utm_campaign=47088d0fdf-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_06_30&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c308bf8edb-47088d0fdf-207194629
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A U.S. Navy patrol boat in the northern Persian Gulf fired warning shots at an armed Iranian ship July 24, according to two U.S. officials. The Iranian craft was likely operated by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which released a statement saying that a U.S. boat approached an Iranian patrol craft this morning.
According to the U.S. statement, the Iranian boat approached the USS Thunderbolt, coming within 137 meters (150 yards). The Iranians ignored several warnings from the American boat, including via radio. The Thunderbolt then fired several warning shots into the water, after which the Iranian boat backed away, though it remained in the area for several hours. The USS Thunderbolt is a 55-meter (179-foot) Cyclone-class patrol ship armed with two 25mm Mk-38 machine guns, two .50 caliber machine guns and two automatic grenade launchers.
Naval incidents with Iran are not entirely unusual, though ones involving shots fired are. There have been several incidents between the United States and Iran in recent months, including one in June that involved an Iranian boat training a laser on a U.S. helicopter above the Strait of Hormuz.
Tension is increasing not only between the United States and Iran, but also between Iran and U.S.-aligned countries in the Gulf, namely Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which have been involved in three incidents with Iran since April.
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Stratfor Worldview
worldviewer35811493132323
Written by Stratfor’s senior analysts, columns put our weekly reports into the proper context.
snapshots
Jul 27, 2017 | 18:11 GMT
Iran: Looking for the Nuclear Deal's Half-Life
The United States is looking for a way to use the nuclear deal to increase access to Iran's military sites.
(Stratfor)
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For the United States, the art of the deal on Iran's nuclear program seems to be in putting more pressure on the Middle Eastern country. The White House is pushing for further inspections of suspicious Iranian military sites in an effort to find ways in which Tehran may not be complying with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on its nuclear program. Specifically, the United States will try to persuade Iran to permit inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) into military sites that U.S. intelligence suggests may be used for research and development that violates the stipulations of the agreement.
Under the JCPOA, the IAEA is allowed routine access to facilities related to Iran's nuclear program. But if the organization has reason to believe the country is conducting nuclear-related activities at another location — including military sites — it can request information and access to inspect those sites. If Iran denies those requests, it has 14 days to resolve the dispute with the IAEA. Afterward, the issue can be brought to the JCPOA's dispute resolution mechanism, the Joint Commission, which has seven days to issue a ruling. The Joint Commission comprises eight parties: China, the European Union, France, Germany, Iran, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. Decisions by the Joint Commission must then be approved by a simple majority of its members. This means the United States could force Iran to open up sites to inspection with the support of its European allies alone. Should it do so, Iran would have three days to comply with the Joint Commission's ruling before sanctions against it are automatically put back into place.
The United States had already floated the idea of requesting access to Iranian military sites to its European partners during a regular meeting of the Joint Commission on July 21. But it encountered opposition from countries that said they needed ironclad proof of Iran's activities before giving their consent. The United States' probable goal is to ask for access to an array of facilities and try to convince Europe to support its request. And should Iran deny access to even one of the sites, the United States could then claim Tehran is not holding up its end of the bargain.
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Iran officially opened its new Imam Khomeini National Space Center with a bang, according to state media reports on July 27, by successfully launching its two-stage Simorgh rocket into space. Though Iranian state television showed footage of the rocket's liftoff, neither it nor other Iranian media offered details of the mission profile or of the Simorgh's payload. Iran previously has put several small satellites into orbit using a different rocket, but the Simorgh is designed to carry a satellite weighing up to 250 kilograms (550 pounds) into an orbit 500 kilometers (310 miles) high. Whether the launch was a suborbital test of one or both of the Simorgh's stages, and what payload, if any, the rocket might have been carrying, awaits confirmation.
The launch had been in the works since at least late January, when Iran scrubbed a launch of the Simorgh for an unspecified reason. The July 27 launch is the second time that the Simorgh has flown and will add to tensions between the United States and Iran. The United States has long been concerned about the Simorgh and Iran's space program, which has ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Though its official purpose is to launch satellites, the space program allows the Iranians to gain experience in dual technologies that could be used to develop long-range ballistic missiles, and the Simorgh potentially could lead toward the production of an Iranian intercontinental ballistic missile.
Iran tested a medium-range ballistic missile in late January, less than two weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump's inauguration. The Trump administration imposed new sanctions on Iran in response. The U.S. pressure and criticism may have prompted Iran to cancel the Simorgh's January launch amid suggestions that the Iranians were trying to reduce tensions around their missile program during Trump's first months in office and in the months leading up to Iran's presidential election in May. While Trump has been sharply critical of Iran's missile tests, his administration nonetheless certified to the U.S. Congress this month that Iran is complying with the 2015 nuclear deal, the provisions of which do not prohibit Iran's missile tests outright.
Clearly, the Trump administration would like to put additional pressure on Iran. With the latest launch of the Simorgh, Iran might be showing a greater willingness to test the Trump administration's resolve now that the Iranian presidential elections are over and the IRGC continues to clamor for Iran to display its strength to the West.
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y The Editorial Board
July 27, 2017 7:06 p.m. ET
27 COMMENTS
One almost has to admire Iran’s chutzpah. On Wednesday after the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill, 419-3, which would impose sanctions on Iran’s ballistic-missile program, its foreign ministry called the legislation “illegal and insulting.” On Thursday Iran made a scheduled launch of a huge missile, which it says will put 550-pound satellites into orbit.
The only people who should feel surprised or insulted by this are Barack Obama and John Kerry, who midwifed the 2015 nuclear-weapons agreement with the untrustworthy Iranians. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert rightly called the missile launch a violation of the spirit of that agreement.
That is as far as she can take it because Iran’s ballistic-missile program wasn’t formally in the nuclear agreement, despite Mr. Kerry’s statements of concern during negotiations. In the end he wanted a deal more than limits on those missiles. We assume Iran’s missile engineers are at least as competent as those in North Korea, which is approaching the ability to deploy intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Advocates of the nuclear deal persist in arguing that Iran is in compliance with its provisions. It takes considerable credulousness to believe that over the course of this agreement the Iranian military won’t adapt technical knowledge gained about launch and guidance from projects like its “satellite missile” program. With or without compliance, Iran is making progress as a strategic threat.
Appeared in the July 28, 2017, print edition.
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What will the world look like when NK has ICBMs and Iran nuts and ICBMs?
https://www.conservativereview.com/articles/trumps-white-house-iran-deal-team-has-collapsed-what-now
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What will the world look like when NK has ICBMs and Iran nuts and ICBMs?
https://www.conservativereview.com/articles/trumps-white-house-iran-deal-team-has-collapsed-what-now
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX9hL93HPMI
No worries. I've been told Iran is a rational actor!
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I do not see it as Trump breaking his word but rather a matter of Tillerson being right-- withdrawing is not really an option.
Given the perhaps purposeful stupidity of Obama-Kerry in how they structured the deal, as best as I can tell we have zero leverage and zero benefit from exiting the deal. THE IRANIANS ALREADY HAVE THE MONEY AND ALREADY HAVE VARIOUS ACTORS (German, French, Russians, Chinese, et al) DOING FULL SCALE BUSINESS ONCE AGAIN.
Were we to exit, the Iranians go nuke right now.
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My point is that short of military action we are not going to stop NK or Iran from their military goals.
Trump's promise is an afterthought.
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http://www.nationalreview.com/article/450890/iran-nuclear-deal-exit-strategy-john-bolton-memo-trump
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http://www.nationalreview.com/article/450890/iran-nuclear-deal-exit-strategy-john-bolton-memo-trump
Sad that John Bolton says he has lost access to President Trump. He perhaps should have been the Sec of State or at least a well informed, contrary voice.
More detail on Iran nuclear deal here:
http://isis-online.org/isis-reports/detail/verifying-section-t-of-the-iran-nuclear-deal
Verifying Section T of the Iran Nuclear Deal: Iranian Military Site Access Essential to JCPOA Section T Verification
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Yesterday's statements by U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis aligns with Stratfor's Fourth-Quarter Forecast that the United States will work to increase pressure on Iran without alienating U.S. allies by completely pulling out of the nuclear deal. The future of the agreement will particularly uncertain until Oct. 15, the deadline for the U.S. State Department to recertify the deal based on the president's recommendations.
At a Senate hearing Oct. 3, U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis addressed questions about his views on the future of the Iranian nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to abandon. Though Mattis has no formal say in the final decision on JCPOA, his statements revealed how the Trump administration might work to increase pressure on Iran while remaining party to the JCPOA.
Upset by Iran's role in Middle Eastern conflicts and concerned that Iran hasn't conceded enough under the nuclear deal, many U.S. officials are arguing for putting more pressure on Iran. The way that pressure is applied, however, is under debate. Some say that the nuclear deal undermines U.S. strategic objectives on Iran because under it the United States has agreed to freeze its harshest economic sanctions on Iran. Those sanctions could be reinstated if the U.S. State Department, on the advice of the president, refuses to recertify the JCPOA on the Oct. 15 deadline, giving Congress a 60-day window to reintroduce sanctions. But there is the fear that failing to recertify the JCPOA — or leaving it altogether — would alienate U.S. allies who support the deal and could lead Iran to restart its nuclear program without international oversight.
During his speech, Mattis worked to clarify that if the United States were to miss the deadline to recertify the agreement, it would not be akin to pulling out of the agreement completely. The international framework of the deal would still be intact, he said. The United States could refuse to recertify the deal for two reasons: because it finds Iran noncompliant with the deal or it finds the deal opposed to U.S. national security interests. Because most evidence, including the findings of the International Atomic Energy Agency, suggests that Tehran has upheld its end of the bargain, it would be nearly impossible for the White House to justify withholding certification because of non-compliance. But it very well could refuse to certify the deal because of national security reasons. Any reinstated sanctions would add to existing sanctions on Iran not covered under the deal. In essence, if the Trump administration refuses to recertify the agreement on national security grounds, the issue would be punted to Congress, which could choose to impose additional sanctions on Iran.
Whatever the Trump administration decides, the United States will continue to pressure Iran through sanctions not related to the JCPOA and by responding harshly to any Iranian military provocation in the Middle East.
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speaking of Iran nuclear deal
Iran could be up for Nobel peace prize
I certainly think they along with the giant John Kerry deserve it - don't you?:
https://www.conservativereview.com/articles/why-the-nobel-peace-prize-has-become-a-complete-joke
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did not go to Iran or kerry
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/2017-nobel-peace-prize-ican_us_59d71ec1e4b072637c4327ba?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009
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Deep ideological differences and mutual mistrust have marred the relationship between the United States and Iran since the Islamic Republic replaced the nation's monarchy nearly four decades ago. But time has done little to heal the wounds that each country has inflicted on the other. Their enduring enmity will be on full display this week as U.S. President Donald Trump prepares to "decertify" the deal Iran has struck with global powers on its nuclear program by arguing that the agreement isn't in the best interest of U.S. national security. Though Washington will likely keep sanctions relief for Tehran in place for now, Trump's speech will trigger a 60-day review period during which Congress will have the power to reimpose them.
Despite this apparent setback for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the prospect that the longtime adversaries will eventually set aside their grievances hasn't entirely dimmed. Because while political narratives come and go, the geopolitical forces that led to the nuclear deal's inception are here to stay, pushing the United States and Iran closer and closer to rapprochement.
The President's Gamble
The current U.S. administration has placed far more emphasis on curbing Iran's activities throughout the Middle East than its predecessor did. Within the past year, the White House has tried to unite Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia, into a coalition against Iran while stepping up its military aid and weapons sales to Sunni powers across the region. In all likelihood, Trump will steadfastly maintain this tough stance when he unveils his administration's policy on Iran later this week, announcing additional targeted sanctions against it. As long as the nuclear deal remains intact, though, the use of Washington's strongest tool against Tehran — wide-reaching sanctions — will be off the table.
By reopening the debate about the JCPOA with the threat of withdrawal, Trump hopes to either rein in Iran's regional meddling or persuade Tehran to broaden the deal to include restrictions on its ballistic missile program and on its support for militant groups, such as Hezbollah and Hamas. The president's strategy, however, is not without risk. Any cracks that open within the JCPOA's framework could spread quickly, perhaps even leading to the deal's collapse. Trump's approach also relies on the assumption that Iran — a country with a precarious political balance to maintain within its borders — won't respond aggressively to provocation.
Still, the president's gamble may not be as risky as it seems. We need only look at the forces that shaped the JCPOA's signing in the first place to see why. Over the past decade, the United States has searched for a way to reduce its presence in the Middle East and shift its attention to other parts of the world, including a resurgent Russia and a rising China. The solution it has settled on is to balance Middle Eastern powers — including Iran — against one another, forming a built-in check to prevent any one country from becoming too influential. But Iran's pursuit of a nuclear weapons program was something that neither the United States nor its European allies could allow. The JCPOA thus offered a means of halting the program's progress without risking the outbreak of war.
The United States' pressing need to look beyond the Middle East persists to this day. In fact, if anything, it has become even more imperative: China's economy and military prowess are growing, the standoff between Russia and the West endures, and the nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula has deepened. Reviving the nuclear ambitions of — and the threat of conflict with — Iran by abandoning the JCPOA would doubtless detract from the United States' ability to address these urgent needs in Eurasia and the Asia-Pacific. It would also harden North Korea's belief (not to mention Iran's) that negotiation with the United States on nuclear issues is futile.
To make matters more complicated, Washington is alone in its newest strategy to contain Iran's influence. Unlike the United States, Europe considers Iran's regional ambitions to be separate from its nuclear activities, and the JCPOA to be pertinent only to the latter. The White House has blurred that distinction in a way the deal wasn't designed to handle. This discrepancy is the reason that the rationale behind Washington's decertification of the accord is key: The United States and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) agree that there is no evidence to suggest that Iran is not complying with the deal. And as long as Iran upholds its end of the bargain, the European Union will likely push back against any U.S. attempt to reinstate broad sanctions, which would damage several European companies. (The Continental bloc has already vowed to challenge the United States in the World Trade Organization if it tries to do so.)
All of these factors will make it difficult for Congress to put sanctions back in place against Iran. But perhaps that's exactly what the Trump administration is counting on. After all, the president derided the nuclear deal during his campaign for office. By punting the issue to Congress, where lawmakers will have a hard time resuming sanctions, Trump can wash his hands of the decision and gain the political cover needed to keep the agreement in place while adopting a tougher stance toward Iran.
Weighing the Cost of a Nuclear Weapon
Of course, the United States is only half of the JCPOA equation. And though Iran is often portrayed throughout the West as an erratic and unreliable partner, the country — like all nation-states in the global system — is a rational actor whose moves reflect its constraints and imperatives.
Chief among them, for the Islamic republic, is the simple need to survive. Throughout history, Iran has faced the threat of invasion from the west, first from powerful forces in Mesopotamia and then from the state of Iraq, particularly under the rule of Saddam Hussein. Seizing the chance that revolution afforded, Saddam invaded the Islamic republic not long after its establishment in 1979, prompting former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini to restart the deposed shah's nuclear weapons program in search of a credible deterrent against Iraq. Vital oil reserves along Iran's border with Iraq has only heightened its vulnerability in modern times.
With Saddam's removal from power, Iraq presented more opportunity than risk to Iran, and Tehran began to exert influence over its neighbor's Shiite leaders. But Iraq's fate also served as a stark warning: The weapons of mass destruction that were once an asset for Saddam became the liability that led to his downfall. The message was not lost on Iran, which halted most of its nuclear weapons development in 2003, even as it used the facade of the program's progress to drive a grand bargain with the United States.
This strategy, though quite rational, backfired by encouraging the creation of a powerful sanctions regime that crippled the Iranian economy. Prior to 1979, Iran's economy was roughly the size of Saudi Arabia's; today it is only three-fifths as large. As a result, the Islamic republic has struggled to make good on many of the promises that brought it to power. And in a country with a lengthy history of revolution and political upheaval, the popular backlash that sustained hardship tends to generate doesn't bode well for the government’s self-preservation.
Iran's leaders, who lack the immunity to widespread discontent that North Korea's dictatorship enjoys, believe that the greatest threat to the nation's stability today comes from within. Countering it requires a stronger economy and the careful management of social and political discord — both goals that have reinforced the growing sentiment among Iranians that the pursuit of a nuclear weapons program isn't worth the steep cost of sanctions. Consequently, Iran is keen to avoid making any rash decisions about its nuclear weapons development. Rather than uniting the United States and its allies by restarting its shuttered program, Tehran will likely keep using the issue to drive the wedge between them even deeper.
A Piece of a Bigger Puzzle
Iran will enter into any new negotiations over its nuclear program with an eye toward the rest of the international community as well. Iran has little incentive to remain a pariah state, given the extent to which that status has already devastated its economy, and a movement toward diplomatic moderation has blossomed among the country's leaders since the late 1980s. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is now the standard-bearer for that movement, though the volatile nature of the nation's politics has hampered his attempts to act on that ideology so far.
Nevertheless, he and his contemporaries have the heft of geopolitics on their side. Though Iran's rhetoric has traditionally targeted the United States, it is Turkey and Russia that may be more likely to threaten Tehran's security interests, especially as Washington withdraws from the region. Iran is deeply concerned about Turkey's resurgence in the lands it previously controlled during the Ottoman Empire, including Iraq and the Levant. And Russia — a country with which Iran has fought numerous wars — has similarly increased its involvement in Tehran's backyard over the past decade. Detente with an external powerhouse like the United States would certainly improve Iran's position against both threats.
Saudi Arabia is another regional rival that Iran is sure to watch, particularly given the Sunni kingdom's close relationship with the United States. Despite that partnership, however, Washington's strategy of balancing power in the Middle East requires just that: balance. Saudi Arabia's influence could therefore wane in the coming decades, especially since its prominence is based in oil reserves and the wealth that comes with them. As the Saudi oil industry becomes less lucrative over time, it will call into question the kingdom's economic vitality — and by extension, its utility as the United States' most powerful Middle Eastern ally.
Of course, Iran's economy relies on oil, too. But it is far more diversified, which suggests that it will fare better in a world where oil no longer reigns supreme. Moreover, Iran has the advantage of strategic location. As China works to build land routes through Asia to Europe, it will have to choose whether to pass through Iran or Russia — a decision that Beijing's natural rivalry with Moscow will make easy. With a quick glance at the map, it is clear how Iran's position on China's newest Silk Road would give Washington plenty of opportunities to counter both China and Russia if Tehran were its partner.
A Partnership Checked by Politics
The slow-moving undercurrents of geopolitics can take years to shape domestic policy. In the meantime, Iran and the United States will continue to display their mutual animosity at home. Iran's powerful hard-line groups, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, have staunchly opposed negotiation with the United States. Trump's recent actions have only reinforced their belief that Washington cannot be trusted, and if Rouhani's administration offers to discuss scaling back its conventional weapons program, as some have suggested it might, their objections will only grow louder. Until Iran takes true strides toward a more moderate foreign policy, its conservative groups will continue to disrupt any agreement with the United States that stretches beyond its nuclear program.
Back in the United States, Iran's support for Middle Eastern militant groups and threats to the Persian Gulf have slowed Washington's attempts to pull back from the region. The reputation Iran has gained among the American public hasn't made things any easier: Many of Iran's current leaders were visible figures during the Islamic Revolution, the subsequent hostage incident at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and the talks regarding Iran's nuclear program, all events that painted a picture of an untrustworthy nation. That paint will only start to chip away when the next generation of political leaders rises to power in both countries.
For now, Iran and the United States have reached a crossroads in their relationship. Many of their long-term imperatives have begun to align. But it remains to be seen how quickly they will override the more immediate national and regional problems that each state now faces. And should the nuclear deal collapse, it could push back the lasting relationship that Iran and the United States have begun to build by another decade.
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http://thehill.com/policy/defense/355048-trump-to-force-gop-reckoning-on-iran
The Fixers vs. the Walkers: Good discussion
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/452555/iran-nuclear-deal-trumps-two-options?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR%20Daily%20Monday%20through%20Friday%202017-10-11&utm_term=NR5PM%20Actives
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second post
How to Defeat the Islamic Republic
Iran’s regime resembles the Soviet Union in its dying days. Trump can follow Reagan’s example.
By Reuel Marc Gerecht and
Ray Takeyh
Oct. 11, 2017 5:54 p.m. ET
128 COMMENTS
Iran’s modern history is replete with examples of the citizenry seeking to reclaim power from despots. The Pahlavi dynasty, which ruled between 1925 and 1979, regularly faced popular rebellions, including the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Once the country’s current clerical rulers made clear their disdain for democracy, they too were beset by protest movements. The Islamic Republic’s Western enablers present it as strong and steady, but the theocracy now resembles the Soviet Union in its dying days.
Once in power, Iran’s Islamists faced open rebellion from the revolutionary factions that objected to their republic of virtue. This was a battle waged in the streets as well as in Parliament and the press. The mullahs proved more ruthless than their liberal and Marxist detractors.
The Iran-Iraq war tranquilized Iran’s domestic politics in the 1980s, as national energies were focused on a savage foreign invader. In the 1990s the power struggle resumed. The reform movement, led by disgruntled members of the intellectual and clerical elite, challenged the regime’s orthodoxies and even called for making the office of the supreme leader accountable to the electorate. The reformist interlude ended with the student rebellion of 1999, when government enforcers bloodied the universities.
Then came the Green Movement in June 2009. A rigged election to restore Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the presidency brought millions to the streets. In a matter of days, the slogans went from “Where is my vote?” to “Down with dictatorship!” Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei initially seemed flat-footed, the clerical elite unsure if it could trust the security services.
Eventually the theocracy restored order, but it had already lost whatever tattered legitimacy it had left. The regime shed the facade of republicanism, purged itself of unreliable elements, imprisoned its most popular politicians, and abandoned even the pretense of harmonizing faith and freedom. The notion of political reform was dead and all talk of human rights was only that—talk. The Islamic Republic proved it could not reform itself.
Green Movement protesters in Tehran, June 9, 2009.
Green Movement protesters in Tehran, June 9, 2009. Photo: Atta Kenare/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Meantime, government reports, the controlled press and even senior Revolutionary Guard commanders reluctantly confess the truth: Islam is growing weaker within Iran. Mosques, thinning out for 30 years, are now mostly empty even on religious holidays. Seminaries have few recruits, and the government of God has trouble supplying mosques with prayer leaders. Secularism is on the rise, particularly among the youth, among whom religious observance has declined precipitously. The regime conducts its ritualistic elections, and apparatchiks like Hassan Rouhani lead a bloated state drowning in corruption. The specter of the Green Movement haunts tightly controlled elections, as chants for the overthrow of the regime often erupt.
The ideologically exhausted theocracy tries to revitalize itself by imperialism and patronage, much as the Soviet Union did in the 1970s. Mr. Khamenei stands today as modern Persia’s most successful imperialist, as he has planted Iran’s flag from the Gulf to the Mediterranean. But imperialism carries costs, as the Shiite militias Iran arms and local allies it subsidizes burden its treasury.
The regime depicts its adventures as quests to save Arab Shiites from Sunni domination and Western machination. Foreign wars have become an advanced guard of the revolution, according to the late Revolutionary Guard general Hossein Hamedani, who squelched the Green Movement in Tehran and then organized the Shiite militias fighting in Syria. “To protect the accomplishments of the Islamic revolution,” Hamedani proudly asserted, “we had to intervene” in Syria and Iraq.
At home, the clerical regime established an array of welfare agencies to dispense benefits to its lower-class constituents. This was not just about fulfilling a religious obligation. The regime sought to tether the working poor to the new order. Large foundations expropriated the wealth of the Pahlavis and tens of thousands of affluent Iranians to provide the poor with housing and health care. But temptations of power proved too much as the mullahs and their praetorian guard indulged their taste for luxury. Corruption overtook charity. Class cleavages today are sharper than under the shah. But this vast revolutionary patronage offers the regime a lifeline from its economic incompetence and tyranny. It is this lifeline that aggressive sanctions must choke off.
There are no inevitabilities in history. Nobody knew when the Soviet Union’s contradictions would overwhelm the system, and there is no time stamp on the Islamic Republic’s demise. Jimmy Carter and the vast majority of the Democratic Party wanted to coexist with the Soviet Union. But Ronald Reagan helped crack the Soviet Communist Party by waging economic warfare, empowering dissidents, and shrinking its imperial frontiers.
President Trump should follow Reagan’s example, not Mr. Carter’s. The U.S. should once more establish contact with and financially assist dissident organizations in Iran. There is no substitute for presidential declaration, and Mr. Trump should embrace Reagan’s model of speaking directly to the Iranian people while castigating their illegitimate regime. Washington should again impose crippling sanctions to deny the mullahs their patronage networks, the key to their power. A formula that led to the collapse of the mighty Soviet empire can surely down Mr. Khamenei’s and the Revolutionary Guard’s kleptocracy.
Mr. Gerecht is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracy. Mr. Takeyh is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
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To punt everything back to Congress?
Didn't he just do this with immigration ? Daca?
http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/iran-decertification-trump-friday/2017/10/12/id/819390/
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DACA was quite properly punted back to Congress! After all, Obama's EO was unconstitutional!
As for the Iran decertification, there too it strikes me as a solid course of action:
The deal should have been a treaty, yes? So how can it be wrong for the little congressional participation that survived per the deal be brought into play? Seems sound to me to force Congress to take a stand as he goes into this.
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like asking liberals the question:
"what is it about the word ILLEGAL you do not understand?" when talking of immigration.
Newt asks:
" What is it about 'DEATH TO AMERICA' you do not understand?"
http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/Gingrich-Iran-Nukes-Trump/2017/10/13/id/819585/
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In Stratfor's 2017 Fourth-Quarter Forecast, we said that the current U.S. administration would make its distaste for Iranian military and political activities known, as well as attempt to counter Iran through sanctions. In U.S. President Donald Trump's most recent speech, he outlined his plans to achieve precisely that.
U.S. President Donald Trump stood behind his campaign trail promises when announcing his plans for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), better known as the Iran nuclear deal. On Oct. 13, Trump announced that he would not recertify the deal to Congress when it comes up for review in two days. Rather, he announced that he would push Congress to amend current legislation on the deal and outlined a new U.S. policy to contain Iran's regional ambitions.
The United States' new plan is focused on four key objectives: to curtail Iran's ballistic missile program, to counter Iranian activities in the Middle East, to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, and to limit Iran's ability to finance its regional actions through sanctions. Additionally, Trump said the United States would further sanction the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its affiliates by listing it as a terrorist organization.
Trump declined to immediately snap back sanctions frozen under the JCPOA, but announced plans to work with Congress and U.S. allies to pressure Iran and amend the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA). Among other changes, the Trump administration wants to amend the INARA so that sanctions on Iran snap back automatically, without a vote from Congress, if the country's nuclear program is found to be in violation of the deal. The administration would also like to include automatic responses for certain Iranian activity, such as ballistic missile testing. Unless Trump can convince Congress to amend the legislation, he says he will terminate the JCPOA. Although the United States can't decide unilaterally to terminate the JCPOA, a U.S. exodus would likely be the beginning of the deal's end.
The biggest risk ahead lies in the details of the amendments. Trump wants the United States to respond with sanctions if Iran takes certain actions, but the question is whether those actions will include activities Iran did not agree to refrain from under the JCPOA. It is also unclear whether Trump's proposed sanctions are different, or different enough, to those the United States promised to lift under the JCPOA. Unless the United States is careful, it could put sanctions in place that put the country in breach of the nuclear deal and push Iran to spitefully restart its nuclear weapons program.
Congress has already carefully constructed one bill of sanctions on Iran that ensured the United States did not violate its international commitments under the JCPOA. In the drafting of further sanctions, Congress could construct the language carefully enough to maintain order and secure enough senate votes to pass it, even if that bill is not in line with Trump's speech. To modify the INARA, the Senate will need to burst through a filibuster. But that means getting at least eight Democrats on boards, which is a tall order.
The Trump administration has a tough hill to climb in not only getting Congress on board, but in convincing its allies as well. Shortly after Trump's announcement, France, Germany and the United Kingdom — the three European countries that signed the JCPOA along with the European Union — issued a joint statement saying that preserving the deal was in their shared national interests.
Trump did not announce a deadline for enacting his plans. Because of this, he can use threats to terminate the deal to push Congress and U.S. allies into closer alignment with his goals. Over the next year, the JCPOA will become increasingly fragile.
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What is our strategy if Iran and/or we walk?
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http://ace.mu.nu/archives/371993.php
October 13, 2017
Maybe Obedience Training Does Work On Congressmen
obey111.jpg
Paul Ryan backs Trump's move against 'fatally flawed' Iran deal
Ryan said Congress will work with the Trump administration "to counter Iran's range of destabilizing activities."
Trump said Friday he wants Congress to work on legislation that would impose much tougher and permanent sanctions against Iran, and warned that without putting more pressure on Iran, the U.S. would walk away from the Iran nuclear deal.
Nice of Ryan to work with the head of his party.
And obviously the subtext of President Trump's comments is that he will do his damnedest regardless of what congress wants.
The assessment of North Korea's nuclear capability changed radically from, "nah, they ain't got shit," to, "Oh fvck, we are screwed if they want to play rough."
Does anyone with half a brain seriously entertain the notion that Iran is not going full steam ahead into the operational nuclear weapons stage of their effort? And that they will be successful?
If we don't act sooner rather than later we will be faced with a nuclear-capable Iran...a country that has as its official religion's central tenet a desire for the end of the world.
At this point the only adult in Washington is the President; the only man who is taking Iran seriously.
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John Bolton too.
BTW President Trump spoke to JB the day before his speech.
All of which sounds cool and all, but exactly what do we do when the Iranians say FY, and go for building the bomb, or worse yet uncork one in a test?
How's that working for us with the Norks?
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John Bolton too.
BTW President Trump spoke to JB the day before his speech.
All of which sounds cool and all, but exactly what do we do when the Iranians say FY, and go for building the bomb, or worse yet uncork one in a test?
How's that working for us with the Norks?
1. Destroy North Korea as a lesson to others.
2. Repeat with Iran, if lesson unlearned.
Sorry. Being nice and using diplomacy got us to this point.
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Years ago Stratfor wrote of the Iranians being a very serious military problem , , , and that was then.
Similarly the Norks.
Short of pre-emptive military nuke strike, I'm not seeing a path here , , , and apart from the moral issues, getting the military to launch a nuclear war of choice, etc. there is also the matter of what lessons would be drawn by China, Russia, et al.
, , , https://conservativetribune.com/nuclear-mission-coast-nk/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=AE&utm_campaign=can&utm_content=2017-10-13
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second post
Trump’s Iran Strategy
A nuclear fudge in the service of a larger containment policy.
President Donald J. Trump departs the Diplomatic Room of the White House, Oct. 13.
President Donald J. Trump departs the Diplomatic Room of the White House, Oct. 13. Photo: JIM LO scalzo/epa-efe/rex/shutterstock/EPA/Shutterstock
By The Editorial Board
Oct. 13, 2017 6:48 p.m. ET
Donald Trump announced Friday that he won’t “certify” his predecessor’s nuclear deal with Iran, but he won’t walk away from it either. This is something of a political fudge to satisfy a campaign promise, but it is also part of a larger and welcome strategic shift from Barack Obama’s illusions about arms control and the Islamic Republic.
Mr. Trump chose not to withdraw from the nuclear deal despite his ferocious criticism during the campaign and again on Friday. The deal itself is a piece of paper that Mr. Obama signed at the United Nations but never submitted to Congress as a treaty. The certification is an obligation of American law, the Iran Nuclear Review Act of 2015, that requires a President to report every 90 days whether Iran is complying with the deal. Mr. Trump said Iran isn’t “living up to the spirit of the deal” and he listed “multiple violations.”
The President can thus say he’s honoring his campaign opposition to the pact, without taking responsibility for blowing it up. This partial punt is a bow to the Europeans and some of his own advisers who fear the consequences if the U.S. withdraws. The worry is that Iran could use that as an excuse to walk away itself, and sprint to build a bomb, while the U.S. would be unable to reimpose the global sanctions that drove Iran to negotiate.
This is unlikely because the deal is so advantageous for Iran. The ruling mullahs need the foreign investment the deal allows, and there are enough holes to let Iran do research and break out once the deal begins phasing out in 2025. Iran will huff and puff about Mr. Trump’s decertification, but it wants the deal intact.
Yet we can understand why Mr. Trump wants to avoid an immediate break with European leaders who like the deal. This gives the U.S. time to persuade Europe of ways to strengthen the accord. French President Emmanuel Macron has talked publicly about dealing with Iran’s ballistic missile threat, and a joint statement by British, German and French leaders Friday left room to address Iranian aggression.
Meanwhile, Mr. Trump is asking Congress to rewrite the Nuclear Review Act to set new “red lines” on Iranian behavior. The Administration has been working for months with GOP Senators Bob Corker (Tenn.) and Tom Cotton (Ark.) on legislation they’ll unveil as early as next week. This will include markers such as limits on ballistic missiles and centrifuges and ending the deal’s sunset provisions. If Iran crosses those lines, the pre-deal sanctions would snap back on.
There’s no guarantee this can get 60 Senate votes. But making Iran’s behavior the trigger for snap-back sanctions is what Mr. Obama also said he favored while he was selling the deal in 2015. The difference is that once he signed the deal his Administration had no incentive to enforce it lest he concede a mistake. The Senate legislation would make snap-back sanctions a more realistic discipline. Senators may also want to act to deter Mr. Trump from totally withdrawing sometime in the future—as he threatened Friday if Congress fails.
The most promising part of Mr. Trump’s strategy is its vow to deter Iranian imperialism in the Middle East. The President laid out a long history of Iran’s depredations—such as backing for Syrian dictator Bashar Assad and rebels in Yemen, cyber attacks on the U.S., hostility to Israel, and support for terrorism. Notably, Mr. Trump singled out the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the regime’s military vanguard, for new U.S. financial sanctions.
This is a welcome change from President Obama, who was so preoccupied with getting his nuclear deal that he ignored Iran’s efforts to expand the Shiite Islamic revolution. Mr. Trump is putting the nuclear issue in the proper strategic context as merely one part of the larger Iranian attempt to dominate the region. This will go down well with Israel and the Sunni Arab states that were horrified by Mr. Obama’s tilt toward Tehran.
One question is how this squares with Mr. Trump’s cease-fire deal with Russia in southern Syria. Russia is allied with Iran in Syria, and the cease-fire is serving as protection for Revolutionary Guard attempts to control the border region with Israel, which has had to bomb the area repeatedly. Mr. Trump still hasn’t figured out a strategy for Syria or Russia, and that could undermine his effort to contain Iran.
Barack Obama left his successor a world in turmoil, with authoritarians on the march in China, North Korea, Russia and Iran. Mr. Trump needs a strategy for each, and the steps he took Friday are crucial in containing Iran.
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Years ago Stratfor wrote of the Iranians being a very serious military problem , , , and that was then.
Similarly the Norks.
Short of pre-emptive military nuke strike, I'm not seeing a path here , , , and apart from the moral issues, getting the military to launch a nuclear war of choice, etc. there is also the matter of what lessons would be drawn by China, Russia, et al.
, , , https://conservativetribune.com/nuclear-mission-coast-nk/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=AE&utm_campaign=can&utm_content=2017-10-13
What is the morality of waiting for North Korea to inflict a strike that could potentially kill 90% of Americans?
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/congress-warned-north-korean-emp-attack-would-kill-90-of-all-americans/article/2637349
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" What is the morality of waiting for North Korea to inflict a strike that could potentially kill 90% of Americans? "
well if the target were Hollywood ............... just kidding.
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Bolton makes many essential and sound points here (no surprise!) but IMHO the essential question remains: What to do? Is the implicit answer that we go to war?
A Slow Death for the Iran Deal
Trump has ‘scotch’d the snake, not kill’d it.’ But proposed congressional ‘fixes’ are feckless.
A Tehran headline: ‘Crazy Trump and Logical JCPOA.’
A Tehran headline: ‘Crazy Trump and Logical JCPOA.’ Photo: EPA/Shutterstock
By John Bolton
Oct. 15, 2017 5:58 p.m. ET
83 COMMENTS
As Abba Eban observed, “Men and nations behave wisely when they have exhausted all other resources.” So it goes with America and the Iran deal. President Trump announced Friday that the U.S. would stay in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, even while he refused to certify under U.S. law that the deal is in the national interest. “Decertification,” a bright, shiny object for many, obscures the real issue—whether the agreement should survive. Mr. Trump has “scotch’d the snake, not kill’d it.”
While Congress considers how to respond—or, more likely, not respond—we should focus on the grave threats inherent in the deal. Peripheral issues have often dominated the debate; forests have been felled arguing over whether Iran has complied with the deal’s terms. Proposed “fixes” now abound, such as a suggestion to eliminate the sunset provisions on the deal’s core provisions.
The core provisions are the central danger. There are no real “fixes” to this intrinsically misconceived agreement. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which Iran is a party, has never included sunset clauses, but the mullahs have been violating it for decades.
If the U.S. left the JCPOA, it would not need to justify the decision by showing that the Iranians have exceeded the deal’s limits on uranium enrichment (though they have). Many argued Russia was not violating the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (though it likely was) when President Bush gave notice of withdrawal in 2001, but that was not the point. The issue was whether the ABM Treaty remained strategically wise for America. So too for the Iran deal. It is neither dishonorable nor unusual for countries to withdraw from international agreements that contravene their vital interests. As Charles de Gaulle put it, treaties “are like girls and roses; they last while they last.”
When Germany, Britain and France began nuclear negotiations with Iran in 2003, they insisted that their objective was to block the mullahs from the nuclear fuel cycle’s “front end” (uranium enrichment) as well as its “back end” (plutonium reprocessing from spent fuel). They assured Washington that Tehran would be limited to “peaceful” nuclear applications like medicine and electricity generation. Nuclear-fuel supplies and the timely removal of spent fuel from Iran’s “peaceful” reactors would be covered by international guaranties.
So firm were the Europeans that they would not even negotiate unless Iran agreed to suspend all enrichment-related activity. Under these conditions, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell agreed their effort could proceed. Today, JCPOA advocates conveniently ignore how much Barack Obama and the Europeans conceded to Iran’s insistence that it would never give up uranium enrichment.
The West’s collapse was a grave error. Regardless of JCPOA limits, Iran benefits from continued enrichment, research and development by expanding the numbers of scientists and technicians it has with firsthand nuclear experience. All this will be invaluable to the ayatollahs come the day they disdain any longer to conceal their real nuclear strategy.
Congress’s ill-advised “fixes” would only make things worse. Sens. Bob Corker and Tom Cotton suggest automatically reimposing sanctions if Iran gets within a year of having nuclear weapons. That’s a naive and dangerous proposal: Iran is already within days of having nuclear weapons, given that it can buy them from North Korea. On the deal’s first anniversary, Mr. Obama said that “Iran’s breakout time has been extended from two to three months to about a year.” At best, Corker-Cotton would codify Mr. Obama’s ephemeral and inaccurate propaganda without constraining Iran.
Such triggering mechanisms assume the U.S. enjoys complete certainty and comprehensive knowledge of every aspect of Iran’s nuclear program. In reality, there is serious risk Tehran will evade the intelligence and inspection efforts, and we will find out too late Tehran already possesses nuclear weapons.
The unanswerable reality is that economic sanctions have never stopped a relentless regime from getting the bomb. That is the most frightening lesson of 25 years of failure in dealing with Iran and North Korea. Colin Powell told me he once advised British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw : “Jack, if you want to bring the Iranians around, you have to hold an ax over their heads.” The new proposals aren’t even a dull razor blade.
The JCPOA is also packed with provisions that have never received adequate scrutiny. Take Annex III, which envisages full-scale assistance to, and cooperation with, Iran’s “peaceful” civil nuclear efforts. Annex III contemplates facilitating Iran’s acquisition of “state of the art” light-water reactors, broader nuclear-research programs, and, stunningly, protection against “nuclear security threats” to Iran’s nuclear program.
It sounds suspiciously like the Clinton administration’s failed Agreed Framework with North Korea. Many Clinton alumni were part of Mr. Obama’s Iran negotiation team. In Washington, nothing succeeds like failure. Mr. Trump and his congressional supporters should expressly repudiate Annex III and insist that Europe, Russia and China do the same.
The Iran nuclear deal, which Mr. Trump has excoriated repeatedly, is hanging by an unraveling thread. Congress won’t improve it. American and European businesses proceed at their own peril on trade or investment with Iran. The deal should have died last week and will breathe its last shortly.
Mr. Bolton is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of “Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad” (Simon & Schuster, 2007).
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We can keep kicking the can, in hopes of more road.
Bolton makes many essential and sound points here (no surprise!) but IMHO the essential question remains: What to do? Is the implicit answer that we go to war?
A Slow Death for the Iran Deal
Trump has ‘scotch’d the snake, not kill’d it.’ But proposed congressional ‘fixes’ are feckless.
A Tehran headline: ‘Crazy Trump and Logical JCPOA.’
A Tehran headline: ‘Crazy Trump and Logical JCPOA.’ Photo: EPA/Shutterstock
By John Bolton
Oct. 15, 2017 5:58 p.m. ET
83 COMMENTS
As Abba Eban observed, “Men and nations behave wisely when they have exhausted all other resources.” So it goes with America and the Iran deal. President Trump announced Friday that the U.S. would stay in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, even while he refused to certify under U.S. law that the deal is in the national interest. “Decertification,” a bright, shiny object for many, obscures the real issue—whether the agreement should survive. Mr. Trump has “scotch’d the snake, not kill’d it.”
While Congress considers how to respond—or, more likely, not respond—we should focus on the grave threats inherent in the deal. Peripheral issues have often dominated the debate; forests have been felled arguing over whether Iran has complied with the deal’s terms. Proposed “fixes” now abound, such as a suggestion to eliminate the sunset provisions on the deal’s core provisions.
The core provisions are the central danger. There are no real “fixes” to this intrinsically misconceived agreement. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which Iran is a party, has never included sunset clauses, but the mullahs have been violating it for decades.
If the U.S. left the JCPOA, it would not need to justify the decision by showing that the Iranians have exceeded the deal’s limits on uranium enrichment (though they have). Many argued Russia was not violating the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (though it likely was) when President Bush gave notice of withdrawal in 2001, but that was not the point. The issue was whether the ABM Treaty remained strategically wise for America. So too for the Iran deal. It is neither dishonorable nor unusual for countries to withdraw from international agreements that contravene their vital interests. As Charles de Gaulle put it, treaties “are like girls and roses; they last while they last.”
When Germany, Britain and France began nuclear negotiations with Iran in 2003, they insisted that their objective was to block the mullahs from the nuclear fuel cycle’s “front end” (uranium enrichment) as well as its “back end” (plutonium reprocessing from spent fuel). They assured Washington that Tehran would be limited to “peaceful” nuclear applications like medicine and electricity generation. Nuclear-fuel supplies and the timely removal of spent fuel from Iran’s “peaceful” reactors would be covered by international guaranties.
So firm were the Europeans that they would not even negotiate unless Iran agreed to suspend all enrichment-related activity. Under these conditions, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell agreed their effort could proceed. Today, JCPOA advocates conveniently ignore how much Barack Obama and the Europeans conceded to Iran’s insistence that it would never give up uranium enrichment.
The West’s collapse was a grave error. Regardless of JCPOA limits, Iran benefits from continued enrichment, research and development by expanding the numbers of scientists and technicians it has with firsthand nuclear experience. All this will be invaluable to the ayatollahs come the day they disdain any longer to conceal their real nuclear strategy.
Congress’s ill-advised “fixes” would only make things worse. Sens. Bob Corker and Tom Cotton suggest automatically reimposing sanctions if Iran gets within a year of having nuclear weapons. That’s a naive and dangerous proposal: Iran is already within days of having nuclear weapons, given that it can buy them from North Korea. On the deal’s first anniversary, Mr. Obama said that “Iran’s breakout time has been extended from two to three months to about a year.” At best, Corker-Cotton would codify Mr. Obama’s ephemeral and inaccurate propaganda without constraining Iran.
Such triggering mechanisms assume the U.S. enjoys complete certainty and comprehensive knowledge of every aspect of Iran’s nuclear program. In reality, there is serious risk Tehran will evade the intelligence and inspection efforts, and we will find out too late Tehran already possesses nuclear weapons.
The unanswerable reality is that economic sanctions have never stopped a relentless regime from getting the bomb. That is the most frightening lesson of 25 years of failure in dealing with Iran and North Korea. Colin Powell told me he once advised British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw : “Jack, if you want to bring the Iranians around, you have to hold an ax over their heads.” The new proposals aren’t even a dull razor blade.
The JCPOA is also packed with provisions that have never received adequate scrutiny. Take Annex III, which envisages full-scale assistance to, and cooperation with, Iran’s “peaceful” civil nuclear efforts. Annex III contemplates facilitating Iran’s acquisition of “state of the art” light-water reactors, broader nuclear-research programs, and, stunningly, protection against “nuclear security threats” to Iran’s nuclear program.
It sounds suspiciously like the Clinton administration’s failed Agreed Framework with North Korea. Many Clinton alumni were part of Mr. Obama’s Iran negotiation team. In Washington, nothing succeeds like failure. Mr. Trump and his congressional supporters should expressly repudiate Annex III and insist that Europe, Russia and China do the same.
The Iran nuclear deal, which Mr. Trump has excoriated repeatedly, is hanging by an unraveling thread. Congress won’t improve it. American and European businesses proceed at their own peril on trade or investment with Iran. The deal should have died last week and will breathe its last shortly.
Mr. Bolton is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of “Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad” (Simon & Schuster, 2007).
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https://clarionproject.org/us-treasury-crippling-sanctions-irgc/
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We need something like Pearl Harbor to garner the political will to get this over with.
Maybe a Havana harbor would be better, though probably not enough.
That said the N Koreans are too clever by half to let any of this happen.
So we have to sit and allow this murderous regime to threaten us with ICBMs till they can finally do it.
And of course we have those on our side who rationalize (irrationally) that the NKoreans are doing what they need to do to protect themselves. :x
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http://havokjournal.com/politics/international/abu-monroe-doctrine/?utm_source=Havok+Journal&utm_campaign=ac875631b9-Havok_Journal_Weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_566058f87c-ac875631b9-214571297
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https://www.politico.com/interactives/2017/obama-hezbollah-drug-trafficking-investigation/
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In Iran, Broken Promises to Fix a Broken Economy
Jan 2, 2018
By Jacob L. Shapiro
A mere seven months ago, Hassan Rouhani was riding high. He had just secured re-election as Iran’s president with 57 percent of the vote, a nearly 20-point advantage over his conservative challenger. But on Dec. 28, protests broke out in Iran, and as of this writing they haven’t stopped. The demonstrations aren’t yet a threat to the stability of the government, but they are a symptom of popular discontent with the economic problems that continue to beset the country many years into Rouhani’s administration and the nuclear deal it signed with the United States.
During his re-election campaign, Rouhani promised his people economic success. Though his government has lowered inflation and raised growth rates, it has thus far succeeded only in averting major crisis, not in delivering the promised prosperity. If the government in Tehran cannot correct the economic problems affecting daily life for Iranians, or at least deflect popular anger onto another source besides the government, the protests could morph into something more significant.
Iranian students scuffle with police at the University of Tehran in Tehran on Dec. 30, 2017. STR/AFP/Getty Images
Broken Promises
The protests began in Mashhad, Iran’s second-most populous city and a deeply religious urban center where the government enjoys great support. Initially, the protests were driven not by politics but by discontent with rapidly increasing prices for basic goods. According to media reports, prices for food staples like eggs and poultry have risen by almost 40 percent in recent days. The most recent data from Iran’s central bank supports the anecdotal evidence. According to the official numbers, inflation jumped from 8.4 percent in October to 9.6 percent in November. Reports of additional rises in prices since the November figures were released suggest that inflation is continuing to climb in the country.
Considering that inflation in Iran was above 20 percent from 2012 to 2014 and peaked at around 45 percent toward the latter half of 2013, a rate in the single digits doesn’t seem very high. But those high rates came as Iran was feeling the effects of the U.S.-led sanctions regime against it. Inflation – and any other problems in the Iranian economy – could be blamed not on the government but on foreign imperialist powers that want to keep Iran down. Even with this ready-made scapegoat, Iranian citizens eventually tired of the situation and began to look for political options that would enable the Iranian economy to rejoin the world. National pride is a potent fuel, but food is a better one.
Rouhani rode the wave of discontent to office in 2013, promising significant changes in Iran’s strategy. A new enemy, the Islamic State, had emerged on Iran’s borders, and Rouhani’s Iran would be willing to work with the “Great Satan” to defeat it. Most important, however, Rouhani vowed to bring economic prosperity back to Iran. He planned to accomplish both goals by compromising with the U.S., trading Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons and influence on the ground in Iraq and Syria for the removal of sanctions. This was ostensibly achieved in 2015, and the first signs looked promising. The Iranian economy received a jolt and seemed to be making up for lost time.
The economic benefits of the deal with the U.S., however, have stalled in recent months. Iran and the U.S. became partners in the battle to defeat the Islamic State, but their success removed their common enemy. With the security threat eliminated, Iran went back to trying to project power to the Mediterranean. The U.S. went back to trying to keep Iran boxed in. To make matters worse, an especially anti-Iran administration moved into the White House. All told, Iran enjoyed a year and a half of steady economic growth, but it wasn’t enough to repair the damage done to it during the sanctions period, nor could it solve the inefficiencies in the Iranian economy that predated the sanctions regime.
Of Iran’s many economic problems, three are proving particularly resilient. The first is the spike in inflation. The Rouhani administration can’t place the blame on the U.S. this time – the U.S. has levied limited new sanctions against Iran, but it’s nothing compared to the restrictions of the early 2010s. Moreover, Rouhani’s government staked its power on the idea that it would be able to control inflation in part because it was willing to compromise with the United States. In May, Rouhani pledged to keep inflation in the single digits in the coming years. He is already in danger of breaking that promise.
The other two persistent problems concern the banking sector and unemployment. The administration has touted its successes in the banking sector, with the central bank governor declaring in May that nonperforming loans had been cut from 15 percent to 10 percent of total loans during the first four years of Rouhani’s government. The International Monetary Fund tells a different story. On Dec. 18, the IMF warned that Iran’s delay in implementing economic and financial reforms meant that the country was facing significant “near-term” challenges and needed urgent restructuring and recapitalizing of its credit institutions and banks. Meanwhile, unemployment in Iran remains persistently high. Rouhani’s administration got unemployment down to the single digits in 2015, but the rates have crept back up, hovering above 12 percent since April 2016 and now approaching 2012 levels.
Grievances
When the protests began, they were focused on specific economic grievances such as these. They were quickly co-opted, however, by opponents of the government, who sought to make the protests not just about economic issues but also about the leadership of Rouhani and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
(click to enlarge)
Thousands spontaneously protested in Mashhad on Dec. 28, and various small protests broke out in other Iranian cities, including Neyshabour, Kashmar, Yazd and Shahroud. The protests spread to other parts of the country the following day. On Dec. 29, there were reports of “hundreds” protesting in Kermanshah and Tehran, and “large” numbers also reportedly turned out in Rasht, Isfahan, Hamadan, Qom and elsewhere. Previously scheduled pro-government rallies were held Dec. 30, but anti-government protests continued to simmer in Tehran, Kermanshah, Arak and a few other small cities. The protests continued in several cities on Dec. 31 and Jan. 1, even turning violent at times. Iranian state TV reported that some armed protesters had tried to take over police stations but were repelled by security forces. All in all, at least 13 deaths have been reported.
The size and scope of the protests is impressive, though Western media have significantly overhyped some of them. The demonstrations in Tehran in particular have been made out to be more than they are – small student protests have occurred sporadically in the capital in recent months but are of little consequence. Far from marking a serious challenge to the government, the small size of these political protests compared with the pro-government rallies on Dec. 30 indicate that there is no general rising that threatens the viability of the Iranian state – at least not yet.
Far more important is the initial spontaneous protest in Mashhad and the subsequent protests it inspired. These rallies, centered on economic issues, are indeed a distressing sign for the government, especially if they are a harbinger of more popular disillusionment. It would be somewhat ironic if Iran, in its most strategically advantageous position in the Middle East since 2010, is forced to put its ambitions aside to deal with unrest at home. It would also be a challenge for GPF’s 2018 forecast, which predicts that Iran will press its advantage in the region in the year ahead. A few protests in Iran are not enough to say the forecast is off-track, but they are certainly worth monitoring closely.
The post In Iran, Broken Promises to Fix a Broken Economy appeared first on Geopolitical Futures.
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second post
Unraveling the Importance of the Iranian Protests
Anti-government protests have erupted in several cities across Iran, including the conservative northeastern town of Mashhad. Based on the photographs and reports spreading through social media outlets on Dec. 28, the crowds attending the demonstrations appear to number in the hundreds or low thousands. But the unrest has grown severe enough that security forces reportedly used tear gas and water cannons to disperse the protesters.
Details about the size, scope and organization of the demonstrations — all critical factors to a protest wishing to achieve its political objectives — are scarce. Nevertheless, today's events are notable for two reasons: the message they are intended to convey and their location in Iran's heartland.
A Foreign Policy With Domestic Consequences
Fueling the protests is popular dissatisfaction with the government in Tehran and with the country's deteriorating economic circumstances. Videos captured chants including "Death to Rouhani" and "Death to the Dictator," as well as complaints of rising prices in staple goods and corruption among officials. Protesters also criticized the administration for focusing too much on problems abroad, such as Syria's civil war, instead of pressing challenges at home.
Domestic tension stemming from the foundering economy and graft is nothing new in Iran. In fact, it became a central issue in this year's presidential election. Despite President Hassan Rouhani's success in freeing up Iranian exports and lifting barriers to foreign investment by negotiating a nuclear deal with the West in 2015, Iran's economy still struggles with high unemployment levels, particularly among the country's large population of youths. Moreover, much of the foreign investment Rouhani promised to voters has yet to materialize. U.S. President Donald Trump's decision in October not to recertify the nuclear deal and his subsequent unveiling of a holistic strategy for countering Iranian ambitions in the Middle East has muted potential investors' interest in the country.
The protesters' opposition to the government's foreign policy shows the ramifications that Tehran's activities abroad can have back home — especially when it comes to the nuclear deal and Iran's regional scuffles with its greatest nearby rival, Saudi Arabia. Indeed, former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's aggressive foreign and economic policies, coupled with his determined pursuit of a nuclear weapons program, led to the Green Movement protests of 2009 and, a few years later, crippling Western sanctions against the Iranian economy.
Location, Location, Location
The outbreak of protests beyond the country's common sites of unrest is noteworthy, too. Iran's marginalized populations — the Kurds in the northwest, the Ahvaz in the southwest and the Baluch in the southeast, to name a few — often stage demonstrations. Separatist groups from these populations even launch occasional attacks. But the Dec. 28 protests took place in cities closer to Iran's core population centers. Among them was Mashhad, a stronghold for political conservatives and the home of the Shrine of Imam Reza, one of the holiest sites in Shiism that is administered by hard-line cleric Ebrahim Raisi. Though many of the city's conservative clerics oppose Rouhani's policies, and disparaging remarks on the health of the Iranian economy are common in Friday prayers, it isn't clear whether they lent any support to the protests.
It's possible that today's demonstrations will prove to be an isolated incident, and Iranian officials will quickly intervene if the unrest spreads to other cities. But whether new protests on the same issues spring up and spread across class, geographic and demographic lines — much as the Green Movement demonstrations did in 2009 — in the future will bear watching. Though Iran has the ability to violently crack down on protests if necessary, the country is prone to unrest that can effect sweeping political change. Born of revolution itself, the modern Islamic Republic is all too aware of the dangerous precedent with which it must now contend.
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Iran
Let’s begin with the unrest in Iran. The protests started Dec. 28 in Mashhad, Iran’s second-most populous city, apparently in response to a spike in prices for staples like eggs and poultry. In reality, the price increases were just a consequence of a temporary shortage, but for the people they were the last straw. The deeper issue is that Iran’s impressive bottom-line gross domestic product growth figures since the nuclear deal in 2015 have not led to prosperity for the typical Iranian citizen. Unemployment has been more than 12 percent for well over a year and is approaching 2012 levels, when it was around 14 percent. Inflation is nearing 10 percent – despite a promise by President Hassan Rouhani that it would not exceed single digits. The banking sector is in shambles.
The protests couldn’t have come at a worse time for Iran. The Islamic State, a serious enemy of Iran, has been defeated. The Bashar Assad regime, an Iranian ally, has been saved. Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy, can get back to running Lebanon instead of fighting Sunnis in Syria. Iraq, Iran’s most serious geopolitical threat as recently as the 1980s, is under Tehran’s control. Turkey, a potential rival, is more interested in temporary coordination to deal with the Kurds and the Russians than it is in blocking Iranian ambitions. And Saudi Arabia, the last Arab power standing between Iran and its aspirations, is dealing with existential economic and political problems of its own. For Iran, the Middle East is ripe for the taking.
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Most countries spend their time chasing the basic imperatives for survival – if they even get that far – but Iran is in a place and time where it can aspire to much more. Iran is the modern heir to the Persian empires that have existed at different points in history, empires that at their height spanned from Greece to the Hindu Kush, from Cairo to Samarkand. Iran occupies the same core territory as those Persian empires, and that means Iran often behaves in similar ways to them. But as impressive as imperial Persia’s reach was, its power was fleeting. Roughly a millennium went by between the Achaemenids and the Sasanians. Another millennium went by before the Safavids reached their zenith. There’s a reason for that: geography.
On the one hand, Iran’s geography is advantageous. Iran is smaller than its imperial forebears, and yet even today it borders both the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf, as well as the Indian subcontinent, Central Asia, the Caucasus, Turkey and the Arab world. If Iran can get access to either the Black Sea or the Mediterranean, whether by proxy or conquest, its domain begins to look very Persian.
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On the other hand, for all its geographic advantages, geography is also one of Iran’s weaknesses. Iran is a mountain nation, which means that, when unified, it is difficult to attack by land. But the same mountains that keep invaders out also keep Iran in. For Iran to project power in the Middle East, for example, it must support long supply chains across the Zagros Mountains or the equally imposing ranges in the South Caucasus. This is both technically challenging and financially costly and explains why Iranian and Persian strategy has always focused on developing proxies or strategic relationships with countries amenable to its designs.
It will be important to watch the protests to see if they coalesce into something more than a frustrated populace letting off steam, but at this point, considering their small size and that Iran’s economy has been far worse than this in recent years, we don’t yet think that the Islamic Republic is in danger of falling. The protests are important, but not because of what they say about the country’s stability. Rather, they are important because they show how Iran is running into the age-old problem of all bygone Persian empires: Iran’s imperial imperatives outstrip its capabilities.
It is easy for Iran to dominate its surrounding regions if they are much weaker than Iran. If it meets resistance, however, Iran is forced to spend money and to overextend itself in a quest to push out of its mountain fortress. Central Asia and the Middle East are experiencing enough turmoil to create an opportunity for Iran, but that’s not enough for the Iranians to complete the conquest. Turkey is strong, Russia is holding on for dear life, and the U.S. and Israel are determined. The protests in Iran are a reminder that Tehran can spend its resources abroad for only so long before it becomes answerable to its own people. The cost of empire is too high for Iran to pay; it can only acquire its empire at a discount. The strategic opportunity is not yet opportune enough. That is the lesson from this past week’s protests.
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second post
Busting Illusions About Iran
Trump puts America on the side of the people, not the Ayatollahs.Presse/Getty Images
By The Editorial Board
Jan. 2, 2018 7:40 p.m. ET
298 COMMENTS
Anti-government protests continue across Iran after six days, and the ruling mullahs and Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) are threatening a crackdown that could get ugly. The world should support this fight for freedom, which is exposing the illusions about Iran that dominated the Obama Administration.
Start with the claim that signing a nuclear deal with the Tehran regime would moderate its behavior. Ben Rhodes, President Obama’s chief foreign-policy salesman, said in June 2015 that “a world in which there is a deal with Iran is much more likely to produce an evolution in Iranian behavior, than a world in which there is no deal.”
Mr. Obama said the pact “could strengthen the hands of more moderate leaders in Iran.” And Vice President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Colin Kahl said in 2015 that the Iranians “are not going to spend the vast majority of the money on guns, most of it will go to butter.” Toward that end, the nuclear pact lifted international sanctions and unfroze $100 billion in Iranian assets.
Yet instead of using the money to improve the lives of Iranians, Tehran has used its windfall to back clients making trouble throughout the region. The mullahs have spent billions propping up Syria’s Bashar Assad with troops, weapons and energy shipments. Iran funds Shiite militias in Iraq, Hezbollah terrorists in Syria and Lebanon, and Houthi fighters in Yemen.
The protesters in the streets of Tehran, Qom, Shiraz and other cities are explicitly rejecting this adventurism, shouting slogans like “Leave Syria, think of us!” They want a better economy and more opportunities for their children, not campaigns to build a Shiite empire across the Middle East.
Another busted illusion is that there is a difference in policy between Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the supposedly moderate President Hasan Rouhani. Mr. Rouhani talks about listening to the protesters, but that will last only until the Ayatollah gives other orders. The Rouhani government has responded to the nuclear deal by arresting democracy advocates and taking American hostages like Xiyue Wang, a Princeton PhD student, and father and son Baquer and Siamak Namazi. The protesters are making no distinction between Mr. Rouhani and the mullahs.
The demonstrations have also exposed the illusion peddled by Mr. Rhodes that President Trump’s more muscular policy toward Iran has united the regime with the Iranian public in opposition to the U.S. The ire of the protesters is aimed at their own rulers for corruption and wasting what they were told would be the fruits of the nuclear deal.
Mr. Trump, the supposed foreign-policy bumpkin, understands this better than Mr. Obama and the arms-control sophisticates. Mr. Obama sought to win over the Tehran regime by avoiding confrontation and letting Iran have its way in Syria and elsewhere. His goal above all else was the nuclear deal.
Mr. Trump, by contrast, has distinguished between the regime and the Iranian people, much as Ronald Reagan did with the Soviet Union. In speeches over the past year, the President has called out the regime for stirring up foreign trouble and subjugating its people.
“The entire world understands that the good people of Iran want change, and, other than the vast military power of the United States, that Iran’s people are what their leaders fear the most,” Mr. Trump told the United Nations in September. “This is what causes the regime to restrict internet access, tear down satellite dishes, shoot unarmed student protestors, and imprison political reformers.”
Mr. Trump’s tweets since the protests began may not be Obama-smooth but they have put America on the side of the people, rather than the regime. This rhetorical support matters to those in the street, and Europeans and Democrats in Congress should join the chorus. The U.S. can also provide technology to help Iranians get around the regime’s internet firewall and censorship. And it can raise the cost of Iran’s interventions around the Middle East.
Iranians will have to earn their own freedom, but Americans can help by admitting that this isn’t a fight between moderates and “hardliners” or Tehran vs. Trump. It’s a fight between people who want liberty and their oppressors.
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http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/252374/ayatollah-empire-is-rotting-away
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Iran’s Regime at War With Itself
Jan 10, 2018
By Kamran Bokhari
Public agitation in Iran has many wondering about the fate of the almost 40-year Islamic republic. As evident from the way in which the latest wave of protests has been contained, popular unrest is unlikely to bring down Iran’s clerical regime. That said, the demonstrations underscore a political economic problem in the Shiite Islamist state. Before it can truly address its economic problems, it needs to sort out the war that the regime is having with itself.
Jan. 8 marks one year since the death of Iran’s most influential cleric and former president, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Normally, we at GPF do not pay much attention to individual political leaders since they matter only so much when it comes to geopolitics. But in this case, there is a strange development: Reportedly, President Hassan Rouhani has ordered a review of the investigation into Rafsanjani’s death. Rafsanjani, a founder of the Islamic republic, was found dead in his pool. The explanation given was that the octogenarian leader died of cardiac arrest, but the reports that surfaced in recent weeks quoting family members say his body had unusually high radiation levels.
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It is strange (to say the least) that this inquiry into Rafsanjani’s death comes at a time when Iran’s political establishment is trying to move past serious unrest. This story is emblematic of the struggles within the clerical regime, which have only gotten worse over the past decade. These internal differences are being exacerbated by the public uprising. Just as Rouhani’s opponents tried to take advantage of the unrest to weaken the president, his faction appears to be trying to use Rafsanjani’s death as a countermove – among many others.
Though many see Rafsanjani as a symbol of a corrupt political elite, many others see him as a symbol of political moderation. Rafsanjani left an indelible mark on the country’s political system. He was a close associate of the founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who led the uprising against the shah. After the revolution, Rafsanjani held several pivotal positions in the regime.
Khomeini appointed him to the Council of the Islamic Revolution, which existed from January 1979 to July 1980 with the purpose of transitioning the country from the monarchy to the Islamic republic. During this same period, Rafsanjani also served as interim interior minister. In 1980, he was elected speaker of parliament, a position he held for nine years. When Khomeini died, Rafsanjani played a key role in the succession of the current supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Then, from 1989 to 1997, Rafsanjani served two consecutive terms as president.
In 1989, he also assumed the chairmanship of the powerful Expediency Council, which was created to mediate between parliament and the Guardian Council (a 12-member clerical entity with oversight of legislation and the power to vet candidates for public office) and later granted supervisory authority over all three branches of government. Rafsanjani held this position until his death. In addition, from 1983 until his death he served as a member of the popularly elected Assembly of Experts, an 86-member clerical body responsible for electing the supreme leader, holding him accountable and removing him, if and when necessary. From 2007 to 2011 he served as the chairman of the assembly.
Rafsanjani is best known for being the father of the pragmatic conservative camp within Tehran’s political establishment. In this way, he had one foot in the camp of the hard-line clerical establishment and the other in the reformist trend that came to prominence under his successor, former President Mohammad Khatami.
Deeply cognizant of the public mood, as well as the strength of the hard-liners who have dominated the Islamic republic, Rafsanjani long sought to strike a balance between the two sides. His power began to fade after he lost a re-election bid against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005. Four years later he sided with the reformists who claimed foul play in the elections in which former Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi lost to Ahmadinejad.
The uprising known as the Green Movement that followed the controversial election forced Rafsanjani to return to trying to find some balance between the liberal and conservative camps. However, he had made enough enemies on the right that, despite his positions on the Expediency Council and the Assembly of Experts, his influence continued to wane. His last major accomplishment was supporting the 2013 election of his protege, the current president, Rouhani, who has emerged as the de facto leader of the pragmatic conservatives and their reformist allies.
It is important to note that these categories – pragmatic conservatives, ultra-conservatives and reformists – are no longer coherent blocs; rather, they represent broad coalitions containing multiple factions. The Iranian political establishment has been losing its coherence, especially since the intra-conservative rifts that emerged during the Ahmadinejad presidency (2005-13). In other words, the regime is fast approaching an impasse (if it hasn’t reached it already) where it cannot continue to expect that it will maintain social stability without undergoing substantial political economic reforms. The regime must evolve to preserve itself.
The current supreme leader, at age 78, is near the end of his career. The Islamic republic has had only two supreme leaders – Khomeini and Khamenei – and most of the founders are dead. The only prominent survivors are Khamenei, Rouhani and the 90-year-old Guardian Council chief, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati. The political fragmentation coupled with the inability of the state to provide for the needs of a growing and increasingly younger population make succession all the more difficult. The tug of war between the republican and theocratic components of the hybrid regime and the disproportionate power wielded by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps further complicate matters.
The old guard is a dying breed, and its allies lack the ability to address the problems of governance. This has enabled Rouhani to get aggressive in pushing for economic reforms. Just this week he criticized religious organizations for not paying tax. On Jan. 9, he made an even more profound remark, according to a statement published on the presidency’s website: “The problem we have today is the gap between officials and the young generation. Our way of thinking is different to their way of thinking. Their view of the world and of life is different to our view. We want our grand-children’s generation to live as we lived, but we can’t impose that on them.”
Rouhani and his allies understand that the problems are not just economic; they are also political. The threat to the Islamic republic comes not from protesters but from the disagreement within the regime on how to govern the country of 80 million. The contradiction hardwired into its political system threatens its long-term stability. Iran’s political problems are catching up with it at a time when it was hoping to consolidate the geopolitical gains it has made over the years during the meltdown in the Arab world.
The post Iran’s Regime at War With Itself appeared first on Geopolitical Futures.
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• Iran: The spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran said Jan. 10 that the body had told the country’s highest authorities that it could increase the speed of uranium enrichment and other nuclear activities to several times the speed at which they were occurring before the nuclear deal was signed. Isn’t this an admission that the nuclear deal isn’t actually halting Iranian nuclear activity? If Iran wants the deal to survive – and that’s what we think right now – why is it saying this?
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Trump’s Iran Gamble
He issues a red line to rewrite the nuclear deal or reimpose sanctions.
By The Editorial Board
Jan. 12, 2018 7:09 p.m. ET
President Trump said Friday that he’s waiving sanctions related to the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal—for the last time. In essence he issued an ultimatum to Congress and Europe to revise the agreement or the U.S. will reimpose sanctions and walk away. His distaste for the nuclear deal is right, but the risk is that Mr. Trump is boxing himself in more than he is the Iranians.
Mr. Trump said in a statement that he is waving sanctions, “but only in order to secure our European allies’ agreement to fix the terrible flaws of the Iran nuclear deal.” He added: “This is a last chance. In the absence of such an agreement, the United States will not again waive sanctions in order to stay in the Iran nuclear deal. And if at any time I judge that such an agreement is not within reach, I will withdraw from the deal immediately. No one should doubt my word.”
That’s called a red line, and it means that if his terms aren’t met within 120 days, Mr. Trump will have to follow through or damage his global credibility. Presidents should be careful about putting themselves in box canyons unless they have a clear idea of a way out and what his next steps are.
Does Mr. Trump know? It isn’t obvious. Mr. Trump rightly focuses on the core faults of the accord: major provisions start sunsetting after 2023; the failure to include Iran’s ballistic-missile programs; and inadequate inspections. He wants the European allies that also negotiated the deal—France, Germany and the United Kingdom—to rewrite it with the U.S.
But Iran is sure to resist, and so will China and Russia. French, British and German companies already have billions in business deals invested or being negotiated with Iran, and their political leaders will be loathe to jeopardize them. European leaders have been embarrassingly quiet amid the anti-regime protests in Iran. European Union foreign-policy chief Federica Mogherini hosted the foreign ministers of Britain, Germany, France and Iran this week. They expressed support for the deal and said little about Tehran’s protest crackdown.
If the Europeans resist a nuclear renegotiation, Mr. Trump would then have to act alone with U.S. sanctions. While those are potent, to be effective they will have to target non-U.S. companies that do business with Iran, including our friends in Europe.
Some fear Iran would use reimposed U.S. sanctions as an excuse to walk away from the deal and rush to build a bomb, but we doubt it. The more likely scenario is that Iran will continue to court European business and try to divide the U.S. from its allies and block a new antinuclear coalition. The mullahs will claim to be abiding by the deal even as the U.S. has walked away.
On Friday Mr. Trump also challenged Congress to strengthen the nuclear deal’s terms under U.S. law, most likely by amending the 2015 Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act. This will require 60 votes in the Senate, which means Democratic support. This will test the sincerity of Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who opposed the deal. But in today’s polarized Washington, partisanship no longer stops at the water’s edge. Mr. Trump won’t persuade Europe if he can’t persuade Congress.
The question all of this raises, as British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson put it Thursday, is what is the policy alternative policy to the nuclear deal. The answer is containment with a goal of regime change. The people of Iran have again showed their displeasure with the regime, and the world should support them. We’d back such a strategy, but it isn’t clear that this is Mr. Trump’s emerging policy, or that he and his advisers know how to go about it.
The Treasury Department is moving ahead with sanctions against Iran for its ballistic missiles, including 14 more individuals and entities “in connection with serious human rights abuses and censorship in Iran.” The targets include the head of Iran’s judiciary and the cyber units trying to prevent protesters from organizing and accessing reliable news. But Mr. Trump has been reluctant to counteract Iran’s adventurism in Syria or Iraq, and a policy of regime change can’t be half-baked.
All of this is an enormous undertaking for an Administration already coping with the nuclear and ballistic threat from North Korea. The safer strategy would have been to keep waiving sanctions and let the nuclear deal continue while building support to contain and undermine Iran on other fronts. Mr. Trump can now say he has followed through on his campaign vow on Iran, but building a better strategy will take discipline and much harder work.
Appeared in the January 13, 2018, print edition.
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• Iran: The Rafsanjani story isn’t going away. The former president’s daughter recently claimed that when he died in 2017, he had been wrapped in a radioactive towel at the hospital after having a heart attack, according to Etemaad news agency. Let’s revisit everything we know about Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and the circumstances around his death. From there, we can determine how his death, or the recent leaks, have affected Iranian protests.
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for now:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/455454/why-trump-extended-iran-nuclear-deal-timing-north-korea
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Iran’s Internet Imperative
The U.S. can do far more to help Iranians defeat the regime’s firewall.
By The Editorial Board
Jan. 17, 2018 7:20 p.m. ET
33 COMMENTS
No one knows how Iran’s political protests will evolve, and perhaps the current moment is more like Poland in 1981 than 1988. That’s all the more reason for the U.S. to assist Iran’s political opposition as it seeks to use the internet to evade regime censors and build a larger movement.
We do know that demand for information inside Iran is skyrocketing. Iranians are flocking by the millions to use circumvention software like Psiphon and Lantern to hide their identities from Tehran’s cyber authorities and access social media, messaging apps and trustworthy news sites. Silicon Valley tech company Ultrareach Internet Corp., which invented the Ultrasurf circumvention software, reported its servers failed this month as Iranians flooded their systems. More than half of the Iranian population owns a smart phone.
The authorities in Tehran are reluctant to order a wholesale internet shutdown lest it damage Iran’s already-weak domestic economy and anger more Iranians. But they also want to control the flow of news and information into and throughout Iran. Toward that end they’ve blocked Twitter , Facebook and in particular Telegram, a messaging app with more than 40 million Iranian users. Meanwhile, President Hassan Rouhani uses government TV and social media to offer lip service to the right of Iranians to express themselves.
This an opportunity for the Trump Administration to learn from the Reagan Administration, which used the telecommunications tools of the 1980s to spread information behind the Iron Curtain. The tools then were short wave radio, satellite news and fax machines. Today’s dissenters need software to evade the regimes’s internet firewalls.
Yet the U.S. government seems remarkably slow and backward in spreading the freedom message, starting with the taxpayer-backed Broadcasting Board of Governors. The BBG’s mission is to “inform, engage, and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy,” which should put it in the center of Iran’s online battle.
But the presidentially appointed BBG board has become a political sinecure, rather than a home for foreign-policy experts who want to fight oppression. Its current CEO, former cable industry executive John Lansing, was appointed by President Obama. President Trump hasn’t nominated a replacement.
While Iranians are desperate for reliable circumvention technology, the BBG leadership has spent only $15 million of its $787 million 2017 budget on internet freedom and anti-censorship projects, and the agency is telling vendors it’ll take weeks to direct more funding to these projects. The place needs a thorough rethinking for the internet age. Is President Trump aware that he could dismiss the BBG’s current board and nominate a CEO who’s more attuned to foreign policy and the fight for freedom?
Ronald Reagan once observed that truth is “the ultimate weapon in the arsenal of democracy.” That belief animated U.S. policy during the 1980s and, along with a U.S. economic revival and military buildup, sowed the seeds of revolution across the Soviet bloc. The Trump Administration needs a similar strategy toward Iran, North Korea, and for that matter Cuba, Venezuela and China.
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By Jacob L. Shapiro
A Theory About Iran
A battle for power is shaping up, and the stakes are extremely high.
When protests erupted in Iran at the end of December, the initial cause seemed obvious. The price of basic food staples like eggs and poultry rose by almost 40 percent in a matter of days, and data from Iran’s central bank showed a general rise of the inflation rate throughout the country. And yet, even at the time, there was something inadequate about this explanation. The protesters were everyday civilians, not students or political activists – and they had not risked their lives to protest in 2012 or 2013, when economic conditions were far worse. If the price of a carton of eggs rises temporarily from $3 to $4.20, it is hardly welcome, but it is also not the type of thing that leads to revolution.
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After the protests broke out, there were two even more befuddling anomalies. First, the protests were not put down, at least not at first. It took the security forces three days to crack down in earnest. Second, the Iranian government went out of its way to support the right of the protesters to express their discontent. President Hassan Rouhani himself said that the Iranian people were free to criticize their government, though he and government news outlets differentiated between what were described as “legitimate grievances” and rioters who were trying to co-opt the protests for their own politically subversive motives.
This line of thinking leads to an irresistible inference – namely, that the protesters who first took to the streets were not afraid of a crackdown. Our initial interpretation of the protests assumed economic conditions had become so bad and domestic frustration so acute that dissatisfaction with the government overrode the protesters’ fear – neither of which seems accurate in hindsight. This leads to another possible interpretation: that the initial protesters did not think they were going to be harmed. They had no fear because they had nothing to fear. Their protests had been unofficially sanctioned for a discrete political purpose, and they knew to go back home before the crackdown began.
Signs Emerge
We should be clear that there is still no direct evidence that a higher power had a role in directing the protests. But since the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced on Jan. 4 that the initial protests it blamed on Iran’s foreign enemies (America and Israel, among others) had been “defeated,” the anomalies have only multiplied. Those anomalies, culminating in last week’s protests against Iranian women being legally obligated to wear the hijab, all lend credence to the theory that the initial protests in December were in fact politically motivated, and that a much deeper struggle for political power in Iran is raging.
One example of this power struggle was the sudden proliferation of reports last month relating to Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former multiple-term Iranian president who died in January 2017. Shortly before the protests broke out, Rafsanjani’s daughter told E’Temed News that her father had radiation levels “10 times more than the allowed level” at the time of his death. Soon after the protests were forcibly ended, Rafsanjani’s son said Rouhani had ordered a formal review of the circumstances around Rafsanjani’s death. A few days later, a freelance Iranian Kurdish journalist based in the U.S. released footage of a supposedly secret session in which Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was anointed supreme leader. In the video, Rafsanjani plays a key role in shepherding Khamenei’s confirmation.
The source of the sudden spike in interest around Rafsanjani remains something of a mystery. But what isn’t a mystery is that in the years leading up to his death, Rafsanjani ran afoul of both hard-liners within the Iranian political establishment and the IRGC. Ostensibly, this was because Rafsanjani supported the deal with the United States on curbing Iran’s nuclear program, but the fault lines go much deeper. Rafsanjani represented the views of an Iranian political faction that continues to believe a reduction of state control over the Iranian economy is in Iran’s best interests. That necessarily means curtailing the IRGC’s now wide-ranging powers, as well as reinterpreting some of the basic principles of the revolution, which included state control over most national industries.
Rafsanjani, however, is just a political totem. Far more important is the Rouhani administration’s attempt to realize some of Rafsanjani’s political goals – namely, the privatization of the economy. This is an old story in Iran. The 1979 constitution was reinterpreted in 2006 to allow for privatization of state-owned companies to reduce corruption and increase profits. On the surface, privatization occurred. According to an Iranian parliamentary commission, during President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s first term, from 2005-2009, control of more than 300 companies worth more than $70 billion was transferred to the private sector. However, the commission also noted that just 13.5 percent of those companies actually went to the private sector. Much of the rest went to organizations like the IRGC.
As a result, the IRGC is now estimated to control as much as 60 percent of the Iranian economy. This is untenable for the government because it means, in effect, that the IRGC has amassed too much power. Rouhani’s first priority was to close the nuclear deal with the U.S. and open the country back up to foreign capital. But the next and more dangerous priority has been to retake control of the economy from the IRGC. The process began in June 2016, when Khamenei replaced the chairman of the Armed Forces General Staff with an IRGC general. At the time, the move was seen as evidence that the IRGC was asserting even greater control over the affairs of state, but events in recent months indicate the opposite.
Reports began to circulate that the Rouhani administration was engaging in a quiet crackdown on some of the IRGC’s businesses interests. A September 2017 article in the Financial Times, citing an Iranian government official, said that some IRGC members had been arrested and others were being forced to transfer ownership of various holding companies back to the state. In a speech in November, Rouhani stated some of his intentions, noting that he had the support of the supreme leader in this regard, but the target of his remarks was implied, not explicit. (It should be noted that in 2007, Khamenei himself said that following the government’s privatization policies should be seen as a “form of jihad,” indicating his general support.)
Then, on Jan. 21, Iranian Defense Minister Amir Hatami dropped the pretense. In an interview with an Iranian newspaper, he said that the IRGC and the Iranian army would divest themselves of any economic activities irrelevant to their military duties, and that the new chairman of the Armed Forces General Staff would be overseeing this process. The move was not done without some compensation – Khamenei reportedly approved the allocation of $2.5 billion of the country’s National Development Fund for defense spending, perhaps to placate potential IRGC and Iranian army objections to divestment. But the overall trend is clear: the Iranian government is attempting to bring the IRGC and other potentially self-interested fifth columns in the Iranian political system to heel.
So far, the lack of resistance to Rouhani’s moves is striking. If Rouhani and his supporters fail, they may face a fate similar to that of former President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt: out of power and imprisoned. (Mubarak’s son, Gamal, lost the Egyptian military’s support because of his desire to wrest back economic control, which played no small role in the military’s willingness to offer Mubarak as a sacrificial lamb in January 2011 at the height of the so-called Arab Spring.) If they succeed, the government will have centralized a great deal of power, not unlike how Xi Jinping has consolidated government power in China after successfully cracking down on the perks that the People’s Liberation Army enjoyed in recent decades.
Battle Royal
Disagreement among political factions is par for the course in Iran. But this is not just disagreement. This is shaping up to be a battle royal for power, and the stakes are extremely high. The government has a clear view of Iran’s future, one that does not include Iran becoming a de facto military dictatorship. The military may have had to play a large and necessary role in rebuilding the country after the revolution and the subsequent 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War, but Rouhani, himself a Rafsanjani acolyte, does not think this should be a permanent state of affairs. After making the Iran nuclear deal with the United States, he is now focusing on getting his domestic affairs in order. With the IRGC involved in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, it is an ideal time for Rouhani to make his move.
(click to enlarge)
How Rouhani’s moves intersect with events over the weekend are worth considering. The hijab protests were not particularly novel or important; they have happened sporadically in the past. The anomaly was that Iran’s Center for Strategic Studies, a think tank that functions as the research arm of the presidency, released a report a few days after police arrested 29 people in connection with the protest. The report – from 2014 – states that 49.8 percent of the Iranian public opposed compulsory head covering for women. The release of the study so soon after the hijab protests is either highly coincidental or a clear sign from the Rouhani government that it not only opposes hard-liner views on issues such as these, but that it is also not afraid to make its opposition public.
Perhaps, then, there was more to the December protests than first met the eye. Perhaps elements of the IRGC, dissatisfied with Rouhani’s moves, wanted to demonstrate its indispensability and to remind the administration that it better not get too ambitious in its privatization plans. And perhaps the Rouhani administration sought to take advantage of the situation by turning the focus back on the IRGC, using the momentum from the protests to blame the current system for the lack of economic progress and as justification for more intense reforms. There are a number of “perhapses” in this paragraph, and at this point, this is little more than a theory. It’s a plausible theory, but a theory nonetheless.
In any case, one question in all of this is to what extent, if any, these events will change Iran’s foreign policy. The preliminary answer is not much. Iran continues to press its advantage in the Middle East after the weakening of the Islamic State and the survival of the Assad regime. Via the IRGC, Iran continues to support proxies in Iraq and Syria. Israel has become so concerned with Iran’s moves that it is threatening war against Lebanon for becoming a de facto Iranian missile factory. In addition, Iran is reaching out to Hamas, an old friend it has been on the outs with in recent years, seeking to reclaim some of its influence in the Gaza Strip. None of this has been limited by the domestic unrest in Iran, or in the now accelerating government campaign to curtail the power of the IRGC and similar organizations at home – at least, not yet.
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https://clarionproject.org/far-can-irans-missiles-reach/
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Iran: Iran is threatening to withdraw from the nuclear deal if it does not reap economic benefits from the agreement and banks continue to stay away from the country. The country has frequently threatened to leave the deal, but what makes it different this time is that Iran is also aggressively pushing its interests in the Middle East in a way that runs against U.S. interests. Let’s gut check ourselves and see if Iran isn’t about to shift on this. The deputy foreign minister made the comment, so let’s see if he comes from a faction different than the one represented by President Hassan Rouhani. The nuclear deal was a major part of Rouhani’s agenda, so if it isn’t going well, it will reflect poorly on him, in theory.
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The European Union is still working on its response to U.S. President Donald Trump's promise to scuttle the Iran nuclear deal unless more is done to counter Iran's destabilizing activities in the Middle East. According to media reports, the EU3 powers — France, Germany and the United Kingdom — are working on a proposal to meet Trump's demands through new sanctions. EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said March 19 that there was no formal EU proposal in place for such sanctions, but she stopped short of denying that discussions over such a proposal were occurring. In addition, Mogherini urged adherence to the bloc's consistent position that the Iran nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), must succeed before the bloc will agree to further action against Iran.
Unless the United States or the European Union takes increased action against Iran, Trump has said that he will not continue to support the framework keeping the JCPOA in place. From the European Union, Trump is looking for commitment and willingness to issue sanctions that push back against Iran's ballistic missile program and regional activities. And right now, the EU3 are leading the efforts to meet those requirements. France and the United Kingdom, for example, have been vocal about their willingness to seek and issue sanctions as long as they remain separate from those lifted by the JCPOA itself. By making sure the new sanctions don't directly contradict the terms of the JCPOA, EU countries are hoping to preserve the nuclear deal and their ties to Iran. However, Iranian leadership has reiterated its position that any new sanctions will be viewed as a violation of the JCPOA — regardless of whether they attempt to blur the lines of the nuclear accord.
Germany, meanwhile, is on board with French and British efforts to issue sanctions that contain Iran without breaching the JCPOA. But German leadership has been less vocal on the issue, which has played well in Iran. French and British rhetoric on working to contain Iran's destabilizing activities, on the other hand, has increasingly caused outspoken frustration among Iranian leadership.
The White House has set a deadline of May 12 for the United States, the European Union and Iran to strengthen the nuclear deal with additional agreements. But on the U.S. end, it's unclear how much progress Congress has achieved in crafting legislation to meet Trump's requirements. With the clock ticking and the European Union contemplating its own next moves, lawmakers in Washington appear divided on the best strategy to counter Iranian influence without jeopardizing the nuclear deal.
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http://www.speroforum.com/a/MJRDJTSTLZ15/83098-Pat-Buchanan-Is-Trump-assembling-a-war-cabinet?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DVVZTTYEXN53&utm_content=MJRDJTSTLZ15&utm_source=commentary&utm_term=Pat+Buchanan+Is+Trump+assembling+a+war+cabinet#.WrshtHrcCqA
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I think Eli Lake is a great journalist. I don't necessarily agree with his opinion here but he raises interesting points. Trump has great leverage within the Iran deal because of his power to end it?
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-28/trump-and-the-iran-deal-the-u-s-strategy-is-working
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http://www.defenddemocracy.org/content/uploads/documents/IranGlobalTerrorTestimony.pdf
39 page pdf, Congressional testimony.
No one seems to dispute the term, world's largest state sponsor of terror.
This documents it. All over the globe.
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Iran Deals With the JCPOA
The Big Picture
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The United States is looking for ways to pressure Iran, and it's willing to risk the nuclear deal to extract more support for constraining Iran’s regional activities. But if the deal fails, Iran will need to make a choice between alienating European powers by restarting its nuclear program and acting more pragmatically.
________________________________________
2018 Second-Quarter Forecast
Middle East and North Africa
Iran's Arc of Influence
There are just 18 days left until Washington’s May 12 deadline for the United States and the European Union to reach an agreement about how to counter Iran’s regional activity and whether to tighten the straightjacket on its nuclear program. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has spent much of the last week in the United States on a media blitz, trying to push back against the United States, while French President Emmanuel Macron had Iran at the top of his agenda during his April 24 meeting with Trump. During the meeting, Macron presented the possibility of a new deal to complement — not replace — the Iran nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). He outlined four main concerns to address when countering Iran, which included the JCPOA’s short-term concerns but also long-term concerns about Iran’s nuclear program, its ballistic missile program and its regional activities in places such as Syria.
But Trump has continued to disparage the JCPOA. The president even called it “insane” while meeting with Macron, casting doubts that the United States would extend critical sanctions waivers on May 12 that enable Iran to receive precious economics benefits — including financial, energy and trade sanctions relief — in exchange for concessions involving its nuclear program. Since Trump took office, those benefits have been hanging in the balance, causing Iran to examine its options in case all or some of them are removed.
The Least Severe Next Step for Iran
The degree to which Iran responds depends on whether the United States reinstates all sanctions on Iran or merely a subset of them. But Iranian officials have so far outlined four different options which range in severity. And right now, with Tehran already dealing with an economic crisis at home, it could choose options that try to appeal to the European Union, at least initially, as a way of shielding itself from the most significant U.S. sanctions. After all, the effectiveness of unilateral U.S. sanctions has historically been drastically diminished without support from partners.
The first — and perhaps most appealing option from the European Union’s perspective — option would be to utilize the JCPOA’s dispute resolution mechanism. The big challenge here for Iran, however, is that the Article 36 dispute resolution mechanism was built under the assumption that the United States or other Western powers, not Iran, would need to implement it. The mechanism is designed to punish Iran and allow the United States and others to reintroduce sanctions on Iran if need be. Zarif noted that Iran has already filed 11 informal complaints to the JCPOA’s Joint Commission Chair Federica Mogherini, and said his country could file a formal one in the future based on the United States' behavior.
But the United States would not face any penalty if this happens. If Iran triggers Article 36, it would kick off a 15-day review period where the Joint Commission would either evaluate and hopefully resolve the complaint or refer it to the ministerial level, where ministers would also have 15 (possibly concurrent) days to resolve the complaint. If that process fails, the JCPOA would form a three-member advisory board with representatives from the complaining country (Iran), the accused country (the United States) and one independent member. The board would issue a non-binding opinion within 15 days, after which the Joint Commission would have five days to accept or reject it. If the issue is still not resolved, the complaining country could refer the matter to the United Nations Security Council, where the United States could veto any resolution and have justified grounds to suspend its own commitments under the JCPOA. In total, this process would take around 35 days.
The Other Options
Iran has three other realistic options beyond the dispute process. It can:
1. Immediately pull out of the JCPOA and restart aspects of its nuclear program.
2. Ease the application of the additional protocol that gives inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency easier access to its nuclear sites.
3. Withdraw from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
Any one of these actions — all of which Iran has threatened at various points — would represent a more serious response and risk damaging Iran’s relationship with the European Union. Because of this, Iran would not take such action lightly. So, though it is both convoluted and ineffective, going through the JCPOA dispute process may well be Iran’s first move. The decision would allow Iran to earn international credibility from the European Union, China and Russia, which could help the country as it tries to influence the European Union to push back against U.S. sanctions. If those efforts fail and the Iranian economy starts to deteriorate more significantly under the United States' unilateral sanctions, Tehran may embrace more significant reactions.
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There are just 18 days left until Washington’s May 12 deadline for the United States and the European Union to reach an agreement about how to counter Iran’s regional activity and whether to tighten the straightjacket on its nuclear program. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has spent much of the last week in the United States on a media blitz, trying to push back against the United States, while French President Emmanuel Macron had Iran at the top of his agenda during his April 24 meeting with Trump. During the meeting, Macron presented the possibility of a new deal to complement — not replace — the Iran nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). He outlined four main concerns to address when countering Iran, which included the JCPOA’s short-term concerns but also long-term concerns about Iran’s nuclear program, its ballistic missile program and its regional activities in places such as Syria.
The Big Picture
The United States is looking for ways to pressure Iran, and it's willing to risk the nuclear deal to extract more support for constraining Iran’s regional activities. But if the deal fails, Iran will need to make a choice between alienating European powers by restarting its nuclear program and acting more pragmatically.
See 2018 Second-Quarter Forecast
See Middle East and North Africa section of the 2018 Second-Quarter Forecast
See Iran's Arc of Influence
But Trump has continued to disparage the JCPOA. The president even called it “insane” while meeting with Macron, casting doubts that the United States would extend critical sanctions waivers on May 12 that enable Iran to receive precious economics benefits — including financial, energy and trade sanctions relief — in exchange for concessions involving its nuclear program. Since Trump took office, those benefits have been hanging in the balance, causing Iran to examine its options in case all or some of them are removed.
The Least Severe Next Step for Iran
The degree to which Iran responds depends on whether the United States reinstates all sanctions on Iran or merely a subset of them. But Iranian officials have so far outlined four different options which range in severity. And right now, with Tehran already dealing with an economic crisis at home, it could choose options that try to appeal to the European Union, at least initially, as a way of shielding itself from the most significant U.S. sanctions. After all, the effectiveness of unilateral U.S. sanctions has historically been drastically diminished without support from partners.
The first — and perhaps most appealing option from the European Union’s perspective — option would be to utilize the JCPOA’s dispute resolution mechanism. The big challenge here for Iran, however, is that the Article 36 dispute resolution mechanism was built under the assumption that the United States or other Western powers, not Iran, would need to implement it. The mechanism is designed to punish Iran and allow the United States and others to reintroduce sanctions on Iran if need be. Zarif noted that Iran has already filed 11 informal complaints to the JCPOA’s Joint Commission Chair Federica Mogherini, and said his country could file a formal one in the future based on the United States' behavior.
But the United States would not face any penalty if this happens. If Iran triggers Article 36, it would kick off a 15-day review period where the Joint Commission would either evaluate and hopefully resolve the complaint or refer it to the ministerial level, where ministers would also have 15 (possibly concurrent) days to resolve the complaint. If that process fails, the JCPOA would form a three-member advisory board with representatives from the complaining country (Iran), the accused country (the United States) and one independent member. The board would issue a non-binding opinion within 15 days, after which the Joint Commission would have five days to accept or reject it. If the issue is still not resolved, the complaining country could refer the matter to the United Nations Security Council, where the United States could veto any resolution and have justified grounds to suspend its own commitments under the JCPOA. In total, this process would take around 35 days.
The Other Options
Iran has three other realistic options beyond the dispute process. It can:
Immediately pull out of the JCPOA and restart aspects of its nuclear program.
Ease the application of the additional protocol that gives inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency easier access to its nuclear sites.
Withdraw from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
Any one of these actions — all of which Iran has threatened at various points — would represent a more serious response and risk damaging Iran’s relationship with the European Union. Because of this, Iran would not take such action lightly. So, though it is both convoluted and ineffective, going through the JCPOA dispute process may well be Iran’s first move. The decision would allow Iran to earn international credibility from the European Union, China and Russia, which could help the country as it tries to influence the European Union to push back against U.S. sanctions. If those efforts fail and the Iranian economy starts to deteriorate more significantly under the United States' unilateral sanctions, Tehran may embrace more significant reactions.
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Senior Iranian Official Boasts of IRGC Presence Abroad
by IPT News • Apr 24, 2018 at 2:49 pm
https://www.investigativeproject.org/7418/senior-iranian-official-boasts-of-irgc-presence
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Senior Iranian Official Boasts of IRGC Presence Abroad
by IPT News • Apr 24, 2018 at 2:49 pm
https://www.investigativeproject.org/7418/senior-iranian-official-boasts-of-irgc-presence
It's hard to be humble when you are number one in the world - state sponsor of terror.
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https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/30/netanyahu-claims-to-show-irans-secret-nuclear-files-obtained-by-israel.html
Netanyahu: Iran had secret 'Project Amad' to design, produce and test warheads
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting at the Prime Minister's office in Jerusalem February 11, 2018. Israel's Netanyahu makes announcement on Iran
12 Mins Ago | 03:32
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday revealed a cache of files he claims were obtained from Iran and prove Tehran ran a secret program to build nuclear weapons.
Netanyahu's office billed the televised statement as a "significant development" regarding the Iran nuclear deal, but it largely rehashed what the world long ago accepted: That Iran sought to develop nuclear weapons.
That acknowledgement marshaled international support for a U.S. campaign to impose a tough series of sanctions against Iran. The impact of those sanctions brought Iran to the negotiating table, ultimately producing the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
Netanyahu's remarks come less than two weeks before U.S. President Donald Trump must decide whether to continue suspending sanctions against Iran under that deal, or restore the penalties on one of the world's biggest oil producers.
Iranian leaders have long said their nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes. But Netanyahu on Monday unveiled tens of thousands of pages of documents, which he said were copied from a "highly secret location" in Iran.
Israeli Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a news conference at the Ministry of Defence in Tel Aviv, Israel, April 30, 2018.
Amir Cohen | Reuters
Israeli Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a news conference at the Ministry of Defence in Tel Aviv, Israel, April 30, 2018.
Those files detail Project Amad, which Netanyahu described as "a comprehensive program to design, build and test nuclear weapons." He said the files provided "new and conclusive proof of the secret nuclear weapons program that Iran has been hiding for years from the international community in its secret atomic archive."
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Obama and Kerry must be really pissed about this news.
Not at Iran for lying as everyone with a brain new they would
but at Bibi for exposing it.
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Obama and Kerry must be really pissed about this news.
Not at Iran for lying as everyone with a brain new they would
but at Bibi for exposing it.
Exactly.
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Did Israel Just Kill the Iran Nuclear Deal?
Highlights
• Israel claims that Tehran held onto research related to Iran's nuclear weapons program and has lied to the international community about its intentions.
• The announcement was timed to influence the United States and the European Union just days before the White House reaches a May 12 deadline to issue sanctions waivers in accordance with the terms of the Iran nuclear deal.
• Israel seeks stronger U.S. backing for its bold military moves against Iran in Syria by characterizing Tehran as unreliable and ill-intentioned.
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In a prime-time press conference from Tel Aviv, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Israeli intelligence had smuggled a cache of evidence out of Iran. Dubbed Iran's atomic archive, the 100,000 files allegedly show that Tehran sought to conceal a nuclear weapons program. Throughout his presentation, Netanyahu argued that Iran lied to the international community — and to watchdogs from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) — about the existence of a secret nuclear weapons program and sensitive research that Iran held on to for future use.
While much of what Netanyahu presented has been said before — Israel and some in the United States have accused Iran of nuclear deception numerous times — the Israeli premier argued that Iran violated the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), better known as the Iran nuclear deal, by failing to come clean during 2015 talks with the IAEA. Just days before a May 12 deadline for the United States to issue sanctions waivers to Iran as part of the JCPOA, Netanyahu's presentation sought to discredit Iran as a negotiating partner in the eyes of the international community.
The Big Picture
As the United States narrows in on strategies to target and contain Iran's regional activities, Washington's crosshairs are focused more and more on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, better known as the Iran nuclear deal. The United States is trying to negotiate stronger measures to supplement the deal — thanks in part to lobbying efforts from regional allies such as Israel — but impinging on the nuclear deal will not halt Iran's activity. Rather, as Stratfor's Second-Quarter Forecast said, the uncertainty surrounding the nuclear deal will reaffirm Tehran's desire for a robust defense policy that includes the very activities fueling U.S. fears: ballistic missile development, covert operations and support for regional militias.
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2018 Second-Quarter ForecastMiddle East and North AfricaIran's Arc of Influence
European countries, including France and Germany, recently voiced their concerns about the full extent of Iran's activities, but continue to support the JCPOA as the best framework for countering Iran's nuclear ambitions. However, Israel is pressuring the European Union to abandon the nuclear deal and potentially even reinstate the sanctions the deal lifted. To ensure whatever sanctions levied against it are ineffective, Iran is seeking to keep the European Union and the United States from uniting to throw their combined weight behind them. But Netanyahu is hoping that his portrayal of Iran as a guilty party will galvanize opposition to Iran in the West.
Netanyahu's presentation was partially designed to convince countries in the European Union that the JCPOA is insufficient, but he may not need to. Netanyahu's message was coordinated with the United States ahead of time, indicating an increasingly clear alignment between Israel and the White House. Based on their rhetoric, both are growing convinced about the benefits of abandoning the JCPOA and doubling down on efforts to counter Iran's regional activities.
Potential Outcomes
Here's what we're watching for moving forward:
• The European Union may be willing to meet U.S. demands by forming a supplemental agreement that imposes sanctions designed to stop Iran's regional activities and ballistic missile program. But, even if the United States withdraws from the original agreement on the JCPOA by refusing to approve sanctions waivers on May 12, the European Union is unlikely to reissue sanctions lifted by the JCPOA without clear proof that Iran is not holding up its side of the bargain.
• Israel says it will submit its new intelligence to the IAEA. If the files contain concrete proof, the IAEA could have a legitimate reason to request access to inspect new sites, potentially even military sites not originally included in the JCPOA. If Iran is found in violation of the JCPOA, the United States will have an excuse to leave the deal, which the current administration believe is insufficient to contain the full spectrum of Iran's regional activities.
• Recent increased Israeli airstrikes against Iranian assets in Syria suggest that Israel is fully willing to challenge Iran militarily. As it pursues strategies to counter Iran's military and nuclear ambitions, Israel will seek an even stronger U.S. backing.
• The United States could seek to reinstate sanctions on Iran's banking sector and central bank, which could force European and Asian consumers to reduce imports of Iranian oil. A decline in Iranian oil exports would exacerbate the pain Iranian citizens are already feeling as a result of currency-related and economic problems.
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If your IQ is above room temp, you knew Obama and Iran were lying from the jump. Still, it's nice to have evidence.
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If your IQ is above room temp, you knew Obama and Iran were lying from the jump. Still, it's nice to have evidence.
Our favorite tweeter echoes your sentiment:
(https://i0.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2018/04/Screen-Shot-2018-04-30-at-9.49.22-PM.png?w=471)
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Reality Check
By Xander Snyder
Iran’s Regime Under Siege
Tehran is on the verge of a major test, and every move it makes abroad could jeopardize its security at home.
It’s hard to shake the sense that a reckoning is approaching for Iran’s regime. The assaults from abroad are very public. Over the weekend, a suspected Israeli missile strike targeted an Iranian military base in Syria, the second such strike in April. On April 30, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented what he claims is definitive evidence that Iran has violated the terms of the nuclear deal, which would provide additional motivation to U.S. President Donald Trump to cancel the deal when it comes up for reauthorization next month. But Tehran is facing resistance at home as well, most recently with strikes in Iranian Kurdistan. Whether it comes from Israel, the U.S. or both, Iran is on the verge of a major test, and every move it makes abroad could jeopardize its security at home.
Kurdish Protests
The catalyst for the Iranian Kurdistan protests was the closure of Iran’s borders with Iraq. Iran first shut its border with Iraq after Iraqi Kurdistan voted for independence in a referendum last September. When Iraqi forces were deployed to suppress the mostly Kurdish province of Kirkuk, the Iranian government, anticipating a flood of Kurdish separatists trying to enter Iran, closed the border and sent about a dozen tanks, supported by artillery, to help enforce the closure. Iran reopened its border crossings with Iraq in late December but specifically excluded routes taken by “kolbars,” Kurdish porters who carry heavy loads of goods between Iraqi and Iranian Kurdish regions. Tehran said the decision was connected to the smuggling of illegal arms and drugs.
Illegal arms smuggling into Iranian Kurdistan is a legitimate risk for Iran. Iran’s Kurdish population includes separatist elements and, like Turkey, Iran is concerned about any pan-Kurdish movement that could bring its Kurds together with the more battle-hardened Kurds in Iraq and Syria.
But Iran’s socio-economic problems – high unemployment, inflation in the price of certain staple products and currency depreciation – point to two other motives for the anti-smuggling measures. First, Iran wants to bring all cross-border, black market trade under the government’s purview so that it can tax it. Second, having failed to realize the full benefits from foreign investment that the government was hoping the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action would provide, the government is now attempting to encourage domestic consumption in the hopes that it will provide a much-needed catalyst for economic growth. Indeed, in March, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared that in 2018, Iranians should focus on buying domestic goods.
The problem, though, is that much of Iranian Kurdistan’s economy depends on imports carried by kolbars from Iraq. According to Kurdish media, up to 80,000 kolbars are now out of work, and businesses lack goods to sell. The protests in response are not large – hundreds of shop owners are estimated to have gone on strike, and about 20 arrests have been made – and the government appears to have gotten most of the affected cities back to work, with the exception of Baneh. They surely aren’t large enough to challenge the government, which put down much larger unrest in January. But Iranian Kurdistan is just one of many simmering pockets of resentment toward Tehran. For instance, farmers in Isfahan and other provinces have staged several protests throughout the year in response to what they say is poor water management in the face of severe, nationwide drought. Then there is the banknote protest, an effort to circumvent traditional forms of censorship. This isn’t going to bring down the government either, but the spread of anti-government sentiment could encourage more people to participate in the next large-scale protests, whenever they occur.
(click to enlarge)
And this is precisely the sort of uncontrollable messaging that the Iranian regime – which came to power in 1979 through a mass uprising that incorporated diverse social strata – wants to prevent. The government can’t stop the spread of defaced banknotes, but it did implement a ban of the messaging app Telegram on April 30. Iran hopes that by eliminating this unmonitored channel of communication – which is used by 40 million Iranians, about half the country’s population – it will be able to get ahead of the next wave of opposition before it reaches the streets. In place of Telegram, the government is encouraging Iranians to use a homegrown messaging app called Soroush, which comes equipped with “Death to America” emojis.
Israel and the U.S.
The reason these domestic issues matter now, even though they’re still under control, is that they are intimately connected to Iran’s regional expansion. The more money the Iranian government spends on its foreign adventures in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, the less money it has to invest at home. And the more Iran antagonizes the West and its allies, the harder it will be for it to attract investment, shed missile sanctions and realize the benefits of the JCPOA – if it survives.
And though Iran’s parliament did walk back some cuts to cash subsidies after the January protests, the growing threat of direct confrontation between Iran and Israel risks forcing Iran to spend even more heavily on its military. Israel hasn’t taken responsibility for the latest missile strike on an Iranian base in Syria, but it is the most likely candidate. If such strikes continue, Iran may reach a point where it will be compelled to retaliate or risk a deterioration in its position in Syria, a position for which it has fought so hard and spent so much. At the same time, a costly war with Israel would severely strain Iran’s finances and risk yet another round of mass protests.
Lurking beneath all these developments is the U.S. threat to back out of the JCPOA. Should the U.S. decide not to extend the sanction waiver on May 12, European countries and Iran could still try to uphold the deal. But the uncertainty would nevertheless spook foreign investors, who would fear follow-on U.S. sanctions targeting entities doing business with Iran (similar to those recently levied on Russia). Cash-strapped Iran desperately needs investment capital, which was a large part of the reason it agreed to the JCPOA in the first place. Investment has primarily flowed to the oil industry, mostly benefiting a small elite, but the end of the JCPOA could turn the tap off even for these funds, further straining an Iran that is facing an ever-growing regional military presence and the costs that accompany such expansion.
Every rial Iran spends defending its newfound regional position is one less spent on its domestic concerns, and the less the regime spends at home, the greater the risk of an uprising against the regime. The solutions Iran does have, such as collecting higher taxes by forcing border closures, also generate new political threats or exacerbate existing ones. Iran is damned if it does and damned if it doesn’t.
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https://patriotpost.us/articles/55801-john-kerry-goes-nuclear-secretly-negotiates-with-iran
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https://patriotpost.us/articles/55801-john-kerry-goes-nuclear-secretly-negotiates-with-iran
Aside from marrying wealthy women, giving aid and comfort to America’s enemies is what he does best.
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OOps, Did Trump et al just raise the bar on other 'little rocket man'?
Trump 'Committed' to Iran Regime Change, Giuliani Says Days Before Nuclear Deadline
https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/trump-committed-to-iran-regime-change-giuliani-says-1.6055510
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See also, Walter Russell Mead last week in WSJ, Crisis at both ends of Asia. These crises are related!
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-crisis-on-each-end-of-asia-1525125414
"... while progress continues toward a summit between Mr. Kim and President Trump.
At the same time, the U.S. and its Middle Eastern allies are tightening the screws on Iran. ..."
Both were emboldened by America weakness under Obama. Both need to recalculate now.
It would be a shame if something happened to your little Hezbollah operation - or if someone (with a big button) stood with your protestors at home.
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/john-kerry-iran-deal-collusion/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=SPONSORED:%20NR%20Daily%20Monday%20through%20Friday%202018-05-07&utm_term=NR5PM%20Actives
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second post
How the Iran Nuclear Deal Missed the Mark
May 8, 2018
By Jacob L. Shapiro
On May 8, U.S. President Donald Trump will reveal his decision on whether to extend a waiver on sanctions against foreign financial institutions that have had transactions with the Central Bank of Iran. Refusal to do so would effectively terminate the 2015 nuclear deal, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. If he chooses this step, which would go into effect on May 12, the result in the short term will be strained U.S. relations with key allies in Europe and Asia, further deterioration of U.S.-Iran relations and higher oil prices. The most important consequence, however, will be the intense domestic pressure it will put on the Rouhani administration, for which nothing less than survival is at stake.
First Things First
The U.S. initially pursued the JCPOA because stopping Iran’s nuclear program by force would have been costly, if not impossible. Two things happened that made a diplomatic solution not just preferable but possible. First, the Islamic State emerged as a common enemy of the United States and Iran. The U.S. did not want to commit large numbers of its own troops to fighting IS and therefore needed all the help it could get in dislodging the fledgling caliphate. Second, the U.S.-led sanctions regime had finally begun to bite. Economic conditions in Iran were worsening, and the Rouhani administration was willing to trade centrifuges and uranium for opening the country up to foreign investment, selling oil to the world unencumbered and improving the quality of life in Iran.
Nonetheless, there was and still is significant domestic political opposition to the deal in both countries. In the U.S., many felt that Washington was getting far too little in return for waiving sanctions and convincing other countries to do the same. In Iran, hard-liners felt President Hassan Rouhani was betraying the spirit of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which ousted the U.S.-backed shah. Despite the opposition, the deal went through. Iran’s economy, and its oil exports, soared, and the Islamic State was defeated (at least for the moment). The real threat to Iran, however, was not IS but the prospect of a unified anti-Iranian Sunni Arab bloc. That meant Iran had to solidify its positions in both Iraq and Syria. In addition, Iran continued to develop its missile program, which did not technically violate the JCPOA but didn’t instill much confidence in the West about Iran’s intentions.
Iran’s actions would have put pressure on any U.S. president to reconsider the terms of the JCPOA, but they placed enormous strain on a relatively new president who campaigned on tearing up the deal. The U.S. president has significant power over the agreement. The 2012 law that established the sanctions grants the president the power to review them every 120 days. Unlike NAFTA, where the president’s authority is ambiguous at best, or U.S. trade relations with China and other countries, where the president’s authority is somewhat limited by the law, the decision to scrap or extend the JCPOA is in the president’s hands.
If he does not renew the sanctions waiver on May 12, there will be immediate consequences. Countries will be expected to reduce imports of Iranian oil or face sanctions themselves, and although their compliance will not be assessed until Nov. 8, oil prices will likely immediately spike. U.S. allies that import significant amounts of Iranian crude, including France, Germany, South Korea and Japan, will all have to decide if they are willing to pay a premium for alternatives or risk U.S. sanctions. Other countries like China and India will face similar decisions. Russia, on the other hand, stands to benefit – the European Union now imports roughly 5 percent of its oil from Iran, and if Iranian oil is off the table, it will increase European dependence on Russian energy.
The United States’ Real Concern
U.S.-Iran relations will also suffer if Trump pulls the U.S. out of the JCPOA. For a time, the U.S. and Iran were indirectly coordinating in their fight against the Islamic State. But their briefly pragmatic relationship could not survive the loss of a shared enemy. Iran believes it has lived up to its end of the bargain by halting its nuclear program (and inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency have corroborated that). Iran is also frustrated that actions not expressly limited by the agreement – like solidifying power in Iraq or developing its missile program – are being used as evidence of Iranian duplicity. The U.S. is similarly perturbed that Iran is making a play for regional power and posing a direct threat to allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia. The U.S. aim, once IS was destroyed, was to create a balance of power in the region, not to tip the scale in Iran’s favor.
But the biggest impact of ending the deal will be felt within Iran itself. The Rouhani administration, which represents a political faction that wants to reduce state control of the economy and curtail the wide-ranging power of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, banked its future on the JCPOA. Rouhani believed the influx of foreign capital and the attendant economic benefits would legitimize his ambitious political reforms. Rouhani’s administration even moved to arrest key IRGC figures last September. Now, Rouhani’s grip appears to be loosening. Rouhani took to the airwaves over the weekend to criticize an Iranian ban on the messaging app Telegram, alluding to decisions made at the “highest level of the system” to which he had no recourse. Hard-liners in Iran suspected the U.S. would pull out of the deal as soon as it was no longer consistent with U.S. interests and will be vindicated at home if the deal fails.
It is not a foregone conclusion that Trump will renew sanctions. And even if he does, the mercurial president can waive them again just as easily as he reinstituted them if Iran makes further concessions, though its ability to do so will be limited. Trump could also symbolically refuse to renew the deal but use a legal loophole to provide exemptions from sanctions to importers of Iranian oil, which would mean in practice not much would change. In other words, the precise path ahead is unpredictable. But considering Iran’s need to secure its western front, this situation was bound to materialize sooner or later. Trump merely brought forward an inevitable reckoning.
The biggest defect of the JCPOA was that its main focus was preventing Iran from enriching uranium, even though the United States’ real concern was preventing Iran from establishing itself as a dominant regional power. Iran did not agree to curtail pursuit of its regional interests, nor did it stop work on developing the other elements necessary to launch a nuclear weapon such as longer-range missiles. Pulling out of the JCPOA will weaken Iran and cripple the Rouhani administration, which ironically means empowering the very hard-liners for whom the JCPOA was a betrayal in the first place. The U.S. and Iran have a history of distrust going back 65 years, but the bigger issue is that the U.S. is standing in Iran’s way. Without the JCPOA, politics will no doubt continue by other means.
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Third post
Trump’s Iran-Deal Withdrawal Is His Biggest Gamble Yet
Move represents a series of wagers with a number of downsides to losing
President Trump Announces Exit from Iran Deal
President Trump announced Tuesday that the U.S. will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal and reinstate sanctions on Tehran. He called the deal "defective" and said it didn't do enough to stop the country from developing nuclear weapons. Photo: Getty Images
By Gerald F. Seib
Updated May 8, 2018 5:26 p.m. ET
90 COMMENTS
President Donald Trump’s decision to walk away from the nuclear deal his predecessor negotiated with Iran represents a giant gamble, easily the biggest of his presidency so far.
More precisely, the move represents a series of gambles—bets that Iran’s leaders, its economy and its people, as well as America’s allies and even the leader of North Korea, will react the way the president hopes. Mr. Trump may well win those bets, but the dangers that would accompany a loss are quite high.
The core of the president’s gamble is that a renewal of full-bore economic sanctions on Iran will be enough to compel its leaders back to the table to renegotiate the nuclear deal completed during President Barack Obama’s term. In fact, Mr. Trump flatly predicted Iran’s leaders will do exactly that.
Alternatively, his calculation appears to be that a resumption of full-bore American pressure will so disrupt a weak Iranian economy—already reeling from rising prices, a falling currency and a long drought—that the result will be growing dissatisfaction and internal unrest that threatens the very survival of the regime.
Mr. Trump didn’t say he wants his move to bring regime change in Tehran, but with his references to the “murderous” government in Iran and his declaration that “the future of Iran belongs to its people,” he walked to the edge of calling for it. The risk, though, is that the Iranian people instead rally around their government now that it faces a renewed threat from America.
The further gamble is that U.S. allies in France, Britain and Germany, who have pleaded for a different course from the president, will cooperate in a new wave of economic sanctions rather than rebel and move out to construct a new relationship of their own with Iran. Such European defiance could undercut the pressure Mr. Trump is trying to create and ultimately isolate the U.S. rather than Iran.
The president’s pledge to impose sanctions on any nation that helps Iran targets America’s allies as much as the regime in Tehran, and could produce a sanctions fight not just with Iran, but with allies.
In addition, Mr. Trump is taking a chance that Iran won’t simply respond by resuming full-bore nuclear activity, turning back on the hundreds of centrifuges it still possesses to produce the enriched uranium that the West fears would put it on the path toward nuclear-weapons capability. European leaders are urging the Iranians to react calmly, without precipitous action, but hard-liners in Tehran may instead seize the moment to revive actions they never wanted to halt in the first place.
Mr. Trump is further betting that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, with whom he meets in a matter of weeks, will take away from his announcement the lesson the president wants—which is that an Iran-style deal that slows rather than eliminates Pyongyang’s nuclear program won’t be deemed sufficient. The risk is that North Korea will take away an alternative lesson, which is that the U.S. can’t be counted on to live up to deals its leaders make.
Above all, Mr. Trump’s decision represents a gamble that the heightened tensions with Iran that now are at hand won’t escalate into conflict—with the U.S., with Israel or with Saudi Arabia.
“The worst case is that Iran restarts selected nuclear activities, and either Israel or the U.S. determines that is unacceptable, uses military force and Iran responds in any number of ways around the region or around the world with all its tools,” said Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations. Those tools, he notes, include terrorism and cyberwarfare.
Indeed, after Mr. Trump’s move “the ball is now essentially in Iran’s court as to how this crisis evolves,” says Suzanne Maloney, an Iran expert at the Brookings Institution. “I think the likely short-term approach will seek to maximize whatever diplomatic and economic restitution may be on offer from Europe.”
But, she adds, “Tehran has a wide range of options available for demonstrating that its leverage on the ground in conflicts in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere across the region is at least as formidable as U.S. economic leverage.”
Finally, Mr. Trump is gambling that his tough line on Iran will convince others in the region that the U.S. will remain adamant and unyielding in its insistence that Iran won’t ever be allowed to possess nuclear weapons. The president said that will help ensure that others in the region don’t set out to acquire nuclear weapons of their own, and seek to beat Iran to the punch as they do so.
The risk there, of course, is that the reverse could happen. Iran could now respond with a burst of new nuclear activity, Mr. Haass notes, prompting Saudi Arabia and potentially others to break away from the global Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and begin their own march toward nuclear arms.
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fourth post
How Fast Iran Could Build a Nuclear Bomb
Iranian officials have said they could start enriching uranium within days, but U.S. officials are skeptical they would risk doing so
By Laurence Norman
May 8, 2018 2:21 p.m. ET
169 COMMENTS
Iran could quickly ramp up its nuclear activities now that President Donald Trump pulled out of the 2015 international agreement designed to curtail them. But experts and former officials differ over how long Tehran would need to build a bomb.
Some, pointing to Iran’s slow past progress and independent analyses, believe Iran would need several years to produce a nuclear weapon. Others think Tehran could build one in little over a year.
Iranian officials have said they could accelerate nuclear activities and start enriching uranium within days.
Separate from the technical question is the political one. U.S. officials have voiced skepticism that Iran would quickly return to work on a bomb.
“Iran wasn’t racing to a weapon before the deal,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told lawmakers last month. “There is no indication that I’m aware of that if the deal no longer existed that they would immediately turn to racing to create a nuclear weapon today.”
Many observers believe Iran has incentives not to expand its nuclear activities or expel international inspectors even if the U.S. exits the deal.
Iranian officials hope to maintain trade with Europe—which is mainly supportive of the pact—and an outright return to nuclear activities would likely stop that. Attempting to relaunch its nuclear program secretly would slow Iran’s path significantly and carry major risks.
Uranium Enrichment
The deal limits the level to which Iran is able to enrich uranium.
Sources: IAEA; JCPOA text; U.S. government
Iran worked on three aspects of a nuclear program—enriching uranium, obtaining plutonium and trying to acquire the know-how to build a nuclear weapon—before the 2015 deal, which lifted most international sanctions in exchange for strict but temporary limits on its program. Tehran says its nuclear program was always for peaceful purposes.
Iran had amassed a large stock of low-enriched uranium and produced nuclear fuel enriched to 20% purity. That is several steps from producing weapons-grade uranium enriched to 90% purity. Still, U.S. officials said in 2015 that Iran was just two or three months from amassing enough fuel for a bomb.
Stockpiles
Under the deal, Iran was required to reduce its stores of enriched uranium.
Iran was also building a plutonium reactor at Arak, in its northwest. When completed, it could have produced material for a couple of nuclear weapons annually, U.S. officials say.
The International Atomic Energy Agency concluded in 2015 that Tehran— despite denials—pursued a concerted weaponization program until 2003 and continued some of that work until 2009.
The 2015 agreement was structured around restrictions to ensure Iran would need at least 12 months to gather enough nuclear fuel for a bomb.
Most experts believe that the accord largely ensured that by removing roughly 98% of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile, mothballing two-thirds of its uranium-spinning centrifuges, limiting research and development, and removing the core of the Arak reactor.
Centrifuges
The machines spin uranium to increase purity.
“It would take many years for Iran to have a working nuclear arsenal,” said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, a Washington based group that supports the deal.
One critic of the deal, Olli Heinonen, a former senior IAEA official who works for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank, said Iran may have gathered the parts for more advanced centrifuges than Tehran had declared. That could speed the production of weapons-grade uranium and shorten the time to build a bomb. There is no evidence, however, that Iran lied to the IAEA about this additional hardware.
Experts and former officials say Iran would need at least 18 months to reconstitute the Arak reactor, whose core was filled with concrete as a consequence of the deal.
Breakout Time
Estimated time it would take Iran to produce enough fissile material for a weapon
July
It’s also unclear how much Iran knows about assembling a bomb. The IAEA in 2015 concluded that Iran’s weaponization work “did not advance beyond feasibility and scientific studies” and knowledge of “certain relevant technical competences and capabilities.”
The report was controversial. The IAEA spoke to some scientists and experts but not at length. Access to key sites was limited.
But it’s also unclear whether Iran has the technical ability to reliably deliver a nuclear warhead with its existing missile technology.
Last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country had obtained 100,000 pages of documents from a secret location in Tehran showing Iran had safeguarded its nuclear know-how. He said the material showed Tehran intended to resume its activities. Israeli leaders have vowed to stop Iran from getting the bomb.
While no new information has emerged publicly from that archive, the IAEA has called out Iran for seeking to erase possibly crucial work at the sprawling military site of Parchin. The agency said in 2015 that Iran’s explanation for its activities didn’t add up.
Iran is believed to have carried out work there on high explosives—materials that detonate very quickly. Mr. Heinonen said these could have been “an important step in the design and mock-up of a nuclear weapon.”
Jeffrey Lewis, a non-proliferation expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, said Iran was “quite far along” on its weaponization work with access to sophisticated designs from abroad. Stopping that effort was one reason why concluding the 2015 deal made sense, he argued.
“What we don’t know is how well they [the Iranian efforts] would work on a first test,” he said.
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fifth post
By The Editorial Board
May 8, 2018 7:11 p.m. ET
228 COMMENTS
President Trump on Tuesday withdrew the U.S. from the Iran nuclear deal, rightly calling it “defective at its core.” Yet he also offered Iran a chance to negotiate a better deal if it truly doesn’t want a nuclear weapon. Mr. Trump’s challenge now is to build a strategy and alliances to contain Iran until it accepts the crucial constraints that Barack Obama refused to impose.
The Obama Administration spent years negotiating a lopsided pact that gave Tehran $100 billion of sanctions relief and a chance to revive its nuclear-weapons program after a 15-year waiting period. Instead of cutting off “all of Iran’s pathways to a bomb” as Mr. Obama claimed, the deal delayed the country’s entry into the nuclear club and gave the mullahs cash to fund their Middle East adventurism.
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Mr. Trump outlined a more realistic strategy in October, promising to work with allies to close the deal’s loopholes, address Tehran’s missile and weapons proliferation, and “deny the regime all paths to a nuclear weapon.” An Iranian nuke would be a modest problem if Iran were a democracy. But the Islamic Republic is no India and has a four-decade history of oppressing its own people, taking foreign hostages and threatening neighbors with extinction.
State Department policy chief Brian Hook spent months shuttling between European capitals to get an agreement to strengthen inspections of suspected nuclear sites, stop Iran from developing ballistic missiles and eliminate the deal’s sunset provisions. Deal signatories China and Russia don’t share U.S. strategic goals in the Mideast, but the Trump Administration’s reasonable presumption is that Britain, France and Germany do.
Foreign Edition Podcast
Kerry's Shadow Diplomacy; More Chinese Provocations
Mr. Trump’s case for fixing the deal was bolstered last week when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed intelligence that Iran repeatedly lied to U.N. weapons inspectors about past nuclear activity. As Mr. Trump noted Tuesday, Tehran doesn’t allow inspectors access to many military sites. Mr. Netanyahu also revealed that Iran hid an extensive nuclear archive, which would still be secret if not for Israeli intelligence.
Regimes that have peaceful intentions don’t behave this way. When South Africa decided to denuclearize in the early 1990s, President F.W. de Klerk ordered the destruction of all sensitive technical and policy documents and gave U.N. inspectors “anytime, anywhere” access to inspect nuclear facilities. In Moammar Gadhafi’s case, U.S. officials physically removed sensitive nuclear-weapons documents, uranium and equipment from Libya.
Yet Britain, France and Germany waved away Israel’s intelligence, and European Union chief Federica Mogherini said the evidence doesn’t “put in question Iran’s compliance” with the nuclear deal. The Europeans may think they can maintain commercial dealings with Iran and wait out Mr. Trump through the 2020 election.
This is risky because Mr. Trump said in the next 90 to 180 days the U.S. will reimpose “the highest level of economic sanction” on Iran’s energy and automotive industries, ports, shipbuilding and more. The sanctions will cut Iran off from the global financial system even as the regime faces labor strikes and political protests amid a struggling economy. The country may find fewer buyers for its oil exports, and the rial has plunged.
Iran may try to drive a wedge between the U.S. and Europe to keep euros flowing to Tehran. But the U.S. has leverage. As Mr. Trump said Tuesday, “Any nation that helps Iran in its quest for nuclear weapons could also be strongly sanctioned by the United States.” Attempting to isolate the U.S. could present European companies with an eventual choice of doing business with the U.S. or Iran. The smarter play is for Europe to persuade Iran that to maintain commerce with the world it should renegotiate the pact.
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Mr. Obama issued his own broadside Tuesday against withdrawal, but then he made it easier for Mr. Trump by never winning domestic support for the deal. He refused to submit it for Senate approval as a treaty, which would have had the force of law. Mr. Trump is walking away from Mr. Obama’s personal commitment to Iran, not an American commitment.
But this is also a warning to Mr. Trump that his Administration has more work to do to execute his Iran strategy. This means building bipartisan support in Congress for sanctions; diplomacy to deter Iran’s adventures in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East; and more diplomacy with Europe to fix the nuclear deal’s fatal weaknesses.
Perhaps the best part of Mr. Trump’s remarks came at the end when he spoke to “the long-suffering people of Iran.” He said “the people of America stand with you” and made the offer of better relations and a more prosperous future if their leaders will shed their destructive nuclear and imperial dreams. Political change in Tehran remains the best hope for a non-nuclear Iran.
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http://www.dickmorris.com/now-lets-really-squeeze-iran-lunch-alert/?utm_source=dmreports&utm_medium=dmreports&utm_campaign=dmreports
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http://www.dickmorris.com/clinton-bush-obama-hypocrites-iranian-sanctions-lunch-alert/?utm_source=dmreports&utm_medium=dmreports&utm_campaign=dmreports
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/president-trump-exits-iran-deal-boost-for-global-security/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=WIR%20-%20Sunday%202018-05-13&utm_term=VDHM
https://patriotpost.us/articles/55931-whats-next-for-trumps-iran-strategy
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https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Saudi-Arabia-stops-new-business-with-Germany-over-its-pro-Iran-policy-558431
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Highlights
Now that the United States is piling on sanctions, Iran's government is preparing for an inevitable economic decline. Iran's political factions are in relative agreement about how to handle the economic pressure, at least over the next several months.
Tehran's goal will be to keep its head above water long enough to outlast the current U.S. administration. It will try to increase non-oil exports to make up for the loss of oil sales, implement financial reforms and slow the depreciation of its currency.
Iran's key priorities while it is coping with sanctions will be to keep prices for food and other goods down, minimize protests against the government, and make foreign exchange reserves last as long as possible.
One big question is how long Iran's discouraged population will trust the government's survival strategies before they start to protest against inflation and increasing wealth inequality.
Iran is preparing for major economic and financial challenges now that the United States is ready to implement tough oil-specific sanctions in November. The government in Tehran is unwilling to heed Washington's demands, which include halting its missile program and ending its support for regional militias, because it considers these basic components of the country's defense strategy. So Iran is managing its economy for the long haul, hoping it can insulate itself against the effects of sanctions long enough to outlast the current U.S. administration.
Iran's government will try to manage its finances in a way that protects its population from the most tangible effects of sanctions, employing what it calls a "resistance economy." But even with members of the Iranian government relatively united in their efforts to prevent economic disaster, the U.S. sanctions are powerful enough that Iran's economy is all but guaranteed to go into recession. And though the government will try to prevent unrest, the economic situation will only worsen existing wealth inequality issues, inevitably leading to protests.
The Big Picture
Since Iran's 1979 revolution, its government has been debating strategies for how to deal with financial hardship, planning for a "resistance economy" that ideally could insulate the country from the U.S.-dominated global economic system. New U.S. sanctions against Iran, including some previously lifted under the nuclear deal, are likely to put severe pressure on its economy. Because the Iranian government is more coherent today than it was in 2012 — the last time it faced a wave of damaging oil-related sanctions — Iran will be able to make some progress on financial and economic reforms that will help slow the inevitable recession. Internal reform certainly won't be enough to stave off recession, but it will be enough to help the government in its goal of outlasting the current U.S. administration.
One way to understand Iran's current situation is to look back to 2012, the last time the country faced such concerted sanctions. In the years leading up to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the United States and United Nations issued waves of sanctions, while the European Union implemented an oil embargo in 2012. Throughout 2012, Iran's economy shrunk by 1.9 percent, and its oil exports had been reduced by more than 1 million barrels per day (bpd).
Things got worse between early 2012 and mid-2013, when Iran's currency, the rial, lost more than two-thirds of its value and unemployment peaked at around 14 percent. These factors were compounded by inequality and social justice issues, such as a crisis over skyrocketing prices for chicken, which prompted Iranians to protest against a government that could not provide basic food for them.
At that point, various factions of Iran's government were already decades into a debate over how to position the country in the global economy. The populist president at the time, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, championed the economic demands of the poor while also adjusting the country's privatization program to favor his own allies, mostly in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and hard-line government factions. Both moderate and hard-line clerics in the government rejected Ahmadinejad's perspective, viewing him as disruptive, imprudent and economically dangerous. And in a sign that governmental division was particularly sharp, Iran's supreme leader even directed the Ministry of Intelligence Services to investigate internal corruption in 2012.
What's Different in 2018
In early 2016, the JCPOA rolled back the sanctions that had hit Iran so hard, but now that President Donald Trump has withdrawn the United States from the agreement, Tehran must prepare for an onslaught of penalties once again. On May 8, the United States reinstated all secondary sanctions against Iran, saying it would punish any country whose central bank engages in oil transactions with Iran's central bank. By steadily layering on additional sanctions, the United States is showing that it is willing to target a broad range of Iranian activities and sectors, just as it and its allies did years earlier.
But there are some major differences between where Iran finds itself today compared with 2012. To start, this time, the United States is the main force driving sanctions against Iran. The European Union is less committed to the U.S. plan, and there is no significant sanctions regime from the United Nations, as there was prior to the JCPOA.
Several Charts About Iran's Economy
Of course, even by themselves, U.S. sanctions are quite powerful. In order to qualify for possible sanctions exemptions, once every 180 days countries will have to prove that they are reducing oil trade with Iran. And though the European Union isn't on board with enacting new sanctions against Iran, it won't be able to stop European companies from avoiding investment in and trade with Iran — especially if the United States decides not to issue waivers to countries that wish to trade with Iran even if they reduce their oil imports.
In the wake of such heavy U.S. sanctions, Iran simply cannot stave off recession. Its currency crisis is only getting worse, with the rial half as strong as it was six years ago and continuing to depreciate. But Iran's economy still has a better foundation than it did in 2012. Unemployment is around 11 percent — 3 percent lower than in 2012. And gross official reserves are at roughly $130 billion, giving the government a bit more of a cushion than it had in 2012, when reserves hovered around $100 billion. Most importantly, though, there is a new level of political coherence in Tehran, which means the government will be both willing and able to pursue reform efforts.
Moderates, conservatives and hard-liners within the Iranian government have been increasingly committed to finding common ground when it comes to managing the economy, at least for the next several months. The political factions may diverge on certain details of policy decisions, such as how to deal with corruption, but they agree overall about the need to stabilize the economy for the sake of national security. Of course, there will still be major arguments over such issues as how to divvy up funds. And political factions will remain engaged in ongoing fights over how each can take advantage of the situation. (The security-focused hard-liners are likely to gain influence over time.) But compared with 2012, Iran's government in 2018 is far more unified, and it will only grow more so as U.S. pressure intensifies.
The Government's Plan For Iran
Moderates, conservatives and hard-liners with the Iranian government have been increasingly in agreement about how to prepare for renewed sanctions. They will focus on implementing financial reform to help the country gain economic independence, restructuring and refinancing banks, and working on fixing nonperforming loans.
Additionally, without the economic protection of the JCPOA, the Iranian government will be putting more emphasis on cultivating domestic production and exporting non-oil products, which are likely to include saffron, pistachios and plastics. Since President Hassan Rouhani took office in 2013, Iran has seen an increase in non-oil exports, which account for just over 11 percent of the country's GDP. Indeed, the fiscal year that ended in March 2018 saw a 6.6 percent rise in non-oil exports year over year. Iran will also seek to refine oil products at home to make up for some of its lost oil export revenue. Already, the government has announced that it is redistributing 300,000 bpd to be refined for the domestic market.
Another crucial method for Iran to ensure it can survive sanctions is to implement contingency plans for shipping, seeking out countries willing to risk U.S. secondary sanctions for port access. Likely options include Pakistan, Oman, Qatar and southern Iraqi ports like Basra. All these countries have increased their trade activity with Iran over the last year, while other major powers have decreased theirs. And since the United States abandoned the JCPOA, Iran has been more actively working to solidify agreements with them.
Maps Showing Iran's Population Density, Unemployment and Protest Sites
But smuggling through countries willing to risk sanctions will be harder now than it was in 2012. Iran relied heavily on the United Arab Emirates in the past, but the Emirati government has been willing to work with the United States this time around and does not want to risk being sanctioned. And Qatar may also prove unwilling to cooperate with Iran, as it seeks to remain in the good graces of the United States amid the ongoing rift with other Gulf Cooperation Council nations. These complications increase the likelihood that Iran will eventually have to barter oil for goods as sanctions pressure intensifies.
Holding It Together
More than anything, Iran will strive to prevent its economic strain from translating into currency problems for its populace. The worse the economy gets, the more likely it is that the price of goods will increase and that income inequality will grow. Historically, food prices and unemployment — especially in rural areas — have been the major factors prompting protest and unrest in Iran. So the government will make sure to keep the price of goods in check, even if this means implementing sacrificing funds for short-term solutions such as buying shipments at a loss or making cash payments so that Iranians can afford food. Already, its central bank has issued a directive that allows merchants to directly purchase foreign currencies from money exchanges, even though exchange houses had previously been banned. Regarding unemployment, Tehran will try to spot-treat the issue by offering cash and job training, while also working on long-awaited tax reform and welfare/subsidy payment reform.
Many of these efforts are not designed for the long-term benefit of Iran, and the government does not intend for them to last for decades. Rather, Tehran is hoping that its resistance economy can hold the country together until Trump and his administration are no longer running Washington. Unfortunately for the government, Iranians are more pessimistic than they've been in years. The JCPOA, which Rouhani promised would bring $50 billion in foreign direct investment, had delivered only $3.4 billion in 2017. Across Iran, patience will likely run out before a new U.S. leader enters the White House, meaning economically motivated protests are inevitable
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Iran’s Response: The ‘Strategy Of Tension’
by Jonathan Spyer
Jerusalem Post
June 01, 2018
https://www.meforum.org/articles/2018/iran’s-response-the-‘strategy-of-tension’
The United States and its allies are currently in the opening stages of the pursuit of a strategy to contain and roll back the Islamic Republic of Iran from a number of points in the Middle East. This strategy is set to include an economic element (renewed sanctions), a military aspect (involving Israeli action against Iran in Syria, and the Saudi/UAE campaign against the Houthis in Yemen), and a primarily political effort (in Iraq and to a lesser extent in Lebanon).
Iran can be expected to respond with a counter-strategy of its own, designed to stymy and frustrate western and allied efforts. What form will this Iranian response take? What assets does Iran possess in the furtherance of this goal?
First of all, it is worth noting what Iran does not have: Teheran is deficient in conventional military power, and as such is especially vulnerable when challenged in this arena. The Iranians have neglected conventional military spending, in favor of emphasis on their missile program, and their expertise in the irregular warfare methods of the Revolutionary Guards Corps and its Qods Force.
In Syria over the last months, Israel has demonstrated that Iran has no adequate conventional response to Israeli air actions.
In Yemen, coalition forces fighting the Houthis have begun to turn the tide of the war, demonstrating Iran's weakness in this field.
In Yemen in recent days, as government forces close in on the vital Hodaida port, so Iran’s weakness in this field is once more revealed. Hodaida, held by the Houthis, is the main conduit for Iranian supplies to the rebels. It is likely to fall in the period ahead.
Economic sanctions may also limit Iran’s ability to finance its various proxies. Nevertheless, Iran possesses in the Qods Force of the IRGC a doctrine and praxis for the establishment, assembling and utilization of proxy political-military forces which still has no serious rival in the region. It will be these assets and these methods which Teheran will be seeking to utilize to strike back at its enemies in the period ahead.
In Lebanon, thanks entirely to the use of these methods, Iran is at its strongest. There is no prospect in the immediate future for Iran’s opponents to challenge Teheran’s de fact domination of this country through its proxy Hizballah. Recent statements by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo suggest the beginnings of an acknowledgement by the US that Lebanon today is today effectively controlled by Hizballah. But it is difficult to locate within the country any mechanism today capable of seriously challenging the Shia Islamist party.
The recent events in Gaza may well offer an example of the kind of options available to Iran in its efforts to counter US and allied moves against it. Palestinian Islamic Jihad is a wholly owned franchise of the IRGC. While the apparent ‘motive’ for its commencement of rocket fire was the killing of three of its militants by the IDF after a failed IED attack. This incident, however, would not normally have been of sufficient magnitude to generate the largest barrage of rockets since Operation Protective Edge in 2014. It is probable, therefore, that the escalation in Gaza this week was an example of Iran’s ability to mobilize a proxy on one front to place pressure on an adversary, as a result of events taking place in another arena.
Yet this week’s events also demonstrate Iran’s limitations. Hamas is not a wholly owned franchise of Teheran. And the joint interest of Israel, Hamas and Egypt in avoiding a descent to a 2014 style conflagration served to put a lid on the escalation.
As noted above, in Syria, Iran has so far found no adequate response to Israel’s intelligence domination, and its willingness to take air action against Iranian infrastructure.
Further east, however, in the Kurdish-administered, US-dominated 30% of Syria east of the Euphrates, the Iranians may find an arena more to their liking. Here, a fledgling, US-associated and Kurdish dominated authority rules over a population of about 4 million people, including many Sunni Arabs. In this situation, the IRGC’s methods of agitation, assassinations, the fomenting of unrest from below are directly relevant.
Unidentified gunmen are already operating in this area. A prominent Kurdish official, Omar Alloush, was assassinated on March 15th. Graffiti denouncing ‘Ocalan’s dogs’ has appeared in Arab-majority Raqqa city.
This week, demonstrations took place at four locations across the city demanding that the Kurdish dominated YPG quit the area.
It is more usual to attribute the guiding hand behind this activity to Turkish state bodies, rather than Iran. But an IRGC officer looking for vulnerabilities and areas of potential counter pressure on the US and its allies in the neighborhood would surely focus his eyes on this US guaranteed enclave.
A new pro-Assad 'tribal resistance' was announced with the aim of fighting the U.S. presence in Syria. The initiative likely has Iranian support.
More broadly, while Israeli air action may make the Iranians think twice in terms of deployment of heavy weapons systems in Syria, the broader Iranian project of establishing local client militias and stationing proxy forces on Syria soil remains largely untouched and invulnerable to Israeli air action.
Similarly, in Iraq, the ongoing coalition negotiations and Iran’s domination of the Popular Mobilization Units and their political iteration the Fatah list offers Teheran ample scope for action. Fatah came second in the elections, with 47 seats to 54 for Moqtada al-Sadr’s Sairoon list. Much will depend on the nature of the government that will emerge from the 90 day coalition building period now under way. But whatever coalition emerges, the independent, Iran-controlled, armed element is there to stay in Iraq. For Iran, a controlling influence in Iraq is a necessity, not a luxury. And with Saudi efforts to build influence in the country under way, this looks set to form a central arena for competition.
Again, the evidence of recent years shows that where Iran enjoys an advantage over its rivals in such arenas is in its greater ability to utilize paramilitary and terrorist methods. There are already some indications of possible targeting of elements linked to the Sairoon list. Unknown assailants bombed two offices linked to the Sadrists on May 15th. One was placed at an office of the Saraya al-Salam, the Sadrist militia. The other targeted a religious organization linked to Sadr, Malek al-Ashtar. In addition, on May 25, a double IED attack on the Iraqi Communist Party’s headquarters in Baghdad took place. No group has claimed responsibility for any of these attacks.
The evidence suggests that Iran’s methods are at their strongest where it can take on its opponents within a populated area, in a mixed political and military context, and weakest where it faces conventional resistance and a hard border separating it from its enemies. This means that in the emergent contest, Iran is strongest in Lebanon and regime-controlled Syria, powerful and dangerous in Iraq and potentially in the Kurdish controlled, US guaranteed part of Syria, and weaker and with fewer options in Yemen and Gaza.
Iran enjoyed and benefited from the moment when the Arab world was at its most fragmented, and the west at its most rudderless. That period may now be coming to an end. The ‘strategy of tension’, utilizing political and paramilitary means, eschewing conventional ones, remains the IRGC’s preferred method of struggle. The period now opening up in the region will determine its continued efficacy.
Jonathan Spyer is a fellow at the Middle East Forum and an associate fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategic Studies.
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https://www.jihadwatch.org/2018/06/obama-administration-skirted-sanctions-to-give-iran-billions-while-assuring-public-it-wasnt-doing-so
Obama administration skirted sanctions to give Iran billions while assuring public it wasn’t doing so
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https://patriotpost.us/articles/55962-european-officials-bribed-into-accepting-iran-nuke-deal?mailing_id=3544&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.3544&utm_campaign=alexander&utm_content=body
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https://patriotpost.us/articles/55962-european-officials-bribed-into-accepting-iran-nuke-deal?mailing_id=3544&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.3544&utm_campaign=alexander&utm_content=body
We went through this before with UN oil for food and sanctions on Saddam Hussein. Our holier than thou allies (and world bodies) are not so clean. Tell Mueller to expand his inquiry.
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Don’t Fear Regime Change in Iran
For the past century it has been in a struggle between oppressive rulers and a freedom-hungry public.
Former Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh on trial in Tehran, 1953.
Former Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh on trial in Tehran, 1953. Photo: Bettmann Archive
By Reuel Marc Gerecht and
Ray Takeyh
June 11, 2018 6:42 p.m. ET
90 COMMENTS
President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Iran deal, and to relentlessly pressure the Islamic Republic, has elicited a predictable response. Critics cite history, particularly a counterproductive 1953 coup, as a reason to oppose the strategy. But looking more closely at the past shows that a regime-collapse containment policy is the best way to effect change.
Westerners often look at Iran as an island of autocratic stability, as they once did with the U.S.S.R. American and European officials tend to see the mullahs’ tools of repression as indomitable. But for much of the past century Iran has been locked in a convulsive struggle between rulers wanting to maintain their prerogatives and the ruled seeking freedom.
The Constitutional Revolution of 1905 first injected the notions of popular representation into Iran’s bloodstream. During the first half of the 20th century, feisty Parliaments had little compunction about flexing their muscles. The local gentry would marshal the peasants, laborers and tribesmen into polls that would choose each Parliament. It wasn’t a Jeffersonian democracy, but the system had legitimacy. Bound to each other by land, family, tradition and the vote, the governing class and the people created mechanisms for addressing grievances. Consequently the Parliaments were sensitive to local concerns.
The first Pahlavi monarch, Reza Shah, challenged this system by imposing his will in the name of modernity. After his abdication in 1941, constitutional rule again gained strength. Yet it was Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, deposed in the 1953 coup, who tried to derail Iran’s democratic evolution. Forget for a moment the nefarious Central Intelligence Agency intrigue; what happened in 1953 was an Iranian initiative.
There is a fundamental rule about American interventionism today: It takes two to tango. The 1953 coup proves it. Mossadegh, who had once been a champion of the rule of law and national sovereignty, became increasingly autocratic and vainglorious after Parliament nationalized the Anglo-Persian Oil Co. in 1951. In trying to navigate the financially ruinous aftershocks of that decision, the prime minister rigged elections, sought to disband Parliament, and usurped the powers of the monarchy.
Iran’s politicians, military men and mullahs then came together to take down the premier. The public mostly rallied to the monarch, Mohammad Reza, a figurehead around whom diverse forces gathered. The CIA was involved in the coup planning but gave up once the initial operation failed. Iranians took control and removed the prime minister. In doing so, they sought to revive their economy and protect their political institutions. Mossadegh fell not because of a plot hatched in Langley but because he lost elite and popular support within his own country.
After naming himself “king of kings” in 1971, Mohammad Reza did his best to subvert good governance. He wasted much of Iran’s oil wealth on arms. He reduced the venerable Iranian Parliament to a rubber stamp. His secret police managed to be incompetent and hated. He alienated the clergy and replaced the old elite with a coterie of sycophants.
Yet the 1979 revolution, which overthrew the shah, was bound to disappoint a public clamoring for democracy. The first constituency to give up on theocracy was the students, whose protest in 1999 ended the attempt by the regime to reform itself. Then came the titanic Green Movement of 2009. A fraudulent presidential election sparked a massive protest that discredited the regime among the middle class. In December 2017, nearly 100 Iranian cities and towns erupted in protest. The poor were thought to be the regime’s last bastion of power, tied to theocracy by piety and the welfare state. Yet this time they hurled damning chants.
President Hassan Rouhani, a lackluster apparatchik of the security state, once thought that a nuclear deal would generate sufficient foreign investment to placate discontent. That aspiration failed even before the advent of President Trump. The Islamic Republic—with its lack of a reliable banking system or anything resembling the rule of law—is too turbulent to attract enough investors. It is probably internally weaker than the Soviet Union was in the 1970s.
The essential theme in modern Iranian history is a populace seeking to emancipate itself from tyranny—monarchal and Islamist. Devising a strategy to collapse the clerical regime isn’t difficult: The U.S. can draw on Persian history and on experience with the Soviet Union. It will require patience. Iranians usually don’t hold 1953 against the U.S. Neither do the children of the revolutionary elite, who so often find their way to the U.S. and Britain. The biggest hurdle for Washington is self-imposed: It needs to take seriously the Iranian quest for democracy.
Mr. Gerecht is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Mr. Takeyh is a senior fellow at the Council for Foreign Relations.
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Iran: There are reports of a major clash between the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and President Hassan Rouhani over potential cuts to the IRGC’s budget. Meanwhile, the Rouhani administration said the government would act quickly to tackle high prices. On the foreign policy front, Iran said European proposals to modify the nuclear deal are insufficient. Rouhani appeared to have the upper hand against the IRGC, but this newest argument may indicate the balance is tipping the other way. How bad is inflation right now? And are Iran’s warnings about the nuclear deal just posturing, or is withdrawal imminent?
• Finding: The consumer price index and the producer price index reported by Iran’s central bank were 9.1 percent and 11.3 percent, respectively, at the end of May. ISNA news agency has reported that, since March, meat prices have increased by 16 percent, basmati rice by 21 percent, and cooking oil by 4.5 percent. The rial has sunk to 65,000-70,000 per dollar – at one point in mid-June it dropped to 75,000 – even though the official exchange rate is being held at 42,000 rial to the dollar. Cars have gotten more expensive, as have home appliances.
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In what is beginning to feel like a never-ending story, Iran is once again in the throes of a currency crisis. The Iranian rial has plunged to a record low against the U.S. dollar. Shopping centers in Tehran, including the Grand Bazaar, closed in protest of “market stagnation and the devaluation of national currency.” (That that quote comes not from opposition news sites but from state-friendly Fars news agency itself should trouble the government.) Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was seen visiting a resort in northern Tehran and was panned for it accordingly. Iran has been in a low-level economic crisis since protests around the country in January, and while these latest protests may just be signs of continued simmering, the fact that the government is taking heat in mainstream Iranian press is an ominous sign.
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GPF:
Marc-- any chance Trump's sanctions have something to do with this?
In Iran, Anger Rises as the Currency Falls
Protests in the capital are growing.
By Xander Snyder
Things in Iran seem to be going from bad to worse. Protests have broken out again, this time centered in the capital, Tehran, as the Iranian currency plummets in value. Thousands of people, including traders in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar, participated in the protests, which started June 24. According to the BBC, they are the largest protests in the country since 2012, when economic sanctions degraded the economy and galvanized the public to action. The Iranian economy, however, rebounded after the nuclear agreement in 2015 lifted the sanctions, and Iran re-entered the global economy. The U.S. withdrawal from the deal, and fears that it will lead to a total collapse of the agreement, is at least partly responsible for the rial’s decline.
The rial is currently worth 90,000 rials to the dollar, a sharp fall from roughly 43,000 to the dollar at the end of 2017. And its decline has had a real impact on businesses that rely on imports, which become more expensive when a currency depreciates.
The protests themselves occurred in two phases. The first happened at two shopping centers specializing in cell phone sales in Tehran, where traders went on strike and shut down the centers on June 24. The merchants criticized the shops that remained open and called the shopkeepers “cowards.” The minister of information and communications technology has claimed that the merchants went back to work, but only after the government provided guarantees that it would help them secure hard currency for imports. (How the government plans to actually do that remains unclear.)
The government’s guarantees didn’t manage to quell the unrest for long. The following day, more protests broke out, this time at the parliament building. The demonstrators were confronted by police, who used tear gas to disperse the crowd. According to media reports, protesters shouted anti-regime slogans, including “Leave Syria, think of us” and “Death to the dictator,” and other unusual slogans like “Death to Palestine.” :-o :-o :-o
It’s not clear who organized the protests, but Iranian media reported that the demonstrations that shut down the Grand Bazaar started when the rial fell to 90,000 to the dollar. The government tried to address the currency problem in April, when it fixed the official exchange rate at 42,000 rials to the dollar. But this rate hasn’t held on the black market. Large, anti-government protests also erupted in late December and early January. Those protests, initially sparked by rising food prices, spread to cities and villages across the country, while the current demonstrations are focused in the capital.
The Rouhani government, which thought that the nuclear deal would generate more widespread economic benefits than it actually has, is under pressure from hardliners, who were happy to see it fail Indeed, it’s not just opposition or international media reporting on the protests this time around, as so often happens in Iran. Mainstream Iranian media outlets have also been reporting on them, indicating that a segment of the establishment wants them to be publicized. Security forces appear to have control of the unrest for now, but there’s no telling if the peace will keep, considering that sanctions are looming and there’s no end in sight for the rial’s decline.
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second post
https://www.dailywire.com/news/32237/trump-winning-iran-foreign-minister-fears-collapse-hank-berrien?utm_medium=email&utm_content=062518-news&utm_campaign=position6
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Instead of death to Israel, Palestine is their new target. People are tired of the Mulluh money going to Syria etc when things are so bad at home.
"Demonstrations indicate growing anger at regime's support for regional terror groups at expense of country's troubled economy"
https://www.timesofisrael.com/iranians-chant-death-to-palestine-at-economic-protests/
"The order is rapidly fadin' ", "The times, they are a-changin' "
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7qQ6_RV4VQ
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https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/COLUMN-ONE-The-Grand-Bazaar-AMIA-and-Lockerbie-561169
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the strait would be a drastic and damaging move for the country.
The tough rhetoric is more than likely to be followed up by more mild retaliation attempts, such as the harassment of vessels in the Strait of Hormuz.
What happened?
Recently, Iran's government has been revisiting a familiar refrain: the threat to block the strategic Strait of Hormuz. In comments published July 3 on his official website, President Hassan Rouhani issued a vague threat against regional oil exports, saying, "the Americans have claimed they want to completely stop Iran's oil exports. They don't understand the meaning of this statement, because it has no meaning for Iranian oil not to be exported, while the region's oil is exported." On July 4 and 5, several Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officials expressed their willingness to follow through on the president's tacit threat. The IRGC's commander, Mohammad Ali Jafari, for example, said, "we are hopeful that this plan expressed by our president will be implemented if needed. We will make the enemy understand that either all can use the Strait of Hormuz or no one."
The Big Picture
The United States is pursuing a tough line against Iran, which it views as responsible for exacerbating the Middle East's regional instability. Washington is hoping that sanctions will weaken Iran's economy so much that it will force a change in behavior and ultimately in leadership. Faced with this difficult position, Iran must find ways to strike back at the United States without further compromising its economy and international alliances.
See 2018 Third-Quarter Forecast
See Iran's Arc of Influence
Why are the United States and Iran threatening each other?
Beginning in November, the United States will reapply sanctions on Iranian oil exports that has previously been suspended through the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly called the Iran nuclear deal. While U.S. policy since Washington withdrew from the deal in May is still not entirely clear, it seems increasingly likely that the United States will demand that its allies completely stop importing Iranian oil. (At the same time, the United States is also pressuring its Gulf Arab allies to produce more oil — not only to make up for the anticipated Iranian drawdown but also to combat shortfalls resulting from turmoil in big oil producing countries like Libya.)
If all U.S. allies stop importing Iranian oil, the country could ultimately see its oil exports drop to as low as 1 million barrels per day (bpd) from its current 2.28 million bpd, resulting in a big loss of revenue. That dire prospect, amplified by the need to hit back at Washington and save face in some way, is prompting Iran to dredge up its familiar threat to shut off the Strait of Hormuz to any trade. The mere threat of closing the strait increases market uncertainty, stokes oil prices and creates some leverage for Iran without requiring that it follow through.
Why does the Strait of Hormuz matter?
The Strait of Hormuz, a narrow passage in the Persian Gulf between Omani and Iranian territory, facilitates the movement of some 30 to 35 percent of the world's maritime oil trade. Close to 17 million barrels of oil travel through the strait each day, and all Persian Gulf shipping must travel through it. This includes shipping from every port in Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar, most of the ports in the United Arab Emirates and some critical ports in Saudi Arabia. Consequently, threats to the Strait of Hormuz, whether realistic or not, drastically affect market certainty because all of the world's big oil or natural gas importers — including the United States — depend on the secure passage of shipping through the strait.
A Map of the Strait of Hormuz
Hasn't Iran made this threat before?
The current threats are reminiscent of previous statements that Iranian leadership has made over the years, whenever Tehran feels Washington is challenging its economic sovereignty. In 2012, Iran threatened to block the strait in response to sanctions by the United States and the European Union against the country's nuclear program. Iran's navy chief said it would be "easy" to block the strait, while its vice president warned that not a "drop" of oil would pass through it if more sanctions were piled onto Iran. But even when those sanctions did materialize, Iran did not block the strait.
One difference between then and now is the extent to which the White House responded to the Iranian threats. The former administration downplayed them while it sought to negotiate a complicated nuclear deal. But the current administration is pursuing a heavily focused anti-Iran policy in the Middle East while trying to build up its relationships with allies such as Israel and Saudi Arabia, who view Iran as their primary adversary.
Would Iran actually block shipping in the Strait of Hormuz?
Despite the rhetoric, actually blocking the Strait of Hormuz represents perhaps Iran's most extreme option. First and foremost, attempting to close the strait would result in a devastating war for Iran against the United States and the Gulf Cooperation Council, as the latter seeks to preserve the freedom of shipping and naval passage through the critical strait. Meanwhile Iran's own economy and naval activity also depend on the free passage of goods and vessels through the strait. Finally, cutting off the Strait of Hormuz would be counterproductive to Iran's current goal of trying to stave off further U.S. sanctions and keep the European Union and other allies such as China and India in its good graces. The move would be incredibly disruptive to global shipping and oil markets, spoiling the well with allies that Iran needs now more than ever.
What is likely to happen next?
Unless something as extreme as an all-out regional military conflict breaking out occurs, Iran will not block the Strait of Hormuz, even once the suspended oil-related sanctions go back into effect in November. As the United States increases sanctions pressure, Iran will probably retaliate in other ways, such as by utilizing its cyberwar capabilities against U.S. allies in the region or by harassing vessels in the Persian Gulf. These will likely include U.S. or allied military vessels, tankers carrying Saudi or Emirati crude oil or Saudi or Emirati offshore production platforms.
This type of harassment is common for the IRGC's navy, which maintained a strategy of deterrence in the Persian Gulf even after the implementation of the JCPOA. In 2017, it harassed Emirati ships and an offshore Saudi platform. In that same year came an incident between an IRGC vessel and a U.S. naval ship in which the U.S. vessel fired warning shots in an effort to prevent a collision. The IRGC put a stop to those behaviors in August 2017, when Iran began its charm campaign to placate the European Union and try to prevent the United States from leaving the JCPOA. But now that an aggressive White House has brought back sanctions and the European Union is unable to offer economic guarantees, the IRGC may well start up this type of activity again.
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I'd put money on it.
GPF:
Marc-- any chance Trump's sanctions have something to do with this?
In Iran, Anger Rises as the Currency Falls
Protests in the capital are growing.
By Xander Snyder
Things in Iran seem to be going from bad to worse. Protests have broken out again, this time centered in the capital, Tehran, as the Iranian currency plummets in value. Thousands of people, including traders in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar, participated in the protests, which started June 24. According to the BBC, they are the largest protests in the country since 2012, when economic sanctions degraded the economy and galvanized the public to action. The Iranian economy, however, rebounded after the nuclear agreement in 2015 lifted the sanctions, and Iran re-entered the global economy. The U.S. withdrawal from the deal, and fears that it will lead to a total collapse of the agreement, is at least partly responsible for the rial’s decline.
The rial is currently worth 90,000 rials to the dollar, a sharp fall from roughly 43,000 to the dollar at the end of 2017. And its decline has had a real impact on businesses that rely on imports, which become more expensive when a currency depreciates.
The protests themselves occurred in two phases. The first happened at two shopping centers specializing in cell phone sales in Tehran, where traders went on strike and shut down the centers on June 24. The merchants criticized the shops that remained open and called the shopkeepers “cowards.” The minister of information and communications technology has claimed that the merchants went back to work, but only after the government provided guarantees that it would help them secure hard currency for imports. (How the government plans to actually do that remains unclear.)
The government’s guarantees didn’t manage to quell the unrest for long. The following day, more protests broke out, this time at the parliament building. The demonstrators were confronted by police, who used tear gas to disperse the crowd. According to media reports, protesters shouted anti-regime slogans, including “Leave Syria, think of us” and “Death to the dictator,” and other unusual slogans like “Death to Palestine.” :-o :-o :-o
It’s not clear who organized the protests, but Iranian media reported that the demonstrations that shut down the Grand Bazaar started when the rial fell to 90,000 to the dollar. The government tried to address the currency problem in April, when it fixed the official exchange rate at 42,000 rials to the dollar. But this rate hasn’t held on the black market. Large, anti-government protests also erupted in late December and early January. Those protests, initially sparked by rising food prices, spread to cities and villages across the country, while the current demonstrations are focused in the capital.
The Rouhani government, which thought that the nuclear deal would generate more widespread economic benefits than it actually has, is under pressure from hardliners, who were happy to see it fail Indeed, it’s not just opposition or international media reporting on the protests this time around, as so often happens in Iran. Mainstream Iranian media outlets have also been reporting on them, indicating that a segment of the establishment wants them to be publicized. Security forces appear to have control of the unrest for now, but there’s no telling if the peace will keep, considering that sanctions are looming and there’s no end in sight for the rial’s decline.
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In Iran, every time one problem seems to go away, another one takes its place. Recent protests are a case in point. Just as the demonstrations over economic grievances in Tehran had died down, new ones began in Khuzestan. People throughout the region have taken to the streets to decry how the government is mishandling the ongoing water shortage. (Protesters claim Iran continues to sell potable water to Iraq and Kuwait, even as 230 Iranians were allegedly poisoned by contaminated drinking water.) Unrest related to water issues has been simmering in Khuzestan since March, but officials just can’t seem to get a handle on it. Social media posts from Wednesday suggest Iran has deployed more forces to the cities of Khorramshahr and Abadan to quell the unrest.
Meanwhile, President Hasan Rouhani is in Europe desperately trying to salvage the Iran nuclear deal by encouraging France, Germany and the United Kingdom to abide by their prior trade and investment commitments, saying that “if the remaining signatories can guarantee Iran’s benefits, Iran will remain in the nuclear deal without the U.S.” Given the threats the U.S. has made against any country that continues to work with Tehran, and the willingness shown by the Trump administration to impose economic hardship even on its allies, it’s highly unlikely that Europe is willing to run afoul of the U.S., especially when Washington is already starting a trade war with Europe. Put simply, the U.S. can hurt Europe more than Iran can help Europe, so Rouhani’s calls for help will probably go unheeded.
With the U.S. trying to force every customer to stop buying Iranian oil, the government in Tehran will have a hard time making up lost revenue. Losing oil revenue is bad enough, but it comes at an especially bad time for Iran – the government budget is already stretched thin in support of military operations in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, and the Iranian public claims that government spending on social programs is already inadequate. Eliminating the demand for Iranian oil, moreover, would hasten the decline of the Iranian rial, which has been plunging in recent months and was the proximate cause of the most recent bout of protests in Tehran.
Rouhani is no doubt aware of the futility of his mission to Europe, so he has raised the stakes. On July 2, during his strip to Switzerland, angry that other countries would be able to ship oil from the region but Iran would not, Rouhani threatened to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, through which as much as 30 percent of all daily seaborne hydrocarbons pass. Shortly thereafter, Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Quds Force, the expeditionary arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, stood behind Rouhani’s statement, signaling that the military was ready to close the strait in defense of Iran’s national interest. The failure of the Iran nuclear deal aggravated the divisions between Iran’s reformist camp, of which Rouhani is a member, and the hard-line camp, of which Soleimani is a member. It’s possible that the cancellation of oil imports will be the issue that unites them. (It’s also possible that the reformers, having staked so much of their credibility on the nuclear deal, have lost face and are now subordinated to the security establishment.)
(click to enlarge)
Unsurprisingly, the U.S. didn’t appreciate Rouhani’s threat. Closing the strait would send oil prices skyrocketing and hurt the economy of Saudi Arabia, Washington's stalwart ally in the region. Washington responded by vowing to keep the Persian Gulf open – a response that necessarily requires the direct use of force, which would obviously mark a change in how the U.S. deals with Iran. Iran’s navy could never beat the U.S. Navy in open combat, but it’s hard to imagine the U.S. public has much of an appetite for another military conflict in the Middle East. Iran isn’t especially interested in a conflict either, but the government is getting desperate. With less to lose, Iran will be willing to take bigger risks.
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By Nawaf E. Obaid
July 1, 2018 4:36 p.m. ET
76 COMMENTS
Mass protests are nothing new in Iran. But nearly 40 years into the failed experiment of the Islamic Republic, an end may be near.
Iran’s economy is in shambles and its public finances are teetering. Given that about 60% of Tehran’s budget comes from petroleum exports, the best way for the U.S. to hasten regime change is to tighten sanctions while closely coordinating with regional allies to increase global oil supplies and lower prices. The State Department’s recent announcement that countries will face stringent sanctions if they don’t halt Iranian oil imports by Nov. 4 is a crucial first step. Tehran’s mullahs cannot survive a sustained oil price of $60 a barrel with practically no export revenue.
Regime change in Tehran is vital to Saudi Arabia’s national security. Stopping Iran’s efforts at establishing regional hegemony is the kingdom’s highest foreign-policy priority. Riyadh is already spending tens of billions of dollars combating Iranian destabilization campaigns from Syria and Lebanon to Yemen to even Morocco. With some $500 billion in foreign reserves and one of the cheapest oil extraction costs in the world, the Saudis can weather lower oil prices for years.
Three main factors are pushing Iran to the financial breaking point: public-debt obligations on the brink of default, President Hassan Rouhani’s massive subsidies to politically powerful farming communities, and the mounting costs of its attempts to foment chaos throughout the Arab world.
For the U.S., sustaining a policy of economic pressure will require unprecedented cooperation. There are three preconditions for success, one of which is already being met.
First, Saudi Arabia and Russia—the world’s top two oil exporters—have reached an agreement to increase output. The Saudis plan to ramp up production to as much as 11.5 million barrels a day to drive down prices and eventually make up for lost Iranian oil. Since Moscow is in a position to benefit from a policy freeing it from production quotas and in no position to stop it, it agreed.
Second, as Iran suffers from its lack of indigenous capital and technology to increase sustained oil production and exports, Saudi Arabia and its allies, especially the United Arab Emirates, should join the U.S. in instituting sanctions against the few international oil companies that will still be willing to invest in Iran’s upstream industry.
Third, because Iran lacks access to foreign financial markets and U.S. banks are banned from doing business there, its remaining hope is European, and to a lesser extent Asian, banks. The Treasury should send a clear message to foreign financial institutions, including those based in Dubai, that they’ll lose access to U.S. capital markets if they float new credit to Tehran in any form after Nov. 4.
If President Trump, Saudi Arabia’s King Salman and their allies wish to end the widespread terror caused by this so-called Islamic Republic, they should commit to using oil as a nonlethal weapon.
Mr. Obaid is a visiting fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Earnest_Will
also see
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WG8-WyBfKto
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"Iran’s economy is in shambles and its public finances are teetering. Given that about 60% of Tehran’s budget comes from petroleum exports, the best way for the U.S. to hasten regime change is to tighten sanctions while closely coordinating with regional allies to increase global oil supplies and lower prices. "
Fracking brought down the Ayatollahs in Iran and OPEC including Saudi and the Gulf states are trying to bring down oil prices. Who knew? Getting tired of winning?
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Iran and the United States enjoyed a brief rapprochement when they signed the Iran nuclear deal, but the U.S. withdrawal from the agreement backed Tehran into a corner. For months, political infighting and public unrest over the country’s poor economic performance has considerably weakened Iran’s regional position. Now it seems rival political factions have come together to deliver a coherent Iranian response. And just in time: The first wave of U.S. sanctions will be reintroduced on Aug. 6. (The second and final wave will follow 90 days later, on Nov. 4.)
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said during a speech on Saturday that he supported a policy of blocking regional oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz if Iranian trade partners bowed to U.S. pressure to stop buying Iranian oil. President Hassan Rouhani followed that with his own eyebrow-raising speech on Sunday in which he echoed Khamenei’s threat and warned the U.S. about “play[ing] with the lion’s tale.” (Neither leader was specific about how Iran intends to close the strait, but at least they’re on the same page.) U.S. President Donald Trump’s threatening tweets late Sunday have grabbed the headlines, but it was Iran that started the war of words. In the wake of Trump’s reply, Iran’s chief of staff accused the U.S. of preparing to attack Iran, while a commander of the Basij paramilitary force accused it of psychological warfare. Iran’s foreign minister, in a clear message to the U.S., tweeted that Iran had lasted millennia and had seen empires fall, ending with a warning (mimicking Trump’s own threat): “BE CAUTIOUS!”
Iran’s political struggles are notoriously opaque, and the weekend’s developments are not clear-cut. While Rouhani, the president who engineered the rapprochement on Iran’s end, is talking more like a commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC has been noticeably silent. Indeed, an aide to the supreme leader had to deny on Saturday that the commander of the IRGC was going to be replaced. If the Iranian government is revving up to pursue a more aggressive foreign policy, it’s hard to figure out how that would mean a shake-up of the IRGC. It’s unclear why the denial was necessary – perhaps Rouhani is attempting to use his swing toward hawkishness to eliminate rivals. Whatever the case may be, it’s premature to say Iran’s newfound internal political coherence will endure.
Even so, no matter what faction emerges on top, whether by consensus or power grab, it is becoming clear that at this point Iran has relatively few options and has been forced into the arms of Russia and China. The logical starting point is Russia. On July 11, a few days before the Helsinki summit between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Khamenei dispatched his top foreign policy adviser to Moscow. The objective may have been to get the two countries on the same page, implying that they have been coordinating their moves since the summit.
For Moscow, the name of the game is leverage. This is the second time in recent years Russia has looked to the Middle East for leverage over Washington. Russia’s first attempt, of course, was to parlay its intervention in Syria into considerations in Eastern Europe, specifically Ukraine. For the price of having propped up Bashar Assad, whose forces have been critical to the defeat of the Islamic State, Russia hoped the U.S. might be willing to compromise on Ukraine. In the end, Syria was not important enough to the U.S. to bargain, but Iran may be a different story. If Russia can demonstrate the ability to keep Iran in line, the U.S. may be willing to deal. If nothing else, encouraging Iran’s defiance raises the price of oil, which is good for Russia.
China is Iran’s other option. Beijing seems willing to go toe to toe with the U.S., at least for a while, as it assesses the damage from the burgeoning trade spat. China has given no indication that it will stop importing oil from Iran for fear of potential U.S. sanctions. If anything, it looks poised to increase its purchases, especially if the price is depressed because of the barriers around Western markets. For China, too, this could translate into leverage when dealing with the United States. At the very least, it’s cheap oil in a region China will be drawn toward more as its import needs grow.
Iran doesn’t want to be a pawn, but that will be the price of aligning itself more closely with Russia and China, and for Tehran, that’s better than kowtowing to the United States. The U.S. made the first move when it canceled the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, and now Iran has shown it has no intention of backing down. The next move belongs to Washington, and it will probably involve Moscow and Beijing.
Like in the North Korea situation, pure interest would dictate that the U.S. defuse the Iran issue, or at least deal with it in such a way so as not to improve Russia’s or China’s position. But in U.S. politics, the Iran issue is hostage to more than pure geopolitical interests. Whatever happens next, the first true ripples of the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA are becoming visible, and the U.S. faces hard decisions about how to prioritize its wide-ranging foreign policy imperatives.
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Steve Hayward interviews Kelly Jane Torrance of the Weekly Standard who covers Iranian dissidents. Great insights including what the NYT won't cover and why, what the Iranian people think of Trump and Obama. Things have changed in the protests in the last month. Regime tried to kill dissidents in France including that reporter. Worth your time if this subject interests you. Click on the play arrow at the bottom of this page:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/07/the-power-line-show-ep-81-a-next-iranian-revolution.php
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Indicators of Iran’s political stability continue to flash negative. Its currency is falling in value –AP reported that on the black-market exchange, the Iranian rial dropped to 112,000 to the dollar on Sunday from 98,000 the day before, while the steady decline of the official rate continues. A reformist newspaper headline led with a story about a potential “economy coup,” while the newspaper for a minority party in the Iranian parliament said Iran is moving toward a crisis that can be solved only by shaking up senior levels of government. A leading hard-line paper, while blaming economic issues on Iran’s enemies, also called for “revolutionary decisions” to resolve the country’s woes. Al-Monitor reported that the latest factional dispute in the Iranian government has pitted Iran’s chief of staff against a vice president. The country’s top security body released two prominent opposition leaders from prison. The Majlis Research Center, the research arm of the Iranian parliament, published a report on the controversial issue of mandatory hijab wearing and discovered that 55 percent of Iranian women are against such a policy. And this is in just the past 48 hours – and as small protests over water scarcity and other economic issues continue.
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July 31, 2018
By GPF Staff
Preparing for the Worst in Iran
That the IRGC is hedging its bets shows how seriously it takes the risk of revolution, however remote it may be.
On Tuesday, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Mohammad Ali Jafari, wrote a letter to Iranian President Hasan Rouhani that was subsequently published by Tasnim News Agency, a private company with strong ties to the IRGC. In the letter, Jafari criticized Rouhani for working harder on the campaign trail – and fighting his political enemies – than he was trying to solve the country’s economic problems, which are getting worse by the day. Inflation is spiraling out of control. Encouraging Rouhani to take undefined “revolutionary action” to rein in prices, Jafari also stressed that all of Iran must join in bringing relief to the most vulnerable segments of society.
The letter is the most ominous signal in what has been a difficult past few days for Iran. The black-market exchange rate for the Iranian rial to the dollar has fallen to 122,000, while the official rate has decreased to 44,000. The black-market rate is now more than double what it was in April, when it first seemed that the rial’s depreciation – and the protests it introduced – might actually threaten the Rouhani government. On Monday, the new governor of the central bank released a statement saying the bank would enact extraordinary measures in the coming days. Yet the rial continues to plunge, and posts on social media show protests popping up around the country again.
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It’s no secret that the Rouhani administration and the IRGC are often at odds with each other. Rouhani himself had a plan to undermine the IRGC's influence: He wanted to use the money recouped by the Iran nuclear deal to improve the economy and thus take some power back from the IRGC, which is believed to control as much as 60 percent of the Iranian economy. Indeed, Rouhani had already been trying to change the status quo, even going so far as to arrest certain IRGC members and forcing IRGC-held companies to transfer title back to the state, which will eventually privatize them. Rouhani had plenty of support in this regard – not just from the reformist faction he leads but from the supreme leader himself.
The problem for Rouhani is that the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal all but ruined his plan. With the Iranian economy already in shambles and with sanctions due to return in August, it’s unclear how the president can craft a new one. Iran has some $90 billion in foreign reserves, and though these reserves may buy the government some time, they won’t buy very much of it. The government already tried to benchmark the rial in April, but the policy failed quickly, forcing Tehran to discontinue it in June. The government has also tried the scapegoat approach, having recently arrested around 60 people and charged them with “economic disruption,” but these people’s incarcerations have convinced no one that the economy is now healthy.
As for the IRGC, it isn’t interested in removing Rouhani from power, at least not by a coup. The IRGC’s legitimacy is derived from its role as protector of the revolution, and a putsch would call that legitimacy into question. The IRGC is more interested in co-opting the system and harnessing power within it than it is in ousting the regime itself. It may not see eye to eye with Rouhani on all matters of state (and to be clear, the IRGC thought the nuclear deal was doomed to fail from the start), but revolution and the uncertainty that surrounds it are more detrimental to its bottom line than a president with whom it disagrees.
It’s therefore unclear what exactly Jafari meant in his letter when he called for revolutionary action. What is clear is that the IRGC is giving Rouhani just enough rope to hang himself while sending a message that it stands with the Iranian people, just in case. Doing so undercuts Rouhani’s power and deflects anger away from the IRGC, whose costly ambitions in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon have aroused the ire of protesters. Even if the Rouhani administration does stabilize the situation, there is still no clear path for economic success, increasing the likelihood that a pro-IRGC candidate could win the next elections.
Unlike in incidents past, these protesters are not just students. These are ordinary citizens who are quickly losing their life savings and are struggling to put food on their tables. So far, their numbers are small enough not to threaten the government, but if the value of the rial keeps falling and inflation keeps rising, that may not be the case for long. The IRGC letter seems to be preparing for an outcome in which Iran may have to call in the IRGC to clear the streets and restore order – which the IRGC will have to spin.
It’s unlikely that this will happen, but the situation is now such that it can’t be dismissed. The worse the situation gets for everyday Iranians and the harder it is for Iranian economic elites to make money, the more unpredictable conditions on the ground may become, and the higher the possibility for a single event to lead to a spontaneous protest movement large enough to force very difficult decisions on Iran’s leadership. That the IRGC is hedging its bets shows how seriously it takes the risk, however remote it may be.
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The United States and the European Union have officially reached an impasse on how to deal with Iran. The first batch of U.S. sanctions reimposed after the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal will kick in at 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday. The European Union – united on this rare occasion – has opposed the move from the beginning. When the U.S. sanctions resume, a revised version of an obscure 1996 EU law referred to as a “blocking statute” will come into effect to shield European firms doing business in Iran from the effects of the sanctions. But the EU’s efforts to protect its companies and to prop up the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action will be ineffective. The divergence in strategic thinking between Brussels and Washington, meanwhile, will only deepen with time.
The U.S. and the EU had their fair share of disagreements long before the current U.S. administration came to power. The blocking statute, after all, was originally passed in response to U.S. sanctions against Cuba in the 1990s as well as much less consequential sanctions against Libya and, coincidentally, Iran. The statute blocks European companies from pulling out of Iran due to pressure from sanctions without the expressed approval of the European Commission. It also enables EU operators to sue for damages against the entity that imposed the sanctions (in this case, the U.S. government) and prevents any foreign court ruling from applying to EU companies.
At first blush, this seems like an impressive show of unity from the EU, led by France, Germany and even the United Kingdom. (The U.K.’s foreign secretary signed a joint statement committing the U.K. to help ensure European companies doing business in Iran will be protected, so at least on this issue, London will be in lockstep with Brussels even after Brexit is official.) But the statute suffers from two fatal flaws. Before it can be applied, it must be proved that a company is withdrawing from Iran specifically because of U.S. sanctions. But Iran is a hard place to do business even without the sanctions in place, and any company, in the interest of avoiding U.S. repercussions, can make a compelling case that it is leaving for reasons unrelated to sanctions.
In addition, and perhaps more paralyzing, the European Commission has no way to enforce the statute, so enforcement falls to individual member states. That means that if, for example, an Italian energy firm or a Danish shipping company withdraws from Iran because of U.S. sanctions, the Italian or Danish government itself must then punish the company. European companies are more concerned with profits than policy, so enforcing the penalties prescribed by the statute would be an unpopular move. For many of the EU companies involved in Iran, facing sanctions from the U.S. and losing access to the U.S. market is a non-starter, even if they can recoup some of the damages later.
The U.S. and EU see this issue so differently mainly because of energy. The EU imported 37 percent of its natural gas and 30 percent of its petroleum oil from Russia last year. A 2014 European Parliament report concluded that Iran is “a credible alternative to Russia” for both natural gas and oil, and the EU has been pursuing that alternative with gusto ever since the JCPOA was signed. Iran has the second-largest natural gas reserves and the fourth-largest oil reserves in the world – and unlike Russia, which frequently uses its energy supplies as leverage, Iran has no objectives or ambitions in Europe except to make money.
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Iran has purged parts of its government in response to domestic unrest. Nearly 70 people, including members of the Tehran province city councils and the mayoral office in Zabol, were arrested over the weekend for corruption, smuggling and hoarding of goods. At least 100 more officials have been prohibited from leaving the country. The supreme leader and the minister of intelligence have come out in support of the purge. It would be tempting to dismiss this particular anti-corruption drive were it not for the scale. Earlier firings could be excused as a capitulation to the demands of protesters. The government’s actions over the weekend are clearly more proactive than that.
The purges alone won’t be enough to spare Iran from U.S. sanctions. Japan, South Korea and the European Union have ordered their banks to suspend activity in Tehran. China and Russia, however, are still open for business. Iran plans to cut the sale price of its oil to Asian markets in September, closer to the imposition of new sanctions that will target the energy sector, to attract business, but that may be too little, too late.
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Iranians Want Our Country Back
Civil disobedience, public demonstrations and strikes aim at a systemic collapse of the regime.
Protesters at Tehran’s grand bazaar, June 25.
By Reza Pahlavi
Aug. 15, 2018 6:57 p.m. ET
The Iranian people have a message: We want our country back.
As cities across Iran erupted in another round of nationwide protest against the Islamic Republic, a young man named Reza Otadi joined his neighbors on the streets of Karaj, northwest of Tehran. They shouted “Death to the dictator!” and “Clerics get lost!” Shortly thereafter, Reza was identified by the regime’s domestic-security apparatus. On the evening of Aug. 3, as he made his way home, regime security forces shot and killed him. He was 26.
We know only so much about Reza Otadi. We know that he was a shopkeeper and that he was engaged to be married. We know from his Twitter profile that he tweeted only once, on May 22: “#IranRegimeChange—for freedom, a better life, tranquillity, emotional and economic security, and laughter without stress.” In this solitary, somber yet resolute tweet, Otadi captured the sentiments of an entire nation. Perhaps he knew, and saw no need to say anything more.
The protests in Iran are the latest chapter in an almost 40-year struggle. They are not just about economic grievances—“the price of eggs,” as some regime sympathizers have said. They are much broader in their scope and deeper in their objective than any single economic or social issue.
The national protest movement building in Iran recognizes and decries the social, political and economic injustices of life under the Islamic Republic. It understands them as symptoms of a single disease—the Islamic Republic, both its ideology and its structure. The Iranian protest movement targets the disease, not merely its symptoms, whether corruption or repression. My compatriots seek to put an end to the Islamic Republic not only because it is authoritarian, corrupt and incompetent, but because it is un-Iranian and anti-Iranian.
From its inception, the regime has sought to subvert Iran by transforming it from a nation into a cause. It changed our centuries-old flag. It discourages or prevents the teaching of our literature and history. It denies our people the right to gather for special occasions at the tombs of their heros, such as Cyrus the Great and Ferdowsi. Under its castelike system of religious and gender apartheid, it assigns each Iranian a particular legal and social status, with women and religious minorities occupying second, third or lower degrees of citizenship. In a land famous for its poetry and music, it has censored and at times brutally suppressed both.
Iranians have had enough. In the streets and across social media, the popular chant, “We will reclaim Iran even if we must die to do so,” reverberates with urgency and determination. Iranians want liberty, justice and opportunity, but they also want their country to enjoy dignity, pride and respect. They want to retake their rightful place among the community of nations. They want to be known and admired for the great cultural and scientific contributions of their ancient civilization. They want to be sought out by other countries as trusted friends and partners as they take charge of their own country and lead it into a new chapter of history. In short, my compatriots want to reclaim Iran from the Islamic Republic.
In February, the regime “celebrated” its 39th anniversary, never less popular or more in crisis. It faces multiple existential challenges simultaneously, all of its own creation: an economy in disarray, widespread environmental devastation, defections from the security forces, unprecedented nationwide protests and labor strikes, and, most significantly, an increasingly fearless population engaging in daily acts of resistance and rejection.
Like many authoritarian regimes, the Islamic Republic rules in fear of the people. It has responded to the latest wave of protests as it often does: by insulting, threatening, jailing, torturing and killing innocent Iranians. It has also slowed or shut off internet and telephone services in Tehran, Karaj, Qom and other cities in an effort to prevent the public from coordinating and from sharing their struggle, and the regime’s brutal response, with the outside world.
For decades I have advocated the establishment of a secular democracy in Iran. I have said that the path toward that goal begins with acknowledgment of two fundamental truths: that the Islamic Republic poses an existential threat to Iran and its people, and that the Islamic Republic cannot be reformed. This path demands civil disobedience, public demonstrations and national strikes aimed at a systemic collapse of the regime. That is the direction of events in Iran today.
After the regime ends, this path must continue with free and fair elections for a constitutional assembly. Ultimately it must arrive at a national referendum on the establishment of a secular democracy designed to safeguard each citizen’s human rights.
My life’s mission is not to assume a personal leadership role in the future state; it is, and has been for more than 39 years, to serve as a source of hope, a voice for unity, and an instrument of change for the Iranian people. Once my compatriots have reached the milestone of a national referendum—once the Iranian people have the chance to select, for the first time, the leaders of their choosing—my mission will be fulfilled.
Like the revolutionaries who founded the United States of America, Reza Otadi harbored aspirations for “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” His crime was protesting peacefully for those aspirations. Like countless others who have challenged the Islamic Republic during its almost four decades in power, he died for them. His example lays bare the essence of the Iran protests. Iran is replete with millions of Reza Otadis, and I am certain that they will soon reclaim our country and rebuild it.
Mr. Pahlavi is the eldest son of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and an advocate of secular democracy for Iran.
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https://clarionproject.org/arab-media-review-american-sanctions-bring-iran-to-knees/
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http://carolineglick.com/german-led-eu-sides-with-iran-against-america/
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No relief for Iran. The domestic unrest that has plagued the government in Tehran appears to be getting worse. Over the weekend, teachers from at least 21 cities across the country announced they would go on strike to protest low salaries and poor living conditions. Meanwhile, in western Iran, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps continues to clash with Kurdish rebels. But perhaps more concerning are the reports that the IRGC was connected to the Sept. 22 attack in Ahvaz. (The Islamic State and Arab separatists have both claimed responsibility for the attack.) Given all the domestic pressures already on the regime, any cracks in the military are extremely problematic and pose a high risk of the government’s downfall.
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A Swift Iran Decision
Iranian banks have to be expelled from the global financing network.
122 Comments
By The Editorial Board
Updated Oct. 17, 2018 8:34 a.m. ET
The logo of global secure financial messaging services cooperative Swift.
The logo of global secure financial messaging services cooperative Swift. Photo: Chris Helgren/Reuters
Another trans-Atlantic showdown is looming as the Trump Administration prepares its next tranche of financial sanctions on Iran, and the puzzle is why Europe keeps backing itself into a corner. Brussels and European Union states seem ready to stage a battle with Washington over an obscure but important financial-service network—against Europe’s own interests.
The looming brouhaha concerns Swift, the Belgium-based cooperative that manages the global system that banks use to communicate with each other for cross-border transactions. The Trump Administration will soon lay out its plans for financial sanctions on Tehran to take effect in November, as Washington reintroduces sanctions lifted under the Obama Administration’s 2015 nuclear deal. One question is whether the new sanctions include Swift.
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They will have to in order to be effective, because cutting Iran off from Swift’s services is one of the best ways to ensure that financial sanctions bite. Were Swift to sever ties with Iranian banks, Iranian companies and financial institutions would struggle to transfer money to and from the rest of the world.
Alternatives exist, but none offer Swift’s global reach or security. Europe’s much-vaunted “special-purpose vehicle” for trading around U.S. financial sanctions, announced last month, is expected to be little more than a glorified barter arrangement with limited scope.
Swift is particularly prone to U.S. pressure because the American financial system looms so large in the world. Swift’s board includes representatives of European and American banks, and many messages across its network travel to or from the U.S. Some Europeans believe Washington wields too much influence over a network they think should operate on a multilateral consensus like a financial EU.
Swift cooperated with the U.S. against Iran from 2012-2016 when the Obama Administration sought to pressure the mullahs. But Swift officials say Europe and the U.S. agreed on that policy. Now they say they’re being coerced by the U.S. without European assent.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas recently floated the idea that Europe could develop its own messaging system as an alternative to Swift, in part to undermine Washington’s ability to impose financial sanctions. China and Russia would be delighted to have an alternative that let them avoid U.S. influence.
Swift officials say the U.S. should worry that an alternative would undermine Swift’s ability to help the U.S. and Europe monitor terror transactions. But terrorists already know to avoid Swift and use other ways to finance their operations. In any case, an alternative would be difficult to make work given the expansive reach of U.S. institutions and the dollar in global finance.
Brussels also has passed a “blocking statute” making it illegal for European companies to comply with U.S.-imposed sanctions. This could be used to lean on Swift to ignore a Washington ban on doing business with Iran. But most European companies have already made clear that they will choose doing business with the U.S. over Iran.
On Tuesday, 30 policy experts and former U.S. officials urged the Trump Administration to include Swift in sanctions. The statement’s signers include former Sen. Joe Lieberman and former national security advisers Richard Allen and Robert McFarlane.
Despite the discord over the nuclear deal, America and Europe share many common interests on Iran and global financial flows. Those include shared concerns over Iran’s ballistic-missile program, which isn’t covered by the 2015 deal, Tehran’s regional meddling, and sunset clauses in the Obama agreement.
European governments are also increasingly concerned about global money laundering and other illicit money flows. Preserving Swift as the main global financial-messaging system is as much in Europe’s interest as America’s. U.S. sanctions that bring Tehran back to the table to address the gaping holes in the 2015 deal are good for Europe and the U.S., and Swift can help toward that goal.
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More Iran sanctions. The United States recently levied yet another round of sanctions against Iran, this time targeting a financial network accused of funding the Basij force, a paramilitary unit within the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The idea is to deny money to the IRGC, which has extensive interests in virtually all sectors of the Iranian economy. But there may be an ulterior motive. The Trump administration is concurrently developing a new plan to dislodge Iranian forces from Syria. If Iran doesn’t have the money to support foreign intervention, then that would save the U.S. the trouble of violating its own terms for using force in Syria, or so the thinking goes. How this will assist the fight against jihadists or remove longtime Iranian ally Bashar Assad from power is anyone’s guess. Still, it’s a low-cost, mostly consequence-free and politically anodyne policy to pursue ahead of midterm elections.
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second post
U.S.: The Latest Sanctions Against Iran Cast a Wide Secondary Net
The United States is deepening its efforts to contain Iran's regional influence and weaken its government, and the main tool in its arsenal is economic sanctions. Its latest round of secondary sanctions on Iran-linked entities strikes at companies that even have tenuous links to the main target and threatens to implicate companies that do business with Iran in any way.
See Iran's Arc of Influence
What Happened
The U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned 20 Iranian companies and financial institutions and reclassified nine more as Specially Designated Global Terrorist entities subject to secondary U.S. sanctions. While the Treasury Department's imposition of sanctions on Iran is nothing new, the nuances of this latest move mark a significant escalation in U.S. strategy. The 20 businesses are tied to the Bonyad Taayon Basij network, which has established a number of shell companies in Iran's auto, mining, metals and banking sectors to mask ownership as a way to shield itself from sanctions. OFAC now claims that the companies in this network have dealings across the Middle East and Europe that make them worthy targets. The critical difference between this set of sanctions and earlier ones is that the penalized organizations have multiple — in the most extreme case, seven to eight — degrees of separation from the terrorist entity, which is the Basij or the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Why It Matters
The shift in OFAC guidelines presents a nightmare for corporate compliance officers trying to practice due diligence in monitoring any links to Iranian entities that could be ensnared in a U.S. sanctions net several transactions down the line. The increasingly hard-line and unilateralist approach to U.S. secondary sanctions policy comes as the European Union is still trying to navigate a web of legal complications in setting up a special-purpose vehicle (SPV) to maintain financial transactions with Iran. OFAC's more stringent guidelines will only further hinder those efforts. Moreover, targeting more reputable Iranian entities such as the privately owned Parsian Bank, the sixth-largest company in Iran, further tightens Iran's ability to maintain financial links for basic humanitarian trade. The White House insists that it is maintaining humanitarian carve-outs in its sanctions against Iran, but the International Court of Justice has sounded the alarm that the current direction of the restrictions could amount to a violation of international law. The White House, however, appears to be less concerned about the humanitarian repercussions of sanctions this time around since a big component of its strategy is to create a groundswell of public dissent across Iran that will either coerce it to negotiate on U.S. terms or drive the country toward regime change.
The OFAC expansion also comes as Iran's political institutions are debating financial reforms that aim to remove it from the international Financial Action Task Force's blacklist and facilitate its financial dealings with willing trading partners. However, if OFAC substantially raises the risk for the European Union and other entities in trying to circumvent a wide U.S. sanctions net, Iranian politicians' motivation to complete the reforms could wane. As a result, Iran will have far fewer options to maintain trade links with the outside world than they did during the last big sanctions wave in 2012 under U.S. President Barack Obama. In addition, the outcome of an internal White House debate over whether to move forward in sanctioning SWIFT, the global financial messaging service, is another potential pressure point that could dry up Iran's external financial links.
Other current and potential sanctions targets of the United States, including China and Russia, will be monitoring the precedent closely as Washington works to sharpen its secondary sanctions tools.
Background
As an illustration of how the latest OFAC sanctions work, take Iran's Sina Bank and Parsian Bank. They are being targeted for providing services to Andisheh Mehvaran Investment Co., which was designated because it is controlled or owned by Iran Zinc Mines Corp., which was designated because it is controlled or owned by Taktar Investment Co., which was designated because it is controlled or owned by Technotar Engineering Co., which was designated because it is controlled or owned by Mehr Eqtesad Iranian Investment Co., which was designated because it is controlled or owned by Mehr Eqtesad Bank, which was designated because it is controlled or owned by Bonyad Taavon Basij, which was designated because it is controlled or owned by the Basij, which was designated because it is controlled or owned by the IRGC — the last two of which are the core sanction targets for terrorist activities. This amounts to seven degrees of separation between the Iranian bank and the Basij and eight for the IRGC. This effectively sends a message that any financial links with Iran could face secondary U.S. sanctions.
Key Dates
FATF deadline: The Financial Action Task Force is meeting for its regular, plenary meeting from Oct. 14 to 19. By passing legislation to counter money laundering and the financing of terrorism, Iran has been working to remove itself from the task force's blacklist and stave off the reimposition of countermeasures. Four pieces of legislation were passed by parliament before the plenary session; three of those have been approved by the Guardian Council, but only one has been completed.
Nov. 4: U.S. sanctions against Iran's energy sector and central bank transactions are reimposed.
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Will China comply with U.S. sanctions on Iran? The Wall Street Journal reports that China’s largest oil refiners, China National Petroleum Corp. and China Petrochemical Corp., have yet to purchase oil from Iran for the month of November. The news seems to corroborate an earlier report from Reuters that said the Bank of Kunlun, allegedly a financial conduit between China and Iran, will cease to accept yuan-denominated Iranian payments starting Nov. 1, according to unnamed sources. If true, China’s compliance is a huge concession. The country imports substantial amounts of oil – from Iran alone it imports roughly 600,000 barrels per day. Abiding by U.S. sanctions means China will have to spend a premium on its imports. It would also put China in the better graces of the U.S. than India, which Washington has been courting for a stronger relationship all year. This is one of the clearest indicators yet that Beijing is as willing to offer concessions as it is eager to find leverage against the U.S. to ease the pressure on Chinese exports.
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(https://geopoliticalfutures.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/india_iran_WG.png?utm_source=GPF+-+Paid+Newsletter&utm_campaign=0237c14367-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_10_26_06_40&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_72b76c0285-0237c14367-247660329)
This is an interesting picture, with 4 points worth commenting.
1. Shows CPEC in Pakistan, the one belt one road network being build by China. This is turning out to be a disaster for Pak. The terms of the 45-60 Billion $ loans are opaque, with rumors of a guaranteed 18-30% interest rate to China. China is building coal plants with imported Chinese labor, and imported coal. After getting their guaranteed loans, the electricity from those coal plants is too expensive and not competetive. The CPEC roads go through Balochistan and POK (Pak Occupied Kashmir, ie Indian claimed territory), which India does not support. Balochistan is in turmoil as the baloch dont like pakistanis. Furthermore there is no water in Balochistan, so all the investment there will come to naught. One year ago, the Pakis were thrilled about CPEC, now that they understand it, they want to get out. There is no way that Pak can pay the loans. China has a tendency to give loans and then if one cannot pay them, they occupy territory, e.g. in Humbatonta port in Siri Lanka.
2. The other important point is the Chabahar to Afghanistan rail road from Gwadar port. This pathway neutralizes any advantage that Pak may have had through CPEC. Pak overplayed their hand, by not allowing Afghan goods passage to India and vice-versa. If Pak had done that, they would be minting money and good will. Since India has spent a lot of money on it, they will not allow the CPEC project to succeed. So Pak is sitting on wasted resources. The Chabahar pathway does not go through rebel territory in Iran as opposed to CPEC which goes through Balochistan, where Baloch attacks on CPEC are quite a daily occurrence.
3. India's trade in oil with Iran and India's support for Chabahar port. Iran and India have had historically and culturally good relations with Iran. I believe the US supported the Chabahar port over CPEC to stick it to the pakis and Chinese. I think the US will grumble about India's trade with Iran and will make a show and threaten sanctions, but will not do anything about it, because in the scheme of things India-US are working very closely in the Indo-Pacific to counter China, which is the real game. Iran is just a side show, the US will punish Iran with sanctions, but not via India. This is the same reason that US will threaten sanctions over India's purchase of S-400 missiles from Russia, but will do nothing. India purchases a lot of weapons from the US, and they will not want to mess that relationship by applying sanctions on India. India-Iran can trade in Rupees and Rials, I have also heard of Gold being used for payments, bypassing SWIFT.
4. Pak is in discussions with the IMF, they have a long history of being bailed out by the IMF again and again. There is no way they can pay for anything through CPEC. Pak is a beggar nation, IMF has demanded they devalue the pak rupee (PKR) to 150 PKR/$, disclose business terms with the CPEC agreement (which is anathema to Pak). If they get a bail out, inflation will spike in Pak. They really need to be put out of their misery. So last week they begged the Saudis for dollars who obliged, but will likely demand their pound of flesh. It could be supplying cannon fodder in Yemen, or perhaps Pak recognizing Israel (Supposedly, with a push coming from Trump, to improve Saudi optics with the Khashoggi case). Yesterday, a civilian Israeli plane landed in Pak for 10 hrs, and the rumor mill is buzzing.
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Very impressive analysis YA, thank you very much.
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Europe may be souring on Iran. On Monday, EU foreign ministers signaled support for EU-wide sanctions on Iranian intelligence officials following failed assassination attempts against Iranian exiles in France and Denmark earlier this year. This doesn’t mean that the EU will throw its support behind the broad U.S. oil sanctions on Iran, but it would be a notable show of European unity. (Just last March, the United Kingdom, France and Germany failed to gain unanimous backing for sanctions aimed at curbing Iran’s ballistic missile program.) And it could halt the progress the European Union has made on designing bartering mechanisms that would allow European firms to circumvent U.S. sanctions. Energy markets are already behaving as if this move will bolster the U.S. effort to choke off Iranian crude exports, with WTI and Brent futures jumping Monday, ending more than a month of price declines. (Reports that the U.S. is preparing to designate Venezuela as a state sponsor of terrorism will likely add to the effect.) And if Europe stops serving as a lifeline for Iran, it would increase the likelihood that Tehran pulls out of the 2015 nuclear deal, by which Iran continues to abide, according to an IAEA report from last week.
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Second post
Iran's economy will enter a sharp recession in 2019, but Tehran can capably manage any political fallout that may follow.
Economically, Iran will emphasize prudent management and protection of precious hard currency reserves while boosting domestic investment through its public sector and trying to continue financial sector reform.
While it focuses on economic survival in the face of sanctions, however, Iran will make only limited progress on much-needed longer-term reforms, such as strengthening the private sector.
Iran's squabbling political factions will try to take advantage of the economic environment, but in the face of the crisis, they will work together to prioritize regime preservation.
Editor's Note: This assessment is part of a series of analyses supporting Stratfor's upcoming 2019 Annual Forecast. These assessments are designed to provide more context and in-depth analysis on key developments in the coming year.
A year ago on Iran's black market, one U.S. dollar would bring 41,000 Iranian rials. Today, it would take more than three times as many rials, about 125,000, to buy a dollar. One year ago, Iran was free to export as much oil as it was capable of producing. Today, the United States has reapplied sanctions related to both Iran's oil exports, which provide about a third of government revenue, and its financial dealings. And while the White House has granted sanctions waivers to a few of Iran's oil customers, the waivers are only temporary, ensuring that Iranian oil exports will fall further in 2019.
To put it bluntly, 2019 will be disastrous for Iran's economy, perhaps even precipitating significant economic and social unrest, much like the start of 2018. But while the Iranian economy will bend under the weight of sanctions, they will not break the Islamic republic. Iran's leadership has a long history of dealing with sanctions and economic isolation, and 40 years of practice has made the government particularly adept at survival.
The Big Picture
Iran currently faces sanctions as painful as any that it has ever experienced, but the country's tolerance for economic pain remains high. So while the pressure of sanctions will eventually force Iran to negotiate with the United States, it will not feel the need to do so in 2019. But to cope, Tehran has chosen insulating its economy from sanctions over continuing overdue reforms, leaving many of the economy's long-term economic issues unresolved.
See Iran's Arc of Influence
A Long History of Economic Pressure
Iran has faced some level of sanctions since the Islamic Revolution in 1979 spawned the lengthy hostage crisis that led the United States to break off most economic ties and implement sanctions. Over time, the U.S. sanctions have become increasingly complex, and increasingly effective at disrupting the Iranian economy. When Iran's fledgling nuclear program was uncovered, sanctions intensified correspondingly, culminating with the United States and the European Union piling on particularly debilitating penalties in 2012. Those penalties sent the Iranian economy into a tailspin, driving the growth in its real gross domestic product down by 7.7 percent.
But even that sanctions-spawned economic collapse was not enough to bring Iran to its knees for a few reasons that apply to its current situation as well. First, Iran had become adept at managing U.S.-imposed sanctions by diversifying its ties to economies beyond the West, including Russia's, China's and India's. Russia and China in particular lent Iran political support in helping it develop its economy to operate outside the U.S.-dominated global financial system. Second, while oil exports were an important source of government revenue, the country's economy possessed enough diversity to be able to withstand short-term pressure. Third, in the face of the sanctions by a hostile power, the government's appeals to Iranian nationalism bolster support among the populace. And finally, rather than the chance that the sudden onslaught of sanctions will send the country into an economic tailspin, it is Iran's larger structural economic deficiencies that pose its biggest economic risk. Sanctions can increase the economic drag caused by its structural problems, but Iran has thus far coped by taking pragmatic steps to work around sanctions pressure and offering piecemeal concessions to reduce their impact.
Dealing with a Financial Crisis
Sanctions will force Iran to continue to focus on coping with a financial crisis in 2019. The rial's collapse in value has already caused inflation to steadily creep upward. The International Monetary Fund estimates it could approach a 40 percent annual rate by the end of the year, a stark reversal of President Hassan Rouhani's achievement of reducing inflation to below 10 percent in both 2016 and 2017, its lowest levels in 25 years. The increasing scarcity of hard currency in Iran and the continued outflow of cash from the country will force the government to enact strict capital controls. For example, Iran is demanding that exporters repatriate foreign cash they receive in payment for goods in a more timely fashion. In addition, the country will implement other controls designed to keep supplies of hard cash and gold inside the country and under the control of the government, including instituting limits on the amount of gold or cash that individuals are allowed to possess.
A graphic showing the value of Iran's currency under the weight of U.S. sanctions.
These rules will be backed by stiff penalties. In August, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei authorized the creation of special courts to deal with financial crimes. Several Iranians already have been sentenced to death for financial crimes. Sentences were carried out Nov. 14 for two of them, including a currency trader dubbed the "Sultan of Coins," who had been determined to have possession of two tons of gold. The imperative for Iran to maintain the rial's value and control as much of its hard currencies as possible is clear: While Iran possesses more than $130 billion worth of foreign exchange reserves, sanctions have put much of that off-limits to the government, with less than $50 billion thought to be accessible.
Iran must maintain its supply of dollars and euros, which allows it to keep the official (and subsidized) currency exchange rate low enough to control prices of essential goods and staples like medical supplies, food imports and the like, and reduce the danger that rising costs will trigger widespread unrest. After all, memories of the famed "chicken crisis" of 2012 are still fresh in Iran. In July of that year, the price of chicken tripled, driving street protests that shook the government to the point that it even limited the broadcast of images of chickens for fear of further inflaming social unrest.
Iran's economic growth strategy — and, for that matter, its strategy to limit economic contraction — relies heavily on two things: continuing oil exports and fighting unemployment by providing jobs in the public sector (much of which is funded by oil revenue). Iran will need to do everything it can in 2019 to maximize oil sales and the revenue they provide (or, more likely, the inflows of bartered goods that its oil customers provide in exchange). While the United States has granted sanctions waivers to some of Iran's oil clients, it has required most to set up escrow accounts so that cash from oil sales does not flow back to Tehran. That structure will force Iran to essentially convert its oil revenue directly into goods imports. Iran, of course, will continue its efforts to smuggle oil in exchange for hard currency as it did when it faced similar sanctions.
Despite its efforts, Iran's oil income will remain severely restricted. While bartering will be somewhat useful in providing Iran with the goods it needs, the country would prefer to have access to its cash and to the global financial system. But the United States has forced the SWIFT system that facilitates international transactions to cut off most Iranian banks, leaving only a few connected to process humanitarian-related trade, such as for food and medical imports. It's not likely that Iran will gain greater access to the global financial system, even if the European Union follows through with a promise to set up a special-purpose vehicle to circumvent U.S. sanctions for trade with Iran. Even if it materializes, that mechanism would be relatively ineffective because of compliance risk issues that will inhibit companies from participating lest they run afoul of the United States. Still, the ability to barter for industrial goods plus the limited SWIFT access will be important for Iran.
The Resistance Economy
Although the term was not coined until this decade, Iran's economic strategy since the revolution has been establishing what Khamenei calls a "resistance economy." To Iran, that would be a self-sufficient one capable of withstanding international threats and pressure. This theme will be a key part of Iran's economic strategy next year.
Iran will be forced to rely more heavily on its domestic companies, particularly ones owned by the state and parastatal entities like the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). When Rouhani was re-elected in 2017, he called for the IRGC to get out of business, but its companies — including construction giant Khatam al-Anbia — will be a crucial part of Iran's domestic development strategy as it tries to weather the renewed oil sanctions. Iran will rely on investment by bonyads — state-backed charitable trusts — and the public sector to offset lost foreign investment and to maintain some economic activity in key sectors.
One bright aspect of the sanctions, at least for Iranian economic restructuring, will be the reduced demand for investment by the oil sector as compared with what it would need to maintain production growth or high production levels. The government will therefore be able to shift money away from oil (including what it would spend on the associated costs of supplies such as steel and concrete) to either the export market or other industries where needed.
It will not be enough for Iran to develop a self-sufficient economy based on domestic industry, however, considering Iranian dependence on critical imported technologies. Iran does have a relatively robust auto-manufacturing sector, but it is not capable of producing many of the parts it uses in complex components such as engines and gearboxes, relying instead on imports. The scarcity of hard currency not reserved for food and medicine will make importing those parts difficult for Iran's industrial base. Moreover, the increasingly lopsided unofficial currency exchange rate — which those importers would use — is increasing the cost of manufacturing considerably. Tehran wants to fix prices of key industrial goods like cellphones and cars as much as possible to placate the powerful merchant and middle classes, meaning that manufacturers will feel the pinch.
Despite the measures it will take to protect its economy, Iran will enter a sharp recession in 2019, with gross domestic product expected to contract by about 3.6 percent next year.
Not only will Iran's economy continue to depend on foreign inputs, it is beset with many structural inefficiencies. Ironically, the renewed U.S. pressure will force Iran to respond by making legitimate structural reforms that will aid its economy in the long run. Even as former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's populist economic policies drained the country's reserves, Tehran implemented a number of reforms under his presidency to reduce public subsidies, remove price controls on goods like gasoline and privatize some key industries (though his political allies were largely the beneficiaries of those deals).
Considering Iran's previous actions under economic pressure, it can be expected to make wholehearted attempts at reforming some inefficiencies this time around. Unlike Ahmadinejad, who didn't value the advice of technocrats, Rouhani has tried to empower a team of economic experts consistently throughout his term. Even though his previous economic minister lost his job in October and the head of Iran's central bank was sacked over the summer, Rouhani has not replaced them with political appointees. Instead, he has used them as scapegoats, but allowed each to retain informal power behind the scenes while filling their positions with other technocrats.
One central focus of Rouhani's government has been on reforming Iran's messy banking sector. The estimated rate of nonperforming loans in the sector is a whopping 11.4 percent. And even that may belie the true problems with most loan portfolios because of the sector's lack of transparency. The reform push has several facets, including strengthening the central bank's powers to regulate the sector. Another controversial aspect has been passing four transparency laws to strengthen the country's compliance with international rules designed to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism in order to get off the Financial Action Task Force's (FATF's) blacklist.
Rouhani has expended a lot of political capital on the FATF issue, but Iran's hard-liners feel that reforming the terrorism-financing rules will limit Iran's ability to fund its allies abroad like Hezbollah. The moves to increase transparency also will run into resistance from Iran's politically connected elites, who will try to protect the patronage networks they have amassed.
The Economy May Break, but the Republic Will Not
Despite the measures it will take to protect its economy, Iran will enter a sharp recession in 2019, with gross domestic product expected to contract by about 3.6 percent next year. Due to perhaps more technocratic management by Rouhani's economic team, the economic decline in 2019 could be only half of what Iran experienced in 2012.
Nevertheless, the government will have to contend with several acute economic problems: rising rates of unemployment among both youths and the general workforce; growing food and medicine scarcity; and spiraling prices. But Tehran possesses sufficient means of political and social control to stave off disaster. There will be protests, including some that may be widespread and significant, but the state security apparatus has enough tools to deal with them so long as Iran's notoriously fragmented political leadership remains unified enough to protect the system. Among other levers, the government controls Iran's cyberspace and its media, has a near-monopoly on force, and can push ideological messages to shore up public support. Iranians themselves also have a high tolerance for privation: The older generation recalls the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, while the younger experienced sanctions-related difficulties in 2012-15. Their tolerance for hardship will reduce the political pressure that the hard economic times will bring. There would need to be prolonged economic decline to drive fragmentation in the political and security systems' cohesion.
While Iran's political system will remain united in the face of the threat, behind the scenes, its members will all be jockeying for power. Iran is at a crossroads politically and economically, and its political factions will push competing visions of the country's optimal path forward. Rouhani has tried to lead the country toward more economic engagement with the outside world. His fellow moderates and reformists want to continue down that path — and many of Iran's pragmatic conservatives, including potential presidential contender Ali Larijani, see merit in that position as well.
The political currents in 2019 will be influenced by Iran's conservative and moderate factions as they position themselves for 2020 parliamentary elections, where the reformists and moderates want to keep their gains, while Iran's conservatives want to make a comeback. The faction that makes the most gains in those elections will have a leg up in 2021 presidential elections, putting themselves in position to lead negotiations with the United States.
Between Sanctions and Reform
For 40 years, Iran's economic strategy and its political system has oscillated between circling the wagons to deal with economic crisis — many induced by sanctions — and strong pushes for wider structural economic and social reform. Iran has many long-term challenges ahead, including growing unemployment among youths and its highly skilled workforce. It also struggles with low female labor participation and an underdeveloped private sector.
But in times of crisis, Iran can only make so much progress on repairing its economic structure — and often reverts to past practices out of pragmatic need, as it is doing currently by empowering the public sector. While the short-term sanctions-induced crisis won't break the Iranian political system, continuing to push off solutions to long-term economic problems could.
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despite obama's / Kerry's brilliant statesmanship that was to save us all:
https://freebeacon.com/national-security/iran-secret-plans-build-five-nuclear-warheads/
This is a shock :-o ( :wink:)
As Dough might say :
" who could have guessed?"
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https://www.dailywire.com/news/39123/embarrassing-europeans-realizing-trump-was-right-hank-berrien?utm_medium=email&utm_content=120718-news&utm_campaign=position1
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https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/operation-ajax
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https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/dec/16/ghodratollah-mansouri-iranian-general-kills-himsel/?fbclid=IwAR30eeUJqjHMp0-n4WewV3XV_btyqSnLC7jQ2nkqSqce4PQtfM-w4MpdtKc
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Iran tries to speak softly but doesn’t have a big stick. Iran, which has repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel, is changing its tone. Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, claimed that Iran has “never sought wiping out any country,” a clear reference to Israel. He instead laid the blame on Saudi Arabia for trying to destroy Iran. The about-face in this statement is notable. It could be Iran’s attempt to redirect attention from its presence throughout the Middle East, or a sign that the myriad pressures it is facing internally and externally are beginning to have an effect on the way it feels it must present itself to the world. At the same time, the Iranian navy conducted an exercise that involved firing several rockets near the Strait of Hormuz, where the USS John C. Stennis aircraft carrier is currently conducting patrols.
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Iran tries to speak softly but doesn’t have a big stick. Iran, which has repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel, is changing its tone. Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, claimed that Iran has “never sought wiping out any country,” a clear reference to Israel. He instead laid the blame on Saudi Arabia for trying to destroy Iran. The about-face in this statement is notable. It could be Iran’s attempt to redirect attention from its presence throughout the Middle East, or a sign that the myriad pressures it is facing internally and externally are beginning to have an effect on the way it feels it must present itself to the world. At the same time, the Iranian navy conducted an exercise that involved firing several rockets near the Strait of Hormuz, where the USS John C. Stennis aircraft carrier is currently conducting patrols.
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/louis-farrakhan-chants-death-to-america-during-visit-to-iran/
"May America have a tired feeling?"
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Iran’s predictable budget. President Hassan Rouhani has presented parliament with a $113 billion budget for next year, and it is very much a product of the times. U.S. sanctions, drought and poor living conditions are taking a toll on the economy. According to the Statistical Center of Iran, gross national product grew by just 0.3 percent in the first half of the year (totaling $374 billion), down from 5.6 percent the previous year. Agriculture and industry contracted, though oil and services grew slightly. Inflation stands between 18 percent and 35 percent, depending on which estimates you believe. Yet Rouhani vowed to maintain state subsidies for water, electricity, fuel, education and health, all of which will cost some $90 billion, and to increase the budget of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to $6 billion – a 26 percent rise. (Iran’s overall defense budget, however, will shrink by 27 percent.) But Rouhani’s appropriations make sense; cutting certain subsidies led to nationwide protests earlier this year, and the IRGC will be indispensable for keeping the peace in these dire economic circumstances.
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Curious about Spengler's work on another thread, this piece is loaded with facts and analysis about Iran:
http://www.atimes.com/article/iran-wrecked-economy-fund-war-syria/
From March 2017 but still very relevant with some adjustments for the time elapsed.
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Timely to bring this up from the Memory Hole!
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https://fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RS20871.pdf?fbclid=IwAR2hWBZwM0HTdclyfCGfJI0TWAZRJx_cPDd7JLhkMbMfTs_G4BJzj_697L0
https://www.wilmerhale.com/insights/client-alerts/20181108-us-reimposes-final-tranche-of-iran-related-sanctions?fbclid=IwAR2gzzG1mxW8U4lNGxn4N9jlF6b44u74bAJMmKWV-b-OsmNxl8j9dDSnVp0
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https://www.lawfareblog.com/iranian-revolution-and-its-legacy-terrorism
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https://www.lawfareblog.com/iranian-revolution-and-its-legacy-terrorism
"For the clerical regime in Iran, support for terrorism ...was often strategically self-defeating."
I wish our adversaries would act in their own people's best interest.
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Washington Times: Strange story of strange happenings in Argentina that start with terror out of Iran:
https://outline.com/UddTGs
For more than a decade, Alberto Nisman had been investigating the worst terrorist attack ever committed on Argentine soil: The 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. Eighty-five people were killed and hundreds injured.
Four years ago this week, the federal prosecutor was putting the finishing touches on a report that would accuse former President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and a dozen others of helping cover up the Islamic Republic of Iran’s responsibility for the attack.
...
Long before implicating Argentine officials in a conspiracy, Mr. Nisman had found solid evidence that officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran planned and financed the AMIA bombing, and that Hezbollah, its terrorist proxy, carried it out.
...
Mrs. Kirchner says on tape: “We have to kill him.”
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[Besides militant anti-semitism] Why is Iran committing terror attacks in Argentina? Why is the former President covering it up?
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https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2019/01/23/caroline-glick-the-iranian-revolution-and-establishment-prejudice/?fbclid=IwAR2sBc5JEdAQqV1xH_2gUSLZZaye5hBwIPlk1gR133NJnlJzGBymntMFoL8
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Iran: Retrospective on a Revolution
A look back at the 1979 revolution that shaped the Iran of today.
Xander Snyder |February 11, 2019
What makes a revolution? Mass dissatisfaction with the existing order certainly plays a role, but anger is only the first ingredient. Iran’s successful 1979 revolution, which overthrew Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was the result of a confluence of factors. The populace resented the regime’s political repression and its modernization reforms that left many impoverished and displaced. The shah was widely perceived as a Western puppet installed after the ouster of democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh. And, critically, Iran’s clerics wanted to establish a modern-day Islamic republic. Today, Iran is facing threats from all directions and may be approaching the edge of a precipice. There are echoes of 1979 in today’s crisis, but there are significant differences, too. On the 40th anniversary of the Islamic revolution, we take a look back – and see what 1979 can teach us about Iran today.
1979
A driving force of Iranians’ anger in 1979 was the fallout from the shah’s modernization reforms. The shah had two key motivations for these reforms: to weaken power relations and to appease the United States – both in a bid to hold onto power.
The economic reforms, designed to jump-start rapid economic development, promoted large-scale enterprises that could both compete internationally and generate surpluses of agricultural products at home. The shah’s government expropriated landlords’ holdings and redistributed them to peasants. This model was instituted at the expense of power structures that had bound laborer to landlord in a nearly feudal relationship. The landlords were not the only elite class he sought to weaken. The clergy, another center of power, was stripped of its adjudicating role in certain legal disputes that had remained outside the government’s purview. In both cases, the shah was working to minimize the chance that a powerful opposition could arise and challenge his relatively young regime.
The shah wasn’t the only one concerned about his grip on power. The U.S. – the shah’s key backer that had helped reinstall him after the coup against Mossadegh – feared that conditions in Iran were ripe for a communist revolution. (Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev at one point claimed that “the regime in Iran will fall like a rotten apple.”) The U.S. believed that if Iran could achieve rapid economic development, it would increase the standard of living and avoid a class-based revolution, and it pressed the shah to make changes.
The reforms backfired. The sudden fracture of traditional relationships and other rapid societal changes left so many lives in limbo that opposition sprung up simultaneously across many social strata. This made for a remarkable alliance that included the disenfranchised middle class, which despised the shah for disrupting their trade; rural Iranians, whose lives were upended by land reform and the expansion of cash economies; landlords, who were stripped of their property; academics and students, who saw the regime as oppressive and desired freedom of thought and expression; and the clergy, whose power was hobbled by the regime.
This formidable opposition began to coalesce around a shared goal: bringing down the shah. But a key question remained: Who would replace him? The answer came in the form of the ulema – the deeply respected Islamic scholars of religion and law. These scholars and clerics could unite the opposition under a religious cloak, binding together the disparate interests under a shared, righteous identity. Once the opposition was united, it was not long before the shah fell.
Iran Today
Forty years later, Iran is beset by familiar problems, chief among them a crumbling economy. The collapse of Iran’s currency, the rial, has driven up the cost of living and eroded the savings of the poor and middle class alike. It has made imported feed for livestock even more costly. And food has become so expensive that, according to reports that surfaced late last year, the government may have been subsidizing and rationing imported food. The financial system is riddled with nonperforming loans, and banks are struggling to find sources of funding to recapitalize.
(click to enlarge)
At the same time, drought affects 97 percent of the country, and severe drought affects 28 percent of the population, driving farmers and agricultural workers to urban areas in search of alternative livelihoods. People have blamed the government’s poor water management for exacerbating the problem. Moreover, in 2018 the regime faced large-scale, nationwide protests, in part over cuts to cash subsidies, the savings from which were used to fund Iran’s military operations abroad. (The subsidies were later reinstated to appease protesters.) Adding insult to injury, the U.S. reimposed sanctions on Iran last year, cutting its oil exports – one of the country’s main revenue streams – by over 50 percent, according to some estimates.
(click to enlarge)
As in the years preceding 1979, economic hardship is hitting a broad swath of Iran’s population. Everyone is hurting: farmers who can’t find water or pay for feed for livestock, merchants who can’t afford to import their products, and anyone whose savings to buy a car or house have been torpedoed by the failing currency. Even after a security crackdown and regime concessions quelled the early 2018 protests, demonstrations have regularly popped up across the country.
Iran’s economic situation has become so severe that its leadership is considering drastic measures. On Feb. 6, Iranian news website ISNA reported that Ali Larijani, the speaker of the Iranian parliament, said Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wanted to implement “structural reforms” within the next four months. But when questions arose about what exactly these reforms would entail, the parliament’s public relations office quickly walked back the statement. Iran’s clerics, undoubtedly familiar with how the shah’s structural reforms infuriated the populace, know that such reforms can have unintended, uncontrollable consequences. Statements like Larijani’s, therefore, are dangerous. They raise expectations of real change, which could lead to disappointment and even anti-regime sentiment if the people don’t see substantial improvements in economic conditions.
Larijani’s announcement aside, it seems likely the regime is mulling more serious changes to pacify growing public discontent. After all, it’s harder to put down a revolution than to avoid one in the first place. The mere consideration of 1979-scale reforms indicates that the regime has to find options beyond just muddling through the status quo. Still, Iran today isn’t facing the same kind of pressure it had to cope with in 1979. There’s no powerful ally pushing for reform; the U.S. is still applying pressure, but no longer as an ally, and sanctions have failed to compel sweeping changes in Iran in the past. With more room to breathe than the shah had, the current regime will be able to dull the pain of reforms through a more gradual rollout, hoping to avoid antagonizing poor and rich, urban and rural all at once.
But structural reforms might also affect the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Upon ascending to power, the clergy established the IRGC, separate from the military’s chain of command, to safeguard the revolution and its ruling clerics. The IRGC controls a huge chunk of the economy (some estimates put it at one-third) and its members hold significant governmental leadership positions. It seems unlikely the government will confiscate the IRGC’s wealth, as the shah confiscated landowners’ holdings. But the regime has to perform a difficult balancing act with the budget: It must tighten its belt while still keeping the IRGC happy. Khamenei allowed the government to draw from the National Development Fund to keep defense spending high. (Notably, the NDF is a sovereign wealth fund meant to invest in projects with economic returns, such as infrastructure and oil sites. Its funds are not normally spent on defense.) The regime may also have to decrease its spending on engagements abroad; indeed, the budgetary squeeze is the main reason we expect Iran to pull back from Yemen and Syria in 2019. At the same time, Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani have called on the IRGC to give up some of its economic holdings, and the government arrested a dozen IRGC members and associates to force repayment of certain earnings. In response, the IRGC divested its shares in Iran’s telecom company. Still, these seem like token gestures; it’s unlikely Iran’s clerics would impinge on the IRGC’s power enough to anger the very force that ensures their survival.
Another Revolution?
Though protests continue, they lack a common purpose that brought together the 1979 revolutionary factions. But this doesn’t mean regime change is impossible. The IRGC is the most powerful organization in Iran, and in the event of a nationwide uprising with slogans like “down with the clerics,” it is the most capable entity to take advantage of and fill the resulting power vacuum. This would not amount to a social revolution of the sort seen in 1979, but a political revolution or coup d’etat that places the country under military control.
Iran does not seem to be on the verge of implosion, but its leaders are finding a shrinking number of solutions to Iran’s problems. Some of the few options that remain risk recreating the kind of opposition that led to the current regime’s ascendancy in the first place – a thought not lost on Khamenei. Iran’s leaders will likely continue to do what they do best – pound their chests, fire missiles and brag about the regime’s strength – while in private desperately trying to manage an economic transition that mollifies the Iranian public without destroying the regime itself.
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second post:
By George Friedman
The Fall of the Shah: 40 Years Later
The lessons learned through the collapse of his regime remain with us today.
Yesterday, on the 40th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution, we published an article explaining what the revolution can teach us about the economic and political problems facing Iran now. Today, I’d like to focus on the geopolitical implications of the revolution that saw the overthrow of the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and the rise of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. It was a formidable time for the country, but the existing geopolitics of the region remained largely intact.
Most observers didn’t expect the shah to fall, although many claimed afterward that they had predicted it. The shah, who was essentially installed by the United States and Britain, was used as a bulwark of the American containment strategy. He unseated democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, who the U.S. feared was aligned with the Soviets, and helped to block Soviet access to the Persian Gulf. He claimed to be the heir to the Iranian monarchy, but in reality, he sat on the throne because of a coup staged in 1925 by his father, Reza Shah Pahlavi, a military officer who himself had no connections to the long line of Persian monarchs.
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi enjoyed immense wealth but left his people profoundly unsatisfied, both economically and spiritually. Emulating Turkey’s Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, his father had sought a secular, militarist and authoritarian path to modernization. Iran’s merchant class didn’t care much about the modernization plans and demanded a cut of the country’s wealth. The shah appeared indifferent to their plight.
Khomeini did not. He bound up the grievances of the merchants and the peasants with the tenets of Shiite Islam. While sitting in exile in Paris, he sent copies of his sermons and speeches in which he laid out how the shah had betrayed Islam and stolen the wealth of the nation through his lavish and lascivious lifestyle. Experts dismissed him and the growing dissatisfaction, believing that discontent was a constant reality in Iran and that the shah could contain it.
From the American point of view, the shah was a great comfort. In 1973, OPEC, led by Saudi Arabia, had cut off oil shipments to the United States and parts of Europe. At the time, the Saudis were involved in the Arab-Israeli War and sought to outflank Soviet-sponsored Arab movements, especially Palestinian ones. The Soviets had supported coups in Iraq and Syria and backed paramilitary groups from both countries that were formally designed to confront Israel but were actually far more focused on Saudi Arabia. If Saudi Arabia could be destabilized and the flow of oil interrupted, the Soviets thought, the position of the United States and Western Europe would be vastly weakened.
But the Saudis beat the Soviets to the punch by imposing an oil embargo themselves, undercutting Soviet attempts to make it appear that Saudi Arabia was an American puppet. The price of oil soared, creating a global recession. For the United States, the embargo was a mixture of pain and pleasure. On one hand, it caused massive economic disruption. On the other, it was Saudi Arabia, not a Soviet-linked Palestinian group, presiding over an Arab renaissance.
Iran, an enemy of Saudi Arabia, continued to ship oil to the West and made a lot of money in the process, which it largely spent on defense. There was serious talk of Iran becoming a regional hegemon and a nuclear power. The U.S. didn’t vigorously object to any of this. Given the global oil shortage, even after the embargo had ended, the United States had two overriding interests: to contain the Soviet Union and its apparent proxy, Iraq, and to ensure access to the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz.
U.S. intelligence worked closely with SAVAK, the shah’s intelligence service. The agency became Washington’s chief source of information on Iran – but SAVAK didn’t transmit any warning about the uprising to the U.S., either because it didn’t want to or because it didn’t anticipate the level of the unrest. Moreover, the United States’ other intelligence sources in Iran were part of the elite – the higher the sources, the greater the knowledge they can share, or so the U.S. believed. The problem, however, was that the elites were profiting from their ties to the regime and so were unlikely to reveal evidence of its demise until it was too late.
More important, it’s not easy to find sources who know when uprisings will occur and how they will turn out. The last people to know the shah was going to fall were those in the powerful classes, on whom the U.S. relied for intelligence. The idea that an extreme Shiite leader, sitting in exile in Paris, could manage an uprising against the man who could have brought the country to regional hegemony ran counter to all notions of power and continuity in Washington. President Jimmy Carter went out of his way to show his support for the shah almost to the end. It was inconceivable that the powerful would not remain powerful, or that a trained army could not defeat a rabble of protesters.
Those outside the government were equally deluded. Human rights groups loathed the shah for torturing and murdering his people. They made the same mistake that similar groups often make: believing that if a vile government is overthrown, what replaces it will be better. To appease his dissenters, Khomeini appointed a moderate, Mehdi Bazargan, as prime minister. But Bazargan’s liberal positions came into conflict with those of the radical Shiites who controlled the revolution, and his government fell.
The U.S. learned two lessons from this experience. First, you can’t rely solely on official intelligence sources to figure out what’s happening on the ground. Sometimes, the most valuable piece of intel is the reality staring you in the face. Second, geopolitics can be shifted but not obliterated. Iran under an Islamic regime was as hostile to Iraq and the Saudis and ambivalent toward the Kurds as it was under a secular one. Some things changed (Iran became hostile toward the United States), but other things stayed the same (its tensions with the Soviets continued). And as hostile as the U.S.-Iran relationship became, the U.S. continued to help supply Iran with weapons (hence the Iran-Contra affair). Geopolitically, regime change doesn’t alter as much as you might expect.
I’m still surprised at the failure of truly intelligent men and women in and out of government to understand that the shah was about to fall. In the 1980s, many of us were equally unable to grasp that the Soviets were hanging on for dear life. What is so obvious in retrospect was shrouded in the moment. But it shouldn’t have been. It was there for all to see, but recognizing it required looking behind the appearance of power and breaking the habit of believing that things always stay the same. The fall of the shah meant many things, but the failure to foresee his demise was ultimately about a lack of imagination and the inability to grasp that what was true yesterday might not be true tomorrow.
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https://clarionproject.org/how-the-us-and-israel-sabotaged-the-iranian-missile-program/
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Europe shifting on Iran? In a letter sent to U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres, France, Germany and Britain warned that Iran’s recent development and launching of ballistic missiles are part of efforts to develop nuclear-capable missiles and violate a 2015 U.N. resolution. The statement is notable given Europe’s objection to the reimposition of U.S. sanctions on Iran. Diplomatic concerns over Iran’s missile program, which led to Washington’s decision to reapply sanctions in the first place, may be an indication that Europe is moving toward backing U.S. pressure on Iran.
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14126/the-us-sanctions-on-mullahs-are-working
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May 7, 2019
By George Friedman
The US, Iran and a New American Deployment
Iran’s influence has spread across the Middle East, and the U.S. is pushing back.
The United States has announced that it is deploying a carrier battle group and a bomber group to the Middle East. The reason given is that U.S. intelligence has detected an Iranian threat against U.S. and allied assets in the region. The United States has stated that it does not want war with Iran but is prepared to defend its interests in the region. It’s not clear what threat the U.S. detected, but since this force will take some time to reach the area, we can assume that the threat is not perceived to be imminent. And we will assume that the type of threat the U.S. believes is posed by Iran can be countered by the type and amount of air power deployed. But as with all such deployments, there are military, psychological and political components that must be understood.
Fallout From the U.S. Drawdown
Since the Obama administration, Washington’s strategy has been to recognize that the United States’ massive interventions in the Middle East failed to achieve their political goals but imposed substantial costs on the U.S. military and unbalanced the U.S. global posture. They may have disrupted al-Qaida but did not create effective regimes that could themselves suppress jihadist groups. The deployments were neither achieving their goal nor supporting U.S. strategies. Washington understood that withdrawing U.S. forces from the region would have political consequences but concluded that the threat posed by these consequences was acceptable.
The drawdown in U.S. forces redefined regional dynamics. The underlying strategic issue in the region has been the relationship between the Arab world, surrounding non-Arab states like Israel, Turkey and Iran, and great powers, like the United Kingdom and the United States. With the U.S. drawdown, the latter became less significant, while the relationships among the Arab and regional non-Arab powers became critical. At the time, the greatest threat came from Iran. For Iran, the Arab world was a historic threat but one that presented an immediate opportunity.
(click to enlarge)
The threat and opportunity coalesced in the rise of the Islamic State, which occurred in parallel with the slow drawdown of U.S. forces. Shiite-majority Iran saw the radical Islamic, Sunni and Arab force as a threat to its interests, and particularly to its historic interest in Iraq (of which the nearly decadelong war in the 1980s was just one manifestation). Tehran could not tolerate a jihadist government in Baghdad, so it intervened, organizing and leading the Iraqi army. Ironically, at that point, Iranian and American interests coincided; both simply wanted to break the Islamic State. Once IS was broken, the U.S. continued its drawdown in Iraq while Iran became an increasingly dominant political factor in an Arab country with a large Shiite population.
This created a much larger and historic opportunity for Iran. Iran’s strategy was to exploit the Arab world’s Sunni-Shiite divide, using its commonality with Shiites to challenge Sunni Arab powers – especially Saudi Arabia. In Lebanon, Iran had already established a powerful position through Hezbollah, a Shiite Arab force, and it saw another opportunity in Syria. While the Alawite regime of President Bashar Assad was secular, the Alawites are a Shiite sect with historical ties to Iran. During Syria’s civil war, Iran intensified its support of the Assad regime and aligned with the Russian intervention. Tehran and Moscow had a common interest in weakening U.S. power in the region and a shared strategy of using the U.S. drawdown to do so. Iran and Russia were historical antagonists, but both had an overriding interest to weaken the United States, psychologically if not in actual global power.
Pressure on Iran
Iran has therefore emerged as a major regional force. It is a dominant power in Iraq and Lebanon, a significant force in Syria and is deeply engaged in the war in Yemen. It is in the process of surrounding Saudi Arabia, a country with which it has fought wars going back to the 1960s; indeed, in many ways, the Saudi-Iranian enmity is the foundation of regional dynamics. In the past, as during Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, U.S. strategy would be to use main force to block Iran. But the new American strategy has been careful to limit American exposure. Therefore, the U.S. now wants to rely on regional powers to act when it is in their interests to do so, rather than to take direct action itself.
The result has been the emergence of an Israeli-Saudi coalition that includes nations on the Persian Gulf’s western coast. This force is dangerous to Iran. Iran has power around Saudi Arabia, but it is what might be called thin power. With the exception of Lebanon, its power in other countries is neither deeply rooted nor indestructible; rather, it is spread dangerously wide and shallow. And the cooperation that has emerged between Israel and Arab, anti-Iran powers is substantial. In addition to the political power being exerted on Iran, it’s under pressure from the economic sanctions put in place by the United States putatively because of Iran’s nuclear program. In reality, the sanctions fit into the U.S. strategy of reducing military exposure while using diplomatic and economic means to exert pressure. Iran, whose economy had been getting weaker on its own, has been significantly affected by U.S. economic actions.
Iran’s expansion has come under significant pressure. The Israelis have been attacking Iranian positions in Syria, and Russia – ostensibly Iran’s ally but one that’s not eager to see a powerful Iran in the Caucasus – has not made any attempt to stop them. Pressure in Yemen has also placed Iran in a difficult position. Iran remains influential in Iraq, but everywhere else, its expansion has run into serious problems.
Still, Iran has countered where it can. Tehran has been supplying Hamas for some time, but the relationship between the Sunni and Shiite entities has been necessarily complex. (Though Hamas still managed a significant rocket attack on Israel this weekend.) One of Iran’s political options is to draw Israel into attacks on Gaza and Lebanon and portray itself as the only major power in the Muslim world challenging Israel while many others are effectively allied with Israel. The problem with that strategy is that it could also energize jihadists, and they are not Iran’s friends.
Therefore, Iran has to either fold some of its cards or somehow strike. The U.S. has warned that an attack against its allies is possible. The issue now for the U.S. is that, given Iran’s economic problems and the broad but weak hold it has in the region, the drawdown of U.S. forces makes it less risky for Iran to take action. At the same time, reinserting large numbers of ground forces is not something the U.S. wants to do.
Instead, we see the deployment of U.S. air power in the form of a carrier battle group and land-based powers. The U.S. is positioning itself so that, if Iran carries out some operation to stabilize its position, the U.S. can respond with airstrikes. The problem is that, in Syria and Lebanon, Israel is capable of managing air power, and strikes in Iraq will find few targets worthy of the force. What the United States has threatened, without making any explicit threats, is airstrikes on Iran itself if it carries out operations against U.S. allies. But the force the U.S. is deploying is not large enough for a sustained air campaign. So, the threat it’s making at this time is one of limited air action, with further action readily available.
The U.S. deployment is a test of two things. First, whether air power is a significant enough threat to force the Iranians to refrain from aggressive actions in the region. Second, whether it is enough to reverse the Iranian expansion. Iran is embroiled in domestic issues, and the Iranian public, rather than rallying to the flag, might see American airstrikes as yet another miscalculation by the Iranian government. I certainly don’t know which it will be, nor do I think the U.S. government knows. But I suspect that the Iranian government doesn’t know for sure either, and that might limit their risk-taking.
Behind all this is the fact that the U.S. intervention in the region ultimately failed to achieve its political goals and led to the drawdown of the U.S. main force, leaving only limited forces pursuing very limited ends. Without a global power imposing force, the region rearranged itself, as the U.S. had hoped it would, but the rearrangement put Iran in a powerful position, which the U.S. certainly didn’t want. Anticipating that Iran will try to strike against the new anti-Iran coalition, the U.S. is trying to reassert its power without redeploying ground forces. In the end, the Israelis, the Saudis and the (hitherto unmentioned) Turks have more at stake than the U.S. and therefore need to take the risks, either way.
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https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/07/politics/us-iran-transporting-missiles/index.html?fbclid=IwAR2hhSAHQINfsBdnD4iOvsNeI-FmlfGpOo0YbJ1pHbGebOHicZmmOjYWE5U
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https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2019/05/10/caroline-glick-trumps-policy-on-iran-is-working/?fbclid=IwAR0t4C0dBupFjHnwGQ2vvHzijuOKrCJbD1pWSkvE0HaVuvDaf2kqpVDHEvE
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https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2019/05/10/caroline-glick-trumps-policy-on-iran-is-working/?fbclid=IwAR0t4C0dBupFjHnwGQ2vvHzijuOKrCJbD1pWSkvE0HaVuvDaf2kqpVDHEvE
Don't tell the Hawaiian judges. They will file an injunction.
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All the news worth knowing today.
Things to target in the Middle East. Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen claim to have launched drone attacks on “vital Saudi installations” on Saudi Arabia’s 750 mile-long East-West Pipeline. Though they did not specify what they hit, Saudi Arabia said the targets were oil pumps. The attacks do not appear to have caused major damage, but the pipeline – the volume of which has already been reduced to an estimated 100,000 barrels per day, down from 500,000-700,000 bpd in recent years – was shut down temporarily just in case. The pipeline is strategically valuable; it allows Saudi oil exports to bypass the Strait of Hormuz, the Persian Gulf chokepoint that Iran has threatened to block repeatedly in the past. This, of course, comes a day after four oil tankers, two of them Saudi, were targeted near the strait in “sabotage attacks” believed to be involving small limpet mines. Late on Monday, unnamed U.S. officials told Reuters and the Wall Street Journal that Washington’s initial intelligence assessment puts the blame for the tanker incidents on Iran, though that has yet to be corroborated. There’s no evidence to suggest the pipeline and tanker incidents are connected. But, at minimum, it highlights just how many sensitive assets Iran and its allies could target in a conflict.
Iran makes an offer. The government in Tehran has expressed interest in a deal that would ease some of the pressure on its finances, Reuters reported, citing unnamed European diplomats. The rumor is that Iran would remain a party to the nuclear deal in exchange for being allowed to export 1.5 million barrels of oil per day. (Iran recently said it would abandon certain portions of the agreement.) Some Iranian officials have claimed that oil exports in May could drop to as low as 500,000 bpd, a substantial decline compared to its 2018 peak of 2.8 million bpd. India, which is one of Iran’s biggest buyers and one of the main reasons the U.S. issued waivers in the first place, reportedly only had one refinery take up Saudi Arabia’s offerof additional supply for the month of June.
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second post
By Xander Snyder
The US, Iran and ‘Sabotage’ in the Persian Gulf
Four oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz were targets of “sabotage” attacks from unknown sources.
A week after the United States deployed an aircraft carrier strike group and a bomber task force to the Middle East to counter an unspecified Iranian threat, four oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz were targeted by a “sabotage” attack from unknown sources. Two of the ships were Saudi, one of which was en route to pick up oil and deliver it to the U.S. The other two were Norwegian and Emirati. All of the ships were reportedly sabotaged near the Fujairah Emirate, which houses a refueling hub south of the strait on the Gulf of Oman. None of the ships sank, and no individuals have been reported killed or injured.
(click to enlarge)
So far, little is known about the attacks. The Norwegian ship, the Andrea Victory, was reportedly “struck by an unknown object,” according to the ship’s operator, and video footage shows a hole in its hull near the waterline. A reporter from Sky News Arabia, a partly Emirati-owned news agency, captured video footage of the Al Marzoqah, one of the Saudi ships, that showed no identifiable damage. Separately, Lebanese news channel Al Mayadeen reported that seven Emirati oil tankers were damaged in an explosion at the port of Fujairah, a charge that was subsequently taken up in Iranian media and that the United Arab Emirates denied. Neither Saudi Arabia nor the UAE has blamed Iran publicly. The UAE said it has requested support from a team of U.S. investigators and that it will refrain from making any conclusions until the investigation is complete.
The initial assessment from the U.S. investigators, according to American officials who spoke with CBS News on Monday, was that Iran or its proxies were behind the attacks. The team hasn’t reached a final conclusion yet, but Iran would seem to be the most likely suspect. It has, after all, threatened for years to take action in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has also launched sabotage and asymmetric attacks against more powerful adversaries before. By demonstrating the vulnerability of shipping in the Persian Gulf, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps could beat its chest without seriously escalating an already tense situation to the point that the U.S. would need to get involved.
At the same time, it’s not entirely clear what Iran would gain from such low-grade attacks. If anything, Iranian leaders appear to have been spooked by the U.S. deployment last week. In a closed-door session with Iran’s Parliament over the weekend, IRGC chief Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami said that, while Iran is prepared for war with the U.S., it doesn’t expect war.
(Unsurprisingly, Iranian leaders certainly aren’t claiming responsibility for the attack and have called the incident “regretful.”)
Nothing about a war with the U.S. would benefit Iran. Its economy is in shambles. Its people are struggling financially as the persistently weak rial drives up demand for hard assets that are ever further out of reach for the average Iranian. Drought plagues the country, driving disaffected farmers into crowded cities. And the regime is so strapped for cash that there have been reports that Hezbollah (an Iran-funded proxy) is struggling to pay its fighters. On top of this, the country’s oil export revenue has been declining because of reimposed U.S. sanctions. Iran cannot win a war with the U.S., which means that at least some factions within the country are seeking a way out of their current predicament.
Despite its bellicose rhetoric, the IRGC likely doesn’t want war, either. While it is angling to pull power away from President Hassan Rouhani and other moderates who supported the nuclear deal with the U.S., if all the political infighting brings only the threat of war with the U.S., the public may begin to question the efficacy of the IRGC’s policies, too. Showcasing its ability to pose a low-level threat to Persian Gulf shipping channels could be a way for the IRGC to offer a tangible policy without risking U.S. retaliation and without letting the situation get out of its control.
But it wouldn’t make the IRGC look particularly strong, either. Sabotage attacks like the ones conducted over the weekend – which at present look to have caused, at most, minor damage – don’t fundamentally change Iran’s strategic position, help Iran get around U.S. sanctions, or strengthen Iran’s allied militias’ prospects anywhere in the Middle East. The benefit of such attacks, in other words, is superficial at best, showcasing the limited options available to the IRGC rather than its military prowess.
For its part, the U.S. has remained quiet so far, with President Donald Trump issuing only a vague threat to Iran “if something happens.” As of Sunday, the U.S. began flying what it has referred to as “deterrence flights” over the Persian Gulf with its recently deployed B-52s, as well as F-35s and F-15s, but it’s unclear whether there’s a connection between these flights and the apparent sabotage.
All things considered, the situation doesn’t seem to benefit any of the typical players that have an interest in Persian Gulf transit. For now, then, we’ll count this as another variable in the ongoing U.S.-Iran standoff.
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Russia, Iran: Anticipating Moscow's Next Move Amid Heightened U.S. Pressure
Russia has been in diplomatic overdrive over the past two weeks following Iran's announcement that it was suspending some of its commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Shortly after Tehran's JCPOA announcement, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met with his Iranian counterpart, Javad Zarif, during which Lavrov criticized the U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear deal. Then following a May 14 meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in the Russian city of Sochi, Lavrov expressed Russia's desire to keep the uptick in U.S.-Iranian tensions from escalating to a military conflict, but warned that such an outcome remained a possibility due to hard-line U.S. policies toward Iran.
The Big Picture
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As tensions intensify over Iran's nuclear development, Russia could become an increasingly important player in helping stave off U.S. pressure on Tehran. Moscow will seize the opportunity to gain leverage in its own standoff with Washington by increasing support to Iran — though the extent to which it will be able to do so will be limited by Russia's own complex relations with the Middle Eastern country.
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Iran's Arc of Influence
What It Could Mean
Lavrov's recent statements, combined with Russia's varying strategic intentions with Iran and the United States, portend that Moscow will try to use Washington's heightened concern with Tehran to push for concessions from the United States in other areas, such as sanctions, Ukraine and arms control. In doing so, Moscow could strategically increase its support for Iran in the coming weeks in an effort to gain more leverage for use against Washington in negotiations. Such actions to watch for include:
• Increased nuclear support (e.g., developing reactors or shipping JCPOA-banned uranium to Iran).
• Increased economic support (e.g., setting up oil smuggling networks or other actions aimed at circumventing current U.S. sanctions).
• Increased diplomatic support (e.g., voting against U.N. initiatives backed by the United States).
• Increased security support (e.g., sending Russian personnel, missiles and other weaponry to sensitive nuclear and military sites to complicate U.S. military strategies).
What to Keep in Mind
Russia's own intentions with Iran will limit the type of support it will provide. Russia appreciates having a key anti-U.S. ally in Iran, and wants to ensure it stays that way. Thus, it remains opposed to U.S. efforts to support regime change in Iran through sanctions and leaving the JCPOA. But at the same time, Moscow wants to ensure Tehran doesn't gain enough military power that it could more directly challenge Russia down the line. And for this reason, it also does not want to see Iran acquire nuclear weapons.
Russia could try to use heightened concerns with Iran to push for concessions from the United States on other ongoing issues, such as sanctions, Ukraine and arms control.
This complex push-and-pull relationship can perhaps best be evidenced by Russia's periodic support in building the nuclear reactor in the Iranian city of Bushehr. The power plant doesn't lend itself (at least not directly) to the production of weapons-grade materials, but some of its supply chains do lend themselves to parts of Iran's weapons program. Though the plant remains unfinished, the civilian intent of Bushehr's design nonetheless emphasizes Russian willingness to continue to assist Iran in more peaceful endeavors while still supporting its nuclear power efforts.
For its part, Iran welcomes Russian support when it comes to maintaining the JCPOA — namely, the sanctions relief the deal is intended to provide. But due to Russia's history of involvement in the country, Tehran also remains wary of getting too close Moscow for fear of being subjected once again to its overwhelming influence.
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The U.S.-Iran Confrontation: How Did We Get Here?
Defiance in the face of U.S. pressure has been the hallmark of Iranian foreign policy for decades. But the current confrontation between the United States and Iran is breaking new ground.
(DRAGANA STOJANOVIC/Shutterstock)
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Editor's Note:
Since 1979, the United States and Iran have been locked in varying degrees of confrontation. Since the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal in May 2018, Washington has taken an increasingly tough sanctions line. Now, Tehran and Washington's diplomatic confrontation is escalating, which increases the risk of a military conflict. Because a general regional war would have a devastating impact on global energy markets and the countries surrounding the Persian Gulf, Washington and Tehran are attempting to outmaneuver each other without resorting to open conflict. The United States is signaling to Iran that it must come to the negotiating table again for a new deal or face economic collapse, or worse. Meanwhile, Iran is trying to show the United States that the costs of imposing its power on Iran outweigh the benefits — and that Iranian forces are willing to retaliate against U.S. pressure, be it economic or military.
Assembled in this compendium are a number of essential Stratfor analyses that set the scene for the current phase of escalation between the United States and Iran.
The Geopolitics of Iran: Holding the Center of a Mountain Fortress
Dec. 16, 2011: Iran is secure from conceivable invasion. It enhances this security by using two tactics. First, it creates uncertainty as to whether it has an offensive nuclear capability. Second, it projects a carefully honed image of ideological extremism that makes it appear unpredictable. It makes itself appear threatening and unstable. Paradoxically, this increases the caution used in dealing with it because the main option, an air attack, has historically been ineffective without a follow-on ground attack. If just nuclear facilities are attacked and the attack fails, Iranian reaction is unpredictable and potentially disproportionate. Iranian posturing enhances the uncertainty. The threat of an air attack is deterred by Iran’s threat of an attack against sea-lanes. Such attacks would not be effective, but even a low-probability disruption of the world’s oil supply is a risk not worth taking.
What 'Energy Security' Looks Like in the 21st Century
Sept. 19, 2017: Rather than preserving its access to oil, then, the United States is more interested in protecting itself from price changes in the market at large. After all, sharp dips in Middle Eastern oil production would push energy prices upward worldwide — including in the United States. A lengthy shipping shutdown in the Strait of Hormuz, moreover, would wreak havoc among Asian economies by restricting their energy supplies, carrying consequences that would ripple throughout the global economy as well. In light of these concerns, it is no surprise that the United States and Saudi Arabia remain such close allies: Riyadh has a long-standing policy of maintaining enough spare capacity to quickly ramp up its production in order to stabilize oil-starved markets.
Why Iran Is Threatening to Close the Strait of Hormuz
July 5, 2018: If all U.S. allies stop importing Iranian oil, the country could ultimately see its oil exports drop to as low as 1 million barrels per day (bpd) from its current 2.28 million bpd, resulting in a big loss of revenue. That dire prospect, amplified by the need to hit back at Washington and save face in some way, is prompting Iran to dredge up its familiar threat to shut off the Strait of Hormuz to any trade. The mere threat of closing the strait increases market uncertainty, stokes oil prices and creates some leverage for Iran without requiring that it follow through.
A map of the Persian Gulf.
Back Under U.S. Sanctions, Iran Looks for a Plan B
July 23, 2018: The Iranian government will probably try to postpone negotiations with the United States until after the next U.S. presidential election in 2020 in hopes that Trump does not win a second term. A president from the Democratic Party would likely be less aggressive toward Iran and may even emphasize the nuclear issue, ignoring some aspects of regional strategy — as former President Barack Obama's administration did. The trick, of course, will be withstanding the Trump administration's pressure in the meantime. If economic conditions in Iran continue to decline, more large-scale protests like the ones that happened earlier this year or like the 2009 Green Movement could erupt. The IRGC will, in turn, try to suppress public unrest — all the while trying to gain control of the political system. But if it fails, the threat of a popular uprising may be enough to force the government to compromise in negotiations with the United States on the issues it once considered red lines.
Deciphering the War of Words Between the U.S. and Iran
July 24, 2018: Similar to its handling of North Korea, the Trump administration, now stacked with Iran hawks, believes that in a best-case scenario a maximum pressure campaign — one that involves ditching the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, snapping back all sanctions against Iran and denying waivers to Iran's trading partners while threatening military action — could eventually drive the Iranian government back to the negotiating table to rewrite the nuclear deal. Short of that highly dubious outcome, at least during the Trump presidency, the White House has been remarkably open about its intent to use a combination of economic turmoil, propaganda efforts and potentially covert activity in collaboration with Israel and Saudi Arabia to create the conditions for regime change from the ground up.
Iran Faces Bleak Options as the U.S. Turns the Screws
April 24, 2019: The United States' campaign of "maximum pressure" against Iran has been no bluff. In announcing its intention to deprive Tehran of all oil revenue, Washington is moving into uncharted territory, as it previously offered sanctions waivers to importers of Iranian oil. So what does Iran do now? Until now, Tehran has adopted a pragmatic response to U.S. President Donald Trump's harsh stance, remaining within the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as the 2015 nuclear deal is formally known, and avoiding other retaliation even if it hasn't benefited economically from maintaining its moderation. But given Iran's bleak economic prospects as a result of the United States' punishing line, Tehran's patience could soon wear thin. An Iranian retaliation in the form of renewed uranium enrichment or attacks on shipping would certainly invite a furious U.S. response, yet it's not clear if Washington's aggressive campaign would ever achieve the United States' ultimate goal: altering Iranian foreign policies that undermine U.S. allies in the Middle East.
The Ripple Effects of the U.S. Move to Stop Oil Flows From Iran
April 22, 2019: Iran will ratchet up its rhetoric about shutting down the Strait of Hormuz or using Yemen's Houthis to halt maritime traffic through the Bab el-Mandeb, but the country faces significant restrictions in actually shutting down either chokepoint even if it could stage a one-off attack on a tanker. Tehran will also take a long look at whether it wants to respond by withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal — although doing that could prompt the United States to stage a limited military strike on nuclear targets in Iran, which, accordingly, would threaten more oil production in the region.
A map showing global oil shipping routes.
What the U.S. Withdrawal Will Do to the Iran Nuclear Deal
May 8, 2018: To counter Trump, Iran will emphasize its resistance-economy strategy, which entails less dependence on imports and better relations with other countries willing to navigate — and risk — U.S. sanctions. These moves will increase opportunities for Iran's domestic heavy industries, but it is uncertain what effects they will have on Iran's economic assault on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The government will also try to mitigate the sanctions by reducing economic ties to places that are likely to buckle under to U.S. pressure or take steps toward more friendly partners such as China, Russia, Qatar and India.
Why the EU and Iran Have Little Hope of Rescuing the Nuclear Deal
May 16, 2018: Brussels has few options if it wishes to sidestep the U.S. sanctions on non-energy trade. The European Union could impose "blocking" regulations to inhibit the imposition of U.S. sanctions on EU territory by prohibiting European companies from complying with Washington's sanctions. The bloc considered similar regulations, including freezing U.S. assets, in the 1990s to protect firms conducting business with Cuba and Iran from running afoul of U.S. sanctions, which Brussels viewed as an extraterritorial application of U.S. law that undermined European sovereignty. The blocking regulations protected companies doing business with Cuba, although the European Union never required the measures for Iran because it reached an exemption deal with the United States for investments in Iran's energy sector. This time, however, the United States is unlikely to be as accommodating.
Iran Is Inching Away From the Nuclear Deal. What Happens Now?
May 8, 2019: Iran's leadership has assessed that, over the next few years, it must respond to the U.S. provocations against the JCPOA, not only to ensure its own negotiating credibility but to gain leverage if future talks materialize. Today's moves may not cross the threshold into those that cause the European Union to immediately reapply sanctions or the United States to conduct a limited military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. However, those actions could come 60 days from now, if Iran follows through on threats to enrich uranium above the 3.67 percent level enshrined in the JCPOA and start modernization work on the Arak heavy water reactor. Both of these directly shorten the breakout timeline for Iran to produce a nuclear weapon.
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/iran-deal-supporters-john-bolton/
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/the-u-s-is-outplaying-iran-in-a-regional-chess-match/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR%20Daily%20Monday%20through%20Friday%202019-05-20&utm_term=NRDaily-Smart
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https://www.theblaze.com/news/former-obama-officials-advising-iran?utm_content=buffercc98e&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=theblaze&fbclid=IwAR3V2uVmYoyERAmmB8uLkCBCNsQkAc1h06yYu8UG0gh9EQViYd58wn5uTJE
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https://www.theblaze.com/news/former-obama-officials-advising-iran?utm_content=buffercc98e&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=theblaze&fbclid=IwAR3V2uVmYoyERAmmB8uLkCBCNsQkAc1h06yYu8UG0gh9EQViYd58wn5uTJE
AG Barr needs to act on this ASAP.
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"AG Barr needs to act on this ASAP. "
Agreed . We need Horowitz's and the parallel Barr investigation into the Deep State too.
Scheister Schiff is publicly demanding everything Barr has while we speak
so his scheister lawyers can find ways to pick apart get the talking points ready for the propaganda wing of the Demafiacrat Party - the jornolisters before Barr comes out with the proof of the Deep State we all know exists.
in this case the Brennan Lynn Comey Jarrett Biden Clinton and Obama ring we all know existed.
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"Scheister"="Shyster"?
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http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/264205
That said let me be clear " all options are on the table!!!"
what a joke
:roll . :x
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2 oil tankers damaged in suspected attack in the Gulf of Oman, crew evacuated
https://www.foxnews.com/world/uk-maritime-groups-warns-of-incident-in-gulf-of-oman
(Knowledgeable sources say it had to be Iran.)
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https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/gulf-of-oman-tanker-attacks-everything-you-need-to-know
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First and most important CD corrected my spelling :
"Scheister"="Shyster"?
Thanks CD !
does not Iran have electric subs?
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/iran-building-its-own-submarines-torpedoes-the-us-navy-cant-21091
Perhaps the plane loaded with an acre of cash paid for their own military buildup - thanks BROCK.
Well we were warned last week and attack was "imminent" though this is not on US forces I guess:
http://www.thetower.org/7400-senior-u-s-commander-iranian-threat-on-u-s-forces-imminent-and-real/
The only other thing it was a Saudi attack designed to look like Iran to get us into this but that seems far less likely and I would think , or at least hope our intelligence would be able to sort this out. We don't want another farce like "remember the Maine" which looks like was not a deliberate attack on US navy and nothing more than a on board accidental explosion from with we used as an excuse to start a war that totally changed history.
I bet TR would still not have changed a thing as it made his a hero
I don't know if getting PR was good for us or not
Guam is nice for vacation I guess
and the Philippines are sovereign now.
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Mead: "the administration counts on Iranian fear of conflict with the U.S. and its regional allies to curb Iranian provocations as sanctions bite. "
I like Mead but for the above deterrence to work, there must military assets available and a credible willingness to use them. How do you prove you are willing to use them...
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-case-for-restraint-in-the-gulf-11560813331
The Case for Restraint in the Gulf
So long as U.S. ships aren’t struck, Trump should stick with his current Iran strategy.
By Walter Russell Mead
June 17, 2019
As Iran increases tensions with attacks across the Middle East, the United States continues to make diplomatic inroads towards a new, stricter nuclear deal with Iran.
The latest crisis with Iran illustrates an important but widely neglected point about world politics: Amid all the talk about American decline, American power in the international system has actually grown. Even five years ago the U.S. could not force Iran out of world oil markets without causing a devastating spike in oil and gas prices that would destabilize the world economy. Today, world energy markets are so robust that Brent crude prices have fallen since the first set of attacks on oil tankers in May.
Simultaneously, the U.S. has developed the ability to globalize unilateral sanctions. Washington doesn’t need the support of its allies to isolate Tehran economically, because “secondary sanctions” can effectively compel other countries to comply with the U.S. effort. That the administration has accomplished this while also engaged in trade battles with nearly every important American trading partner underscores the magnitude of U.S. economic power and the administration’s determination to bring it fully to bear on Iran.
As the shades of Robert McNamara and McGeorge Bundy can testify, however, great power does not automatically confer wisdom. Having demonstrated an impressive ability to squeeze Iran, North Korea and Venezuela, the Trump administration now needs to translate raw power into policy success. This goal remains elusive with all three countries so far, and the path forward is anything but clear.
Administration critics charge that the current Iran policy represents an attempt by inveterate hawks to plunge the U.S. into a war with the Islamic Republic. It would be more accurate to say that the administration counts on Iranian fear of conflict with the U.S. and its regional allies to curb Iranian provocations as sanctions bite. Until recently, this appeared to be working; Iran continued to comply with the terms of the nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration, and its activities in the region were no more nefarious than usual.
That seems to have changed. The recent attacks in the Gulf of Oman, together with Iran’s announcements that it will exceed the nuclear deal’s limits on its supply of enriched uranium this month—and accelerate its enrichment program in July—signal that Tehran is trying some brinkmanship of its own. Iranian authorities may believe that President Trump is constrained politically, and that for all his bellicose rhetoric he is deeply reluctant to involve the U.S. in another war in the Middle East.
Attacks on ships engaged in peaceful commerce in international waters are immoral and illegal and threaten the web of commerce on which the U.S. and its allies depend. But as long as no Americans are killed and no American-flagged carriers are struck, it will not be immediately clear to much of Mr. Trump’s base why the U.S. should retaliate militarily for attacks on Norwegian and Japanese ships—particularly since those nations are not clamoring for a response.
Moreover, many U.S. allies—alarmed at the nature of American Iran policy and appalled at their inability to influence the administration’s decision making—blame the White House rather than Tehran for the instability. If the situation escalates, U.S. allies might grow even less willing to confront Iran over its nuclear-deal violations.
As long as the flow of oil from the Middle East is essentially unaffected by pinprick attacks and Iran refrains from an all-out nuclear effort, there is a strong argument for military restraint in Washington. The status quo is weakening Iran and improving the American bargaining position. The U.S. cannot ignore Iranian provocations, but it also should not allow them to deflect it from a policy that is working. While taking all necessary action to keep traffic moving freely in international waters, the administration’s best option for now is to concentrate on tightening sanctions on Iran and its proxies.
The greatest danger is an Iranian miscalculation. Mr. Trump is not eager for war, but there are provocations that would ignite his Jacksonian base and make the pressure for war hard to resist. In the current atmosphere, any attack on U.S.-flagged ships or servicemen could force a strong military response.
Adding to the uncertainty is Tehran’s read of the political situation in the U.S. Iran’s leaders may overreach if they believe that Mr. Trump is a paper tiger or that the U.S. is too divided to strike back. Yet they also may hope they will get better terms if a Democrat defeats Mr. Trump in 2020. Why risk a devastating war now if relief is only 19 months away?
Despite the white-knuckle tension in and around the Persian Gulf, the potential for U.S.-Iranian peace may be higher now than in the past. The Trump administration’s willingness to tolerate and even enter partnerships with nondemocratic regimes like those in Egypt and Saudi Arabia suggests that a pragmatic relationship with a less revisionist Iran could be possible.
Tehran’s imperial ambitions—not ideological hostility in Washington—are at the root of this conflict. Iranian negotiators genuinely interested in a modus vivendi would get a hearing in Washington. That might seem unlikely now, but both countries and the region would benefit enormously from even a cold peace.
Subscribe at https://store.wsj.com/
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https://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-iran-drone-20190619-story.html#nt=oft-Single%20Chain~Flex%20Feature~hp-daily~iran-418a~~1~no-art~curated~curatedpage
Trump should:
a. Show restraint, or
b. Respond disproportionately
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we should do nothing....
might as well till they get nukes.
then the real fun begins
we need to take out their nuclear facilities
funny how they are good with nuclear energy
while in the western world the greens have pushed us to endless seas of solar panels and windmills
last year driving outside San Francisco I could not believe the eye sore giant windmills.
in NJ they would have to build them on top of concrete
where I live now they just covered 33 % of a lake I walk my dog around with solar panels that float .
supposedly first in the country .
funny - we saw a little raft with two people on it last weekend floating ten feet away .
what a date that must have been
looking at a sea of solar panels
but I digress
we should please Iran with offers of building solar panels and windmills - if only they would give up their peaceful nuclear energy program
:wink:
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https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/06/20/us_holds_all_the_cards_in_showdown_with_iran_140597.html
By Victor Davis Hanson June 20, 2019
U.S. Holds All the Cards in Showdown With Iran
In May 2018, the Donald Trump administration withdrew the United States from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran, popularly known as the Iran nuclear deal.
The U.S. then ramped up sanctions on the Iranian theocracy to try to ensure that it stopped nuclear enrichment. The Trump administration also hoped a strapped Iran would become less capable of funding terrorist operations in the Middle East and beyond, proxy wars in the Persian Gulf, and the opportune harassment of ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz.
The sanctions are clearly destroying an already weak Iranian economy. Iran is now suffering from negative economic growth, massive unemployment and record inflation.
A desperate Iranian government is using surrogates to send missiles into Saudi Arabia while its forces attack ships in the Gulf of Oman.
The Iranian theocrats despise the Trump administration. They yearn for the good old days of the Obama administration, when the U.S. agreed to a nuclear deal that all but guaranteed future Iranian nuclear proliferation, ignored Iranian terrorism and sent hundreds of millions of dollars in shakedown payments to the Iranian regime.
Iran believed that the Obama administration saw it as a valuable Shiite counterweight to Israel and the traditionally American-allied Sunni monarchies in the Gulf region. Teheran assumes that an even more left-wing American administration would also endorse Iran-friendly policies, and so it is fishing for ways to see that happen in 2020 with a Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren or Joe Biden presidency.
Desperate Iranian officials have already met secretly with former Secretary of State John Kerry and openly with Sen. Diane Feinstein, likely to commiserate over Trump's cancellation of the nuclear deal and to find ways to revive the Obama-era agreement after Trump leaves office.
To that end, the Iranians wish to disrupt world oil traffic while persuading China, Russia and the European Union to pressure the U.S. to back off sanctions.
Iran hopes to provoke and embarrass its nemesis into overreacting -- or not reacting at all. If Trump does nothing, he looks weak to this Jacksonian base of supporters. But do too much, and he appears a neoconservative, globalist nation-builder. Either way, the Iranians think Trump loses.
After all, Iran knows that Trump got elected by flipping the blue-wall states of the Midwest -- in part by promising an end to optional interventions in the Middle East. Accordingly, Iran hopes to embarrass or bog down the U.S. before the 2020 elections. In Teheran's view, the challenge is to provoke Trump into a shooting war that it can survive and that will prove unpopular in the United States, thus losing him the election.
Iran, of course, is not always a rationale actor. A haughty Tehran always magnifies its own importance and discounts the real dangers that it is courting. It harkens back to its role in the 2003-2011 Iraq War, a conflict that proved that U.S. efforts could be subverted, hundreds of American soldiers could be killed, public support for war could be eroded, and a more malleable American government could be transitioned in.
But what worked then may not work now. The U.S. is not only the world's largest producer of oil and natural gas, but soon to become the largest exporter of energy -- and without getting near the Iranian coast. Likewise, American allies in the Middle East such as Israel are energy independent. America's Arab friends enjoy seeing competing Iranian oil all but off the market.
Time, then, is on the Americans' side. But it is certainly not on the side of a bankrupt and impoverished Iran that either must escalate or face ruin.
If Iran starts sinking ships or attacking U.S. assets, Trump can simply replay the ISIS strategy of selective off-and-on bombing. The U.S. did not lose a single pilot to enemy action.
Translated, that would mean disproportionately replying to each Iranian attack on a U.S. asset with a far more punishing air response against an Iranian base or port. The key would be to avoid the use of ground troops and yet not unleash a full-fledged air war. Rather, the U.S. would demonstrate to the world that Iranian aggression determines the degree to which Iran suffers blows from the U.S.
Of course, Tehran may try to stir up trouble with Israel through its Syrian and Palestinian surrogates. Iran may in extremis also stage terrorist attacks in Europe and the U.S. And it may lie that it has already developed enough fissionable material to launch a nuclear missile.
But the truth is that America has all the cards and Iran none in its game of chicken.
Because Iran is losing friends and money, it will have to escalate. But the U.S. can respond without looking weak and without going to war -- and without ensuring the return to power of the political party responsible for giving us the disastrous nuclear deal that had so empowered Iran in the first place.
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[Doug] If you work in an Iranian munitions plant, refinery or nuclear facility, you may want to call in sick after each Iranian attack on the US until the disproportionate response is complete.
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https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-21/trump-doesn-t-need-to-attack-iran-he-s-winning-already
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some good points
I am always suspicious of anyone writing for Bloomberg news
I wonder how Gosh knows Iran is not proceeding with their nucs
or downsizing their hamas hezbollah support or proxy war in Yemen etc
once they get nucs it is different game, no?
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some good points
I am always suspicious of anyone writing for Bloomberg news
I wonder how Gosh knows Iran is not proceeding with their nucs
or downsizing their hamas hezbollah support or proxy war in Yemen etc
once they get nucs it is different game, no?
Iran has at least one nuke. It’s a matter of stopping them from creating a production line for nukes.
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What is source for saying Iran has one nuke?
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What is source for saying Iran has one nuke?
Me. They have at least one.
https://www.nti.org/analysis/articles/two-us-congressmen-say-iran-has-nukes/
https://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/160346/sec_id/160346
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/north-korea/2018-01-31/long-shadow-aq-khan
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The 1978 article is less than fully persuasive, but the idea that Khan of Pakistan spread know how to Norks and Iran works for me, as do the idea that the Iranians have off shored their nuke work to the Norks while they continue developing their ICBMs until JCPOA expires at which point they unveil.
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The 1978 article is less than fully persuasive, but the idea that Khan of Pakistan spread know how to Norks and Iran works for me, as do the idea that the Iranians have off shored their nuke work to the Norks while they continue developing their ICBMs until JCPOA expires at which point they unveil.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/north-korea/2018-06-06/north-koreas-illegal-weapons-trade
Yup.
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https://www.meforum.org/58802/how-us-and-allies-stack-up-to-iran-in-war?utm_source=Middle+East+Forum&utm_campaign=f67be78293-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_06_24_08_40&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_086cfd423c-f67be78293-33691909&mc_cid=f67be78293&mc_eid=9627475d7f
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https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2019/06/24/trump-dodged-an-ambush-by-avoiding-war-with-iran-n2548787
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The article, while intelligent, IMHO fails to address the central questions:
a) What to do if Iran keeps fg with shipping through the Straits of Hormuz?
b) What to do if Iran goes for going nuke?
June 26, 2019
By Xander Snyder
Why War With Iran Isn’t in the United States’ Interests
The strategic calculus behind such a confrontation just doesn’t benefit the U.S.
The U.S.-Iran standoff continues to evolve quickly, yet the blow-by-blow commentary covering tanker attacks, a downed drone, and reversed orders for airstrikes from the White House fails to consider the strategic logic behind an intervention, if in fact the Trump administration decides to intervene. With that in mind, it’s worth taking a moment to imagine what a war between the two would actually look like.
By now, the U.S. should have learned a thing or two from the Vietnam and Iraq wars. Distant foreign conflicts are difficult to win without a well-defined case for what success looks like and an overwhelming military commitment, the kind the American public is usually unwilling to provide unless faced with a massive and immediate threat. Small-scale engagements accomplish little and are instead more likely to evolve into larger conflicts. Installing foreign governments in the American image is more difficult, costly, time-consuming and even deadly than leaders are likely to claim. Backing a local proxy is often unpalatable for the country’s sense of ethics, but U.S. adversaries often have no such qualms. Those proxies are often an ineffective substitute for a U.S. military presence when it comes to pursuing U.S. objectives. And without a substantial, long-term commitment of U.S. forces, such wars are more likely to open a power vacuum when the U.S. withdraws. The result: a collapsed government, an invasion by a neighbor, a revolution that creates new and uncertain structures – or some combination of these. In fact, the U.S. has had few true victories in the wars it has fought since World War II.
(click to enlarge)
Limited Airstrikes
Consider the U.S. government's options, then, for a war with Iran. If the U.S. chooses a kinetic response, the first and most likely option would be a limited strike, similar in scale to or perhaps somewhat greater than the strikes on Syria that the Trump administration ordered on Syria in April 2017 and 2018. But Iran is not Syria. Iran has a sophisticated air defense infrastructure and plenty of air denial capability, increasing the chance of U.S. casualties. Further, a limited air strike probably wouldn’t accomplish anything meaningful. It might take out a handful of radar and air defense installations, sending a political signal but affecting in no real way the strategic reality on the ground. The only time U.S. air power alone has significantly shifted the reality on the ground was in Kosovo, but Iran today is far more powerful than Serbia in 1999.
Instead, a limited strike has a good chance of working against US interests. Iran’s economy is hurting, and its society appears more divided as citizens continue to grow frustrated with the government. The U.S. has deployed sanctions as a strategy to hobble the economy enough to create social pressure on Tehran, forcing the government to spend less on its defenses and its funding of militias in Syria and Iraq. And so far, they’ve been effective. If the U.S. sustained this tactic, over time Iran’s domestic situation would worsen, and its citizenry would be more likely to blame its leadership for their problems. And that would likely intensify the divisions within the government that are already emerging, resulting in either a more Western-friendly government or one dominated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Even limited U.S. airstrikes, however, would increase the probability of the IRGC consolidating power. Where sanctions may help create division, an attack would unite Iran’s hard-liners and reformers against the U.S. That unity would likely occur under the aegis of the hard-liners who have been warning all along that this day would come if Iran were foolish enough to trust the U.S. As the most powerful entity in the county, the IRGC would probably take over, and do so with popular support.
Use of Ground Force
Ground force is a less likely choice for the U.S., even with limited objectives (like eliminating specific military equipment or securing passage through the Strait of Hormuz). But it would be more likely to achieve what the U.S. really wants: for Iran to recall its foreign militias so that they will defend the home front. But when a military force is rapidly removed without a replacement ready to take its place, it creates a power vacuum and, therefore, an opportunity for others to fill the void. In this case – the Islamic State and other jihadist groups. Timing matters too. The pace at which Iran withdraws its militias from Syria and Iraq, states that are already precariously fragile, will create an outsized risk to violently alter the regional balance of power.
(click to enlarge)
If the Islamic State moves back into the space vacated by Iran, it would be the U.S. that would have to again deal with this problem, which would require reoccupying parts of Iraq while fighting Iran. That, in turn, would likely entail support from Syrian and Iraqi Kurdish forces, which would again put pressure on U.S.-Turkey relations. But the Syrian Kurds may not see a long-term alliance with the U.S. as in its best interest after the U.S. threatened to leave them high and dry in December 2018. They could instead seek out a political resolution with Damascus, backed by Russia, that would protect them from Turkey. It’s possible that if the Islamic State re-emerged, Russia could step in to back Kurdish groups such as the Syrian Democratic Forces to fight back. But that would mean the U.S. would be depending on Russian assistance to cover its western flank, and in exchange for such cooperation Russia would likely demand U.S. concessions in places like Ukraine. In short, going all-in with Iran would require either a large-scale U.S. occupation or dependence on Russia in Syria and Iraq to prevent the Islamic State from coming back. Neither of those are appealing options for Washington.
If it’s regime change that the U.S. is after in Iran, the risks are even greater. The fallout would look much like that of the second Iraq war, but on a far greater scale. Installing a pro-American regime isn’t easy, but it can easily fail. The U.S. would have to commit to an indefinite occupation of Iran or again risk the emergence of a power vacuum. And it would still have to deal with the rest of the Middle East. In the best-case scenario, the U.S. would install a new head of government while facing a lengthy insurgency, which would likely include the vestiges of the IRGC and its heavy weaponry. After a long, costly occupation, the U.S. would withdraw, leaving Iran’s leaders to face opposition on their own. The half-life of U.S.-installed leaders in the Middle East is not long – just ask the shah of Iran.
Whether limited airstrikes or a full-scale invasion, a U.S. military confrontation with Iran would create more problems for the U.S. than it solves. As barbs are traded on the international stage, it’s these kinds of strategic considerations that Washington will need to consider before going to war.
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second post
Here we see an attempt at answering the first of my questions:
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2019/06/we-dont-need-airstrikes-restore-deterrence-strait-hormuz/157988/?oref=defenseone_today_nl
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Iran Goes All in for a Game of Nuclear Chicken
By Matthew Bey
Senior Global Analyst, Stratfor
Matthew Bey
Matthew Bey
Senior Global Analyst, Stratfor
A handout picture provided by the Iranian presidency on July 7, 2019, shows Iran's government spokesman Ali Rabiei, left, and Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi during a news conference in Tehran.
(-/AFP/Getty Images)
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Highlights
Iran has taken the provocative step of reaccelerating aspects of its nuclear program, yet its end goal is not necessarily to develop nuclear weapons but to increase its leverage and reenter talks for sanctions relief.
Unlike North Korea, Iran is not structured to survive as an isolated pariah state, meaning sanctions will hurt Tehran much more than they would hurt Pyongyang.
Iran has previously refrained from taking the final steps to construct a nuclear bomb, although its strategy has depended on refusing to rule out the possibility entirely. Tehran, accordingly, is likely to resume activities that make those final steps more attainable.
Both the United States and Iran are walking a tightrope in the latest game of nuclear brinkmanship, but the latter appears to have calculated that it can accept the risk of a potential U.S. — or Israeli — strike inside the country.
Once again, the United States and Iran find themselves in a familiar position: a high-stakes game of chicken over the Islamic republic's nuclear program. Iran's announcement this week that it had begun enriching uranium to 5 percent, which is above the limits set by the 2015 nuclear accord with the United States and five other global powers, is likely just the start of Iran's move to (re)accelerate its civilian nuclear program. Among other measures, Tehran has said it could increase enrichment to 20 percent, which would drastically shorten the timetable for a nuclear breakout — the moment when a country acquires enough fissile material to construct an atomic bomb.
Although expanding its nuclear activities will only increase the probability of a military confrontation with the United States — or, at the very least, a limited military strike on its nuclear facilities — Iran has a clear objective in the long term: Restart negotiations with the United States to ultimately reach an agreement that would lift the sanctions while also safeguarding its national security. But with such a hawkish administration in the White House, Tehran's strategy may be fraught with risks — even as escalation may be Tehran's only feasible option for getting what it wants.
The Big Picture
In May 2018, the United States withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal, three months before it began reimposing sanctions on Iran. Initially, Tehran chose to continue implementing the deal in the hopes of obtaining some sanctions relief from the other parties to the agreement. But in May, the United States refused to extend any waivers for Iran's oil customers, prompting the Islamic republic to up the ante and resume some suspended nuclear activities that will only draw the ire of the international community.
See 2019 Third-Quarter Forecast
See Middle East and North Africa section of the 2019 Third-Quarter Forecast
See Iran's Arc of Influence
Compensating for Shortcomings
Tehran views itself as a regional hegemon that wants to project influence in its vicinity. Such a self-regard didn't develop with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Its immediate predecessor, the Pahlavi dynasty, held a similar view — as did previous Persian empires dating back to antiquity. Today, however, Iran is finding the deck stacked against it. Iran may boast a large economy and the biggest population in West Asia, but its conventional military power is limited. Prior to the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Iran relied heavily on its security partnership with the United States for military equipment, spare parts and training. But as a result of the anti-American tinge of the revolution, Washington naturally severed its relations with Tehran, imposing arms embargoes that have left Iran's conventional military arsenal decades behind its regional peers — if not in deep disrepair. Moreover, U.S.-backed Saudi Arabia and Turkey perceive Iran as a regional rival whom they are endlessly seeking to outmaneuver on the Middle Eastern chessboard.
Unsurprisingly, Iran is attempting to compensate for its conventional military shortcomings through its defense and security strategy. Militarily, this means Iran supports both Sunni and Shiite proxies in the region, such as Hamas and Hezbollah, which harry America's biggest ally in the region, Israel (a strategy that is especially likely to reap rewards in the near future as Israel's relationship with Arab Gulf monarchies becomes more overt); it also means Tehran has sought to directly train militias and provide support in places in Iraq. Furthermore, it explains why Iran has invested so much on ballistic and cruise missiles, cyber warfare and ways to mine and disrupt shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Ultimately, through each of these actions, Iran is seeking to increase its strategic deterrence by raising the costs for a regional foe or the United States to take military action against it.
Of course, such a strategy could culminate with the desire to develop nuclear weapons and build up a small arsenal. In so doing, however, Iran would have to consider the ultimate pros and cons of acquiring even a limited arsenal. Indeed, while Iran possessed a nuclear weapons program in the past (by all accounts, it ended its program in 2003, pursuing only tangential efforts to specifically develop a weapons program since), its actions have shown that it is not particularly willing to aggressively develop nuclear weapons and accept the associated risks — at least in comparison to North Korea.
The graphic shows a timeline of the breakdown of the JCPOA.
Why Iran Isn't Like North Korea
For Iran, there is a trade-off between pursuing an aggressive nuclear strategy — one that could eventually develop atomic weapons — and coping with the economic costs of the resulting sanctions. And unlike North Korea, Iran is simply not structured to survive as an isolated pariah state in the long term. For one, Iran's political system provides legitimate avenues for the populace to express discontent with the government — a factor that can shape policy. In this, Tehran does not possess an all-pervasive security state that can limit internal dissent to the extent that Pyongyang can. What's more, North Korea is a small country in the shadows of much larger nations — China, Russia and Japan — with little-to-no desire to project regional influence in the same way that Iran wishes to. The lack of a giant neighbor also means Iran has no immediate protector to shield it from the effect of sanctions, as North Korea does with China.
But perhaps most importantly, Iran's economy is deeply dependent on international trade. The country's oil exports remain the government's most critical source of foreign exchange, which Tehran needs to import half of its food, as well as many industrial products it cannot manufacture at home. Simply put, while Iran does want to limit its connections to the outside world, such as by controlling state media and the internet, the level of isolation that Iran can tolerate is more comparable to that of China than that of North Korea or even Cuba.
What Iran Hopes to Achieve
From a tactical perspective, the U.S. strategy to hurt the Iranian economy through sanctions is working. Iran is facing an economic contraction this year that could reach 6 percent of the country's gross domestic product. And inflation, which Iranian President Hassan Rouhani had previously succeeded in taming, is now running at around 50 percent. Nevertheless, the sanctions have yet to trigger a major economic crisis that would propel citizens onto the streets to demand change. Tehran, accordingly, feels like it has years to maneuver before that happens.
By upping the ante against Washington, Iran is trying to narrow U.S. demands and attain a better bargaining position so that its leaders can make cosmetic concessions during negotiations.
Still, Tehran knows it must engage with the United States and/or pressure other countries enough to introduce mechanisms that allow Iran to evade U.S. sanctions. Right now, the prospect of engagement with Washington is unappealing, especially as hawkish elements in the Trump White House are still calling for a strike on Iran. Indeed, shortly after the United States abandoned the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in May 2018, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo presented 12 stringent conditions to end the sanctions, demanding that Tehran abandon its nuclear program and radically alter its regional strategy, among other measures; ultimately, from Iran's perspective, the demands were tantamount to calls for regime change. Moreover, even though the vast majority of potential Democratic challengers to President Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential elections have promised to rejoin the JCPOA if they win, the U.S. Senate will likely remain in the hands of Republicans who will push for a strong line on Iran. What's more, many of the JCPOA's sunset clauses will have already entered effect, thereby removing or reducing some restrictions on Iran's nuclear activities. In such a situation, any new U.S. president, regardless of party, would almost certainly demand either an extension of the JCPOA or a new deal, rather than merely rejoin the Iranian nuclear deal.
By reducing its commitments and returning to the nuclear game of chicken reminiscent of the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad era, Tehran's strategy is twofold. First, it is hoping to push the European Union to rapidly provide a mechanism to guarantee Iranian trade or cajole the United States into again extending small-scale waivers for Iran's oil customers. Second, it builds up leverage for future, and likely inevitable, talks with Washington over Iran's nuclear program and other issues. By upping the ante against the United States, the Islamic republic is trying to narrow Washington's demands and attain a better bargaining position so that Iranian leaders can make cosmetic concessions during negotiations, all while obtaining sanctions relief and protecting more essential objectives: supporting regional militias and maintaining its ballistic missile program.
In fact, Iran effectively succeeded with such a strategy before the JCPOA, as it whittled the Obama administration's position down so that the eventual deal focused solely on Iran's nuclear program, completely omitting any discussions about ballistic missiles. As it is, the agreement permitted Iran to maintain a limited level of uranium enrichment and lifted a U.N. embargo on weapons sales to the country in exchange for robust monitoring.
This graphic show charts Iran's stockpile of uranium.
For Iran, there have even been signs that the strategy — particularly when coupled with the country's aggressive actions in the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman — is working with Trump, if not with all of his advisers. Notably, Pompeo and Trump are no longer demanding that Iran accept the 12 demands outlined last year. In his tweets and statements, Trump has suggested that his main demand is that Iran not develop nuclear weapons. Of course, the goal posts could shift once negotiations start given the presence of figures like national security adviser John Bolton in the White House, yet Iran must prepare for possible negotiations in a potential second Trump term.
This notwithstanding, there is still a risk that the United States could launch a military strike on Iran, particularly given the many hawks in the White House who have supported such a policy in the recent past. But Iran's actions — both with its nuclear program and its attacks on tankers and an unmanned U.S. aerial vehicle in the past two months — has shown that it is willing to accept that risk. And in some ways, a limited strike on a set of Iranian nuclear facilities could actually reinforce popular support for Iran's leadership at home by allowing it to play the nationalist card in the face of economic pressure.
Tehran's Next Steps
In its contest with the United States, Iran will maximize its leverage the closer it comes to a nuclear breakout. To develop a nuclear weapon, Tehran essentially has two routes it can follow: pursue uranium enrichment or acquire plutonium. The former would likely be Iran's easiest course of action. To build one bomb, Iran would need to produce just over 25 kilograms of weapons-grade uranium that is enriched to at least 90 percent. The JCPOA was designed to block this route in several key ways. First, it limited Iran to only enriching uranium to 3.67 percent (mainly for use in power plants) and capped its stockpiles at just 300 kilograms. On July 1, however, Iran announced that its stockpiles had begun to exceed the JCPOA's limits; seven days later, it said it would enrich uranium up to 5 percent. Second, the nuclear deal also capped the number of centrifuges that Iran could use, limiting its operations merely to unreliable, outdated centrifuges. The agreement stipulated that Iran could only use 6,104 IR-1 centrifuges and not more advanced IR-2m, IR-4 or IR-6 centrifuges, which are more efficient at enriching uranium.
This graphic shows the number of Iran's centrifuges.
Iran has yet to announce that it will install more centrifuges or use more advanced versions in the future, but it has threatened to increase the level of enrichment to 20 percent — a level that is crucial to enrich uranium to weapons-grade level. Before the JCPOA, Iran had been producing 20 percent enriched uranium (about 250 kilograms of which is needed to produce 25 kilograms of weapons-grade uranium), but the deal barred Iran from continuing to do so.
This map depicts the location of various Iranian nuclear facilities and uranium mining sites.
Iran may have more difficulty in developing plutonium — which can be obtained by using natural uranium in a heavy water reactor, obtaining the spent fuel and then extracting the pure version of the element through reprocessing — as the JCPOA featured more comprehensive measures to dismantle the necessary facilities and equipment. Iran's Arak Heavy Water Reactor could have produced enough plutonium for about one bomb per year, but as part of the JCPOA, Iran agreed to modify the facility's design so that it would become a light water reactor, which produces far less plutonium in its spent fuel rods, thereby requiring the country to build up years of stockpiles to recover enough material for one device. Iran also agreed to pour cement into the reactor's core, rendering it inoperable. As part of the current standoff, Iran has threatened to alter the Arak reactor's design back to the original, although it has yet to take action. And while it has exceeded its limits on heavy water stockpiles, it would need to conduct more research on reprocessing, obtain assistance from an outside actor and build related facilities if it wished to pursue the plutonium route to construct an atomic bomb.
This graphic charts the steps Iran would need to follow to construct an atomic bomb.
Over the past 15 years, Iran has refrained from pursuing a nuclear program that is solely oriented toward the military; nevertheless, the technology it is using is dual-use, while the country is currently taking steps that make a nuclear breakout possible at some point. The JCPOA, however, delayed the timetable for doing so, meaning Iran is at least one to two years away from acquiring enough material for a nuclear test. Moreover, if Iran were to attempt to covertly obtain a sufficient amount of material for a test, it would have to develop a whole nuclear supply chain in secret as the international community continues to strictly monitor Iran's declared nuclear facilities as part of the JCPOA.
Iran has taken clear, methodical steps that will give it the option of one day developing nuclear weapons but, in contrast to past years in which it concealed its activities, it has acted transparently in communicating its intent to the world. In so doing, Iran is hoping that it will accumulate leverage in a public manner, as it essentially tells the world that it does not intend to develop weapons surreptitiously. But barring a diplomatic breakthrough with the Europeans and the United States agreeing to a partial reduction in sanctions, Iran is likely to continue playing its long-term game of chicken. The question may ultimately center on whether the Trump administration is willing to acquiesce to Iran's activities or strike back. Iran has steeled itself for the latter prospect, but such a strike could ultimately ignite a broader conflict in the Middle East and draw in neighboring countries — and convince Iran to ultimately to take the fateful step to develop nuclear weapons capabilities.
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July 20, 2019
By Jacob L. Shapiro
Iran’s Miscalculation in the Strait of Hormuz
Iran is disrupting freedom of navigation at a critical chokepoint in the oil trade. That’s something the U.S. can’t accept for very long.
On Friday afternoon, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps seized two U.K.-affiliated oil tankers – the British-flagged Stena Impero and the British-owned Mesdar. After a couple of hours – and, according to Iran, a warning about environmental regulations – the Mesdar was released. The Stena Impero has not been so lucky. An IRGC statement on the Stena Impero said the ship had switched off its GPS system, was moving in the wrong direction in a shipping lane and had ignored repeated Iranian warnings. The statement stretches the bounds of credulity, considering that the Stena Impero was en route to Saudi Arabia and that maritime tracking data showed the ship making an abrupt change in course toward the Iranian island of Qeshm before its transponder was turned off at 4:29 p.m. U.K. time.
But a flexible sense of credulity is necessary in attempting to understand why Iran and the U.S., neither of which has an interest in fighting a war against the other, seem intent on hurtling down that path anyway.
According to Northern Marine, a subsidiary of the Stena Impero’s Swedish owner Stena AB, the Stena Impero’s sudden change in course was in response to a “hostile action.” The company said the ship was approached by unidentified small craft and a helicopter while in international waters. That does not square with the version of events offered by the IRGC, which claims the Stena Impero was violating international maritime law, or the head of Iran’s port authority, who was quoted by Tasnim News Agency as saying the Stena Impero was “causing problems” and was being routed to the Iranian port at Bandar Abbas.
However interesting Iran’s motivations and justifications may be, they ultimately do not matter a great deal; the reality is that Iran has seized a British-flagged ship in the Strait of Hormuz. This poses a double challenge to the United States, whose primary objective in the Middle East under the Trump administration has been to weaken Iran. By seizing a British-flagged ship (even if there were, as it appears, no British nationals aboard), Iran eschewed a direct confrontation with the U.S., preferring to confront a weaker U.S. ally. Indeed, Britain’s foreign secretary, while threatening “serious consequences” for Iran, also said the U.K. was not currently considering military options but was searching for a diplomatic solution to the situation. (The Telegraph reported that a British frigate, the HMS Montrose, had been dispatched to aid the Stena Impero but inconveniently arrived minutes late.)
A Severe Miscalculation
More broadly, however, Iran is attempting to show that it really can disrupt freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz. Since 1945, the true global power and appeal of the United States have rested on its defense of the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has disrupted maritime traffic in the Persian Gulf in the past, most recently and notably in the late 1980s. But one critical thing has changed since then. Key U.S. allies depended heavily on oil from the Middle East in the 1980s; Turkey sourced 78 percent of its oil from the region, France 24 percent and the U.K. 10 percent. In 2018, those numbers were far lower – 7 percent, 4 percent and zero percent, respectively. With the exception of Japan, the countries most susceptible to the interruption of maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz are not countries the U.S. is as inclined to help – countries like India (which relies on the region for 50 percent of its oil), South Korea (62 percent) and, increasingly, China (21 percent).
(click to enlarge)
As a result, this move is unlikely to have its intended effect. Tehran is desperately searching for leverage it can use to force the U.S. to ease the economic pressure on Iran. Breaking uranium enrichment restrictions laid out in the Iran nuclear deal has not done the trick, so now Iran is trying to show the U.S. and the world that, if it cannot catch a break, it will try to send the price of oil skyrocketing by blocking oil traffic out of the Persian Gulf. It is hard to characterize that as anything besides a severe miscalculation by Tehran. The U.S., especially under the current administration, will not feel pressured to ease up just because Iran has seized a ship or two. If anything, Washington will use that as justification for a much more aggressive approach to safeguarding maritime traffic in and out of the Strait of Hormuz, even if that benefits a country like China. The guarantor of freedom of maritime navigation isn’t much of a guarantor if it decides to pick favorites at a time like this.
At the end of the day, Iran simply cannot shut down maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. It is trying to stoke fears that it is capable of doing so, but ultimately, Iran can’t keep the strait closed for any considerable length of time.
There is one more scenario to consider, which is that the Iranian government may be losing its monopoly on force in the Islamic Republic. Truth be told, the very existence of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is charged with defending not the state but the spirit of the revolution, has always meant that power in Iran does not lie solely with the Iranian government. But this particular Iranian government staked its legitimacy and its hopes for Iran’s future on the windfall it expected to flow from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Not only has the windfall failed to materialize – Iran’s economic situation is just as bad if not worse than at any time preceding the JCPOA. The Iranian government may not be calling the shots here. The IRGC may very well be taking things into its own hands, or, at the very least, providing cover for fed-up local officers or commanders tired of Iran’s inability to push back against the United States. It is also possible that the Iranian government likes the good cop-bad cop routine that the IRGC allows it to play. The opacity of Iran’s domestic politics right now makes it very difficult to know exactly how Iranian decision-makers are thinking about its grand strategy.
Unintended Consequences
As we have said before, the two countries with the least interest in a U.S.-Iran war happen to be the United States and Iran. But interests don’t always define how these sorts of situations play out. Consider that the United States announced this week that it was deploying 500 troops to an air base in Saudi Arabia to beef up its air defense systems. It was the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia after the first Gulf War in the early 1990s that sparked a rage so deep in a man named Osama bin Laden that he formed a group called al-Qaida, which attacked the U.S. and drew it into the Muslim world. In a sense, even that small and seemingly innocuous deployment set off a chain reaction that eventually resulted in the U.S. destruction of Iraq and, with it, the natural barrier to Iran’s expansion in the region.
The unintended consequences of these kinds of contingent events are always hard, if not impossible, to divine. The most likely scenario is that, like other recent activity in the Persian Gulf (the U.S. shooting down Iranian drones, Emirati tankers disappearing without a trace, mysterious mines being placed in broad daylight on Japanese oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz), this incident will also be resolved. The U.S. will be content with maritime traffic continuing unimpeded and the Stena Impero set free, while Iran will be content with having made its point. Still, every time something like this happens, the risk of a wider conflagration rises – because that risk is defined not by broad historical forces but by the decisions and emotions of the sailors, airmen and soldiers involved. And who knows what future unintended consequence an event that will soon be old news might portend down the road.
For now, all we can do is wait and see whether and how quickly Iran will realize it has miscalculated – and how far the U.S. determines it must go in responding. We hardly think a real conflict is imminent – everything strictly “geopolitical” about this suggests it isn’t. But the hard, realpolitik interests that should be at work here also didn’t suggest that we’d have gotten this close in the first place. Iran disrupting freedom of navigation in one of the most important chokepoints for one of the most important resources in the world is not something the United States is going to accept for very long – and that may ultimately be more important than any other factor here.
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Current and recent stories on FOB {Friends of Barack] Iran:
1. Mattis: Obama Failed To Respond to Iran's 'Act of War'
“Mattis says Washington didn’t even inform him when Iran committed an ‘act of war’ on American soil,” the Washington Examiner explained.
That act was a 2011 plot by two Iranians to detonate a bomb at the upscale Cafe Milano restaurant in Washington, D.C. — and it was apparently backed by the Iranian government itself.
https://www.westernjournal.com/mattis-obama-failed-respond-irans-act-war/
2. Iran has begun installing more advanced centrifuges and is moving toward enriching uranium with them even though that is forbidden under its nuclear deal with major powers, the International Atomic Energy Agency said on Monday. The 2015 deal only lets Iran produce enriched uranium with just over 5,000 of its first-generation IR-1 centrifuge machines. It can use far fewer advanced centrifuges for research but without accumulating enriched uranium. But in response to U.S. sanctions imposed since Washington withdrew from the deal in May last year, Iran has been breaching the limits it imposed on its atomic activities step by step.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-nuclear-centrifuges/iran-moves-toward-enriching-uranium-with-advanced-centrifuges-iaea-idUSKCN1VU0UN
3. Rockets were fired at Israel from the outskirts of Damascus by a Shi’ite militia operating under the command of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Quds Force, the Israel Defense Forces said on Monday. A number of rockets were launched from Syrian territory but failed to hit Israeli territory, the statement said. “The IDF holds the Syrian regime responsible for all events taking place in Syria.” The rocket fire comes more than a week after an Israeli airstrike hit a team of IRGC members with “killer drones” south of Damascus. In related news, Hezbollah announced earlier today that it had downed an Israeli drone in southern Lebanon.
https://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/IDF-Shiite-militias-fired-rockets-at-Israel-from-Syria-601080
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Tying these developments together I would say Pres. Trump has shown remarkable restraint on Iran and would be fully justified in bombing Iran's nuclear program off the map if he so chose.
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Iran’s Return Handshake
An attack on Saudi oil production shows John Bolton was right.
By The Editorial Board
Sept. 15, 2019 4:10 pm ET
A picture taken on September 15, 2019 shows an Aramco oil facility near al-Khurj area, just south of the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh. Photo: fayez nureldine/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Since President Trump withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the Islamic Republic has tested U.S. resolve with military escalation across the Middle East. Likely Iranian involvement in attacks on Saudi oil production over the weekend marks a new phase in this destabilizing campaign, and it’s no coincidence this happened as Mr. Trump is considering a softer approach to Tehran.
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Saudi Arabia reduced daily oil production by about 5.7 million barrels after strikes against facilities in the country’s east on Saturday. Iran-backed Houthi rebels claimed credit, though Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted that Iran was responsible and there was “no evidence the attacks came from Yemen.” Iran denies this, but it usually uses proxies to avoid a direct confrontation and there are no other plausible culprits.
This is more than a local dispute between two regional powers. The attacks have caused a roughly 5% reduction in global daily oil production. The Saudis have promised to dip into reserves to offset the losses, but oil prices could rise and harm an already fragile global economy if the Kingdom isn’t able to restore production fast enough.
American shale oil production can take up some of the slack but that would take time. Long-term damage to oil supplies would increase the pressure on the U.S. to ease sanctions on Iranian oil exports, which Mr. Trump has been considering.
The attack continues what is already a hot proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia, an important U.S. ally. The extent of the damage raises doubts about how well the Saudis can defend against future drone assaults. Saudi intelligence and air defenses don’t seem up to the job. Saudi revenues would be hurt by a reduction in oil output, and uncertainty will complicate an initial public offering of the country’s national oil company, Aramco.
Even if the Houthis didn’t carry out this attack, Iran is backing their war against an Arab coalition in Yemen. The Houthis have become increasingly aggressive in attacking sites in Saudi Arabia and oil tankers in the Red Sea. If the Saudis cede Yemen to the Houthis, Iran will have won another proxy war, this one on the Arabian peninsula. The Saudis are far from ideal allies, but U.S. Senators who want to end U.S. support for Riyadh should consider the alternative of Iranian regional dominance.
The White House says Mr. Trump spoke with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and pledged U.S. support. But the White House should be contemplating more than words.
The Iranians are probing Mr. Trump as much as the Saudis. They are testing his resolve to carry out his “maximum pressure” campaign, and they sense weakness. Iran shot down an American drone this summer, and Mr. Trump rejected advice for a military response. Qassem Soleimani, commander of Iran’s overseas Quds Force, has historically interpreted such restraint as a signal that he’s winning and can safely escalate.
Mr. Trump is also eager for direct talks with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, and Mr. Pompeo floated a handshake meeting between the two at the coming United Nations General Assembly. Mr. Trump has even contemplated support for French President Emmanuel Macron ’s idea of paying the mullahs a $15 billion bribe for better behavior. The weekend attack is Iran’s return handshake.
U.S. sanctions have hurt Iran’s crude oil exports, but Tehran still earns hundreds of millions of dollars a month from other petroleum products. Senator Lindsey Graham says direct attacks on Iranian oil production should be considered, and the Islamic Republic needs to know that is not off the table.
The Saudi coalition also needs more help interdicting Iranian arms shipments to the Houthis. Americans are understandably wary of deeper involvement in Yemen, but a victory for Iran and the rise of a Hezbollah-like regime in Sana’a will harm U.S. security interests. Think another Syria and Lebanon.
Mr. Trump might also apologize to John Bolton, who warned repeatedly that Iran would take advantage of perceived weakness in the White House. Mr. Bolton resigned last week over policy differences, notably on Iran. The weekend’s events proved the former adviser right. The Trump Administration’s pressure campaign has been working, and abandoning it now would encourage Tehran to take more military risks.
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Sept. 16, 2019
The Geopolitics of Iran’s Refinery Attack
By George Friedman
A Yemeni rebel group aligned with Iran took credit for a drone attack against Saudi Arabia’s main oil refinery this weekend. The range, payload and accuracy of the attack, as well as the sophistication of the operation, suggest that the Houthis had a lot of help from their patron nation.
The Houthis are a Yemeni faction aligned with Iran. Indeed, Iran’s support runs deep. Last month, the ambassador the Houthis sent to Iran was accredited as a formal ambassador – rare for someone representing a faction outside the country’s formal government. It signaled that Iran regards the Houthis as a nation distinct from Yemen or that Iran recognizes the Houthis as the legitimate government of Yemen. Diplomacy aside, Iran is close to the Houthis, has the capability of fielding the kinds of drones used in the Saudi attack and providing targeting information, and has the motive to act in this way.
Understanding its motivation is critical. Iran is a country under tremendous pressure. It has built a sphere of influence that stretches through Iraq, parts of Syria, Lebanon and parts of Yemen. From Iran’s point of view, it has been constantly on the defensive, constrained as it is by its geography. It will never forget the 10-year war it waged against Iraq in the 1980s that cost Iran about a million casualties. It was a defining moment in Iranian history. The strategy Tehran formed in response to this moment has been to build a coalition of Shiite factions to serve as the foundation of its sphere of influence and to use those factions to shape events to its west. The struggle between Iraq and Iran goes back to the Biblical confrontation between Babylon and Persia. This is an old struggle now being played out in the context of Islamic factionalism.
The Iranians’ sphere of influence may be large, but it is also vulnerable. Their control over Iraq is far from absolute. Their position in Syria is under attack by Israel, with uncertain relations with Russia and Turkey. Their hold on Lebanon through Hezbollah is their strongest, but it’s still based on the power of one faction against others. The same factional influence exists in Yemen.
Iran does not rule its sphere of influence. It has a degree of authority as the center of Shiite Islam. It derives some control from supporting Shiite factions in these countries in their own struggles for power, but it is constantly playing balancing games. At the same time, it is imperative for Iran not to let a Sunni power or coalition of powers form on its western frontier. The farther west it pushes its influence, the more secure its western border and the more distant the threat of war becomes. Its strategy is forced on it by geopolitics, but its ability to fully execute this strategy is limited.
Iran’s problems are compounded by the United States, which has been hostile to the Islamic Republic from its founding with the overthrow of the shah. The American interest in the region, as opposed to the visceral dislike on both sides, is to prevent any single power from dominating the region. The historical reason used to be oil. That reason is still there but no longer defining. The geography of oil production has changed radically since the mid-1980s. The United States has an interest in limiting the power of Islamist groups prepared to attack U.S. interests. In the 1980s, multiple attacks on U.S. troops in Lebanon caused substantial casualties and were organized by Shiite Hezbollah. After 9/11 the threat was from Sunni jihadists. The invasion of Iraq, followed by failed attempts at pacification, drove home the complexity of the problems to the Americans.
This has led the U.S. into something very dangerous in the region: a complex foreign policy, the kind that the region usually imposes on powerful outsiders. At the moment, the main concern of the United States is Iranian expansion. It is not alone. The Sunni world and Israel are in intense opposition to Iran. Turkey and Russia are wary of Iran but at the moment are content to see the U.S. struggle with the problem, while they fish in troubled waters. An extraordinary coalition has emerged with the support of the U.S., bringing together Israel, Saudi Arabia and other Sunni states under one tenuous banner.
This coalition is a threat to Iranian interests. The Israelis are attacking Iranian forces in Syria and exchanging mutual threats with Hezbollah. The Saudis and the United Arab Emirates are supporting anti-Iran forces in Yemen and conducting an air campaign. Iraq is under limited outside pressure but is itself so fractious that it is difficult to define what Iranian control or influence is. In other words, the Iranian sphere of influence continues to exist but is coming under extreme pressure. And Iran is aware that if this sphere collapses, its western border becomes once again exposed.
U.S. strategy has moved away from large scale American military involvement, which defined its strategy since 9/11. It has shifted to a dual strategy of using smaller, targeted operations against anti-U.S. groups in the Sunni world and economic warfare against Iran. This anti-Iran strategy follows from a broader shift in U.S. strategy away from the use of military power toward the use of economic power in places like China, Russia and Iran. The U.S. drive to end the Iran nuclear deal was less about fear of Iranian nuclear power and more about imposing a massive sanctions regime on the Iranian economy.
The sanctions strategy has badly hurt the Iranians. For a while, it seemed to threaten political unrest on a large scale, but that threat seems to have subsided somewhat. But the pain from sanctions constantly tightening and shifting, with unpredictable targets and methods of enforcement, has undermined the Iranian economy, particularly its ability to export oil. This, combined with the pressure it is facing from the anti-Iran collation the U.S. supports, has placed Iran in a difficult position.
It has already responded in the Persian Gulf, seizing tankers in the hopes of creating panic in the industrialized world. But this is not 1973, and the significance of a tanker war like the one that raged in the 1980s was not enough to spike oil prices or create pressure from Europe, Japan and others against the United States and its allies to release the pressure on Iran.
Iran now has two imperatives. It must weaken the anti-Iran coalition, protecting its allies in the region, and it must generate pressure on the United States to ease U.S. pressure on the Iranian economy. The weak link in the coalition is Saudi Arabia. Its government is under internal pressure, and it holds together its social system with money gained from oil sales. It is the part that is both vital to the coalition yet vulnerable to events. And nowhere is it more vulnerable than in Saudi oil revenue.
The strike at the Saudi oil refinery was well thought out on all levels. Not only did it demonstrate that the Saudi oil industry was vulnerable to Iranian attack but the attack significantly reduced Saudi oil production, inflicting real pain. It is not clear how long it might take to bring production back online, but even if it is done quickly, the memory will not fade, and if it takes time, the financial impact will hurt. It has imposed a price on the Saudis that others will note.
It is also intended to remind the Saudis and others that while in the past the U.S. had an overwhelming interest in protecting the flow of Middle Eastern oil, this is not a major interest of the United States any longer. Between massive American shale oil production and its reserves, the U.S. is not nearly as vulnerable as it once was to oil disruption. This also reminds U.S. allies in Europe and Asia that a dramatic shift has occurred. Where once all were obsessed with doing nothing to threaten oil supplies, now the United States is in a position to take risks that its allies can’t afford to take. The Iranians hope that with this attack they can split the American alliance over the oil issue.
That oil issue is also Iran’s problem. The U.S. has blocked sales of a substantial proportion of Iranian oil production as part of its economic war on Iran. In creating alarm over global oil supplies, the Iranians want to force U.S. allies to be more assertive in defying U.S. wishes on not only oil but other matters as well. The U.S. assurances of ample supplies played into the Iranians’ hands, causing major importers to start thinking about the U.S. position.
The attack on the refinery was both operationally skillful and strategically sound. It made the Saudis’ vulnerability and their weakest point manifest. It imposed a price on the Saudis for their alliance structure that, if it continues, they cannot pay. The attack also drove home to U.S. allies that their interest and the United States’ interest on oil diverge. Finally, and importantly, it will benefit other oil producers, particularly Russia, by potentially raising prices. And in American politics, anything that benefits Russia right now can be made explosive.
The United States cannot ignore the attack. As the greatest military power in the anti-Iran coalition, it is the de facto security guarantor. But if it strikes, it invites a response from the Iranians and resistance from its allies. If it does not strike, it weakens the foundations of the anti-Iran alliance and strengthens Iran. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has recently alluded to the possibility that the U.S. was open to negotiations. The Iranians may have seen this attack as an important negotiating point.
It is difficult to see how the U.S. can respond without risking more attacks on Saudi Arabia. It is likewise difficult to see how the U.S. can avoid striking without losing the alliance’s confidence. Part of this will depend on how bad the damage to the refinery actually is. Part of it will have to do with the effectiveness of U.S. counterstrikes against drones in Yemen.
What is clear is that the Iranians are playing a weak hand as well as they can. But they are also playing a hand that could blow up in their face. The geopolitics of this clear. The intelligence capability of each side in follow-on attacks is the question – as is how lucky all the players feel they are.
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Sept. 17, 2019
US Military Options in Iran
By George Friedman
The United States has openly accused Iran of being behind the drone and cruise missile attacks on Saudi Arabia’s largest oil refinery. Now the question is what the United States will do in response.
The U.S. is in a difficult position. The attacks did not directly affect the U.S., save for the spike in oil prices, which actually helps the American oil industry. There is a temptation to let the attacks slip into history. But the United States has formed an anti-Iran alliance in which Saudi Arabia is a key (though weak) player. Saudi Arabia is under internal pressure from members of the royal family who oppose Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and low oil prices have undermined the kingdom’s political cohesion. Doing nothing would call the U.S.-sponsored coalition into question. Saudi Arabia is an important player in the Sunni Arab world – and that world is the main threat to Iranian expansion. Failing to respond to an Iranian attack on a vital Saudi facility could help Iran increase its power throughout the region. During Donald Trump’s presidency, the United States’ inclination has been to avoid initiating direct military action in favor of applying economic pressure instead. He has maneuvered to minimize and halt active military engagement. Military action against Iran, therefore, would both endanger the alliance structure and cut against U.S. strategy.
An alternative option would be to introduce new sanctions, but there are two problems with this move. First, sanctions do not have the psychological impact military action does. The psychological impact would be on both Iran and the Sunni world, and the logic of the situation requires it. Second, the U.S. has already imposed painful sanctions on Iran’s economy. Any further sanctions would have limited effect and insufficient heft.
There is one military option that would have a severe economic shock but would also limit U.S. exposure: imposing a blockade on Iranian ports, with a selective closure of the Strait of Hormuz. This strategy has three weaknesses. First, a large naval force of multiple carrier battle groups would have to be deployed for a potentially unlimited time. Second, the fleet could come under attack from Iranian missiles, and while we would assume that U.S. naval vessels have effective anti-missile capabilities, any mistake could cost the U.S. a major vessel. To counter this, anti-missile air attacks as well as defensive measures would be needed, creating a second potentially costly dimension to this operation. Finally, such a blockade is by definition without a terminal point. If Iran does not fold under the pressure, the blockade could continue indefinitely, since ending it without a successful outcome would be seen as a defeat.
Another possible response would be to launch strikes against Iranian targets. The most appropriate target would be the factories producing drones and cruise missiles, along with storage facilities and so on. Here, the problem is getting accurate intelligence. The U.S. has undoubtedly been cataloging such things, but acting on poor information could result in an Iranian strike on U.S. forces or another sensitive site under informal American protection. This would only compound the problem of the Iranian attacks on the Saudi refinery.
The difficult question the U.S. faces is whether it should take an action so painful that it will block any further actions from Iran. If a blockade doesn’t shatter Iran’s economy, then escalation to eliminate its offensive air capability is needed. As for an air campaign, history has shown that they tend to take much longer than expected and sometimes fail altogether, providing the adversary an opportunity to take offensive action on its own. A U.S. attempt to eliminate Iran’s strike capability can be costly, and hidden Iranian missiles can attack regional targets. As with a blockade, an air campaign can go on indefinitely. Small-scale retaliatory strikes open the door to Iranian countermoves and could escalate into an extended operation.
As for sending in ground troops, not only does that not quickly solve the problem of Iranian air power, but it also returns the U.S. to a posture it has been in since 2001: occupation warfare. The U.S. military fully deployed can defeat the Iranian military and take terrain, but to hold it against a hostile militia would create interminable conflict with casualties that cannot be sustained. Iran is a big and rugged country, with a population of 82 million people, more than twice as large as Iraq or Afghanistan. And the idea that U.S. troops would be greeted as liberators is mere fantasy.
Apart from an air attack on Iran designed not to achieve a significant goal but rather to give the Saudis confidence in the U.S., the options for a direct attack are not promising. But there is another way to think about this problem. The United States has been concerned about Iran’s expanding political influence. But this creates potential targets that are of high value to Iran – and hitting these targets would be less daunting than an attack on Iran itself. Iran has its own or proxy forces in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. It has invested a great deal of time, resources and risk in creating these forces that are now holding territory in these countries.
Consider Lebanon, a place where Iran has been highly active since the 1980s through its proxy Hezbollah. If Hezbollah could be crippled, the political structure of Lebanon would shift out of Iran’s control, and Iran’s anchor on the Mediterranean would be gone. Such an operation could not be left to the Israelis partly because their force is much smaller than what the U.S. could bring to bear, and also because collaboration between U.S. and Israeli forces would put the U.S.’ Sunni allies in a difficult position. Such a response would directly hurt Iran’s interests but could be carried out at lower risk and at higher cost than other options.
Indeed, the very threat of an attack on Hezbollah might cause the Iranians to change their strategy. Of course, an attack there might also unleash a torrent of missile strikes from Iran, and that is the downside of this and all the other strategies. But the advantage is that where other strategies would likely fail to achieve their goals, an attack on Hezbollah might well succeed. It would be something Iran would not want to see and would be carried out by secure U.S. forces. Alternatively, the U.S. could attack Iranian forces in Syria, but that would have a lower impact.
This is a theoretical exercise; answering Iran’s attacks with an air campaign on a proxy power is unlikely. The Saudis would have trouble portraying it as U.S. commitment to Saudi security. Attacks in Syria, Iraq and Yemen would all suffer from a lack of clarity and from the fact that Iran itself would not be hit. There is the possibility that the Saudi air force could retaliate, but its ability to sustain losses and conduct an extended air campaign is doubtful. The Saudis could fire missiles at Iran, but that would begin an open-ended exchange, and the U.S. strategy has to be to hurt Iran in a mission with closure.
The Iranians know the dilemma they have posed the United States. They have bet that the risks are too high for the United States to respond. But the problem in Iran’s thinking is it can’t be sure the degree to which the U.S. sees Iranian expansion as a threat to U.S. long-term interests in the region. So the Iranians are asking the U.S.: Are you feeling lucky?
There would appear to be no good military options. Doing nothing could well destroy the anti-Iran bloc the U.S. has worked hard to create. The likely but not certain answer to this problem will be a symbolic retaliation. The problem with retaliations, however, is that they get out of hand.
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(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EExuKoVWsAAd1pL?format=png&name=900x900)
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14902/us-adversaries-nothing-to-fear-from-the-white
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second post
Opinion Business World
Why Trump Is Winning on Iran
The U.S. should focus on sanctions while letting the Saudis cope with any nasty local spillovers.
By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.
Sept. 20, 2019 5:26 pm ET
Damaged oil-processing facilities in Saudi Arabia, Sept. 20. Photo: Amr Nabil/Associated Press
Delicacy forbids resorting to the suggestion that comes to mind in response to an Arab academic declaiming in the pages of the New York Times against Donald Trump ’s restraint with respect to Iran’s military provocations. “Trump, in his response to Iran, is even worse than Obama,’’ Abdulkhaleq Abdulla told the paper, which described him as “a prominent political scientist in the United Arab Emirates.”
He went on: “Now an Arab Gulf strategic partner has been massively attacked by Iran—which was provoked by Trump, not by us—and we hear Americans saying to us, you need to defend yourselves! It is an utter failure and utter disappointment in this administration.”
The Trump sanctions are having their desired effect, weakening the Iranian regime and indicating why its regional machinations are ultimately leading toward a dead end. This is already serving Arab interests incidentally. If there is some regional blowback, such as the drone and cruise-missile attack on a Saudi oil facility, in the spirit of burden-sharing let the Saudis take the steps necessary to repay or repel such attacks if they wish.
Our policy is working. Only when and if it serves our interest do we need to respond militarily (though it might be useful to strengthen the effect of sanctions by attacking under-the-table Iranian oil exports). It does not need to be done, as Arab and other critics suggest, to validate the 40-year U.S. policy of preventing any rival power from dominating the gulf and its oil resources.
We don’t have to prove that commitment at the drop of every hat. One of the many benefits of the U.S. domestic oil resurgence is that we don’t have to overreact to lesser disruptions of the oil flow from every regional spat or upset. The world economy remains adequately supplied. If prices go up a bit, the U.S. now benefits as a major producer, offsetting some of the damage on the consumer side.
Our position is stronger than ever. Only weak nations need to overreact.
Which is just as well. Even Donald Trump’s most devoted followers, for better or worse, have little desire to see him become a war president. They sense that recent wars haven’t served U.S. interests. They understand that the peculiar dynamics of the Trump presidency would not provide the unifying and rallying oomph that sometimes makes war an attractive domestic political proposition. Nor would being a war president particularly suit Mr. Trump’s episodic and wandering leadership style.
Which is also fine. There is no reason to oblige the Iranians and the Saudis, in their different ways, in how we respond to the attack. The Iranian goal is to lure the U.S. into a confrontation that Washington would eventually be wiling to pay to get out of, presumably by lifting sanctions and resuming the Obama nuclear payola. For the Saudis and their local allies, they wish to see the world’s superpower expend some of its military stockpiles to degrade Iran’s offensive capabilities in ways that would convenience them but wouldn’t do much for us.
Let’s recall that the billions the U.S. invests in global military power are aimed not just at keeping the Gulf open, but also at making others feel how much they rely on the U.S. to keep it open. The Chinese, in particular, hardly need at this exact moment to see us reflexively allowing ourselves to be baited by local tinpots into protecting China’s ability to consume Mideast oil. On the contrary, the present occasion represents a nice opportunity to demonstrate the flexibility America now enjoys in this matter thanks to its own fracking revolution and rising energy power.
There are no guarantees, but the evidence so far is encouraging. Sanctions have cut Iran’s oil exports by 90% since April 2018. The regime is plodding toward a domestic crisis that, as of now, Iran’s leadership appears to hope it can escape by initiating provocations meant to suggest a wider war unless the U.S. backs down. Yet these war threats, if allowed to materialize, would only accelerate Iran’s domestic crisis. Though more provocations may be coming, these would only make it tougher for a future Democratic president to cancel the sanctions and reinstate the Obama nuclear deal. It’s hard to see a way out of Iran’s sanctions trap except by meeting U.S. demands to curb its obnoxious regional behavior.
Whether from shrewdness or instinct or an inability to reconcile his bellicose Twitter style with his urge for deals, Mr. Trump’s administration has defaulted to a useful strategy. It consists of letting sanctions work while leaving it to our local partners to cope with any spillovers that don’t fundamentally affect U.S. interests
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Against my instinct to bomb them to oblivion, this WSJ Holman Jenkins argument for patience and restraint makes sense to me.
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• Iran’s oil minister announced that the China National Petroleum Corporation was no longer a partner in Iran’s biggest natural gas project (phase 11 of the South Pars field) and that Iran will develop the field on its own.
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https://www.truthdig.com/articles/donald-trumps-iran-humiliation/
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https://www.nationalreview.com/news/nike-pulls-houston-rockets-merchandise-from-chinese-stores/
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Iran’s Water Pressure: Droughts, Floods and a Looming Crisis
If it wants to avert a disaster, Tehran needs to find a solution to the country’s water crisis. But its options are limited.
By
Xander Snyder -
June 6, 2019
Open as PDF
Summary
Iran has long struggled to manage its paltry water resources. As Tehran wrestles with the effects of decadeslong drought and record flooding, it’s clear that the way Iran accesses and uses its water resources adds yet another problem the already overstretched regime will have to deal with. This Deep Dive will examine how Iran got here, the scale of the challenge it faces, what possible solutions it may pursue, and the implications for the regime.
Iran’s water problem is intensifying. While the country is by no means a stranger to floods, record-high rainfall in March and April this year caused major flooding in several provinces that led to nearly 100 deaths, $10 billion in damage and significant political costs, to boot. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei approved the use of funds from Iran’s sovereign fund (which are usually reserved for infrastructure and other long-term projects) to support relief efforts. As often happens in arid climates, Iran is simultaneously dealing with a nationwide, decadeslong drought – approximately 40 percent of the country is experiencing severe drought. This only exacerbates the floods; the parched ground cannot absorb water fast enough during periods of intense rainfall. On top of all this, the regime’s water policies have led to overexploitation of the country’s already limited groundwater resources.
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As the drought drags on, it’s causing political problems for the regime. Large-scale nationwide protests broke out in December 2017 and lasted through early 2018, and since then, protests over polluted water and water shortages have continued across the country. More and more Iranian farmers, unable to irrigate their crops, have left rural provinces to find work in cities, meaning ever-growing numbers of angry Iranians are congregating in the country’s urban centers.
Tehran is going to have to come to terms – and quickly – with the realities begotten of its decades of poor water management and an unfavorable climate that will only get worse. The regime has a few options available, all of which will be costly and difficult to implement. Continuing on its current course, however, could be catastrophic for Iran.
Managing Water in an Unfavorable Climate
Iran has several climate zones that are shaped by the country’s location and geography. Its two main mountain ranges, the Alborz and Zagros, prevent moisture from reaching the interior of the country, thereby dissecting it into multiple climate zones ranging from arid to subtropical. As such, temperatures across Iran can range from minus 20 degrees Celsius to 50 degrees Celsius (minus 4 to 122 degrees Fahrenheit); precipitation ranges from less than 50 millimeters to more than 1,000 millimeters (2 to 40 inches) per year. The country’s average precipitation, at 250 millimeters per year, is about a third of the global average. But most of the country receives even less – under 100 millimeters per year.
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Despite this variation, approximately 85 percent of the country is arid or semi-arid, which means that it has relatively little arable land. What land can support crops is found primarily in the north, along the Caspian Sea, and in the northwest, which has a Mediterranean climate. Between its lack of land and insufficient water supplies, Iran has a limited ability to feed its own people.
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The country has struggled with its scant water resources since the days of ancient Persia. Those civilizations managed to build grand empires fed by advanced hydraulic infrastructure. For example, beginning more than 2,000 years ago the Persians constructed a system of wells, known as qanats, that tapped into deep underground reserves, as well as a system of pipelines, canals, aqueducts and dams to store and transfer water to the parts of the country that needed irrigation for crops.
But modern Iran’s population of 81 million and its accompanying water needs have led to overexploitation of its water resources. This is especially true of its groundwater – that is, water found underground in soil or in cracks and gaps in rocks. Because of Iran’s limited rainfall, groundwater is for many regions the only way crops can be irrigated. Groundwater accounts for more than 55 percent of Iran’s total water consumption, and 92 percent of water consumed in Iran is used for agriculture, compared to approximately 70 percent in many other countries. Yet from 2000-09, Iran’s rate of groundwater depletion doubled compared to 1960-2000, driven by both declining precipitation and the government’s self-sufficiency policies.
Following the 1979 revolution, the new regime pushed a policy of national food self-sufficiency, which involved producing enough staple crops to meet the country’s own needs instead of relying on imports. Strategically, this made sense; Iran wanted to decrease its dependence on the outside world at a time when it was importing approximately 65 percent of the country’s food. In practice, however, the policy encouraged farmers to plant water-thirsty crops, most notably wheat, which is now grown on roughly 60 percent of Iran’s arable land and which is heavily dependent on groundwater. Groundwater extraction is expensive and energy-intensive, so encouraging self-sufficiency meant that the regime had to offer subsidies to farmers for both water and electricity to make planting and growing wheat affordable.
Those policies have persisted. The Baker Institute, a public policy think tank at Rice University, estimates that Iranian farmers still pay for only about 5 percent of the electricity their wells use to pump groundwater for irrigation. Further, the government guarantees wheat prices for a substantial portion of the country’s crop, providing both an incentive and safety net for farmers at a great cost to the government. In 2016, for example, the government purchased 85 percent of Iran’s wheat at guaranteed prices. Still, Iran manages to produce about 66 percent of its own food.
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As is so often the case with subsidized inputs of production, the low-cost water and energy led to overexploitation of groundwater. At the current rate of depletion, 25 percent of Iran’s groundwater cannot be replenished by natural sources, and 12 of Iran’s 31 provinces are expected to completely exhaust their aquifers within 50 years. What’s more, former Agriculture Minister Isa Kalantari claimed that Iran also uses approximately 97 percent of its surface water. That’s compared to Japan’s 19 percent, the United States’ 21 percent, China’s 29 percent and India’s 33 percent, although Iran has only slightly fewer cubic meters of surface freshwater per person than China and more than India. It’s also despite the fact that the total area in Iran equipped for surface water irrigation declined by 15 percent from 1993 to 2007. During this period, land area irrigated by groundwater increased by 39 percent, and wheat production increased by 50 percent. As surface water has become less available, more farmers have begun drilling illegal wells to tap into groundwater to support their business, further accelerating the groundwater depletion rate.
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Making matters worse, Iran has also overinvested in dams relative to other types of water infrastructure. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is enmeshed in Iran’s economy and particularly the construction industry, seems to have lobbied successive governments to build dams. However, many of the dams appear to be of poor quality, and much of the water they’re supposed to store evaporates or leaks back into the ground before it can be used. The focus on dams has also been at the expense of investment in other infrastructure like irrigation systems, drainage networks and artificial watersheds, which together would increase the efficiency of water storage and use. Indeed, when President Hassan Rouhani first came to power, he halted the construction of 14 dams, instead favoring the construction of pipelines that would limit evaporation. Still, as we’ll review in depth later, the other options that the Iranian government has at its disposal all face significant challenges as well.
A Hotter, Drier Future
Iran’s already harsh climate and the government’s poor water management are compounded by a bleak forecast for precipitation in the country and temperature rises, and its remaining resources are already paying the price.
Take Lake Urmia, for example. At one point, the lake measured 5,000 square kilometers (1,930 square miles) – the second-largest lake in the Middle East after the Caspian Sea. (That is, if you consider the Caspian to be a lake; more on this later.) But declining precipitation since the 1970s, along with the government’s diversion of the tributaries that feed the lake and the digging of thousands of illegal wells, led to an 80 percent reduction in Urmia’s water levels. Recent rainfall has helped the lake recover some of its surface area, but it’s now hovering at around 3,000 square kilometers.
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While the Iranian government is finally taking steps to limit Lake Urmia’s depletion, there’s not much it can do to halt the shifts in Iran’s climate patterns, which will affect far more than just the water levels of one lake. Diminished rainfall and higher temperatures will contribute to more extreme periods of drought, putting additional pressure on the country’s water supply and the regime’s ability to manage the fallout.
There’s some variation in forecasts of rainfall in Iran over the next 20 years, but most show a decline in nationwide average precipitation, while some show a substantial decline (up to 35 percent). The few forecasts that show little change on a national level predict meaningful changes at a regional level, indicating that the arid regions will get drier even if the northwest sees a slight increase in precipitation. There’s broad agreement, however, that Iran will see an increased frequency in extreme weather conditions – in both precipitation and temperature.
Temperatures in Iran are broadly expected to increase by 1.1 degrees C to 2.5 degrees C by the middle of this century, and by up to 7.9 degrees C by 2100. The frequency and length of heat spells will also increase, which will lead to longer droughts. This, in turn, will result in more evaporation of surface water and a shrinking amount of arable land that can be irrigated by rainfall rather than groundwater. Iran’s farmers will be forced to tap further into already drained groundwater, creating a risk of depleting it entirely. At present, over 50 percent of the area used for wheat cultivation is in water-scarce sub-basins. The combination of increased groundwater exploitation and declining precipitation could reduce aquifer recharge in eastern Iran by 50-100 percent.
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Research also shows that the frequency of heat waves in Iran and West Asia will climb by up to 30 percent. As heat waves become longer, hotter and more frequent, parts of Iran (along with the Middle East and North Africa more broadly) will become uninhabitable. A 2015 Massachusetts Institute of Technology paper predicted that in the following 30 years, temperatures in the Persian Gulf, including Iran, would exceed the threshold for human habitability. Jos Lelieveld, director of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry and a professor at the Cyprus Institute, agrees, saying that “prolonged heat waves and desert dust storms [resulting from both heat and drought] can render some regions uninhabitable.” NASA scientist Benjamin Cook said that an increase in temperatures and drought could create severe food scarcity in the region. Such research seems to broadly corroborate a claim by Kalantari, who is now serving as the head of Iran’s Department of Environment, that by the middle of the century Iran’s water resources may be so diminished that 50 million Iranians – a whopping 70 percent of the population – will be forced to flee the country.
The frequency of short periods with intense rainfall is also expected to increase. This coupled with long periods without rain will make dry areas increasingly prone to flooding and, therefore, less habitable. This will especially be the case in Iran’s arid climate zones, which may contribute to a greater prevalence of uninhabitable living conditions.
The combination of drought, dwindling water resources, extreme heat and declining rainfall will intensify internal migration from rural areas to urban centers, with the attending political implications. Frustration with the regime’s handling of water is already widespread and has led to protests in affected regions. That frustration won’t fall away as people move into the cities; rather, the number of unemployed or underemployed Iranians angry at the regime will only grow and become concentrated in urban areas.
Syria: An Analogue
The Iranian government, in trying to understand the net political effect of this internal migration, might do well to look to Syria. The regime of Hafez Assad, who led Syria from 1971 to 2000, also instituted food self-sufficiency policies, encouraging agricultural production by providing fuel subsidies to make it easier for farmers to access groundwater. This led to a substantial decline in Syria’s groundwater resources, making rural communities more vulnerable to inevitable droughts. When Hafez’s son, Bashar Assad, came to power, he implemented a number of liberalization measures to reform the Syrian economy. Among other goals of these reforms, Bashar hoped to end his father’s fuel subsidies – in part to curb overexploitation of groundwater.
But then drought struck. In fact, between 2007 and 2010 Syria experienced its worst drought in recorded history; 2008 was its driest year on record. It decimated the production of small- and medium-scale farmers. Many livestock herds were completely destroyed. Bashar Assad’s government, however, kept its reform policies in place, exacerbating farmers’ lack of access to water.
As a result, as many as 1.5 million rural Syrians were forced to move to urban centers like Damascus and Aleppo, crowding into the cities’ peripheries and putting pressure on already strained services and infrastructure. School attendance in Syria’s northeast fell by 80 percent as families with children, who were increasingly suffering from malnutrition, relocated. As food production fell, food and livestock feed prices increased, in some cases by double or more, making an already difficult living situation for many Syrians untenable. Syria was forced to import large quantities of wheat for the first time since it declared itself self-sufficient in wheat production in the mid-1990s.
By early 2011, Syrians had taken to the streets, in part to show their frustration with the drought and their dissatisfaction with the government’s response.
The similarities with Iran are striking: Exhaustion of groundwater driven in part by government policies to achieve food self-sufficiency made rural communities particularly vulnerable to changes in climate patterns. When an unprecedented drought struck, anti-government sentiment spread but was concentrated in the cities as millions of rural Syrians were forced to migrate. Forecasts here are not needed – this is already happening in Iran.
Problematic Propositions
The scale of the water challenge facing Iran paints a bleak picture. Iran has a handful of options that it can pursue, but each has limitations.
Increase food imports
Iran may have to turn away from its agricultural policies promoting self-sufficiency and import more food instead. This is the path taken by Saudi Arabia, which realized that using its meager water resources to cultivate grains in the desert was unsustainable.
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But Iran couldn’t accomplish this without some challenges. First, far more Iranians are employed in agriculture than Saudis – roughly 18 percent compared to Saudi Arabia’s 5 percent (even when Riyadh was still pursuing self-sufficiency, that figure was only 8 percent). Second, while both the Iranian and Saudi economies are highly dependent on oil exports, Iran is under serious sanctions pressure from the international community. This limits foreign currency inflows, resulting in a vulnerable and weak rial that makes imports exceptionally costly. Already there have been reports of food rationing in Tehran, and the regime has been forced to subsidize staple foods.
If Iran moves away from self-sufficiency, it will likely need to limit subsidies to farmers. That could put it on a trajectory similar to Syria’s, risking the kind of large-scale internal migration and dissatisfaction that contributed to the outbreak of the Syrian civil war.
Increase water desalination
Faced with limited freshwater resources, Iran has been desalinating water from the Persian Gulf for several decades. Still, it’s a small quantity, meant to provide drinking water for urban populations. It doesn’t address the underlying issue of overuse by the agricultural sector – which, recall, accounts for over 90 percent of water consumption in Iran.
Desalination is also an energy-intensive process. The Baker Institute estimates that, if Iran were to increase its production of desalinated water to irrigate 10 percent of its wheat crop, it would have to redirect roughly 10 percent of its gas supply to desalination. This would be costly, of course. And since the majority of Iran’s electricity is generated from natural gas, redirecting these resources to desalination may also risk exposing certain regions of the country to electricity shortages. That’s a risky proposition for the regime, given that power shortages have already sparked protests in regions like Khuzestan.
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Further, this approach would complicate Iran’s energy trading. It would cut the amount of natural gas available for export, reducing the already sparse flow of foreign reserves into Iran and weakening the rial. And any diminished generation capacity would curtail Iran’s ability to export electricity; last year, protests broke out in the Iraqi city of Basra when the city’s supply of Iranian electricity fell. With the U.S. and Iran competing for influence in Iraq, this would be another blow to Iran’s ability to project power.
The Baker Institute estimates that building the capacity required to supply enough water for just 1 percent of Iranian wheat would require $1.4 billion in investment in desalination plants. But beyond the immediate cost of the desalination process, Iran would also need to build infrastructure to transport seawater from the Persian Gulf to inland agricultural zones. This would require additional energy to pump water over the mountains that separate Iran’s Gulf coast from the rest of the country.
Anyone familiar with Iran’s current fiscal circumstances will know that, between Iran’s estimated $10 billion in lost revenue since November and the country’s burgeoning defense costs, the regime isn’t exactly flush with the kind of cash needed to pursue this route.
Exploit Caspian Sea resources
In December 2018, Iran decided to move forward with a plan to build a pipeline to carry water from the Caspian Sea to the northern province of Semnan. The proposed pipeline would transport 200 million cubic meters of water from the Caspian each year for drinking and industrial use. Like the water from the Persian Gulf, it would have to be desalinated. Rouhani’s administration has reportedly set aside $1.2 billion for the initial phase of the project.
This isn’t a new idea – in 2012, former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad suggested refilling Iranian reservoirs from the Caspian Sea. The IRGC was supposed to build the required infrastructure, but the project was met with such stiff resistance from Iranian lawmakers and environmental officials that it was tabled until last year. But the resistance didn’t dissipate, and lawmakers from the Caspian-adjacent Mazandaran province have vowed to end the project, saying it is impractical and would damage the region’s economy and ecology. For now, however, it appears to be moving forward.
At present, the planned pipeline will only service three Semnan province cities – Damghan, Shahroud and Semnan. Of course, Iran could attempt to expand this infrastructure to carry water from the Caspian to regions across Iran, especially to more drought-prone areas. But, like building out infrastructure to carry desalinated water inland from the Persian Gulf, it would be expensive. And, unlike Persian Gulf desalination, there’s no existing infrastructure to build upon.
If Iran should come to depend too heavily on desalinated water from the Caspian Sea, it could cause the sea to drain. As it is, the Caspian Sea’s water level has been declining since 1995 as incrementally warmer summers increase the rate of evaporation. Further, it could raise the question of whether Iran even has the right to draw the Caspian’s water. Territorial disputes over the Caspian have existed since the fall of the Soviet Union. Up to that point, Iran and the Soviet Union had treated the Caspian like a lake, with rights to it split between the two. But three new states were born on its shores, each claiming rights to the sea and its hydrocarbon resources. Iran must now contend with Russia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan for rights to the Caspian.
At the core of the dispute is whether the Caspian is legally a sea or a lake. If it’s a lake, resources would have to be split evenly between its littoral states. If it’s a sea, then in theory, it would be subject to the jurisdiction of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea and would be divided roughly based on the length of each country’s shoreline. In August 2018, the Caspian’s five littoral states reached an agreement that solved, after nearly three decades, some of these disputes. For example, they agreed to treat the surface water of the Caspian as a sea. But the accord did not establish how the seabed and subsoil should be divided. Subsoil boundaries, in particular, are central in determining which country controls the hydrocarbon reserves.
So, if Iran were to begin draining the Caspian, other littoral states may take issue. Since most of the Caspian’s freshwater inflows come from the Volga River, it’s easy to imagine Russia objecting and redirecting the Volga (as it did with the rivers that fed the Aral Sea) to limit the amount of water Iran would have to draw from. This would also increase the Caspian’s salinity, requiring a more intensive desalination process. Iran’s use of the water could also set a precedent, encouraging other states on the Caspian to begin transferring water for their own use.
(click to enlarge)
Increase investment in different types of water infrastructure; liberalize water and energy prices
Lastly, Iran could attempt to implement a number of far-reaching policies that environmental scientists and ecologists from Iran and abroad have advocated.
Some examples include limiting urban growth rates, modernizing agricultural methods to increase water use efficiency, and lifting water and energy subsidies. Of course, modernizing an entire industry is not easy or cheap, and Iran is cash-strapped. And if Iran were to lift subsidies on water and fuel without providing a commensurate offset that allows farmers to produce at similar levels with fewer inputs, then the country would risk following Syria down its deleterious path.
Between Iran’s persistent drought, decades of poor water management and the continuation of extreme weather patterns – not to mention the challenges it is facing on the international front and the effects of sanctions – Iran has shrinking resources available to deal with its mounting water problem. And financial constraints are just one of the consequences carried by any of the possible solutions to the water crisis. The compounding effects are making not only the regime but the entire country vulnerable to any new pressures, external and internal, that may arise. The outlook for Iran’s water supplies – and its accompanying economic and political fallout – is looking bleak.
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Iran keeps heading on down the nuclear road. On Monday, Iran launched 30 new centrifuges at its Natanz nuclear facility, according to Ali Akbar Salehi, the chief of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization. Salehi said the country’s low-enriched uranium production rose tenfold over the past two months – and that work on two new power plants will begin "next week" near the Bushehr Power Plant in southwestern Iran. Meanwhile, a government spokesman said Iranian President Hassan Rouhani would unveil Tehran’s fourth step in easing its compliance with commitments agreed to in the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action later this week. Tehran is trying to gradually ramp up pressure to bring the U.S. back to the negotiating table. But it’s also trying to keep its own hard-liners at bay. Notably, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Sunday that Iran will not lift its ban on talks with the U.S.
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http://carolineglick.com/is-iran-winning-or-losing/
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https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/violent-protests-break-out-iran-after-shock-gas-price-hike-subsidies-cut
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Uprisings Against the Mullahs
Short on cash, the regime faces protests at home and in Iraq.
By The Editorial Board
Nov. 17, 2019 6:38 pm ET
Cars block a street during a protest against a rise in gasoline prices, in the central city of Isfahan, Iran, Nov. 16. PHOTO: /ASSOCIATED PRESS
The latest anti-regime protests in Iran look like a major political event, and judging by its vigorous and violent response the regime agrees. Now is a moment for the political left and right in the U.S. and Europe to unite in support of the Iranian people.
The protests erupted in several cities across the country in response to government increases of 50% in fuel prices. The increase raises the price of a liter of gasoline to only about 35 cents, or 50 cents a gallon. But the reaction to the increase reveals the desperation and anger of Iranians as the economy falters under the pressure of U.S. sanctions.
With parliamentary elections scheduled for February, the regime would only have reduced its fuel subsidies if it felt it had no choice. The mullahs must be short on cash as their oil sales abroad have been sharply reduced by Trump Administration sanctions. Oil sales are the regime’s main source of revenue.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini publicly supported the price increases on Sunday and called protesters “thugs.” The government shut down internet access across most of the country, which makes it difficult to assess the extent of the protests. But the reports and videos that have emerged show clashes that sometimes turned violent. Mr. Khameini also blamed loyalists of the former Shah, who was deposed 40 years ago.
The truth is that this turmoil is made in Tehran by the mullahs themselves. They could have used the financial windfall they received from the 2015 nuclear deal to invest in their own country. Instead they used those resources to spread revolution throughout the Middle East. They’ve continued to plow cash into developing ballistic missiles and arming Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Syria, and Shiite militias in nearby Iraq.
Iran’s heavy-handed meddling has also inspired a backlash in Iraq. Protesters have chanted anti-Persian slogans and demonstrated against Shiite sites in Karbala and other holy cities. Most Iraqis are Shiites but they are also nationalists and resent Iran’s political interference that includes direction to militias by Qasem Soleimani, head of the Quds Force that is Iran’s vanguard abroad.
Protests in Iran aren’t new, and the regime has shown it will use violence and arrests to quell them. But as economic hardship continues and the election nears, public unrest could also increase and erupt in unpredictable ways.
This is all the more reason for the U.S. to maintain the sanctions pressure and for Europe finally to join. Iran is now openly violating the 2015 nuclear deal, enriching uranium again and reopening its underground Fordow facility. The U.S. should withdraw its remaining sanctions waivers and trigger “snapback” sanctions that are allowed under the deal.
Above all, the world should speak up in support of Iranian aspirations to become a normal country, instead of a theocracy that spreads revolution and terror. Barack Obama made an historic blunder when he stayed mute amid the Iranian regime’s bloody crackdown on democratic protests in 2009. President Trump should not make the same mistake.
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Marc: Sec State Pompeo has already made formal statement that we support the aspirations of the Iranian people.
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Preparing for an Iranian attack. Over the weekend, the head of U.S. Central Command said that the government in Tehran is under extreme pressure and that another large-scale Iranian attack could not be ruled out. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he can confirm the threats and that Israel remained committed to preventing Iran from entrenching itself in the region. A former commander of the air defense division of the Israel Defense Forces went a step further by saying an attack by Iran, no matter the size, should be considered a declaration of war. The statements come amid a flurry of official high-level military and defense visits between the U.S. and Israel over the past week. It’s true that these kinds of meetings happen all the time, but the current missile exchange between Iran and Israel, and the close involvement of the U.S., gives them a little more gravity
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https://freebeacon.com/national-security/iran-russia-china-to-hold-joint-wargames-in-message-to-the-world/?fbclid=IwAR0N12kHJdm_UDoqFmRGLiGAR2D2YDbH4Z2Iv5LBbYc_YqqyOSwL-1Vm5dI
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https://www.meforum.org/60015/iranian-protests-were-not-about-the-price-of-gas?utm_source=Middle+East+Forum&utm_campaign=2b5e166e0e-MEF_caschetta_2019_12_03_01_05&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_086cfd423c-2b5e166e0e-33691909&goal=0_086cfd423c-2b5e166e0e-33691909&mc_cid=2b5e166e0e&mc_eid=9627475d7f
Martha McCallum reported tonight some 2-400 killed , , ,
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-administration-considers-14-000-more-troops-for-mideast-11575494228?mod=itp_wsj&mod=&mod=djemITP_h
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https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2019/12/us-deterrence-against-iran-doomed-fail/161677/?oref=defenseone_today_nl
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https://www.timesofisrael.com/iran-announces-joint-naval-exercise-with-china-russia/
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https://www.timesofisrael.com/iran-announces-joint-naval-exercise-with-china-russia/
The teams are forming. Three crippled economies versus the rest of the world.
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https://www.timesofisrael.com/iran-announces-joint-naval-exercise-with-china-russia/
The teams are forming. Three crippled economies versus the rest of the world.
Russia's one functional aircraft carrier appears to be experiencing some technical difficulties.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-12/russia-s-only-aircraft-carrier-stricken-by-fire-in-latest-mishap
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The Iranian-U.S. Confrontation in Iraq Grows Hotter
7 MINS READ
Dec 30, 2019 | 21:44 GMT
Protesters waving the Iraqi flag alongside one of an armed network march in Basra to denounce U.S. airstrikes that killed dozens of Iraqi militia members.
Iraqis wave both the national flag and one from a paramilitary group in Basra on Dec. 30, 2019, during a demonstration to denounce U.S. airstrikes that killed dozens of members of an Iranian-linked militia.
(HUSSEIN FALEH/AFP via Getty Images)
HIGHLIGHTS
Iraqi militias backed by Tehran have threatened retaliation after U.S. airstrikes kill dozens of fighters, elevating the risk that a pattern of strike and counterstrike will take root....
The U.S. military response against an Iraqi paramilitary group closely affiliated with Iran has further increased the risk that an escalatory pattern of violence between Iran (and its proxies) and the United States will develop. Three U.S. airstrikes on Dec. 29 targeted positions in Iraq where the Iranian-backed militia Kataib Hezbollah has a presence; concurrent airstrikes hit two of the militia's positions in Syria near Qaim, an Iraqi border city. The airstrikes came in retaliation for a Dec. 27 rocket attack against the K-1 base near Kirkuk that killed a U.S. civilian contractor and wounded four U.S. military personnel. The United States blamed the militia group, one of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Units (PMUs), for carrying out that assault.
The Big Picture
Iraq depends on both the United States and Iran to help it maintain its security. As tensions between those security partners increase, Iraq will find it harder to maintain its balance between them. U.S. airstrikes on Iranian-allied militias in Iraq mark the latest escalation between Washington and Tehran that will increase the pressure on the Iraqi government to justify continuing dependence on U.S. security support to its citizens. The airstrikes also increase the risk of a further military escalation between the United States and Iran within Iraq.
See Iran's Arc of Influence
The contractor's death marked the first U.S. casualty in 2019 as a result of an Iranian-linked PMU attack in Iraq or Syria. Likewise, the deaths of dozens of Kataib Hezbollah members in the retaliatory bombings also marked a significant escalation in U.S. operations against Iranian-linked units in the two countries. These latest deadly incidents had been presaged by rising tensions between Iran and the United States and an increasing willingness on Iran's part to use its proxies to challenge Washington. According to U.S. defense officials, for instance, the barrage of about 30 rockets fired at K-1 represented the 11th attack since October by Iranian-backed PMUs that targeted areas where U.S. personnel in Iraq were based.
Iran's Growing Tolerance for Risk
Iran's extensive links with militia groups in both Syria and Iraq provide Tehran with a means by which to strike at U.S. forces by proxy. Given its larger dispute with Washington amid the U.S. sanctions campaign that has stifled its economy, Iran has become increasingly willing to use that option. But as the U.S. counterstrike illustrates, a proxy attack still carries with it the real possibility of a further escalation of attacks and counterattacks by both sides. Immediately after the airstrikes, the United States asserted that they were a direct retaliation over the attack on K-1, characterizing them as an effort to deter future militia operations against its forces. This fits in with Washington's preferred strategy of leaning heavily on sanctions, including those put in place in December against Iraqi militia leaders, to cripple Iran while seeking to avoid a military escalation to full war.
This map shows the location of several key cities in Iraq.
The United States is also aware that given the operating environment in Iraq and Syria, its forces dispersed in the two countries are vulnerable to attacks from Iranian-linked militias. For its part, Iran is cognizant of the risks that military escalation with a country as powerful as the United States carries, but pressure from the economic sanctions has left Tehran more willing to absorb those risks as it seeks ways to push back.
Beyond risking a fight with the United States that could spread to Iran itself, an escalation of violence at a time when Iraqi street protesters are decrying the Iranian influence in their country could also backfire on Tehran. But even with those risks hanging over their heads, Iran's deteriorating economy and the eagerness of some of its PMU proxies to confront U.S. forces could tempt Iranian leaders to act. Even if a large-scale Iranian counterattack over the U.S. strike on Kataib Hezbollah does not materialize, the rocket attacks on U.S. positions in Iraq and Syria are not only likely to continue, they may even increase in intensity.
Iranian proxies could also use other means of attack, such as with improvised explosive devices. This means that there is a continued high likelihood of further U.S. casualties at the hands of Iranian-linked militias Those, in turn, could lead to further rounds of U.S. strikes. At this stage in their confrontation, a rapid escalation of violence between Iran and the United States is hardly inevitable. However, the potential for more incidents will remain elevated as long as the political acrimony between the countries remains in its current state.
The Iraqi Government's Dilemma
The violent exchanges further complicate the already chaotic political situation in Baghdad and will strain Iraq's relationship with both Iran and the United States. Many Iraqi PMUs have been directly funded and equipped by Iran — and thus are accurately viewed by Washington as direct tools of Iran. But the fact that the militias comprise Iraqi fighters gives Iran a degree of political protection from the Iraqi government over their continued use in Iraq, as well as some plausible deniability as it uses the militias to bolster regional hegemony.
Iraqi politicians who have ties with both the United States and Iran have issued measured condemnations of the airstrikes, but have stopped short of calling for the withdrawal of U.S. forces. This underscores their desire to not antagonize either country, both of which are powerful security backers and necessary economic partners for Baghdad. On Dec. 29, for example, Iraqi President Barham Salih called the U.S. airstrike unacceptable, and the same day, the powerful Dawa party issued a statement condemning the use of Iraq as a site for the United States and Iran to settle scores. The Iraqi prime minister's office, which had been informed that the airstrikes would occur about half an hour before they happened, said it "strongly rejected" the actions. Meanwhile, leaders of Iraq's Iranian-allied PMUs, including commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, called for U.S. forces to withdraw from Iraq. He also threatened further retaliation, a threat that carries considerable weight.
Given that the fighters among the PMU's ranks are Iraqi, Baghdad will be forced to distance itself publicly from direct cooperation with future U.S. actions against them.
Beyond the condemnations, the Iraqi government's lack of control over U.S. or Iranian actions in Iraq opens the likelihood of some diplomatic deterioration between Washington and Baghdad. Given that the fighters among the PMU's ranks are Iraqi, Baghdad will be forced to distance itself publicly from direct cooperation with future U.S. actions against them, and even despite Baghdad's own (mostly failed) efforts over the years to rein in some of the aggressive actions by the PMUs. A strategic framework agreement between Iraq and the United States facilitates close coordination between Iraqi security forces and the estimated 5,000 U.S. troops in the country. While it has proved valuable in increasing Iraqi security, the agreement has come under increasing political pressure from Iranian-allied politicians in parliament who want U.S. forces to leave Iraq. Iraq's security council said on Dec. 30 it would "reconsider" the relationship between Iraq and the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State, reflecting Baghdad's tricky position.
The airstrikes will add fuel to the ongoing debate, even though the Iran-allied PMUs themselves remain unpopular among many Iraqis because of their penchant for quasi-legal violence and because their presence makes Iraq a vulnerable proxy theater. A further factor in Baghdad's political decision-making will hinge on the reaction by Iraq's protest movement, especially if demonstrators demand that U.S. operations in Iraq be reined in. Given the limits of Iraq's current caretaker government to respond to emboldened demonstrators, the re-evaluation of the strategic framework agreement that has been stalled in parliament will accelerate if Iraqi protesters demand it.
Moving forward, Iraq will remain a highly volatile site of confrontation between the United States and Iran, damaging Iraq’s diplomatic relations with both countries. But the ball is currently in Iran's court, and the extent of the response by Iranian-linked militias to the U.S. airstrikes will determine whether a cycle of escalation takes hold in Iraq.
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Iran's Top Military Commander, Qasem Suleimani, Reportedly Assassinated In US Airstrike per ZH.
But what was he doing in Baghdad (Iraq) along with the head of KATAIB HEZBOLLAH ABU MEHDI MUHANDIS, the militant group that we just bombed in Iraq.
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Commanding the attack on the US Embassy.
Iran's Top Military Commander, Qasem Suleimani, Reportedly Assassinated In US Airstrike per ZH.
But what was he doing in Baghdad (Iraq) along with the head of KATAIB HEZBOLLAH ABU MEHDI MUHANDIS, the militant group that we just bombed in Iraq.
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Iran's Top Military Commander, Qasem Suleimani, Reportedly Assassinated In US Airstrike per ZH.
But what was he doing in Baghdad (Iraq) along with the head of KATAIB HEZBOLLAH ABU MEHDI MUHANDIS, the militant group that we just bombed in Iraq.
Trump accomplishment. Now that's what I call retaliation. Next we go for 'disproportionate response', meaning deterrent.
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Heh heh , , ,
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-50979463
https://www.foxnews.com/world/rockets-baghdad-airport-injuries-reported
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Heh heh , , ,
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-50979463
https://www.foxnews.com/world/rockets-baghdad-airport-injuries-reported
Allow me to translate this into Farsi for the Ayatollahs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VC1_tdnZq1A
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The U.S. Assassination of a Key Iranian General Throws Fuel on the Fire
The Big Picture
________________________________________
In response to the latest round of escalation between Washington and Iran, in which protesters in Iraq breached the compound perimeter of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad earlier this week — likely at the behest of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force Cmdr. Qassem Soleimani — the United States has taken the opportunity to eliminate the Iranian military leader and other key architects of Tehran's strategy in Iraq. But the question is, at what cost? Iran will retaliate in a significant fashion, increasing the risk of further escalation that could lead to a direct military confrontation between the two countries.
________________________________________
Iran's Arc of Influence
It's the spark to ignite a major conflagration: Late on Jan. 2, the Pentagon said it launched an overnight strike in Baghdad killing several officials linked with Iran, including Qassem Soleimani, the powerful commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force. In addition to Soleimani, the head of the Iraqi Kataib Hezbollah militia, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, and the deputy head of Hezbollah in Lebanon, Naim Qassem were reportedly killed — although the latter's death has yet to be confirmed. The Pentagon explicitly noted that among other reasons, the United States conducted the strike in retaliation for the attempt by supporters of Kataib Hezbollah to overrun the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad's Green Zone on Dec. 31, but the decision to target one of Iran's most important military figures is sure to raise tensions between Iran and the United States in the Middle East to new heights.
Soleimani's death, which had followed a stark warning by U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper that the United States was willing to preemptively strike Iranian-backed militias in Iraq to protect U.S. forces, will reverberate throughout the Middle East. As the head of the Quds Force, Soleimani was, more or less, the peer of generals leading the U.S. military's actions in Afghanistan or Iraq. Naturally, his killing opens the way for a significant escalation, as Iran could well target high-ranking U.S. military personnel in the Middle East in response. Ultimately, Iran will absolutely seek to retaliate against the United States — the only question is at what level, what scale and when.
Here's how Soleimani's death might affect a number of areas around the Middle East — and the wider world:
Iraq
The risk that Iraqi militias backed by Iran would attack U.S. and Western forces, assets and, potentially, commercial interests was already high, but it's just increased precipitously. Although Iranian-backed militias led by leaders like al-Muhandis were not popular among many Iraqis, the U.S. move to stoke a conflict with Iran on Iraqi soil will inject serious diplomatic tension into Baghdad's relationship with Washington and fuel nascent efforts in the Iraqi parliament to reevaluate Iraq's security cooperation with the United States. It will also complicate the Iraqi security force's efforts to continue to work closely with Washington against the Islamic State.
Israel
Israel reportedly had come close to assassinating Soleimani a handful of times in recent years. And based on the missile threat that it perceives from the Quds Force and the Iraqi militias led by al-Muhandis and others, Israel will no doubt support this decision by Washington. But potential Hezbollah retaliation against U.S. interests in Lebanon could also turn into attacks on Israel, given the widespread perception in Lebanon — and throughout the region — that U.S. and Israeli interests against Iran and its allies are one and the same. In the worst-case scenario, that could touch off a separate fight between Israel and Iran.
Lebanon
Iran's strong presence in Lebanon through Hezbollah makes the possibility of retaliation against U.S. targets there a distinct possibility. Hezbollah exercises influence in large swaths of Lebanon, including parts of Beirut, and has the capability to launch attacks against U.S. targets in the country. That risk will be even more pronounced if the death of Qassem, Hezbollah's second in command, is confirmed.
Saudi Arabia and Gulf Oil Producers
It has been nearly four months since Iran attacked the Abqaiq and Khurais oil-processing facilities, taking half of Saudi Arabia's oil production down. If the United States and Iran continue their escalation with direct strikes on one another, Iran could certainly retaliate against countries like Saudi Arabia, one of the closest U.S. allies in the region, and their economic interests. Each of the Gulf Cooperation Council states — particularly Bahrain and Qatar — hosts a significant U.S. military presence that Iran could target.
Persian Gulf
In addition to direct attacks on GCC member states, Iran could launch more attacks against the U.S. naval presence in the Persian Gulf. For most of U.S. President Donald Trump's term in office, Iran has hesitated to use its naval assets to harass U.S. ships in the Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz and Gulf of Oman despite its aggressive strategy to counter U.S. sanctions pressure. That, however, could change: As it is, the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group reported last month that Iranian naval ships had harassed it as it was leaving its deployment in the Gulf of Oman and Arabian Sea.
Syria
Soleimani's death is a blow, but likely not a crippling one, to Iran's ability to conduct its extensive operations in Syria. The United States does not have a significant presence in Syria compared to what it has in Iraq and the Persian Gulf, but the remaining U.S. forces in Syria are near Iranian-allied militia forces, meaning they could become a target.
Afghanistan
Iran could decide to strike the United States in Afghanistan, given the target-rich environment of U.S. soldiers and military assets in the country, as well as Iran's history of support for the Taliban. Iran is better positioned to strike elsewhere — since it does not directly control or direct the Taliban as it does other proxy forces — but the possibility of retaliation in the war-torn country cannot be ruled out.
Yemen
Iran could push the Houthi rebels in Yemen to launch retaliatory attacks against U.S. allies as well, even though Iran does not directly control that group, either. The Houthis maintain a robust arsenal of drones as well as ballistic and cruise missiles, which they have used to carry out attacks in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and surrounding waters such as the Bab el-Mandeb strait. Potential targets include, but are not limited to, airports, critical infrastructure, energy infrastructure, military targets and vessels transiting the Red Sea.
Beyond the Middle East
The threat of retaliation is not limited to the Middle East, given Iran's history of conducting attacks against targets ranging from Latin America to Eastern Europe and South Asia, among others. Iran has also been linked to numerous plots in Western countries, including in Belgium, Denmark, France, the United States and the United Kingdom in recent years.
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Make Iran a sheet of radioactive glass.
The U.S. Assassination of a Key Iranian General Throws Fuel on the Fire
The Big Picture
________________________________________
In response to the latest round of escalation between Washington and Iran, in which protesters in Iraq breached the compound perimeter of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad earlier this week — likely at the behest of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force Cmdr. Qassem Soleimani — the United States has taken the opportunity to eliminate the Iranian military leader and other key architects of Tehran's strategy in Iraq. But the question is, at what cost? Iran will retaliate in a significant fashion, increasing the risk of further escalation that could lead to a direct military confrontation between the two countries.
________________________________________
Iran's Arc of Influence
It's the spark to ignite a major conflagration: Late on Jan. 2, the Pentagon said it launched an overnight strike in Baghdad killing several officials linked with Iran, including Qassem Soleimani, the powerful commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force. In addition to Soleimani, the head of the Iraqi Kataib Hezbollah militia, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, and the deputy head of Hezbollah in Lebanon, Naim Qassem were reportedly killed — although the latter's death has yet to be confirmed. The Pentagon explicitly noted that among other reasons, the United States conducted the strike in retaliation for the attempt by supporters of Kataib Hezbollah to overrun the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad's Green Zone on Dec. 31, but the decision to target one of Iran's most important military figures is sure to raise tensions between Iran and the United States in the Middle East to new heights.
Soleimani's death, which had followed a stark warning by U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper that the United States was willing to preemptively strike Iranian-backed militias in Iraq to protect U.S. forces, will reverberate throughout the Middle East. As the head of the Quds Force, Soleimani was, more or less, the peer of generals leading the U.S. military's actions in Afghanistan or Iraq. Naturally, his killing opens the way for a significant escalation, as Iran could well target high-ranking U.S. military personnel in the Middle East in response. Ultimately, Iran will absolutely seek to retaliate against the United States — the only question is at what level, what scale and when.
Here's how Soleimani's death might affect a number of areas around the Middle East — and the wider world:
Iraq
The risk that Iraqi militias backed by Iran would attack U.S. and Western forces, assets and, potentially, commercial interests was already high, but it's just increased precipitously. Although Iranian-backed militias led by leaders like al-Muhandis were not popular among many Iraqis, the U.S. move to stoke a conflict with Iran on Iraqi soil will inject serious diplomatic tension into Baghdad's relationship with Washington and fuel nascent efforts in the Iraqi parliament to reevaluate Iraq's security cooperation with the United States. It will also complicate the Iraqi security force's efforts to continue to work closely with Washington against the Islamic State.
Israel
Israel reportedly had come close to assassinating Soleimani a handful of times in recent years. And based on the missile threat that it perceives from the Quds Force and the Iraqi militias led by al-Muhandis and others, Israel will no doubt support this decision by Washington. But potential Hezbollah retaliation against U.S. interests in Lebanon could also turn into attacks on Israel, given the widespread perception in Lebanon — and throughout the region — that U.S. and Israeli interests against Iran and its allies are one and the same. In the worst-case scenario, that could touch off a separate fight between Israel and Iran.
Lebanon
Iran's strong presence in Lebanon through Hezbollah makes the possibility of retaliation against U.S. targets there a distinct possibility. Hezbollah exercises influence in large swaths of Lebanon, including parts of Beirut, and has the capability to launch attacks against U.S. targets in the country. That risk will be even more pronounced if the death of Qassem, Hezbollah's second in command, is confirmed.
Saudi Arabia and Gulf Oil Producers
It has been nearly four months since Iran attacked the Abqaiq and Khurais oil-processing facilities, taking half of Saudi Arabia's oil production down. If the United States and Iran continue their escalation with direct strikes on one another, Iran could certainly retaliate against countries like Saudi Arabia, one of the closest U.S. allies in the region, and their economic interests. Each of the Gulf Cooperation Council states — particularly Bahrain and Qatar — hosts a significant U.S. military presence that Iran could target.
Persian Gulf
In addition to direct attacks on GCC member states, Iran could launch more attacks against the U.S. naval presence in the Persian Gulf. For most of U.S. President Donald Trump's term in office, Iran has hesitated to use its naval assets to harass U.S. ships in the Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz and Gulf of Oman despite its aggressive strategy to counter U.S. sanctions pressure. That, however, could change: As it is, the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group reported last month that Iranian naval ships had harassed it as it was leaving its deployment in the Gulf of Oman and Arabian Sea.
Syria
Soleimani's death is a blow, but likely not a crippling one, to Iran's ability to conduct its extensive operations in Syria. The United States does not have a significant presence in Syria compared to what it has in Iraq and the Persian Gulf, but the remaining U.S. forces in Syria are near Iranian-allied militia forces, meaning they could become a target.
Afghanistan
Iran could decide to strike the United States in Afghanistan, given the target-rich environment of U.S. soldiers and military assets in the country, as well as Iran's history of support for the Taliban. Iran is better positioned to strike elsewhere — since it does not directly control or direct the Taliban as it does other proxy forces — but the possibility of retaliation in the war-torn country cannot be ruled out.
Yemen
Iran could push the Houthi rebels in Yemen to launch retaliatory attacks against U.S. allies as well, even though Iran does not directly control that group, either. The Houthis maintain a robust arsenal of drones as well as ballistic and cruise missiles, which they have used to carry out attacks in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and surrounding waters such as the Bab el-Mandeb strait. Potential targets include, but are not limited to, airports, critical infrastructure, energy infrastructure, military targets and vessels transiting the Red Sea.
Beyond the Middle East
The threat of retaliation is not limited to the Middle East, given Iran's history of conducting attacks against targets ranging from Latin America to Eastern Europe and South Asia, among others. Iran has also been linked to numerous plots in Western countries, including in Belgium, Denmark, France, the United States and the United Kingdom in recent years.
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https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2020/01/how-iran-will-strike-back-after-the-killing-of-qasem-soleimani/
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Daily Memo: Soleimani's Assassination, Ending Spain's Political Gridlock, Russia-Belarus Oil Tiff
By: GPF Staff
All eyes on Tehran. The United States assassinated Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the longtime chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and a singular figure in the Middle East over the past two decades, with an airstrike at the Baghdad airport early on Friday morning. Soleimani had just arrived on a flight from Lebanon. Also killed were a senior commander of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, and (reportedly) deputy Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem. The Pentagon said the strikes were intended to deter future Iranian aggression in the region, while the State Department said they were motivated by an “imminent” attack on U.S. facilities in the region by Iran or Iran-backed militias in Iraq. This is, to put it mildly, a dramatic escalation in the U.S.-Iran confrontation, pushing what’s largely been a shadow war waged by proxies for more than a decade out into the open. As chief of the IRGC’s notorious Quds Force, Soleimani had been instrumental in a range of efforts that ran counter to U.S. interests, including countless insurgent attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq in the 2000s, Baghdad's subsequent expulsion of U.S. forces from the country, Iran’s successful campaign to turn the tide of the Syrian civil war back in favor of Syrian President Bashar Assad and the surge in Hezbollah’s capabilities on Israel’s border. He was also spearheading Iran’s recent resurgence of influence in Iraq and presumably played some role in last week’s attack on the U.S. Embassy in Iraq by pro-Iran militiamen. But his death will hardly deal a death blow to Iran’s expansion in the region or its ability to attack U.S. interests. Given the popularity of Soleimani at home and Iran’s need to deter future assassinations, Tehran will almost certainly be compelled to respond in one form or another. For now, a cycle of tit-for-tat retaliation is more likely than a spiral toward all-out war, given the correlation of forces and Tehran’s limited capacity for escalation.
Soleimani’s assassination could have wide-ranging implications beyond the direct confrontation between the United States and Iran. In Iraq, where the U.S. Embassy is already urging Americans to evacuate immediately, Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi condemned the attack, and Iraq’s parliament is reportedly planning to hold an emergency meeting to “discuss decisive decisions to put an end to the U.S. presence in Iraq.” Notably, though, the response from influential cleric Muqtada al-Sadr was more muted. In a statement, he called on Iran to avoid escalation, obliquely criticized pro-Iran militias, pledged to revive his own militia, the Mahdi Army, and didn’t mention the United States by name. Elsewhere, Israel has put its embassies and the military on high alert amid calls by Hezbollah for revenge attacks. Curiously, Germany cast blame for the escalation solely on Iran. One other thing to watch is whether more distant powers like Japan that had been planning on dispatching naval forces to the region to protect open sea lanes will remain willing to do so if war between the United States and Iran appears to be a real possibility.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2k7mpnPJWDo
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https://americanmilitarynews.com/2019/09/mattis-obama-ignored-iranian-bomb-plot-of-dc-restaurant-act-of-war-due-to-nuke-deal-talks/
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2k7mpnPJWDo
Never go to a gathering of 2 million. Trampled to death is a lousy way to go.
That was 1989 I presume. I wonder how popular the Mullahs are now.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2k7mpnPJWDo
Never go to a gathering of 2 million. Trampled to death is a lousy way to go.
That was 1989 I presume. I wonder how popular the Mullahs are now.
It appears to have declined a bit.
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https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/u-s-gives-israel-green-light-to-assassinate-iran-s-general-soleimani-1.5630156
Obama protected him.
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https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/03/petraeus-on-qassem-suleimani-killing-says-trump-helped-reestablish-deterrence/
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https://connectingvets.radio.com/articles/news/the-shadow-war-between-jsoc-and-quds-force
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Opinion
Trump’s Ground Game Against Iran
The assassination of Qassim Suleimani is a seismic event in the Middle East.
By Michael Doran
Mr. Doran is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and served in the departments of State and Defense, and on the National Security Council.
• Jan. 3, 2020
More than any other American military operation since the invasion of Iraq, the assassination yesterday of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the head of Iran’s Qods Force of its Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, is a seismic event. The killings of Osama bin Laden and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leaders of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, were certainly meaningful, but they were also largely symbolic, because their organizations had been mostly destroyed. Taking out the architect of the Islamic Republic’s decades-long active campaign of violence against the United States and its allies, especially Israel, represents a tectonic shift in Middle Eastern politics.
To see just how significant Mr. Suleimani’s death truly is, it helps to understand the geopolitical game he’d devoted his life to playing. In Lebanon, Mr. Suleimani built Lebanese Hezbollah into the powerful state within a state that we know today. A terrorist organization receiving its funds, arms and marching orders from Tehran, Hezbollah has a missile arsenal larger than that of most countries in the region. The group’s success has been astounding, helping to cement Iran’s influence not just in Lebanon but farther around the Arab world.
Building up on this successful experience, Mr. Suleimani spent the last decade replicating the Hezbollah model in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, propping up local militias with precision weapons and tactical know-how. In Syria, his forces have allied with Russia to prop up the regime of Bashar al-Assad, a project that, in practice, has meant driving over 10 million people from their homes and killing well over half a million. In Iraq, as we have seen in recent days, Mr. Suleimani’s militias ride roughshod over the legitimate state institutions. They rose to power, of course, after participating in an insurgency, of which he was the architect, against American and coalition forces. Hundreds of American soldiers lost their lives to the weapons that the Qods Force provided to its Iraqi proxies.
Mr. Suleimani built this empire of militias while betting that America would steer clear of an outright confrontation. This gambit certainly paid off under President Barack Obama, but it even seemed to be a safe bet under President Trump, despite his stated policy of “maximum pressure.” Mr. Trump was putting an economic squeeze on Iran, and popular protests in Iran, Iraq and Lebanon were adding to the pressure, but Mr. Suleimani assumed that, in the end, control of military assets would win the day. Mr. Trump, it seemed, feared getting sucked into a war. Washington, in short, lacked a ground game.
In September, Mr. Suleimani and his colleagues reportedly pressed their advantage by attacking a Saudi Arabian oil field, an act of war that went unanswered. He followed this up by orchestrating attacks by Iranian proxies on Americans. The Trump administration had said clearly that attacking Americans was a red line, but Mr. Suleimani had heard threats in the past from American leaders. He thought he could erase Mr. Trump’s red line.
His departure will make Iran much weaker. It will embolden the country’s regional rivals —primarily Israel and Saudi Arabia— to pursue their strategic interests more resolutely. It will also instill in the protesters in Iran, Lebanon and, especially, Iraq, the hope that they will one day wrest control of their governments from the talons of the Islamic Republic.
In Washington, the decision to kill Mr. Suleimani represents the final demise of Mr. Obama’s Middle East strategy, which sought to realign American interests with those of Iran. Mr. Obama’s search for a modus vivendi with Tehran never comported with the reality of the Islamic Republic’s fundamental character and regional ambitions. President Trump, by contrast, realized that Tehran’s goal was to replace America as the key player in the Middle East.
The United States has no choice, if it seeks to stay in the Middle East, but to check Iran’s military power on the ground. For a president elected on a platform of peace and prosperity, confronting Iran was not an easy decision to make. Mr. Trump would undoubtedly prefer to be negotiating with Iran over its nuclear program rather than ordering the assassination of its most famous general. But the president realized that securing America’s regional position required a strong and visible response to Mr. Suleimani’s escalations.
In fact, such a response was long overdue. I know from my own experience, as a former senior official in the White House and the Defense Department, that the United States had several past opportunities to kill Mr. Suleimani but each time decided against it. This restraint did not make the world safer. It only gave Mr. Suleimani more time to build his empire, and, moreover, it enhanced his mystique as a man with an almost superhuman ability to evade detection.
To no one’s surprise, Mr. Trump’s critics immediately accused him of needlessly provoking Iran, arguing that Mr. Suleimani’s assassination could lead to war. This is an analysis that ignores the fact that Mr. Suleimani has been waging war on America and its allies for years and was directly engaged in the planning of attacks.
The world to which we wake up today, rid of its most accomplished and deadly terrorist, is a better place. Nowhere is this insight more evident than throughout the Middle East, where individuals are posting joyous videos to social media, celebrating the death of the author of so much of their misery. We should all — even those among us who don’t particularly care for Mr. Trump — join them in their good cheer, and continue to repeal Mr. Suleimani’s murderous anti-American legacy.
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https://www.politico.eu/article/iran-us-conflict-qassem-soleimani-assassination-khamenei-donald-trump/
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Third post
Trump Kills Iran’s Most Overrated Warrior Suleimani pushed his country to build an empire, but drove it into the ground instead. By Thomas L. Friedman Opinion Columnist • Jan. 3, 2020
A portrait of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani carried during a demonstration in Baghdad in 2015.Credit...Thaier Al-Sudani/Reuters One day they may name a street after President Trump in Tehran. Why? Because Trump just ordered the assassination of possibly the dumbest man in Iran and the most overrated strategist in the Middle East: Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani.
Think of the miscalculations this guy made. In 2015, the United States and the major European powers agreed to lift virtually all their sanctions on Iran, many dating back to 1979, in return for Iran halting its nuclear weapons program for a mere 15 years, but still maintaining the right to have a peaceful nuclear program. It was a great deal for Iran. Its economy grew by over 12 percent the next year. And what did Suleimani do with that windfall? He and Iran’s supreme leader launched an aggressive regional imperial project that made Iran and its proxies the de facto controlling power in Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad and Sana.
This freaked out U.S. allies in the Sunni Arab world and Israel — and they pressed the Trump administration to respond. Trump himself was eager to tear up any treaty forged by President Obama, so he exited the nuclear deal and imposed oil sanctions on Iran that have now shrunk the Iranian economy by almost 10 percent and sent unemployment over 16 percent.
All that for the pleasure of saying that Tehran can call the shots in Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad and Sana. What exactly was second prize?
By severely depriving the Tehran regime of funds, the ayatollahs had to raise gasoline prices at home, triggering massive domestic protests. That required a harsh crackdown by the Iran’s clerics against their own people that left thousands jailed and killed, further weakening the legitimacy of the regime. Then Mr. “Military Genius” Suleimani decided that, having propped up the regime of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, and helping to kill 500,000 Syrians in the process, he would overreach again and try to put direct pressure on Israel. He would do this by trying to transfer precision-guided rockets from Iran to Iranian proxy forces in Lebanon and Syria. •
Suleimani discovered that fighting Israel — specifically, its combined air force, special forces, intelligence and cyber — is not like fighting the Nusra front or the Islamic State. The Israelis hit back hard, sending a whole bunch of Iranians home from Syria in caskets and hammering their proxies as far away as Western Iraq. Indeed, Israeli intelligence had so penetrated Suleimani’s Quds Force and its proxies that Suleimani would land a plane with precision munitions in Syria at 5 p.m., and the Israeli air force would blow it up by 5:30 p.m.
Suleimani’s men were like fish in a barrel. If Iran had a free press and a real parliament, he would have been fired for colossal mismanagement. But it gets better, or actually worse, for Suleimani. Many of his obituaries say that he led the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq, in tacit alliance with America. Well, that’s true. But what they omit is that Suleimani’s, and Iran’s, overreaching in Iraq helped to produce the Islamic State in the first place.
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fourth post
https://www.iiss.org/publications/strategic-dossiers/iran-dossier/iran-19-03-ch-1-tehrans-strategic-intent
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Fifth post
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-4148684/Stunning-photos-reveal-life-Iran-revolution.html
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Fifth post
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-4148684/Stunning-photos-reveal-life-Iran-revolution.html
Back when the West was the strong horse.
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2015/07/what-really-happened-shahs-iran/
and some more recent history:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/11741235/Obamas-Iran-deal-has-just-granted-an-amnesty-to-the-worlds-leading-terrorist-mastermind.html
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Interesting to see what their response will be. From the relatively cosmetic (lob a few rockets at the green zone), to kill a few more Americans here and there to taking down a ship in the Hormuz. They have raised the red flag of war at their holy mosque (see video). Once their emotions settle, it will depend on how suicidal they feel. My guess is not very much.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1213537154854350848 (https://twitter.com/i/status/1213537154854350848)
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ENaENocXYAEhkfO?format=jpg&name=large)
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The Left is already
trying to scare all Americans that Trump is going to bring back the draft.
If Orange Man wins 2020 all our children will have to join the military
is the obvious ploy and invention to scare people not to vote for him ....
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https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/iranian-analytics/
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second post:
Interesting read from Iraqi POV!
https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/01/soleimani-assassination-iran-iraq-us.html
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https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-said-seeing-signs-iran-prepping-ballistic-missiles-as-tehran-vows-revenge/
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https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-threatens-target-iran-culture-sites-potential-war-crime-2020-1
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https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-threatens-target-iran-culture-sites-potential-war-crime-2020-1
Zero fcuks given.
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Unnecessary though, nothing gained but yet something lost.
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https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-security-soleimani-insight/inside-the-plot-by-irans-soleimani-to-attack-u-s-forces-in-iraq-idUSKBN1Z301Z
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third post
https://twitchy.com/brettt-3136/2020/01/04/this-is-how-appeasement-kills-garry-kasparov-weighs-in-on-killing-of-qasem-soleimeni/
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Unnecessary though, nothing gained but yet something lost.
The only war crime is losing.
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https://www.thediplomad.com/2020/01/good-news-qasim-soleimani-dead-as-dead.html
Saturday, January 4, 2020
Good News: Qasim Soleimani, Dead as Dead can be
I was delighted to hear that Iranian scumbag and General Qasim Soleimani met his end in a ball of fire thanks to a missile from a US Reaper drone. This is good news; this is very good news. We should all be very grateful that we have a President with the courage and patriotism to order the death of QS. I have long bemoaned the fact, and I stress fact, that we in the West have not been at war with the Islamist crazies--be they Shia or Sunni--but we have been under attack. In other words, they have been at war with us, while we have allowed ourselves--as a rule--to suffer attacks and outrages; we have crippled our ability to respond thanks to the goodness of our societies, our kindness towards strangers, our tendency to paralysis through analysis, by trying to anticipate every outcome, every consequence of what we might do--a hopeless task.
There at times when you must just act.
Before we get ourselves into a Bastiat-style discussion of the possible ramifications and unintended consequences of killing QS, let's remind ourselves of some basics. Soleimani deserved to die for the terrorist horrors he has inflicted on the world for the past 25 or so years. He was a prolific mass and serial murderer. There are times when such people just have to be removed, damn the consequences. Would we have desisted from killing Hitler out of concern for the power vacuum his death might leave at the top of the Reich? For fear that his death might energize the Nazi war machine even further? No, no way. Hitler deserved to die, and in a horrible manner. Soleimani, and his evil companions, deserved to become ropa vieja on that Baghdad highway.
Now, some "niceties."
I have been angered, though not surprised, by some of the idiotic negative commentary on Trump's order to shoot. Trump did not need to consult with the Congress or anybody else before giving that order. Soleimani was a uniformed enemy combatant active on a foreign battlefield, directing and implementing operations against US personnel and institutions, e.g., the Embassy. QS had a LONG, LONG history of conducting lethal operations against US and other Western targets, using largely proxy forces. At the time of death, he was in Iraq meeting the leader of one of those proxy militias, the one which had just attacked the US Embassy in Baghdad, and preparing further actions against us. He was not some random civilian Iranian government official whom we assassinated in his home in Tehran. He was a military man, conducting a covert military mission against us outside of Iran's territory. His killing is no more an illegitimate act than say that of Japanese Admiral Yamamoto or of US General Simon Bolivar Bruckner, Jr.
Now, the consequences.
Sure, the Iranians are angry and humiliated. They were convinced that we would not do anything directly to them and that we would be content with killing a few lowly proxy militiamen. They were wrong. Trump is not Obama; he is not going to ship them $1.5 billion in cash and gold in the dead of night in the vain hope of appeasing the Persian Moloch, getting a worthless piece of paper promising that Tehran will cease and desist with (fill in the blank). He is not the sort to put up with another Benghazi massacre. So, yes, the Iranians have a problem on their hands. They have to decide what to do, knowing that it will in all likelihood provoke another terrifying US response. The whole proxy thing is now a bit threadbare, but they could, out of habit, go back to that and have a proxy conduct some sort of operation against US forces, civilians, diplomats, etc. They could launch an attack in London, or Paris, or New York using the "sleeper cells" made possible by idiotic Western immigration policies. They could try some sort of cyber attack. They could launch ship-killing missiles in the Gulf aimed at shutting down marine transit through Hormuz. There are lots of things they might do, many of those were ones they were already doing.
All that, well, is for them to decide: weigh the pros and the cons of an action.
As far as we are concerned, however, we should not wait. We need to be preemptive, and I don't mean just issuing warnings or stepping up security at Embassies and airports. I would hope that the President is being handed a list of options for further action as needed. Now is the time for the President or the Secretary of State to go on the air and tell the Iranians the sorts of things we are considering. Sometimes being secretive is not useful.
Now is the time openly to tell the Iranians that we do not want war, but they should want it much less. We should openly tell them that we will dismantle their oil production, their ability to generate electricity, to distribute water, to conduct financial operations, etc. We should tell them that their navy and air force are forfeit in the case of an action against us, and that we will degrade their ability to conduct all types of military operations. We will smash their proxy forces without mercy. On the other hand, we are open to talks with Tehran and stand ready to discuss all topics without preconditions. Meet us.
We also should quietly, once the current cloud of dust settles, tell the clowns in Baghdad that we are leaving. They are not worth the life a single American.
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The cultural targets thing is both wrong and unnecessary, and therefore stupid:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/iran-war-trump-boris-johnson-cultural-sites-soleimani-iraq-a9272076.html
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The cultural targets thing is both wrong and unnecessary, and therefore stupid:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/iran-war-trump-boris-johnson-cultural-sites-soleimani-iraq-a9272076.html
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FTodK24KG6E
Of course, this is back when we won wars.
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https://nypost.com/2020/01/06/qassem-soleimanis-dead-body-flies-coach-back-to-iran/
Nothing says dignity like draping the body across the passenger seats. These are times of tight budgets in Iran.
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https://nypost.com/2020/01/06/qassem-soleimanis-dead-body-flies-coach-back-to-iran/
Nothing says dignity like draping the body across the passenger seats. These are times of tight budgets in Iran.
That is more hysterical than the best memes! Awesome!
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https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/01/photos_top_10_atrocities_from_the_lefts_vaunted_soleimani.html
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GM: Love your wit, but that is not quite a cultural heritage site :-D
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January 6, 2020 Open as PDF
Iranian and American Strategies After Soleimani
By: George Friedman
Iran has expressed outrage at the killing of Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Quds Force, and has announced a resumption of its nuclear enrichment program, but little in the way of reprisals has actually taken place.
For the United States, the goal of killing Soleimani was to break the Iranian sphere of influence. Its method for doing so has been partly political and partly military. Politically, it has tried to influence some groups with looser ties to Iran. Militarily, it has sought to use air power to destroy key installations. The air campaign is likely to continue in Iraq as Israel attacks in Syria. The U.S. is likely unprepared to act in Lebanon but may continue to support Saudi and Emirati forces in Yemen. In other words, the U.S. was in the process of initiating its offensive against Iran, and that has a long way to go before achieving desired ends. The killing of Soleimani is a step, not closure.
For Iran, the killing opens the door to political maneuver at a time when it badly needs some room. Many U.S. allies, some involved in the nuclear talks that spawned sanctions, have condemned the American action. Resuming the nuclear program is designed to create further opposition to U.S. action, since the U.S. will be blamed for the restart. Iran's goal will be to create a divide between the U.S. and countries like Germany and France, and use that to isolate the U.S. and create an opening that could lead to the collapse of sanctions. A terrorist action against civilian targets cuts against this strategy.
The test will be whether the anti-Iran alliance will hold, and whether the sanctions can be eased in this way. If they can, the U.S. has to reconsider its actions, because the economic isolation of Iran is the key to U.S. strategy. So now the battle turns to countries participating in the sanction program, particularly the larger European ones. The threat of violence is there, but for the moment the Iranians will use this event as a lever for ending sanctions.
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https://www.meforum.org/60201/iran-lacks-good-options?utm_source=Middle+East+Forum&utm_campaign=d1b3e358e1-MEF_Spyer_2020_01_06_12_20&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_086cfd423c-d1b3e358e1-33691909&goal=0_086cfd423c-d1b3e358e1-33691909&mc_cid=d1b3e358e1
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https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/04/us/iran-iranians-soleimani-los-angeles.html
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GM: Love your wit, but that is not quite a cultural heritage site :-D
What would be? The giant blood fountains?
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2k7mpnPJWDo
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-security-stampede-numebr/iran-says-death-toll-in-funeral-stampede-reaches-40-fars-idUSKBN1Z61CO
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Hundreds of thousands grieve - out of 80 million.
My two cents on the question of cultural sites as targets:
It was a comment by Trump, not an action. What we did was exactly the opposite. We are far more careful than any adversary at avoiding collateral damage of all kinds.
At issue is the wisdom of Trump using those words, not to judge actions that never happened.
Assuming triple digit intelligence on both sides, game theory projections are going on right now. The US will not strike first against anyone right now. This ball is in Iran's court.
Prior to the US strike on Soleimani, their calculation was what? Hit, hit, hit with no consequence. What were they trying to accomplish? Weaken us, weaken our resolve, make themselves more important?
Now the (war) 'game' they play has changed to one of greater uncertainty and likely disproportional response. If Iran strikes, the strike could fail and make them look weak, make us look strong and expose their cells and methods. It could succeed and they do major damage to us, something like 9/11 but probably on a much smaller scale. If so, then what?
Trump just said he isn't seeking regime policy. That would change instantly. He doesn't have bipartisan support or Congressional authorization to declare war on the regime of Iran. That could change. Most visually in their mind as they hide themselves and their weapons behind cultural sites, they could see their most valued treasures go up in smoke.
Trump wouldn't do it? Probably not but he just said he would and according to everything they read he breaks the law all the time and gets away with it.
As they think this new scenario through and if they are rational, they could go a lot further with the rest of their missions in the world if they do not incite war with the United States under this administration. Their best path right now is to talk big perhaps but lay low and wait for future American weakness. We will see.
If their calculation has changed, this is a much bigger Trump accomplishment than just killing one bad guy.
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Several of our military folks have explicitly stated that they will respect the laws that prohibit going after cultural/historical targets.
Trump is being an ass here, just like he was when he called for waterboarding (and torture). Remember when he had to back down after Mattis said he "Never had much use for it"?
There is no military purpose to this, and such bombastic nonsense only makes it easier to put doubt about America in the minds of the many, many Iranians who hope for better from America. Remember them chanting in the streets ten years ago "Obama, are you with us?"
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Several of our military folks have explicitly stated that they will respect the laws that prohibit going after cultural/historical targets.
Trump is being an ass here, just like he was when he called for waterboarding (and torture). Remember when he had to back down after Mattis said he "Never had much use for it"?
There is no military purpose to this, and such bombastic nonsense only makes it easier to put doubt about America in the minds of the many, many Iranians who hope for better from America. Remember them chanting in the streets ten years ago "Obama, are you with us?"
"Trump is being an ass here..."
Yes. It was Trump being loose with his words. He has now walked this back. Maybe he was being stupid and maybe he wanted to get that out there. You never know with him.
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https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/qassem-soleimani-death-iran-baghdad-middle-east-iraq-saudi-arabia-a9272901.html
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Several of our military folks have explicitly stated that they will respect the laws that prohibit going after cultural/historical targets.
Trump is being an ass here, just like he was when he called for waterboarding (and torture). Remember when he had to back down after Mattis said he "Never had much use for it"?
There is no military purpose to this, and such bombastic nonsense only makes it easier to put doubt about America in the minds of the many, many Iranians who hope for better from America. Remember them chanting in the streets ten years ago "Obama, are you with us?"
Are these the same military professionals that have given us 18 consecutive years of Victory in Afghanistan?
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If memory serves they were given increasingly stupid ROE during those years on a mission with no definable victory so I would not blame them.
On the other hand, what gain is there by blowing up historical stuff? None that I can see, yet OTOH it allows others to put us in the same category as ISIS and the Taliban in this regard. Sorry, but it's stupid.
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If memory serves they were given increasingly stupid ROE during those years on a mission with no definable victory so I would not blame them.
On the other hand, what gain is there by blowing up historical stuff? None that I can see, yet OTOH it allows others to put us in the same category as ISIS and the Taliban in this regard. Sorry, but it's stupid.
How's the historical site tour business in Dresden these days?
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https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/how-qassem-soleimani-invited-his-destruction-with-this-2007-attack
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I am wondering if Trump will take out a few nuclear sites and solve the problem, before it is too late.
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A bit glib IMHO when it comes to Obama's withdrawal, but GF is always worth reading
Iran and the United States: What Comes Next
By George Friedman -January 6, 2020Open as PDF
In order to understand the current confrontation between Iran and the United States, we might begin with the Persian-Babylonian wars. Alternatively, we could begin with the decision of the United States to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq after the election of Barack Obama. Efficiency demands the latter.
The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 was carried out without opposition from Iran and indeed with covert support. Iraq and Iran had fought a brutal war during the 1980s, resulting in about 1 million casualties and costing a combined $5 billion. Not long after, Iraq would overestimate its position by invading Kuwait, leading to the first Gulf War. To Iran, the control of Iraq by Sunnis – a minority population and a sectarian rival no less – was an existential threat. Tehran was therefore delighted to see Saddam Hussein fall, since his absence would create an opportunity for it to dominate whatever government came next.
The war went differently. The U.S. blocked Shiite ambitions, fought the Sunnis and wound up in a crossfire between the two. Obama came into office committed to making it stop, planning to withdraw most but not all U.S. troops and to build an Iraqi army consisting of both Sunnis and Shiites that was friendly to the United States. (Iran, naturally, opposed the prospect.) But then came the Islamic State, which forced Washington to maintain troops in Iraq and caused Iran to intervene so as not to let a Sunni power take hold in Baghdad. The U.S. and Iran often cooperated with each other in the ensuing fight.
Yet, they were always wary of each other, in no small part because of Iran’s aspirations for a nuclear weapons program. Tehran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons resulted in an imposition of massive sanctions and in a widely advertised, U.S.-Israeli cyberattack on Iranian nuclear enrichment that was supposed to have set back the program dramatically. This reopened the possibility of keeping troops in the country, just as Donald Trump was taking office.
Trump said he wanted to reduce the U.S. military footprint in the Middle East but also favored regime change in Iran. This apparent contradiction had to do with the logic of a U.S. withdrawal. For Iran, directly controlling or at least neutralizing Iraq is a geopolitical imperative, but Tehran could not afford another war. After the fight against the Islamic State, the withdrawal of U.S. troops to a very small number left Iran in an extremely powerful position. At the same time, Iran maintained a number of pro-Iran groups in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iraq, and was supporting the Assad regime even before the Russian intervention.
In other words, Iran had used its operations in various countries, coupled with the drawdown of U.S. troops, to create a massive sphere of influence commonly known as the “Shiite Crescent,” stretching from Iran to the Mediterranean and all the way to the Arabian Sea. This strategy was forwarded by a series of elite Iranian generals, such as Qasem Soleimani. Iran had gone from solely defending itself from Iraq to emerging as the major force in the Middle East.
Escalation With the U.S.
The American perception of Iran was formed largely in the post-1979 era, with the occupation of the U.S. Embassy in Teheran and the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut. While it’s true that Iran is responsible for both acts, it’s also true that Iran is more pragmatic than it is sometimes portrayed. It cooperates with the U.S. when it needs to and acts hostilely when it doesn’t. This is pretty normal behavior, but it creates confusion through which Washington has to navigate.
So when it was time to turn its attention to Tehran after the defeat of the Islamic State, Washington had two strategies. The first was to sponsor a coalition of states to undermine the growing Iranian sphere of influence. The key members of this odd coalition were Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Israel was focused on attacking Iranian assets in Syria (and potentially in Lebanon). The Saudis and UAE were fighting Iranian proxies in Yemen, where a battle erupted between the country’s Sunnis, who had been largely out of power since the fall of Saddam, and the Shiites. Managing this battle fell to the U.S. soldiers and intelligence personnel still in the country.
The second response was to increase economic sanctions on Iran, not really because of its nuclear or missile programs, but to remind Iran of the risks of building its sphere of influence. The sanctions severely damaged the Iranian economy, and the protests, arrests and amnesties commonly associated with economic duress broke out. The government in Tehran was not existentially threatened by sanctions, but they were bad enough to cripple the economy, spark internal unrest and thus warrant a response. There were riots in Lebanon and Iraq, both threatening Iranian socio-political influence. In other words, the gains that Iran had made were in danger of being reversed, while the Iranian economy itself was weakening.
Iran needed a counter. The goal was to demonstrate the weakness of the United States as a guarantor of regional stability and the ability of the Iranians to impose counter-economic pressures and, in the worst of cases, cause a U.S. intervention. The latter would be an intervention with insufficient force and might solidify the government’s position, providing an otherwise unhappy populace and Iran-sponsored militias with a unifying cause.
The first attempt at this came in the Persian Gulf, where Iranians captured several tankers. The hope was that soaring oil prices and pressure on the U.S. from oil consumers would halt hostile operations against Iran. It was a low risk, high reward tactic that ultimately failed to achieve its goals, especially after the U.S. declined to launch an air attack on Iran in response and indirectly supported the U.K.’s seizure of an Iranian tanker off the coast of Gibraltar.
The second attempt was an escalation on the same theme: the attack on a Saudi oil facility through Yemeni Houthi militants. It was also designed to boost oil prices and encourage the Saudis to reconsider their relationship with the U.S.-backed coalition. Once more, the attack didn’t achieve Iran’s ultimate objective.
Iran was in an increasingly precarious situation. Domestic unrest due to sanctions persisted. Its sphere of influence was under pressure on every front, particularly in Lebanon and Iraq where anti-Iran sentiment was growing.
Tensions Come to a Head
The deterioration of Iran’s position demanded that the government consider more assertive actions, particularly in Iraq. Its answer, as it had been so many times before, was the Quds Force, an elite branch of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, led by none other than Soleimani. Like U.S. special operations, they specialize in training and maintaining allied forces abroad – including, in Iran’s case, Hezbollah and the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq.
When U.S. bases were attacked, the assumption was that the attacks were planned and perhaps carried out by Quds-backed militias, such as the PMF and Kataib Hezbollah. Whether the U.S. knew before or after the attacks that Soleimani was in Iraq after a trip to Syria, it was obvious that major operations were being planned against U.S. diplomatic and military personnel in Iraq, Lebanon and Syria. The capture of Soleimani would be catastrophic to Iran. Therefore, the American read that the Iranians were being pressed to the wall was confirmed by his presence. Iran was taking a major risk given his knowledge of its operational capabilities. That meant that the Iranians had decided on escalating beyond prior attacks. The Quds Force’s specialty was attacking specific facilities to undermine military or intelligence capability or to achieve psychological and political ends. In any case, seeing him near Baghdad Airport likely told U.S. intelligence not only that he was there because the situation was difficult, but that he was there to correct the imbalance of Iranian power in the Levant. In other words, he was working with his Iraqi counterpart to carry out significant operations. It followed that the U.S. didn’t want these operations, whatever they were, carried out, and that killing him was a military necessity.
All of this has to be framed in the strategic context. The U.S. does not want to engage in extensive operations in the region. Washington is depending on sanctions and proxies. Iran still wants to maintain its sphere of influence into the Mediterranean, but above all, an even greater priority is the neutralization of Iraq and the stabilization of its own country. Iran can’t afford to allow Iraq to become a bastion of anti-Iran forces, nor can it wage a conventional war against the U.S., Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Iran must therefore use what it has used so effectively in the past: special and covert operations. It follows that Iran will take its time to respond. It also follows that the U.S. and its allies, having bought time by killing the head of the Quds Force, must use the time effectively.
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I am wondering if Trump will take out a few nuclear sites and solve the problem, before it is too late.
Perfectly justified in doing so but my guess is he will instead show restraint at this point. We will see.
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Good analysis always. Risky to predict the unpredictable:
"It follows that Iran will take its time to respond."
Oops, they already did. They get away with firing some missiles. We suffered no casualties. Let's hope this is the end of it. Iran should nope this is the end of it.
As a sometimes defender of Pres Trump, let's hope whatever he says next doesn't make things worse.
This is an important point in his Presidency.
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Trump’s Post-Soleimani World
He now has to manage the consequences of his deterrent strike.
By The Editorial Board
Jan. 6, 2020 7:10 pm ET
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President Donald Trump in Miami, Jan. 3. PHOTO: JIM WATSON/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
It may be true that no good deed goes unpunished, but only the ever-active Donald Trump could take it upon himself to punish his own good deed.
The good deed was ordering the elimination of Iran’s Qasem Soleimani, who as head of Iran’s Quds Force spent his years deploying one strategy: Export the 1979 revolution by killing people. The dead included Americans, Iraqis, Iranians, Europeans, Syrians and others across the Middle East. In the days before a drone hit his car, Soleimani was planning more death.
The Fallout From Soleimani's Killing
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President Trump had a good couple of days after the strike. His statement on the action was measured and direct. Despite criticism, Mr. Trump kept quiet, letting the action speak for itself. Still, it was a major decision by the President involving the nation’s interests, and naturally his supporters across the country wondered what would come next. What came next was something familiar: a Trumpian crackback at his critics—in Iraq.
Though Mr. Trump kept the lid on Sunday as pundits and Democrats howled across social media and the morning shows, he apparently couldn’t abide a largely symbolic vote in Iraq’s parliament—most Sunnis and Kurds didn’t show up—to expel U.S. troops from the country. Aboard Air Force One Sunday evening, Mr. Trump threatened to “put very big sanctions on Iraq.” His twin threat to bomb Iran’s “cultural sites” quickly devolved into a debate about the Geneva Conventions, with some Republicans separating themselves from the remarks.
We think the President’s strike against Soleimani was justified on the merits, as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spent Sunday morning explaining on TV. A concurrent reality, however, is that we are starting a presidential election. To win, the Democrats desperately need to be able to run against Mr. Trump personally, as Mike Bloomberg’s ad blitz is making clear.
If the President allows his Soleimani decision to look like a one-and-done event, with no follow-up beyond tweets and rhetorical barrages against the Iranian and Iraqi people, he’ll give his opponents an opening.
Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren may be on the dismissable fringe of Democratic foreign policy, but moderates such as Joe Biden, Amy Klobuchar and Mr. Bloomberg will seek to buttress their “return to normalcy” argument by saying Mr. Trump’s post-Soleimani behavior shows he is too impetuous and volatile to entrust with national security. They know their best chance lies with driving voter unease about Mr. Trump as Commander in Chief.
Mr. Trump’s obligation is to prove them wrong. Isolationists in his party will counsel Mr. Trump to wash his hands of the post-Soleimani world, but that isn’t possible now. With that decision, President Trump has put powerful forces in play in the Middle East and beyond. If events now spin in dangerous ways, such as if the U.S. leaves Iraq in a huff, Mr. Trump will not be able to blame everyone else. He should be reassuring Iraq that the U.S. is there to help preserve its sovereignty, not to exploit it.
The Iranian mullahs’ threats against U.S. citizens may or may not be bluster. Their announced intention to abandon limits on uranium enrichment under the Obama nuclear deal isn’t much more than they were already doing. But it is meant to drive a wedge between the U.S. and Europe while they wait for Mr. Trump’s successor in 2021.
Since pulling out of that pact in 2018, Mr. Trump has developed an increasingly strong hand with a “maximum pressure” campaign built around severe economic sanctions on Iran. The mullahs are unloved at home and have few real outside allies. Their cat’s paw, Qasem Soleimani, is gone.
The opportunity now exists to shape a coalition of allies, and perhaps even a few serious Democrats, in support of additional policy initiatives on Iran. We would not rule out proposing talks with the Iranian regime about negotiating an end game to its self-depleting 40-year struggle with the West.
Targeting Soleimani was a bold act that other Presidents probably would not have attempted to restore a measure of deterrence against an enemy state. Most Americans appreciated its show of strength. But now Mr. Trump has to show he can manage the consequences in a way that proves it was a wise decision in America’s interests.
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https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10698862/iran-plane-shot-down-crash-projectile-holes-experts/#
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https://www.macleans.ca/news/world/the-u-s-was-justified-in-killing-soleimani-but-is-it-ready-for-what-comes-next/
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https://www.macleans.ca/news/world/the-u-s-was-justified-in-killing-soleimani-but-is-it-ready-for-what-comes-next/
Name the one country that knows how to handle the muslim problem.
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Also see
https://www.macleans.ca/news/world/trumps-hit-on-soleimani-exposed-a-lot-of-uncomfortable-truths/
The "shared contempt" writing style of these two pieces allows them to speak some really candid truths to "their side".
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blames orange man of course:
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/01/09/pete-buttigieg-blames-donald-trump-after-reports-indicate-iran-shot-down-ukraine-plane/
My response ,
Well if we go back to . Kerry Rice Obama doctrine which concludes a nuclear Iran is not so bad
could anyone imagine the same country that shoots down a passenger jet taking off from its own airport
having NUCLEAR tipped missiles?
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https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/296604/iran-and-america-are-suddenly-both-naked
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"Six U.S. administrations were complicit in turning Iran into a regional power. In that context, the Obama administration’s decision to flood Iranian war chests with cash and recognize its right to build a nuclear bomb was the logical culmination of the rot eating away at the Beltway for four decades. It was perhaps to be expected that an outsider who often doesn’t know when to keep quiet, and can’t stay off Twitter, would be the one to sing out like the boy in the fairy tale. It’s true, the emperor has no clothes. The rules have changed but that doesn’t mean the Iranians won’t be looking for revenge."
I remember well Reagan backing out of Lebanon. cost benefit analysis seemed to justify that then .
As for revenge from a Middle Easterner - remember Lockerbie.
The big problem now is the nucs as Trump implied.
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https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-key-middle-east-leader-dies-could-cause-more-conflict-between-u-s-iran?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=benshapiro
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=67&v=ncquK0gR1Bk&feature=emb_logo
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1) https://clarionproject.org/iranian-students-call-for-resignation-khamenei/?utm_source=Clarion+Project+Newsletter&utm_campaign=c8d535d346-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_01_12_03_10&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_60abb35148-c8d535d346-6358189&mc_cid=c8d535d346
2) Rumint: Plane was shot down because of certain defectors who were on board , , ,
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1) https://clarionproject.org/iranian-students-call-for-resignation-khamenei/?utm_source=Clarion+Project+Newsletter&utm_campaign=c8d535d346-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_01_12_03_10&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_60abb35148-c8d535d346-6358189&mc_cid=c8d535d346
2) Rumint: Plane was shot down because of certain defectors who were on board , , ,
2. Doesn't make sense. Iran can arrest/disappear anyone they want without the damage done by killing everyone on board a foreign airliner.
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Agree it doesn't make sense, but the fact of the rumint itself says something about what some people think of the Iranian government.
Separately:
https://www.breitbart.com/news/iran-agrees-de-escalation-only-solution-to-solve-crises/
https://twitter.com/eqanbar/status/1216370928621379585?s=04&fbclid=IwAR0VB6wC769GZgMe1yMpQpmxra1jU3hQlAXBNNh9I_viNtPE3U-lBy5vXpo
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7876363/Iranian-protesters-Tehran-turn-against-regime-military-admits-shooting-plane.html
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jan/12/iran-deploys-riot-police-tehran-amid-protests-over/
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It's my understanding that Iranian dissidents have smuggled out videos of Iranian forces hacking the limbs off of protesters in public. I haven't seen the videos, but Iran hasn't been shy about violently suppressing dissent up to this point.
Agree it doesn't make sense, but the fact of the rumint itself says something about what some people think of the Iranian government.
Separately:
https://www.breitbart.com/news/iran-agrees-de-escalation-only-solution-to-solve-crises/
https://twitter.com/eqanbar/status/1216370928621379585?s=04&fbclid=IwAR0VB6wC769GZgMe1yMpQpmxra1jU3hQlAXBNNh9I_viNtPE3U-lBy5vXpo
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7876363/Iranian-protesters-Tehran-turn-against-regime-military-admits-shooting-plane.html
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jan/12/iran-deploys-riot-police-tehran-amid-protests-over/
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"It's my understanding that Iranian dissidents have smuggled out videos of Iranian forces hacking the limbs off of protesters in public. I haven't seen the videos, but Iran hasn't been shy about violently suppressing dissent up to this point."
Right. They didn't need the attention and embarrassment of shooting down a passenger plane. Just makes the anger and unrest worse. The regime could have just shot whomever they wanted as they boarded.
I haven't figured out what the Iran-Canada connection was with the passengers, Iranian Canadians? I know a European who could not land in the US on a trip to Vancouver because of having visited Iran once. Our no-fly list is not copied by Canada, but still, this connection is strange to me. They go to school in Canada because they can't go to American universities? Then vacation in Iran, go home for the holidays. Flying through Kiev satisfies a Canadian travel ban?
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/canadians-plane-crash-iran-1.5419076
The accuracy of the shoot down was good. A Russian, not a North Korean-made missile? What price does Russia pay for supplying the terror regime with lethal weapons used against civilians?
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There are a lot of Iranian family connections in the west going back to the era of the Shah. I remember there were many of them at the International House at Penn in the mid 70s getting MBAs at Wharton. Good backgammon players they were too!
I remember in the 2000s being approached a couple of times from Iran to participate in martial arts exchanges and one time one of their people met with me. I was curious so I let the meeting happen. Great English, self described translator, could travel to US because his brother something something. The meeting confirmed my suspicions that their offer was really front for a propaganda exercise and so of course I passed.
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https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-nuclear/europeans-trigger-dispute-mechanism-in-iran-nuclear-deal-idUSKBN1ZD13A
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Interesting!
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https://www.theblaze.com/news/iranian-state-tv-journalists-resign-ask-for-viewers-forgiveness?utm_content=buffer0df34&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=fb-theblaze
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https://www.theblaze.com/news/iranian-state-tv-journalists-resign-ask-for-viewers-forgiveness?utm_content=buffer0df34&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=fb-theblaze
More integrity than what our professional journalists have here.
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Indeed!
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Stratfor
To Save the Iran Nuclear Deal, Europeans Trigger a Process That Could End It
5 MINS READ
Jan 14, 2020 | 22:18 GMT
HIGHLIGHTS
France, Germany and the U.K. initiated the accord's dispute resolution mechanism to try to force Tehran back into compliance and negotiations. But the move could prompt the return of U.N. sanctions....
The Big Picture
Since the United States left the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal in May 2018 and subsequently cut all waivers for Iran's oil customers a year later, Iran has reduced its compliance with the JCPOA to regain some leverage in talks with the European Union and the United States. But now as Iran has cut its commitments five times in the past nine months, the Europeans have finally decided to trigger the accord's dispute settlement trigger in response to Iran's moves.
See Middle East and North Africa section of the 2020 Annual Forecast
France, Germany and the United Kingdom, the so-called E3 grouping of signatories to the Iran nuclear deal, announced on Jan. 14 that they were triggering the dispute resolution mechanism of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in hopes of getting Iran to come back into compliance with the accord. The E3 had telegraphed its decision for weeks; it arrives as the United States has called on the E3, China and Russia to pull out of the JCPOA and negotiate a new agreement with Iran.
The Europeans Hope to Drag Out the Process
Despite increased pressure from the United States, the E3 said they were "not joining a campaign to implement maximum pressure against Iran," and that their intent was to "preserve" the Iran nuclear deal. While it is unrealistic for Iran or the United States to rejoin the agreement both have now abandoned, the Europeans don't want to see the two years of diplomatic negotiations leading to the deal go for naught and think the JCPOA should be used as the starting point toward a new agreement. Right now, the Trump administration is not even considering that option.
Triggering the dispute resolution mechanism starts a process that could bring back U.N. Security Council sanctions on Iran within two months. But an accelerated settlement does not appear to be the E3's intent. As long as all the parties agree, most of the steps in the dispute resolution process can be extended for an indefinite period. The Europeans will likely try to drag out the process as long as possible and use it as leverage to force Iran into new negotiations. They probably recognize that Iran is unlikely to go back into full compliance with the deal itself, barring a major reversal in U.S. sanctions policy. So, they will hope that by initiating the process that could "snap back" U.N. and EU sanctions on Iran, they can deter Tehran from taking more aggressive actions with its nuclear program.
What to Watch for
Iran's next moves will be important. The new year already has brought the biggest crisis between Iran and the United States in decades and one that easily could have resulted in the United States striking targets inside Iran. With President Donald Trump insisting that Iran will never acquire a nuclear weapon on his watch, a U.S. military response to further escalation on the nuclear front by Tehran is possible. This possibility, coupled with the European position, could prompt Iran to slow the pace at which it is willing to resume aspects of its nuclear program, though Iran is likely to continue some degree of nuclear escalation.
With Trump insisting that Iran will never acquire a nuclear weapon on his watch, a U.S. military response to further escalation on the nuclear front by Tehran is possible.
The United Kingdom's position is also important. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Jan. 14 that the JCPOA could be replaced with a "Trump deal," and it's possible the United States will try to exploit any daylight that emerges between the United Kingdom's position and the rest of Europe given the close relationship between London and Washington.
The next moves by the United States also will be critical. The Trump administration will push France, Germany and the United Kingdom to go quickly through the dispute settlement process, but currently, the U.S. position is that it is no longer a party to the nuclear deal. But if the Europeans seek extensions and allow the dispute process to slow, the Trump administration could argue that it is a party to the JCPOA and go straight to the U.N. Security Council to argue that Iran is in noncompliance with its commitments. The Security Council resolution regarding the nuclear deal does not require JCPOA members to use the accord's dispute resolution process in order to determine noncompliance. And if the United States makes that determination then U.N. sanctions snap back on Iran unless the Security Council — subject to a U.S. veto — passes a resolution to extend sanctions relief for Iran. Russia and China could, however, reject the U.S. ability to trigger such sanctions, and not recognize them.
The closer we get to October, when the U.N. arms embargo on Iran expires under the JCPOA, the more likely it is the United States will attempt such creative arguments to try to bring back the U.N. sanctions on Iran. As we wrote in our 2020 Annual Forecast, Iran's continued nuclear escalation and the possible U.S. argument to snap back sanctions on Tehran will likely result in "either the de facto or de jure end of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action."
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second post
Why Iran Came Clean on Flight 752
5 MINS READ
Jan 14, 2020 | 19:37 GMT
Teams examine the scene of a Ukrainian airliner that crashed being unintentionally targeted by Iranian air defenses shortly after takeoff in Tehran on Jan. 8, 2020.
Teams examine the scene of a Ukrainian airliner that crashed shortly after takeoff in Tehran on Jan. 8, 2020. Iran suddenly admitted to downing the plane after three days of denials.
(AKBAR TAVAKOLI/IRNA/AFP via Getty Images)
After three days of denial, it was a stunning about-face. On Jan. 11, Iran's Armed Forces General Staff admitted that one of its surface-to-air missile systems had shot down Ukrainian Airlines Flight 752 due to human error. The full acknowledgment turned heads, yet there was a reason for Iran's reversal: The country has no desire to turn itself into an international pariah, but would rather find a way to engage with the rest of the globe, limit the impact of U.S. sanctions and negotiate with the West. The frank admission goes to show that such strategic goals influence many of Iran's choices — including its volte-face on the aviation disaster.
The Big Picture
The U.S. assassination of Iranian military leader Qassem Soleimani has yet to ignite war between the countries, but the tensions that his death elevated mean any miscalculation could have disastrous results — as evidenced by Iran's downing of a Ukrainian plane on the supposition that it was a U.S. missile. While Tehran's subsequent decision to admit responsibility shocked many, it fits into Iran's larger strategy to maintain engagement with the world.
See Iran's Arc of Influence
The Limits of Denial
It is not common for countries to quickly offer a mea culpa after accidentally downing civilian aircraft. The most recent comparable incident was the case of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in 2014. A Dutch-led investigative team concluded that pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine used a Russian surface-to-air missile to down the plane during its Amsterdam-Kuala Lumpur flight; more than half a decade on, Russia continues to deny any involvement. The reasons to admit responsibility can vary, but for Tehran, domestic concerns and worries about potential legal quarrels down the road ultimately tipped the balance.
In the immediate aftermath of Flight 752, Iran attempted to cover its tracks and issued denials, hoping that it could hold the line internationally. First, Tehran announced that the plane had crashed due to a technical fault and that sky-high tensions with the United States would preclude it from handing over the black box to Boeing, which had manufactured the 737-800 airliner. To buttress their claims, Iranian authorities pushed state and semi-state media into action to back the government narrative. Even as late as Jan. 10 — just hours before Iran finally admitted responsibility — the head of the Iranian Civil Aviation Organization, Ali Abedzadeh, maintained that there was no evidence that the plane had been shot down, echoing his line from earlier in the week, when he said, "Scientifically, it is impossible that a missile hit the Ukrainian plane, and such rumors are illogical."
The international reaction to Iran's declarations was ones of skepticism. As the days wore on, Washington, Ottawa and others publicly called out Tehran, noting that they had intelligence suggesting that a technical issue did not down the plane. In previous incidents in which the Iranian and global narrative differed, Iran has managed to use plausible deniability to its advantage: Most notably, it still denies any responsibility for last year's attacks on oil tankers off the coast of the United Arab Emirates and two Saudi oil-processing facilities. The downing of Flight 752, however, was very different, as it occurred over Iranian soil.
Contrition, Born of Hard Realities
This left Iran little choice but to admit that it accidentally shot down the aircraft. Not doing so would have had several repercussions. First, continued denials would have weakened the international community's already-fragile trust in Iranian statements and promises. Canada, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom and a number of other European countries would have come under increased pressure from their own populace to force Iran to admit responsibility and provide financial compensation for the families of the victims.
Iran's leaders may want to control the flow of information and citizens, but they can scarcely ignore the fact that many Iranians are accustomed to traveling abroad and that the country's economy is deeply dependent on foreign trade and energy exports.
Second, diplomatic tensions between Iran and the West would have deepened even further. Canada, which lost 57 citizens in the crash (a further 81 passengers on the doomed flight were bound for the country), would almost certainly have pushed the United States and European powers to tie future negotiations with Iran to compensation for the families of the Canadian victims. While Flight 752 may not become as important as Iran's nuclear program or its ballistic missile program for Europe, it certainly would have cast a shadow over talks and limited Iran's ability to push for financial support through mechanisms like the EU-Iran financial link, INSTEX.
Accordingly, Iran is likely to offer some compensation for the victims of the incident. In fact, Tehran might even try to use the issue to pry open certain bank accounts and financial connections that remain closed due to sanctions. For example, it could offer compensation with funds currently frozen as a result of U.S. measures or demand modifications to INSTEX so that it can pay through that channel. Still, the matter is likely to remain contentious and complicated given the number of passengers who held both Iranian and other passports. Iran does not acknowledge dual citizenship, meaning foreign governments could demand compensation for passengers it recognizes as its own nationals but Tehran does not.
The intense international pressure once again reflects a simple reality for Iran: It is a country that maintains deep connections to the international world. Iran's leaders may want to control the flow of information and citizens (they certainly calculated — correctly — that the security apparatus could contain the inevitable street protests over the government's admission of culpability), but they can scarcely ignore the fact that many Iranians are accustomed to traveling abroad and that the country's economy is deeply dependent on foreign trade and energy exports. Because of Iran's strategic imperative to improve its economy, blunt the impact of sanctions and eventually negotiate with the United States, the Islamic republic had little choice but to come clean over an incident that killed so many foreigners — and fellow Iranian
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third post
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/13/iran-is-closer-than-ever-before-to-regime-collapse-says-former-obama-security-adviser.html
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https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/how-iranian-protesters-are-receiving-trump-administration-support
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/iraqs-caretaker-prime-minister-leaves-decision-whether-to-expel-u-s-troops-to-successor-11579127002?mod=hp_listb_pos3
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https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2020/01/eleven-us-troops-were-injured-jan-8-iran-missile-strike/162502/?oref=defense_one_breaking_nl
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15464/iranian-women-western-feminists#.XiR4CMwBKKg.facebook
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https://news.yahoo.com/masked-gunmen-kill-local-commander-094504012.html
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https://clarionproject.org/is-iran-behind-the-multiple-attacks-on-us-targets-in-iraq-in-2020/?utm_source=Clarion+Project+Newsletter&utm_campaign=b83ce0fcfb-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_01_29_07_43&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_60abb35148-b83ce0fcfb-6358189&mc_cid=b83ce0fcfb
Separately it now appears the Iranians were intending to kill in their counter attack after the Soleimani hit. We had some 20 soldiers with rattled brains from concussion blasts.
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What Awaits Iran?
By: Hilal Khashan
Shiite clerics have always played an active and essential role in Iranian public affairs. Safavid shahs (1501-1736) found them extremely useful in proselytizing Persians from Sunnism into Shiism. They also extended political legitimacy to Qajar shahs during most of the 19th century. Clerics in Shiism are more involved than Sunni counterparts in the lives of their religious communities. Shiite Muslims, following their religious doctrine, need continuous guidance from senior clerics; otherwise, they would go astray. Toward the end of the last decade of the 19th century, a revered ayatollah rose to the center stage of Persian politics upon the urging of nationalist and clerical compatriots.
Shiite Clerics Pioneer Iran's Political Development
In 1890, Nasir al-Din Shah issued the Tobacco Concession, which granted a British company the right to monopolize the country’s tobacco industry. In response to widespread public grievances against the humiliating terms of the concession, Ayatollah Mirza Shirazi issued a binding religious edict that banned the sale and consumption of tobacco products. Shirazi’s decision emptied the concession of its meaning and coerced the shah to annul it. Then, in 1901, Mozaffar al-Din Shah authorized the D’Arcy Concession, which gave exclusive rights to a British company to prospect for oil in Iran. Even though William D'Arcy’s company struck oil in commercial quantities in 1908, the Iranian people, led by the clergy and Bazaaris (the merchant class), disapproved of the deal since it overlooked the country’s national interests. The shah and corrupt Qajar bureaucrats were only interested in cash and personal gains. The Tobacco and D’Arcy concessions paved the way for a national movement that demanded the establishment of a National Assembly and creation of a constitutional form of monarchy. The move, known as the 1905-1911 Persian Constitutional Movement, failed because of Russian military intervention and British withdrawal of support for it.
In 1921, the Persian Cossack Brigade under the command of Reza Khan staged a military coup with British backing to defeat Bolshevik-supported ethnic forces who wanted to seize Tehran. He blunted their objective and became prime minister. In 1925, he established the Pahlavi Dynasty and assumed the name of Reza Shah Pahlavi. He saw himself as a modernizer and was impressed by the secular approach to the modernity of Turkey’s Kemal Ataturk. He stopped short of adopting Ataturk’s secularist approach because he feared backlash from Iran’s powerful clerical establishment. Reza Shah’s contributions to Iranian economic and cultural domains, including the emancipation of women, clearly demonstrated Ataturk’s influence on him. Reza Shah’s anti-British sentiment and Anglophobia, and preference for Nazi Germany, led Britain to force his abdication in 1941.
Iranian civil society thrived during the years of British occupation of southern and southwestern Iran. Political parties functioned freely, and independent media publications increased. In 1951, the Iranian Majlis (parliament) voted to appoint Mohammad Mossadeq, who immediately moved to nationalize the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. His nationalist and social secular stance alarmed the U.S. and Britain about his possible linkages to Iran’s communist Tudeh Party. In 1953, the army staged a coup that overthrew Mossadeq, and the U.S. and Britain colluded to reinstate Reza Shah.
The Accidental Success of Khomeini’s Islamic Revolution
The Iranian people did not forgive the shah for returning to power as a result of an Anglo-American conspiracy. Interaction with these two countries, in addition to Russia, did not favor Iran, which succumbed to their superior military power. The shah’s legacy did not stop them from seeking to modernize Iran and transform it into a significant military force. In 1963, he unleashed the White Revolution to accelerate the process of economic development. Industrialization increased the demand for labor and set off a massive process of internal migration from rural areas into Iranian cities. The new urban dwellers, who arrived with their spiritual guides, found shelter in slummy neighborhoods. Hostility to the Pahlavis did not matter much in the countryside, which lay on the margins of Iranian politics. The death of pacifist and politically quietist Ayatollah Borujerdi in 1961 ushered in the rise of Ruhollah Khomeini, who loathed the shah and waited for an opportunity to challenge his policies. The White Revolution presented itself as an opportunity for Khomeini to condemn the shah’s Westernization as an attack on Islamic principles and way of life. The shah ordered the arrest of Khomeini, who went into exile in Turkey in 1964. Khomeini then settled in Najaf, Iraq, until 1978, when he moved to France to continue his anti-shah activism.
Low-intensity demonstrations opposing the shah started in 1975 and gained momentum right after the Rex movie theater arson attack in Abadan in August 1978, which killed more than 400 people. Influenced by Khomeini’s description of the shah as an American and Israeli lackey, streets in Iranian cities became full of anti-Zionist and anti-imperialist slogans. Opposition to the shah’s repressive policies and aversion to U.S. foreign policy dominated the course of the 1979 revolution. Despite police repression and torture of political activists by secret police, the regime found itself unable to stop the rebellion. The shah fled Iran in January 1979, and Khomeini returned triumphantly to Tehran two weeks later. Khomeini’s rule by the jurisconsult religious theory, which amounted to an ideological coup in the doctrinal history of Twelver Imami Shiism, has governed the country ever since.
Khomeini took advantage of his public support to tighten his grip on state institutions without any opposition from the new religious ruling elite, who did not take the idea of the modern state seriously. Khomeini realized the importance of creating political and military institutions to protect the regime against the possibility of a counterrevolution, especially at a time when its Arab neighbors and the United States were contemplating ways to abort the revolution. He wanted the guardians of the Islamic Revolution to operate outside the jurisdiction of the state to oversee its activities and ensure their conformity with Khomeini’s religious doctrine.
Khomeini took advantage of the 1980-88 war with Iraq to eliminate leftist and nationalist opposition to his regime. Many Iranians grew discontented with the revolution because it failed to improve their standard of living and suppressed their freedom of expression. The reformists emerged as a counterforce to the conservatives in the aftermath of the 1997 presidential elections in which Mohammad Khatami won a landslide victory. Protests simmered afterward mainly by moderate parliamentary aspirants whose candidacy was disqualified by the Guardians Council.
The protests peaked in 2009 over the outcome of the presidential elections. They occurred mostly in Persian cities such as Tehran, Isfahan and Tabriz. They pitted reformists against conservatives over rigging the presidential polls that enabled Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to win a second term in office. Reformist candidates Mehdi Karroubi and Mir Hossein Mousavi did not seek to dismantle the revolution; they demanded only the removal of the temporal powers of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who lacked Khomeini’s charisma, and restriction of his powers to spiritual matters. The Basij volunteer militia ruthlessly crushed the protests that came to be known as the green movement. The green movement fell short of a revolution because it sought to reform the events of 1979 instead of phasing them out. Subsequent protests did not take off because of political differences.
But today, ordinary people are finding it even more challenging to make ends meet, as demonstrated in 2017-18 over the sharp increase in food prices. In 2019, demonstrators took their anger to the street to protest sudden oil price increases. In the two spates of protests that turned violent, Iranians chanted “Death to Palestine,” and “Help us, not Gaza,” to register opposition to squandering scarce Iranian financial resources on foreign adventures. The Basij had no mercy on the protesters.
State-controlled media outlets now accuse foreign countries of perpetrating the violence targeting private and public property. Iran’s protests do not seem to have a political leadership to give them direction and momentum. Activists who could provide a powerful boost to the demonstrations have fled the country to escape the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ harsh, oppressive measures. The conservatives hope to use the protests to topple the government of President Hassan Rouhani, who, in turn, expects them to cause the demise of the supreme leader’s rule. Rouhani’s long-shot goal is to extend his authority to the institutions of the supreme leader that dominate the Iranian economy, especially the Khatam al-Anbia Construction Firm, which belongs to the IRGC.
The Fate of Khomeini’s Revolution
The reformists are increasingly winning over the public at the expense of the conservatives, who are rapidly losing popular support. Mousavi’s Green Path of Hope front has succeeded in rallying a broad coalition of opposition groups ranging from leftist reformists to centrists. Demography is working against the conservatives; the majority of Iran’s population is young. More than 70 percent of Iranians are under 35 years old, and many of them neither relate to Khomeini’s revolution nor know what slogans he raised. Young Iranians remember Khomeini for meddling in foreign affairs and provoking Iraq to start an eight-year war against the Islamic Republic that decimated its economy and inflicted more than 1 million deaths.
Iran suffers from prolonged and torturous sanctions that are becoming unbearable. The currency has become worthless, and necessities are expensive and unaffordable. The past two years’ demonstrations over food and fuel price hikes differ from previous waves of discontent in at least two respects. People are no longer making demands for political reforms, but regime change. Of equal importance is that protests cut across Iran’s diverse ethnic composition. Iran is not yet, however, ready for a new revolution that ushers in a new political system on the ruins of wilayat al-faqih (guardianship by an Islamic jurist) because the IRGC does not allow protesters to question the authenticity and legitimacy of Khomeini’s religious revolution.
The unfortunate shooting down of the Ukrainian aircraft in early January enraged the Iranian people. It shifted the focus of the Iranian people from the condemnation of the U.S. killing of Qassem Soleimani into anger and frustration against the regime. During the most recent protests, demonstrators chanted, “The enemy lies within us.” Frequent droughts are increasing the pace of internal migration from rural areas into Iranian cities and overburdening their antiquated infrastructure. The new urban poverty belts are capable of initiating Iran’s counterrevolution.
The Iranian people’s mood during the past 150 years has vacillated between demands for reform (both bureaucratic and political), nationalism and anti-imperialism. Iranians today yearn for freedom and are unmoved by Khomeini’s revolutionary slogans. Foreign countries need to avoid prodding Iranians to revolt against the regime because it would legitimize a harsh crackdown. Since U.S. President George W. Bush in 2003 encouraged Iranian demonstrators to bring down the government and introduce a democratic order, Iranian reformist leaders have eschewed sponsorship of the protests lest they be labeled treacherous. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hope that Israel and Iran could restore their amicable relations after overthrowing the regime does a disservice to Iranian protesters.
Political change in Iran is bound to be painful and delayed. The Iranian revolution has created deep roots in the country, and it will not collapse because of protests, since the authorities are determined to do whatever is necessary to crush the opposition. In previous demonstrations, they unleashed thugs to destroy property in order to justify Basij retaliation and intimidate
peaceful protesters against taking their anger and frustration to the street. The success of the 1979 revolution owes much to the Iranian army, whose commanders chose to maintain neutrality. The IRGC, however, is highly unlikely to take a neutral stance since its survival is at stake. The best course of action for the U.S. is to keep the sanctions in place because they are working, while Iran’s economy of resistance is not. The Iranians no longer tolerate empty ideological mobilization that does not put bread on the table. The Iranian political system is anachronistic and will atrophy in the end, but there is no quick fix.
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https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/298078/irans-spy-games-can-turn-deadly?utm_source=tabletmagazinelist&utm_campaign=2ecbece462-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_02_03_07_38&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c308bf8edb-2ecbece462-207194629
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Jewish lefty mag Tablet:
https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/298603/germany-cant-stop-loving-iran?utm_source=tabletmagazinelist&utm_campaign=0acfab5991-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_02_13_02_46&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c308bf8edb-0acfab5991-207194629
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What Iran's Next Vote Means for Policy and the Presidency
Highlights
• Iran's economic struggles and intensifying tensions with the United States have helped clear the path to victory for conservative candidates in the country's upcoming parliamentary elections.
• The selection of the next parliament speaker will help indicate whether policy debates in the new legislature will take a more hard-line or traditionalist stance.
• Regardless of the election outcome, Iranians' mounting disillusionment with their government could ultimately undermine the next parliament's legitimacy, as well as the electoral prospects of moderate presidential candidates in 2021.
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On Feb. 21, Iran will hold the first round of parliamentary elections that could usher in the return of a more conservative legislature. With moderates and reformists taking a back seat, such an outcome would nudge Tehran toward more hard-line and hawkish foreign policies, leaving less room for negotiation with the West amid soaring U.S.-Iran tensions. Regardless of its next ideological make-up, however, Iran's incoming parliament will struggle more than ever to answer the economic and social demands of an increasingly desperate and cash-strapped electorate — a reality that could have dire consequences for Tehran's political stability ahead of the country's crucial 2021 presidential election.
The Big Picture
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While less powerful than Iran's many unelected institutions, Tehran's 290-seat parliament plays a crucial role in fielding debate between the country's broad political spectrum. How these discussions unfold in the country's next parliament will provide a key glimpse into where Iran's political future is headed, especially in regards to its struggling economy.
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Iran's Arc of Influence
Ripe for Change
The last parliamentary elections in 2016 occurred at a time when Iranians were optimistic about what negotiation and moderation with the West could bring their country. Pledging that closer relations with the United States and Europe would yield economic rejuvenation, reformist and moderate candidates won 41 percent of the seats in parliament, followed by conservatives at 29 percent and independents at 28 percent. This year's elections, however, will be held against the backdrop of exceptional economic and diplomatic difficulty for the Iranian government and its citizens. And this, along with intensifying U.S.-Iran relations, has increased the likelihood of a more hard-line leaning parliament.
Washington's "maximum pressure" campaign and resulting U.S. sanctions have heavily burdened Iran's economy over the past year. And some Iranians blame the current factions and politicians in their government (including parliament) for incurring those economic damages. Within this context, voters are more likely to cast their ballot for candidates who promise to offer something new and different, compared with the last four years — and the more nationalist and hawkish policies heralded by hard-liners and conservatives offer just that. Combined with the unprecedented rash of disqualifications of incumbents before the election, this environment means the next parliamentary election is more likely to be a showdown between conservative factions, and less of a contest between moderates and conservatives like in 2016. Indeed, in 44 of Iran's 208 constituencies, there are only conservative candidates running for parliamentary seats.
These conservatives have diverging views on how to conduct economic policy. They all generally oppose the more moderate, globally-connected policies of reformist-backed moderate President Hassan Rouhani. In terms of security and foreign policy, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which is full of mostly conservative factions (including some that lean hard-line), is also likely to have more allies in the upcoming parliament who will applaud a more aggressive approach to Iran's regional military stance and proxy warfare, as well as its more global struggle against U.S. efforts to contain Iran's regional influence.
A Key Vacancy
The appointment of the next speaker of parliament will provide one of the first glimpses into where Iranian politics might be headed following the Feb. 21 vote, and whether legislative debates will lean toward more hard-line or traditionalist policies. The speaker guides and referees the legislative agenda, and is generally viewed as one of the more important public-facing politicians in Iran.
The current speaker, Ali Larijani, is the longest-serving speaker in Iran's history. But after 11 years, Larijani has decided to step down and not run for re-election, leaving a vacuum likely to be filled by a more hard-line speaker to represent the country's likely more conservative parliament. Mohammad Baqher Qalibaf, the former mayor of Tehran, is currently one of the top front-runners poised to succeed Larijani. As the former head of Iran's air force, Qalibaf would be the most prominent former member of the IRGC to ascend to the speakership, which would solidify the military's significant influence in Iran's government should he indeed become speaker.
New Parliament, Same Problems
Regardless of how many seats various factions secure in the upcoming election, however, reformists, moderates, traditional conservatives and hard-line conservatives alike will all have to govern within the confines of a public that's increasingly angry about the diminished state of Iran's economy. The country's enduring economic morass, driven in part by U.S. sanctions, means that economic policies will dominate discussions in the new parliament. The likely strongest voices, the conservative factions, will mull a wide range of ways to mitigate the country's financial woes, ranging from the more populist to the more austere. But in this pursuit, legislators will face pressure from their constituents to prioritize near-term and immediate economic solutions as opposed to long-term economic structural solutions.
The diminished state of the country's economy has also fueled a general sense of political disillusionment against the government as a whole. And should this dissatisfaction lead to low turnout on Feb. 21, it could end up undermining the overall legislative authority of the next parliament by delegitimizing the electoral outcome.
Presidential Implications
Once the dust settles from the parliamentary polls, the next looming question regarding Iran's political future will be the 2021 presidential race. Larijani is among the powerful candidates who could potentially run, along with Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri; Saeed Jalili, the former leader of the Supreme National Security Council; member of parliament Ali Motahari; and Information and Communications Technology Minister Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi.
Rouhani's failure to free Iran from the crushing weight of U.S. sanctions could ultimately be his moderate allies' death knell in the 2021 presidential election.
To help ensure his moderate camp maintains popularity ahead of 2021, Rouhani has campaigned to help the reformist and moderate candidates still running for parliamentary seats by showcasing his government's economic achievements. He's also promised growth in the non-oil sector, as well as claimed his government has helped with the creation of new private sector companies and 3.6 million jobs. But while these talking points will help maintain the support of some of his stalwarts, the president's continued inability to fulfill his core promise of freeing Iran from the crushing weight of U.S. sanctions will continue to chip away at his popularity, and could ultimately be his moderate allies' death knell in the presidential election.
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second post
What’s Driving Iran to Build a Better Missile
13 MINS READ
Feb 18, 2020 | 20:15 GMT
This photo shows Iran's successful test launch of its Qiam-1 ballistic missile
This photo shows a test-launch of the Iranian Qiam-1 ballistic missile. The tactical and strategic advantages that missiles give to Iran mean it will resist any future efforts to limit its ability to develop more advanced missile systems.
Tehran considers missile development essential to Iran’s security. And as the accuracy and capabilities of its missiles improve, Iran is showing a greater willingness to use them....
Greater attention will be given to Iran's missile and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) programs from now on. The September drone attacks on the Abqaiq and Khurais oil facilities in Saudi Arabia and the January missile attack on two military bases in Iraq that left 109 U.S. military members diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries highlighted Iran's increased willingness to use its missile and UAV arsenal for tactical and strategic objectives.
Iran's missile program is an integral component, if not the crown jewel, of its armed forces, and Tehran considers the program essential to national security. The United States, however, wants to significantly constrain Iranian missile development in future negotiations that would also cover Iran's nuclear program and its support for regional militias. But to reach a deal, the United States will have to narrow its conditions. This will limit the prospects of an agreement under U.S. President Donald Trump's maximalist demands.
The Big Picture
Iran's nuclear ambitions have long captured the West's attention, overshadowing concerns over the development of Iranian missile technology. But as the missile program advances, that focus is shifting. Even though any future talks regarding sanctions relief with the United States will almost certainly include a demand for limits on its missile program, Tehran is not likely to agree to substantial constraints.
See Iran's Arc of Influence
The Legacy of the War of the Cities
Almost from the time the Iranian missile program was created in 1979, its importance was embedded into the Islamic republic's psyche. Before he was deposed in the Iranian Revolution, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi pursued his ambition to build the Middle East's most advanced and powerful military force. But it withered after the United States cut off military support in the revolution's wake. The outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war in 1980 demonstrated just how few military options Iran had left. Under the shah, it boasted the region's most capable air force. But without U.S. support, the country was unable to maintain the aircraft it had acquired, leaving it unable to answer the Iraqi missile and airstrikes that pummeled key urban centers like Tehran.
In response, Iran sped development of its missile and rocket capabilities in a bid to counter Iraq. Iran acquired a number of Soviet-designed Scud-B short-range ballistic missiles from Libya, Syria and North Korea. In 1985, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) created its own military units, including its own missile force, in hopes of reverse-engineering the Scud-B missiles with the help of North Korea, which had itself used the Scud-B to create the Hwasong-5 missile. By the end of its war with Iraq in 1988, Iran was able to open a manufacturing plant to produce its own Scud-B variant, the Shahab-1 ballistic missile. But before that, Iran and Iraq both targeted one another's urban areas in exchanges of fire that became known as the War of the Cities. Hundreds of thousands of Iranians evacuated Tehran as the combat raged.
The experience of the war taught Iran the strategic value of using missiles to break the morale of opponents' populations and raising the economic cost of attacking Iran. Since then, Iran continued to pursue an advanced and diverse ballistic missile arsenal, often with North Korean guidance. In the 1990s, Iran developed the Shahab-2, its own variant of the Scud-C missile (equivalent to North Korea's Hwasong-6). While the Shahab-2's range of 500 kilometers (310 miles) improved slightly on its predecessor's, it still fell within the category of a short-range ballistic missile. At the same time, Iran also developed a medium-range ballistic missile based on North Korea's Hwasong-7 (another reverse-engineered Scud). The Shahab-3, with a range of 2,000 kilometers, could reach most of the Middle East.
Iran's Evolving Missile Priorities and Development
As it worked to develop its missile program with North Korea's help in the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s, Iran focused on acquiring ballistic missiles with a strategic aim of deterring its adversaries from pursuing to war with it, an objective it learned from its Iran-Iraq war experience. From a tactical perspective, however, those missiles gave Iran few battlefield advantages; the rudimentary navigational systems on early Shahab variants would often miss their designated targets by as much as a kilometer, on average. While this left them ineffective in hitting specific battlefield targets, they retained strategic value in targeting urban areas, where precision was not as important.
Since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq brought the United States to Iran's doorstep, Iran has focused research and development efforts on making its missiles more accurate rather than extending their ranges.
For Iran, the deterrence that even inaccurate missiles can provide gives them strategic importance. Today, the Iranian missile arsenal is perhaps the region's largest and most diverse. As Gulf Arab rivals such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates spend billions on Western-made military equipment to arm their conventional militaries in a way that sanctions-strapped Iran cannot match, Tehran has chosen to continue to invest in its missile program as a standoff weapon. In the event of a regional war, the missile arsenal would allow Iran to damage the Saudi and Emirati economies and threaten their civilian populations. Similarly, Iran's strategy of providing missiles to allies like the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories achieves many of the same strategic objectives in a wider geographic footprint.
Since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq brought the United States to Iran's doorstep, Iran has focused research and development efforts on making its missiles more accurate rather than extending their ranges beyond the Middle East. In both the 1990-91 Gulf War and the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Iran noted the effectiveness of the United States' tactical use of missiles and airpower to degrade Iraqi forces. When President George W. Bush included Iran in his 2002 "axis of evil" speech, Tehran learned that it, or its proxies, could soon be involved in more wars in the Middle East, providing it with further incentive to increase its missile arsenal's reliability, accuracy and capabilities for use against tactical targets.
As a part of that development, Iran has introduced and tested more advanced short-range and medium-range ballistic missiles. The roles that the Shahab-1 and Shahab-2 missiles once filled are now filled by the Fateh-110 and Qiam-1. The Fateh-110 and its successors, including the recently introduced Fateh-313 and the Zolfaghar successors to the original Fateh-110, are solid-fueled, reducing launch time. Their more advanced guidance systems make them more useful against specific targets. The Qiam-1 also improves on the Shahab-2's accuracy and also has been upgraded in recent years.
Similar to its shorter-range ballistic missiles, the Shahab-3 medium-range ballistic missile has birthed several more advanced variants designed to increase its accuracy. The latest is the Emad, first tested in 2015, which introduces a maneuverable reentry vehicle that uses satellite navigation to dramatically increase its accuracy. Iran's latest and most advanced medium-range ballistic missile, the Khorramshahr, likely includes some of those improvements.
In 2018, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused Iran of launching a medium-range ballistic missile that could carry multiple warheads after Iranian media suggested that the Khorramshahr was being developed to possibly have a multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle. Although Iran has not unveiled or tested ballistic missiles with a range longer than 2,000 kilometers, the United States is concerned that Iran's space program is a cover for research into dual-use technology that could be transferred to an intercontinental ballistic missile. Iran's recent announcement that it plans later this year to launch a satellite using a new solid-fueled launch vehicle called Zoljanah highlights the intersection between the two programs. That technology grew out of the IRGCs ballistic missile program — unlike its liquid-fueled launch vehicles, such as the Simorgh, which have greater separation from that specific program.
Finally, Iran's research in recent years has also included expanding and developing other types of missiles, including cruise missiles. The most established of these is the Soumar, which Iran unveiled in 2015. Like Iran's original ballistic missiles, the Soumar has its roots in Soviet technology.
Recent Operational History and Development
The development of Iran's missile program has other benefits, including for domestic propaganda purposes and prestige. Indeed, Iran now routinely unveils new missiles during the annual 10-day celebration in February marking Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini's 1979 return to Tehran. In February 2019, Iran unveiled several new missiles, including the Hoveyzeh cruise missile, a successor to the Soumar, and the Dezful ballistic missile, an upgrade to the Zolfaghar. This year, Iran unveiled the Raad-500, a missile akin to the Fateh-110.
While many of its new missiles are evolutionary variants and possibly sometimes little more than an older missile with a new paint scheme, Iran has sought to demonstrate and test several of them in operational conditions in an attempt to achieve tactical successes. Not only has it used variants of the Qiam-1, Fateh-110 and other missiles in places like Yemen, but Iran also is starting to launch them directly from its own territory for strategic purposes against Kurdish, Saudi, U.S. and Islamic State targets.
The uptick in Iran's own use of its ballistic and cruise missiles and its increased proliferation of missiles to its allies, particularly in Yemen and Iraq, suggests that Iran is becoming more willing to deploy its more advanced missile systems as their accuracy and capabilities improve. Granted, with most of the operations, the decision to use them tactically has often come in response to the actions of others.
Since 2017, Iran has launched missiles five times from inside its own borders — the first such strikes since 2011. In 2017 and 2018, Iran launched attacks against Islamic State targets in Deir el-Zour, Syria, using the Zolfaghar and Qiam-1 short-range ballistic missiles to retaliate for Islamic State-claimed attacks in Tehran and Ahvaz. Several of those missiles failed, proving to be largely inaccurate. In 2018, Iran launched seven Fateh-110 missiles against the Iraqi headquarters of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran; several party leaders were killed when one missile hit the room where they were meeting. In 2019, several Iranian cruise missiles, thought to be Soumars, landed short of Saudi Arabia's Abqaiq oil processing facility. Finally, in January's attack on an Iraqi military base housing U.S. troops, Iran used 11 Fateh-313 and two Qiam-1 missiles to hit two sites, with several other missiles failing in flight. The accuracy of the attack remains a subject of study, but initial satellite evidence suggests a greater degree of accuracy than the 2017 and 2018 attacks in Syria. Nevertheless, operationally most of Iran's ballistic and cruise missiles appear to remain relatively inaccurate in a tactical sense, albeit with continued improvements. Iran found greater success with the UAVs it used against Abqaiq and Khurais.
Outlook and International Concerns
Iran's ballistic and cruise missile programs are of increasing concern for the United States and other Western countries for several reasons. First, Iran has shown for decades that it is willing to transfer missile and rocket systems to its regional allies who have shown a willingness to use them. Second, the United States and Western countries fear that Iran may eventually develop an ICBM that could reach destinations far beyond the Middle East. This is precisely why they oppose Iran's space program, considering its dual-use capabilities. In addition, Iran's strategic missile program and any future ICBMs will be used to establish a nuclear deterrence if Iran can develop a nuclear warhead capable of being delivered by missile. Third, Iran has shown it is willing to use its missiles and drones against civilian targets, as evidenced by September's attacks on Saudi Arabia. And finally, the programs improve Iran's ability to inflict casualties and damage on U.S. and allied forces in the region.
Iran is not likely to easily agree to negotiations with the West that significantly cover its missile program. Indeed, Tehran fought hard to ensure that negotiations with the administration of former U.S. President Barack Obama focused solely on Iran's nuclear program. The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal and U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231 that implemented it contain ambiguous wording that gave Iran wiggle room to continue testing missiles without directly breaking either agreement. Resolution 2231 says that "Iran is called upon not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology, until the date eight years after the JCPOA Adoption Day [October 2023]." Iran has argued that none of its ballistic missiles have been "designed" with the intent to deliver nuclear weapons and that it being "called upon" is not the same as stronger language like "shall not" that is often found in similar resolutions — giving it the room to continue its activity.
The European signatories to the JCPOA have typically agreed with Iran's interpretation and say that Iran's missile tests and space launches go against the spirit of the agreement, but they typically do not go as far as calling them an outright violations. But as Iran becomes more willing to use its missiles in an operational setting and continues to ramp up its nuclear program, Europe's tone has slowly shifted closer to the White House's position. Continued operations by Iran will only make it more difficult for the United States and increasingly Europe to accept compartmentalizing talks on a successor agreement to the JCPOA. At this point, from the perspective of the United States and Europe, the two issues are becoming increasingly intertwined as a result, which does not bode well for future talks if the West demands significant constraints on Iran's missile program.
That said, Iran has signaled in recent years that it may be willing to reach an understanding with the West about its missile program. In 2017, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Iran would not develop missiles with a range beyond 2,000 kilometers, near the upper end of its Soumar and Khorramshahr missiles, and Iranian military leaders, including those in the IRGC, have reiterated that range limit. Nevertheless, the West still would likely demand that range restraints be written into an agreement, making it more difficult to achieve a future deal.
Iran's perception of threat in the Middle East has not changed. The Trump administration's decision to withdraw from the JCPOA has led Iran to realize that even if it signs another deal with the United States, there's nothing to prevent a future administration from negating it. So Iran would still feel compelled to continue to develop new missiles. In addition, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan all remain violent theaters, and a resurgence of the Islamic State or a successor group cannot be ruled out. Finally, the increasingly aggressive foreign policy postures staked out by Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman will not soften if Iran signs a deal with the West. Indeed, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia would view any deal with significant constraints on Iran's overall regional strategy as an opportunity to expand their own influence, much like Iran saw the fall of Saddam Hussein as an opportunity to expand its influence in Iraq.
Simply put, with that threat perception in mind, Iran is unlikely to budge significantly on the red lines for its missile program, unlike its willingness to make concessions with its nuclear program. Many of the same strategic and tactical factors that drove Iran to invest heavily in its missile program remain in place and cannot be reversed overnight. This does not bode well for future U.S.-Iran talks until the United States and others are willing to restrict their demands to missiles with ranges beyond the Middle East. In the meantime, Iran will continue to work to boost its missile arsenal's accuracy and capabilities.
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Iran Works to Overcome Losing Soleimani
by Yaakov Lappin
Special to IPT News
February 28, 2020
https://www.investigativeproject.org/8327/iran-works-to-overcome-losing-soleimani
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February 28, 2020 View On Website
Open as PDF
The Coronavirus Outbreak: Impact on Iran
By: Caroline D. Rose
Over the past two weeks, Iran has been dealing with an outbreak of coronavirus that has so far led to 388 infections and 34 deaths in the country. The government has struggled to contain the virus, and in barely more than one week, there have already been riots over its mismanagement of the outbreak. The virus has not only had political consequences but also economic ramifications, especially stemming from the closure of border crossings with some of its most critical trade partners. The dissatisfaction with the government’s handling of the outbreak comes at an especially vulnerable time for the regime. Over the past two years, the United States has applied a maximum pressure campaign on Iran that it hoped would squeeze the country’s finances, instigate social unrest and curtail Iranian influence in the Middle East. It has done so mainly through sanctions, which have crippled Iran’s economy and caused some degree of unrest but failed to weaken the regime to the point of collapse. The coronavirus outbreak, however, has the potential to undermine the regime in ways that U.S. sanctions never could.
Still, we don’t expect the government to completely crack under the pressure; Tehran will manage by implementing curfews, quarantines and other measures to crack down on anti-government sentiment. But coronavirus is yet another issue that will cause the public’s frustration with the government to rise. It highlights the growing distrust of the regime, as well as the government’s own resilience in the face of adversity.
Economic Implications
Many have highlighted the potential implications of the outbreak for Iran’s economy, particularly the effects on trade and Iran’s currency. But the country’s formal economy won’t take as big a hit as other affected countries like China and Italy. Sanctions have already crippled Iran’s economy, forcing the country to reduce its dependence on exports and rely increasingly on illicit trade. While the outbreak will certainly further discourage other countries from trading with Iran and affect its access to foreign currency, the list of willing buyers for Iranian exports is already limited, and the value of the rial has already declined substantially.
Instead, the outbreak’s largest economic impact will be felt in the shadow economy, which has been Iran’s greatest weapon against sanctions. Iran’s gross domestic product dropped by 4.8 percent in 2018 and an additional 9.5 percent in 2019, and its unemployment level rose to 16.8 percent last year. Import shortages, high living costs, drained foreign currency reserves, a strained pension system, and skyrocketing prices for bread, beef, sugar and milk have also contributed to the country’s deep recession. Iranians have therefore increasingly resorted to the informal market as a means of survival. In 2017, Iran’s informal economy was estimated to account for about 36 to 38 percent (worth $12.3 billion) of economic activity in the country. Experts estimated that $10 billion to $15 billion worth of products were smuggled across Iran’s borders annually. By contrast, non-oil exports traded through official channels were worth about $650 million in 2019. At a time of extreme economic hardship, therefore, smuggling has provided a source of income for thousands of otherwise unemployed Iranians.
The informal economy has also enabled Iran’s oil export market to survive. This is because U.S. sanctions only target trade of Iranian goods in the formal market. In May 2019, the U.S. announced a fresh round of sanctions with the intention of slowing Iranian crude production to zero. The campaign has been fairly successful: Iranian exports have fallen 87 percent from 2016 levels, and oil output decreased to 2.1 million barrels per day last October from 3.8 million bpd in 2018. Tehran has therefore been forced to turn to other means, including smuggling, to sell its most profitable export.
In 2018, experts estimated that between 5.3 million to 10.6 million gallons of crude were smuggled out of Iran daily – though this number has undoubtedly declined as production has fallen. Proxy networks and Iraqi Shiite militias loyal to Tehran have served as dependable intermediaries in Iranian smuggling networks. Militias within Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces, which the Iraqi government has entrusted with guarding certain border checkpoints, patrolling highways and protecting oil fields, have been particularly helpful. Iraqi Shiite groups and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have also helped smuggle Iranian crude into Syria, now the largest customer for Iranian oil. Crude is typically smuggled across the border using trucks and vans through unofficial or militia-guarded checkpoints, particularly along challenging terrain such the marshlands in the Maysan province. It is often offloaded between Iraqi Shiite groups with limited Iranian logistical supervision and transported along the al-Boukamal-al-Qaim highway at the Iraq-Syria border. Though trucks, which can carry only about 120 barrels of oil, and vans, which can carry only 12 barrels, are not as efficient as oil tankers, Iran’s wide network of proxies in Iraq has turned cross-border smuggling into one of the most reliable methods of distributing Iranian oil to external markets.
But this method will be jeopardized if Iraq closes its border over coronavirus fears. Iraq has already closed some crossings for several days to stop the virus from spreading. The economic impact will depend on how strictly Baghdad enforces the border closures and prohibition on travel to and from Iran. Smuggling won’t end entirely, as poorly defended border crossings will continue to enable illicit trade. But the element of fear will certainly have an impact on Iran’s informal economy. All of the reported infections in Iraq and Lebanon have been linked to Iran. People involved in the trafficking of goods will be increasingly hesitant to deal with Iranians, particularly as cases in the region continue to rise in countries that lack protective gear, medical services and well-staffed hospitals. Even if the Iraqi government does not enforce the border closure as strictly as it says it will, the virus could take a toll on Iran’s informal economy.
Political Unrest
Most importantly, the virus comes to Iran at a politically inopportune time. In its first two weeks of the outbreak in Iran, the government has already shown signs of unpreparedness. Sanctions and the recession have stripped Iran’s health care system down to its bones, depriving it of critical medical equipment, personnel and expertise. As of 2019, the World Health Organization recorded the country had only 10 doctors per 10,000 people. (For comparison, in the U.S. there are 45 doctors per 10,000 – and the Association of American Medical Colleges considers even this a shortage.) Reports have poured in from Iran about the lack of protective masks, hand sanitizer and adequate medical equipment in both rural and urban environments. And the government’s track record of reporting infections has upset opposition lawmakers and citizens alike. Tehran announced the two cases that hit Qom on Feb. 19, two days before elections to the country’s parliament, or Majlis, and withheld information about an additional 18 cases and two deaths (translating to a higher mortality rate than the global rate of a little over 3 percent) two days later.
(click to enlarge)
But the government had a powerful interest in underselling the scale of the outbreak, less than two months after it sparked protests when it accidentally shot down a Ukrainian passenger airplane during a missile barrage targeting U.S. forces in Iraq, and ahead of an election that was already fated to be controversial. In January, the Guardian Council barred 6,850 reformist candidates from the ballot, causing widespread outcry over a lack of democratic representation and leading to calls, particularly in urban areas, to boycott the vote. The last thing the government needed, then, was a mass viral outbreak that would further damage the credibility of itself and the election. In the end, the election’s outcome was favorable for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, with 30 conservative hardliners gaining seats in the Majlis. Just 42.57 percent of Iranians voted, the lowest participation rate since the 1979 Islamic Revolution and down nearly 20 percentage points from the previous election in 2016. Fear of infection certainly played a role in keeping Iranians from the ballot box, and the government didn’t shy away from accusing its “enemies” of sensationalizing the outbreak to influence its internal affairs – even if, in the end, the low turnout probably worked to the government’s advantage.
In the wake of the election, as the extent of the outbreak has become clear, there have been riots over the government’s mishandling of the virus. In Talesh, a city in Iran’s northern Gilan province, people protested the government’s secrecy and mysterious quarantines outside a hospital on Feb. 23 until security forces dispersed them with tear gas. In Isfahan, medical students protested in front of the University of Medical Sciences over the lack of protective gear and supplies, while in Rasht, protesters started fires in the streets to oppose unexplained street closures, where they were met with crackdowns from security forces. And in Najaf, protesters upset with the government’s refusal to close the city’s international airport attempted to block travelers’ access.
In the face of rising unrest, Tehran has tried to nip political threats in the bud. On Feb. 26, Iran’s cyberpolice unit arrested 24 people accused of spreading rumors about the virus, and warned news outlets and social media users against reporting cases that contradicted official reports. The government is gradually shutting down social gatherings, religious sites, schools and sports matches in affected provinces as well as the cities of Isfahan, Mashhad, Tabriz, Shiraz and Tehran, which will soon turn into full-fledged quarantines and curfews. Under such restrictions, large anti-government gatherings will be difficult to coordinate. But that doesn’t mean political resentment toward the regime won’t continue to fester.
In unstable countries such as Iran, the coronavirus outbreak is not only a health crisis but also a political and economic threat to the regime. In the face of a crushing sanctions campaign, the government has been struggling to keep the lights on, keep protesters off the streets and keep up its campaign to spread its influence in the region. The hospitals are lacking proper medical kits and virus protection to treat patients. Panic risks crippling its illicit economy, which has struggled to make up for its teetering formal economy. With such political and economic uncertainty, Iran’s government cannot finance this outbreak and come out unscathed. However, after everything the regime has endured in recent years, it will likely take much more than the coronavirus to force regime change.
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How Iran's Regime Spread Coronavirus to the Middle East
by Seth Frantzman
The Jerusalem Post
February 25, 2020
https://www.meforum.org/60493/how-iran-spread-coronavirus-to-the-middle-east
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Iran Is in the Eye of the Coronavirus Storm
8 MINS READ
Feb 25, 2020 | 20:10 GMT
Kuwaiti Health Minister Sheikh Basel al-Sabah, right, speaks with the media on Feb. 22, 2020, as officials at the Kuwait City airport prepare to take Kuwaitis returning from Iran to a hospital to be tested for the COVID-19 virus.
Kuwaiti Health Minister Sheikh Basel al-Sabah, right, speaks with the media on Feb. 22, 2020, as officials at the Kuwait City airport prepare to take Kuwaitis returning from Iran to a hospital to be tested for the COVID-19 virus. Iran has emerged as a regional epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak.
(YASSER AL-ZAYYAT/AFP via Getty Images)
HIGHLIGHTS
Given its weak health infrastructure, especially in rural areas, Iran will struggle to contain the spread of the coronavirus; the country has become a source of infection in the broader region.
The Iranian public's lack of trust in the government's ability to disseminate accurate information will further undercut Iran's ability to contain the virus, even as the virus becomes a convenient excuse for the government to explain low participation in recent parliamentary elections.
As the coronavirus spreads, the United States will be pressured by the global community to weaken its firm trade and financial sanctions on Iran to help Tehran access the materials and financial support it needs to contain and combat the outbreak.
With cases in a half-dozen Middle Eastern countries that originated from travel within its borders, Iran has emerged as a regional epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak — which causes the respiratory illness the World Health Organization calls COVID-19 — just as global fears of a pandemic are amplifying. There are clear negative impacts for Iran both politically and economically, as well as potential negative economic and health impacts for the surrounding region. But depending on how Iran manages the internal and external information flow, the outbreak could also harm and/or help the country's already fragile foreign friendships, should it compel Tehran to reach out to the broader world for more help.
The Big Picture
Iran has become a regional hub in the global outbreak of the COVID-19 virus. As the Iranian government is already struggling with popular legitimacy, one silver lining of the outbreak could be some relaxation or leniency on tough U.S. sanctions if Iran needs more financial help and materials from the global community to battle the outbreak.
See The Geopolitics of Disease
The Immediate Concern: Containment Within Iran
Containment of the COVID-19 virus within Iran will be a challenge because of Iran's poor health infrastructure and traditional unwillingness to communicate freely and openly across all branches of government and between health institutions. Heavy financial sanctions and global travel restrictions for its health professionals further impede Iran's existing infrastructure weakness. Iran has well-trained doctors but its hospitals and health facilities throughout the country are poorly equipped and supplied, and it especially struggles to provide rural communities with quality health care. A years-long health infrastructure improvement plan dubbed the Health Transformation Plan was found recently to have done little to improve rural access to health care facilities, which means if the coronavirus spreads to rural areas, effective treatment of and accurate reporting on the outbreak could become a more serious problem. Iran already shuttered schools in 10 provinces for two days and canceled numerous public events, designating 230 hospitals to focus on COVID-19 management. But only time will tell if these measures are enough to curb new cases.
A map showing health care infrastructure in the Middle East and North Africa.
Another key challenge for Iran will be accessing and communicating correct information to both domestic and international audiences. Per available information from Iran's Health Ministry, as of Feb. 25, the number of cases in the country stands at 95, with most cases in the infection epicenter of Qom. With 15 deaths reported nationwide, Iran now has the highest number of COVID-19 fatalities outside China, underlining the serious nature of the outbreak. Of course, the reported figures raise the valid question about whether the death toll and infection count are actually higher. Iran's ability to access accurate health reporting from across the country is limited because of poor infrastructure. And its ability to accurately test and screen for infection is also in question because of the lack of access to the right equipment. Upcoming spring celebrations for the Nowruz new year holidays in Iran will be a risk for further spread of the coronavirus if the infections continue.
Domestic Political Impact in Iran
The COVID-19 outbreak has significant implications for Iran domestically: a further shaking of trust in the government. Iranians already struggle to trust their government — consider what happened with the Ukrainian airliner shootdown in January — and fears of a possible pandemic will undercut the government's ability to regulate information flow and ultimately control the virus itself. On Feb. 24, one Iranian member of parliament from the disease epicenter in Qom panicked Iranian media with a report that there have already been 50 deaths from the virus. Although the Health Ministry quickly refuted this report, accurate numbers remain unclear and are likely to change as more information becomes available. At least two government officials, including the deputy health minister spearheading infection-fighting efforts as well as a member of parliament from Tehran, have contracted the virus, raising the risk of further spread to government officials. Though these two officials have been open with the public about their own cases, there is likely a lot of information yet to be uncovered.
A small political silver lining from the timing of the outbreak is that it provides a convenient justification for low turnout in last week's parliamentary elections. But while fear of the spread of the COVID-19 virus was likely a factor preventing widespread turnout in the election, the reality is that the government was already struggling with its legitimacy with an economically anxious population. No matter how broadly pro-government media reports that fears of COVID-19 explain last week's low voter turnout, there are many reasons why Iranians lacked enthusiasm to cast their ballots for yet another government many of them struggle to trust.
Regional and Global Impact
With global fears of a pandemic rising, it is likely that Iran's neighbors will continue to shut border crossings and reduce travel and trade links in the near term to mitigate the virus' spread. Armenia, Afghanistan, Turkey, Pakistan and Iraq (both southern and the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region in the north) have closed their borders with Iran, while Kuwait, Oman and the United Arab Emirates have limited travel to Iran following confirmation of COVID-19 cases linked to Iran travel. Bahrain and Lebanon have also confirmed cases of COVID-19 linked to Iran travel but have yet to close their borders or restrict travel, though domestic pressure is rising to do so.
Any curtailed trade, especially with China, will have a greater impact on Iran than on its trade partners.
Because of sanctions and the unique nature of Iran's "resistance economy," Iran is not as globally integrated in terms of trade as it would like to be, though it is connected to the global community and especially the surrounding region in terms of travel connections. It has depended on the trade and travel links that it does maintain to help it weather the economic pressure from U.S. sanctions. Iran's economic growth is already sluggish, and if trade and transport links are cut with trade partners like China, Iraq, Turkey and Kuwait — all of which have temporarily reduced or cut travel with Iran or closed their borders — this will have a direct impact on Iran's non-oil sector revenue. Indeed, any curtailed trade, especially with China, will have a greater impact on Iran than on its trade partners because of Iran's dependence on a more limited number of trade links due to sanctions.
Religious travel to and from Iran could be a source of spread from Iran to a handful of neighboring and nearby countries that have a sizable population of Shiites, and raises the risk of all pilgrimages to Sunni, Shiite and Christian sites around the region being potential sources of infection. Shiite pilgrimages to and from Iran and Iraq, in particular, are a source of concern. As of Feb. 25, Iranian religious authorities have issued fatwas or religious edicts prohibiting travel to Qom, but it is unclear whether Iranian security forces will be attempting to limit physical travel. Saudi Arabia has yet to record any COVID-19 cases but when it hosts the Hajj pilgrimage in August, it will be on high alert for the spread of COVID-19 from Muslim pilgrims from around the world, including Iran. For some Muslim populations, the tradition of domestic travel to visit family and friends during the month of Ramadan will be a time of concern about infection spread. Business-related travel, of course, is a likely source of spread from Iran to neighboring countries, including with Iran's suspected patient zero, a merchant who had traveled to China.
Impact on Sanctions and Iran's Pariah Status
As countries rush to shut off travel and trade links to Iran to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus, the irony for Iran is that it is happening at a time when Iran is striving to combat U.S. efforts to isolate its economy from the rest of the world via sanctions. We will likely see an effort by the European Union to help Iran access the material help it needs. The COVID-19 outbreak comes at a time when a number of EU countries were already trying to find a way to help Iran access the goods it needs without triggering U.S. sanctions. Depending on how bad the infection spread becomes in Iran, the European Union will be motivated to extend a helping hand via the state-to-state supply of critical goods or financing, despite U.S. sanctions.
Based on precedent, there is deep uncertainty about Iran's willingness and ability to accept help from the global community and cooperate with it to contain the spread of COVID-19. If Iran shares information about its COVID-19 outbreak and cooperates with the outside world, there is a small chance it could lead to some leniency from the United States in terms of some financial restrictions, even as Iran's regional trade partners and neighbors temporarily shut down their links to mitigate the spread of infections. Iran's openness to a delegation from the World Health Organization (WTO) that is set to arrive this week is one sign of its willingness to work with the outside world. The WTO said sanctions negatively affect Iran's ability to treat the virus by impeding its access to medical equipment. Some of the U.S. sanctions on Iran allow for humanitarian goods, but depending on how bad the infection becomes, the United States might be swayed to further relax some trade restrictions.
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Iran Sharply Accelerates its Uranium Enrichment
4 MINS READ
Mar 3, 2020 | 20:25 GMT
The Big Picture
Iran's higher than expected leap in LEU accumulation brings forward the time frame at which it will have enough LEU for a breakout. Iran has meanwhile stonewalled IAEA efforts to inspect other suspect sites that might help inform it of past nuclear activities. The lack of development on advanced centrifuges, however, makes the LEU accumulation rate less alarming than it could have been.
What Happened
The International Atomic Energy Agency distributed its quarterly report on Iran's nuclear activities to member governments March 3, including a second document detailing Iran's alleged stonewalling of IAEA efforts to resolve questions about past nuclear activities. This is the first report since Iran took the position that it is not obligated to provide the IAEA with access to three sites that have not been inspected before. During an inspection in 2019, the IAEA found traces of uranium at Iran's Turquz Abad site. The IAEA also reported that Iranian officials have indicated they will deny access to additional sites.
The report also showed that Iran had increased its stockpile of low enriched uranium (LEU) from 372 kilograms in early November to 1,021 kilograms at present, with monthly production rising to about 170 kilograms per month. Part of this acceleration came from the reactivation of two cascades of IR-1 centrifuges at the hardened Fordow facility. Some additional production capacity also has come from advanced centrifuges at the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant at Natanz. Not all of the current LEU production is at the maximum 4.5 percent U-235 level, however; some of it is as low as 3 percent.
Why It Matters
The acceleration of enrichment beyond what most observers had previously expected means the point when the United States or Israel might begin to consider preventive military action to stop Iran's nuclear activities has drawn closer. Iran will now achieve enough LEU to make one device sooner, no later than April now. Based on rough calculations assuming current throughput capacity and Iran's ability to reactivate some additional IR-2 centrifuges it is not using at present, the current breakout time — or the time that would be needed to produce enough highly enriched uranium (HEU) for one warhead if Iran began processing LEU to HEU — is now probably around four to six months.
The leap in LEU accumulation will reignite the debate in the United States and Israel about where exactly the red line should be, and what can be done to slow Iran's progress.
This report did not, however, contain evidence of breakthroughs on advanced centrifuges. Iran continues to perform research on a number of new models, but has not deployed anything beyond one cascade of IR-6s. It has not added more machines as powerful, or more powerful, than the IR-6 beyond what we knew was possible based on the last IAEA report in November 2019. Evidence of breakthroughs on the development of even more advanced machines or preparations for the deployment of additional IR-6 cascades, combined with having enough LEU for one device, would raise immediate alarms for the United States and Israel due to the potential for an extremely short breakout time of below two months; the new IAEA report does not suggest such a crisis is imminent.
Still, the leap in LEU accumulation will reignite the debate in the United States and Israel about where exactly the red line should be, and what can be done to slow Iran's progress. The high percentage of time Iran's centrifuges are operational indicates that any covert efforts by the United States, Israel or others to take them offline are not very effective. (There is no evidence in this report pointing to a new Stuxnet-like operation.)
U.S. pressure on the Europeans to bring the issue back to the U.N. Security Council and trigger a "snapback" of Security Council sanctions is likely to increase. But this is unlikely to trigger an immediate change of policy on Iran's part. Recent comments by U.S. officials have hinted that the United States will not seek to invoke snapback before the expiration of the Security Council sanctions on conventional arms sales to Iran lapses in October.
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After Soleimani, Iran Sends Shamkhani to Iraq to Take Control
by Seth Frantzman
The Jerusalem Post
March 10, 2020
https://www.meforum.org/60554/iran-sends-shamkhani-to-iraq-to-take-control
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It seems to me no one is asking, why is isolated Iran, thousands of miles from China's Wuhan germ warfare center, the first foreign place to catch the virus? And why is their chief of Bio-warfare the first Iranian to catch it? Do I have that about right? There is some unreported connection there?
Maybe they just happened to attend the same seminar on global humanitarian benevolence at that time?
World mainstream media suffers from a deplorable lack of curiosity on this IMHO.
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What We're Reading: A Coup in Iran
By: Caroline D. Rose
All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror
By Stephen Kinzer
While social-distancing, I picked up Stephen Kinzer’s “All the Shah’s Men,” a book about the long-term geopolitical consequences of the 1953 CIA-led coup that deposed Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddegh – and the lessons the U.S. has (or has not) learned since then. I read this book at the right time; there’s renewed demand for democratic reform in Iran and an uptick in rocket-fire between coalition forces and Iran-backed proxies in Iraq. As these trends resurface, it’s a good opportunity to re-explore the complicated history of U.S.-Iran relations.
The 1953 CIA mission, codenamed TPAJAX Project (otherwise known as Operation Ajax), overthrew Mosaddegh, an Iranian nationalist who delivered democratic rule to Iran but threatened Western economic interests by nationalizing the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. After a British boycott of Iranian oil failed to convince Mosaddegh to back down, and with Washington and London hesitant to intervene militarily, American intelligence took the initiative. The CIA successfully funded, organized and hired infiltrators, protesters and gangsters to reinstate the Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, as Iran’s leader.
The U.S. mission succeeded in its short-term goal of ousting Mosaddegh, but the long-term objective was to reshape Iran in its own image. Mosaddegh’s restrictions on U.S. and British oil assets, combined with his National Front Party’s demands to eliminate foreign influence, created the impression that the current system threatened long-term American interests. In attempting to install a U.S-style system, the U.S. ironically deposed the most democratic, secular government Iran ever had, setting in motion forces that, as Kinzer says, would culminate in the establishment of the Islamic Republic and a strict anti-U.S. agenda.
Kinzer’s central argument is that the 1953 coup reversed Iran’s progress toward secular democracy, returning the country to the authoritarian rule of the Pahlavi dynasty and sowing the seeds for the 1979 Islamist revolution. Kinzer even speculates that if the U.S. had never intervened, a very different Iran would have emerged – one that could have cooperated with the U.S. on shared Middle East interests.
While I agree with Kinzer that the 1953 coup was a flawed operation that backfired on the U.S., I disagree with his argument that the U.S.-engineered coup was the reason U.S.-Iran tensions are so fraught today. While 1953 certainly was a turning point (the coup was traumatizing for Iranians and, naturally, increased anti-U.S. sentiment), it was not the only factor that led to Islamist rule or Iran’s current campaign to expand its influence across the wider Middle East.
Other factors are at play here. Iran’s geography compels the country to compete for influence in the Middle East. Its mountainous terrain and difficulty accessing the Persian Gulf (the narrow Strait of Hormuz makes broader naval exploration difficult) have shaped Iranian interests. It’s why the Safavids, and even the ancient Achaemenid Empire, broadened their reach beyond Persia. In addition, the Zagros Mountains have insulated Iran from much of the rest of the region, making Iran dependent on indirect power to project influence across the Middle East. We can only speculate, but it’s likely that even if Mossadegh remained in power, Iran today would still be seeking westward expansion, possibly by different means.
Kinzer does poignantly demonstrate how the 1953 coup should serve as a lesson about American adventurism abroad. Attacks – economic, political or military – have the power to galvanize anti-U.S. sentiment. However, placing the blame for current U.S.-Iran tensions solely on Operation Ajax disregards the other, major historical forces that have molded Iran and its geopolitical interests into what they are today. It’s a convenient way to explain modern Iran’s complicated geopolitics. Iranians will never forget Mosaddegh’s ouster, just like they won’t forget their loss to the Ottomans at the Battle of Chaldiran or the Iran-Iraq War; an array of forces are always at play in this complex country.
Caroline D. Rose, analyst
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15836/coronavirus-iran-sanctions
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15836/coronavirus-iran-sanctions
Great article.
Still not asked or answered, what was the original virus connection between the Communist China source and the top people at the world's leading state sponsor of terror in Iran?
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https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2020/04/09/Records-show-Iran-lied-about-making-nuclear-weapons-scientists-say/7361586436298/?ts_tn_int=7
https://isis-online.org/uploads/isis-reports/documents/Shahid_Mahallati_April_8_2020_final.pdf
April 9 (UPI) -- A non-profit global science and security group says in a new report that Iran has built a plant to produce nuclear weapons despite its insistence that all its atomic endeavors are wholly peaceful.
The Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Science and International Security said the 30-page report is based on documents from the Iran Nuclear Archive that were seized by Israel two years ago.
The analysis, posted Wednesday, said Tehran has "clearly" been dishonest with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which relies on government cooperation and onsite inspections. "Iran should declare this site to the International Atomic Energy Agency and allow its inspection, since the facility was designed and built to handle nuclear material subject to safeguards under Iran's comprehensive safeguards agreement," wrote scientists David Albright, Sarah Burkhard and Frank Pabian.
The report says Iran created the Shahid Mahallati Uranium Metals Workshop, near Tehran, to research and develop uranium metallurgy related to building nuclear weapons -- particularly components for weapons-grade uranium, the key explosive material in Iranian nuclear weapon cores.
The group said Iran told the IAEA more than four years ago it hadn't done any metallurgical work intended for nuclear weaponry and wasn't willing to discuss any similar activities "that did not have such an application."
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"The activities at Shahid Mahallati and [another plant] Shahid Boroujerdi are a dramatic contrast to that statement," the report added. "Highlighting once again that Iran furthered its nuclear weapons capabilities far more than was known prior to Israel's seizure of the Nuclear Archive, permitting Iran today to build nuclear weapons faster than previously believed.
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https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2020/04/13/now_is_the_time_to_shatter_irans_proxy_forces_115197.html
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Is Iran on the Brink of a Coronavirus Coup?
by A.J. Caschetta
The Hill
April 14, 2020
https://www.meforum.org/60693/is-iran-on-the-brink-of-a-coronavirus-coup
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"We Can't Even Count Anymore" – How Iran and the WHO Let Coronavirus Proliferate
by Potkin Azarmehr
Special to IPT News
April 14, 2020
https://www.investigativeproject.org/8369/we-cant-even-count-anymore-how-iran-and-the-who
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Hopefully the end of both the Mullahs and the ChiComs.
Is Iran on the Brink of a Coronavirus Coup?
by A.J. Caschetta
The Hill
April 14, 2020
https://www.meforum.org/60693/is-iran-on-the-brink-of-a-coronavirus-coup
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"We Can't Even Count Anymore" – How Iran and the WHO Let Coronavirus Proliferate
by Potkin Azarmehr
Special to IPT News
April 14, 2020
https://www.investigativeproject.org/8369/we-cant-even-count-anymore-how-iran-and-the-who
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https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2020/04/13/the-islamic-revolution-vs-donald-trump/
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/iran-uses-the-pandemic-to-further-provocations-in-the-gulf/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR%20Daily%20Monday%20through%20Friday%202020-04-20&utm_term=NRDaily-Smart
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https://www.meforum.org/60713/iran-shows-off-drones-that-can-reach-israel?utm_source=Middle+East+Forum&utm_campaign=ab2eb63c6a-MEF_Frantzman_2020_04_22_01_00&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_086cfd423c-ab2eb63c6a-33691909&goal=0_086cfd423c-ab2eb63c6a-33691909&mc_cid=ab2eb63c6a
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Trump Ups the Ante With Iran in the Persian Gulf
6 MINS READ
Apr 27, 2020 | 10:00 GMT
An Iranian warship takes part in celebrations for “National Persian Gulf Day” in the Strait of Hormuz on April 30, 2019.
An Iranian warship takes part in celebrations for “National Persian Gulf Day” in the Strait of Hormuz on April 30, 2019.
(ATTA KENARE/AFP via Getty Images)
HIGHLIGHTS
Regardless of any public threats made by U.S. President Donald Trump, Iran will likely continue its aggressive maritime strategy in retaliation against U.S. sanctions and Washington's military presence in the Persian Gulf.
To avoid prompting a U.S. response, Tehran may initially focus these efforts on ramping up pressure against commercial targets in the region.
But Iran will eventually return to harassing U.S. naval ships in order to assess how far the White House has shifted its response posture and risk tolerance.
Iran’s nuclear activities and support of militias in Iraq, meanwhile, could still trigger the next spike in U.S.-Iran tensions as well.
Iran and the United States may be heading toward another round of confrontation, even as both countries deal with significant COVID-19 outbreaks at home. Following a recent incident where 11 Iranian ships harassed U.S. vessels transiting the Persian Gulf, U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted April 22 that he had "instructed" the U.S. Navy to destroy any Iranian vessels harassing U.S. ships. It remains unclear the extent to which, if at all, the United States will adjust its rules of engagement in response to Iran's latest maritime provocations. But the exchange highlights how Washington and Tehran’s current hawkish streak and inclination toward public threats could lead to another round of miscalculation and/or escalation between the two rivals.
The Big Picture
Despite COVID-19 and the global economic and humanitarian impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the ongoing rivalry between Iran and the United States continues to simmer. Following the latest spike in tensions in the Persian Gulf, Tehran and Washington could be entering into another cycle of escalation that culminates a short-term flare-up in tensions.
Iran Won't Back Down
Iran is not likely to shy away from maintaining its aggressive strategy in the Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz and Gulf of Oman. For Iran, this approach is effectively indispensable at the current time, both for strategic and defense purposes. Under the weight of U.S. sanctions, Tehran has sought to remind the United States and its regional partners of the economic and security costs of Washington's maximum pressure campaign. And incidents in the Persian Gulf help do just that by illustrating the risk of the United States maintaining a physical presence in the region. Attacking commercial traffic in the Persian Gulf also helps highlight the cost of the White House's anti-Iran strategy to the global economy and U.S. regional partners.
In fact, Iran's actions over the last month show that Iran may be assessing it needs to use this strategy even more. COVID-19 has only worsened Iran's economic crisis, and the United States is now attempting to block Iran's request to the International Monetary Fund for pandemic aid. While Washington has argued that its sanctions do not cover humanitarian-related trade, such as medical supplies and pharmaceuticals, Iran has argued that sanctions are disrupting those flows regardless due to banks and suppliers not wanting to deal with Iran in any fashion for fear of also stoking the White House's financial ire. As a result, many banks and financial institutions have decided that the rewards of doing business with Iran is not worth the risks.
Prior to the most recent harassment of U.S. vessels, there were several incidents in the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman in recent weeks that are likely attributable to Iran. On March 27, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations reported a suspicious approach to one of its vessels in the Persian Gulf. On April 14 — the day before the Pentagon reported that U.S. ships had been harassed — a tanker was boarded in the Gulf of Oman and shifted course toward Iran before being released.
The latest spate of incidents in the Persian Gulf are reminiscent of Iran's activities in the summer of 2019, which ultimately culminated with the attack on Saudi Arabia's Abqaiq and Khurais oil processing facilities. Last year's actions suggest that Iran's tolerance for risk incurred from continuing its activities is high. However, in light of the economic fallout from COVID-19, instead of initially responding by continuing to harass U.S. armed forces' ships, Iran's naval operations may instead focus more on attacking commercial activities, particularly if Iran assesses that Trump's twitter directives are legitimate. In addition, Iran will consider expanding its tactics against commercial interests and the United States in the region beyond just naval harassment, just as it did last summer when it struck Saudi Arabia and ordered its powerful proxy network of Iraqi militia groups to attack U.S. troops in the country.
A Recalculated Maritime Strategy
But at some point in the future, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) will likely challenge Trump's threat in order to assess the extent to which the United States has changed its rules of engagement — especially if Trump is re-elected in November. In practice, the IRGC has a large gradient of activities that could be defined as harassing U.S. ships and would likely scale up its response from a low level. Nevertheless, even if Iran does not want to trigger a major response, the strategy is rife with the risk of miscalculations.
With the price of Brent crude at around $20 per barrel and the global oil market oversupplied by as much as 20 to 30 million barrels per day, Iran's lever in attempting to close the Strait of Hormuz or knock out a significant amount of Saudi Arabian or Emirati oil production for several months simply will not have the same global economic consequences that it would during normal global economic conditions, which could allow the United States to be more aggressive.
Washington and Tehran’s current hawkish streak and inclination toward public threats could lead to another round of miscalculation and/or escalation between the two rivals in the Persian Gulf.
On top of the COVID-19 crisis, an aggressive campaign by Iran against commercial interests in the region will cause considerable economic pain for U.S. allies in the region, such as Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Iran has shown that it is willing to attack economic targets in these nearby countries, as well as vessels shipping their energy products. Even if Iran does not launch an attack, a more aggressive U.S. strategy against Iran during the current global economic environment and fragile situation in the Middle East could thus drive a further wedge between the United States and its regional allies. Indeed, Iran's attacks last year ultimately led, at least for a short-time period, to members of the Gulf Cooperation Council trying to defuse tensions with Iran themselves and more Iranian aggression could reopen another such period of potential rapprochement.
One of Several Flashpoints
Nevertheless, while Trump's tweet and Iran's recent maritime activities represent another flashpoint, Iran's nuclear program and the actions of Iranian-backed militias in Iraq remain perhaps the two most incendiary triggers for the next round of escalation between Washington and Tehran. Iran's nuclear program continues to stockpile more low-enriched uranium and the next report from the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency – likely to be out in June – is expected to show a significant increase in those stockpiles.
The United States has a critical decision to make at the end of the month on whether or not it will extend sanctions waivers for Iraq to continue importing Iranian natural gas for its domestic energy and electricity needs. If the current waivers are not extended, Iraq could be facing severe power shortages as the summer heats up, providing even more reason for Iranian-backed militias to target U.S. troops and trigger a wider proxy conflict in the country.
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second post
How the U.S. Could End the Iran Nuclear Deal Once and for All
By JAMES S. ROBBINS
April 28, 2020 4:59 PM
Though the Trump administration has already withdrawn from the deal, there is still a clear path to scuttling it at the U.N.
Is the United States still a participant in the Iran nuclear deal? Well, yes and no.
The U.S. is seeking to maintain an international conventional-arms embargo on Iran that’s set to expire in October. The embargo was included in the enabling resolutions that the United Nations Security Council passed as part of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), otherwise known as the Iran nuclear deal. Its restrictions on small-arms sales to Iran expire this year, with its ban on the sale of missile parts and other weapons extending another three years.
The State Department is promoting a new Security Council resolution that would extend the embargo indefinitely, which is certain to face opposition from Russia or China, both of whom have veto power. It would be smarter to simply activate the “snapback” mechanism in the JCPOA, restoring the entire pre-agreement U.N. sanctions regime and killing the deal for good.
Critics might object that President Trump withdrew the United States from the JCPOA two years ago, so Washington has no standing to engage its snapback provision. But it’s not that simple.
The Obama administration could have tried to craft a binding, entirely self-contained multilateral treaty, which would be more clear-cut — a country would either be a signatory to the treaty or not. But Obama’s team knew it lacked the influence to craft a deal that the U.S. Senate would approve as a formal treaty, or even the minimal political clout to change the existing sanctions regime. So instead negotiators came up with what amounted to an executive agreement to use temporary loopholes in existing U.S. law to lift American sanctions, and crafted an omnibus 104-page Security Council resolution, UNSCR 2231, to clean things up on the U.N. side. And whatever the status of the JCPOA, UNSCR 2231 is still operative, and the United States, as a U.N. member state, is still a participant in it.
There are several ways in which the JCPOA can self-destruct under UNSCR 2231. Article 26 tells us that Iran would consider the re-introduction of sanctions “as grounds to cease performing its commitments under this JCPOA in whole or in part.” The United States has already re-imposed sanctions, and Iran has been enriching uranium well beyond the limits of the agreement, meaning both conditions for the deal’s destruction have been met.
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Article 10, meanwhile, notes one means of resolution, in which any “JCPOA participant State” can bring a complaint. Critics claim this means that the U.S. can’t scuttle the JCPOA, because it is no longer such a participant state. But that’s not quite right, either. The dispute-resolution mechanism detailed in Article 36 allows “any of the E3/EU+3,” including the U.S., to refer a case of “significant non-performance” of duties under the JCPOA to a Joint Commission and Advisory Board for a series of reviews over 30 days. If the “complaining participant” is not satisfied with the outcome of this process, it may “notify the UN Security Council that it believes the issue constitutes significant non-performance.”
5
Here is the beautiful part: Once that notification occurs, Article 37 gives the Security Council 30 days to consider a resolution to “continue the sanctions lifting” — i.e. to leave the deal in place. If it fails to pass such a resolution in that time period, “the provisions of the old UN Security Council resolutions would be re-imposed.” This is the so-called “snap back” that we have heard so much about. And because it kicks in automatically unless the Security Council passes a continuing resolution, the veto power that Russia and China hold as permanent Security Council members is irrelevant, and the veto power that the U.S. similarly holds is decisive.
The United States has every right under UNSCR 2231 to bring the matter of Iranian non-compliance to the Joint Commission. For that matter, Iran could file a complaint against the United States on the same grounds. The fact that Iran has not yet done so tells us that it knows where that process would lead, and is a great argument for the U.S. to start the clock ticking immediately. Presented with a poison pill, pro-Iranian members of the Security Council may decide that extending the current arms embargo is the lesser of two evils. But either way, the Trump administration will win.
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The Real Threats Behind Iran's Military Satellite Launch
by Potkin Azarmehr
IPT News
May 1, 2020
https://www.investigativeproject.org/8387/the-real-threats-behind-iran-military-satellite
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http://carolineglick.com/the-final-days-of-the-iran-nuclear-deal/
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Jonathan Schanzer: Iranian Missiles "Likely to Be the Cause of the Middle East's Next War"
by Gary C. Gambill
May 12, 2020
https://www.meforum.org/60908/schanzer-the-cause-of-the-middle-easts-next-war
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https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/25/the-twilight-of-the-iranian-revolution?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Magazine_Daily_052520&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_medium=email&bxid=5be9d3fa3f92a40469e2d85c&cndid=50142053&hasha=52f016547a40edbdd6de69b8a7728bbf&hashb=e02b3c0e6e0f3888e0288d6e52a57eccde1bfd75&hashc=9aab918d394ee25f13d70b69b378385abe4212016409c8a7a709eca50e71c1bc&esrc=Auto_Subs&utm_term=TNY_Daily
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For Iran, a US Withdrawal Is a Blessing and a Curse
By: Caroline D. Rose
Next month, a U.S. delegation will board a plane to Baghdad to discuss with Iraqi leaders the prospect of reducing Washington’s military footprint on Iraqi soil. It would have been an unthinkable idea at the beginning of the year, when U.S.-Iran tensions came to a head after the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, the leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Even then, the Iraqi parliament voted on a bill that would have sent the U.S. packing had it ever been executed. But where the parliament failed, the coronavirus pandemic, a mounting recession and global uncertainty may succeed in getting Washington to withdraw from the region – something it had tacitly wanted to do anyway, at least on its own terms – more quickly. Ready and waiting to capitalize on its departure is Iran.
Despite Iran’s own problems in managing the coronavirus outbreak, its foreign policy seems to be having a moment in the sun. Over the past three months, the IRGC and its Shiite proxies have taken advantage of the international distraction and Washington’s absence to launch successive attacks on American targets. Indeed, it appears as though Iran is getting what it wants: a path to project power in the Levant. But it won’t be that easy for the IRGC. U.S. force reduction will not necessarily translate to sanctions relief or give way to an unobstructed march to the Mediterranean. Plenty of constraints remain, even in the absence of the U.S.
(click to enlarge)
Cutting the Cord
Since 1979, the Levant, particularly Iraq, has been a battleground for political and military influence in the Middle East. Boxed in by the Zagros Mountains and with difficult maritime access due to the Strait of Hormuz, Iran crafted a policy by which it projects power abroad primarily through proxy forces to its west. And since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the United States has stood in its way.
Fast-forward to 2020. As the world tried to make sense of the ongoing pandemic, Iran resumed its attacks on the U.S. and its anti-Islamic State coalition partners. Just this week, the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad’s Green Zone was struck by a rocket, very likely launched by an IRGC-aligned militia. Iran also upped the ante in the Persian Gulf. In April, 11 Iranian fast boats harassed a warship from the U.S. 5th Fleet, edging so close that the U.S. threaten to shoot the Iranian ships out of the water if they came within 100 meters again. U.S. aggression has proved almost entirely rhetorical. Washington has long wanted to leave; Iranian attacks and a global viral outbreak gave it an excuse to cut the cord. The Pentagon thus began pulling forces from coalition bases, reducing troop counts or withdrawing altogether. In just four months, the U.S. has drawn down from more than five bases, including the strategically important base in al-Qaim, which straddles the Syria-Iraq border.
And instead of beefing up American operational presence in the Persian Gulf – something you may expect to happen in the wake of maritime provocations – the Pentagon signaled a large-scale plan that actually reduces the official number of overall personnel in the region, and is reportedly considering scaling down the 5th Fleet’s presence in the Persian Gulf by one aircraft carrier strike group, withdrawing two Patriot missile defense systems, air defense systems and jet fighters from Saudi Arabia, while mulling a reduction in the Multinational Force and Observers peacekeeping mission in the Sinai Peninsula.
Iran has acted quickly to increase its military hold in Iraq and Syria, beefing up its defensive presence and smuggling capabilities along the al-Qaim highway. Recent satellite imagery from ImageSat International shows an Iranian tunnel project under the Imam Ali military base in Abu Kamal, Syria, on the Syria-Iraq border. Tunnels between pro-Iran proxy strongholds in western Iraq and IRGC locations in eastern Syria strengthen Iran’s strategy to expand its influence west, allowing IRGC forces and their proxies to store vehicles, shelter personnel, transport advanced weapon systems, and smuggle arms from the east to the Mediterranean.
(click to enlarge)
Related, Iran has been engaging more in the Israel-Palestine conflict. With reduced American presence in Sinai – the traditional buffer between Israel and Arab countries – Iran has begun rallying Palestinian militant groups such as Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, both sympathetic to Iran, to confront Israel, all while increasing its own military exchanges with Israel through Hezbollah and cyberattacks on Israeli water installations.
Remaining Challenges
And yet, Iran isn’t without challenges. In light of the drawdown, Saudi Arabia, for example, has begun to rethink its Iran strategy. With an oil price crisis, creeping global recession and sudden withdrawal of Patriot systems, Riyadh wants to find a quick, cost-effective way to keep Iranian aggression at bay. Saudi officials have therefore sanctioned talks with Iran, with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman nominating Iraq’s new prime minister to act as mediator. Even so, discussions between the two have long proved fruitless, and diplomacy should be seen only as a measure of first resort. Indeed, Riyadh has already made plans to replace the two U.S. Patriots with its own missile defense system, increase military training exercises with U.S. advisers and secure a Boeing contract of 1,000 air-to-surface and anti-ship missiles – all to curb Iranian attacks.
Israel, too, will be one of Iran’s largest impediments. Already it has increased strikes on IRGC and Hezbollah equipment storage locations and bases in Syria by sevenfold. It has also intensified its border patrols, destruction of cross-border tunnels, and cyberattacks on Iranian entities. This week alone, Israel conducted a cyberattack on Iran’s Shadi Rajaee port facility, causing a major backlog in terminal arrivals and maritime traffic. With reduced U.S. presence in the Levant, Israel will likely up the ante in attacks on IRGC factions in Syria and Lebanon. (Notably, Israel and the Arab Gulf states have entered a quiet alliance against Iran, sharing intelligence and engaging in back-channel talks.)
Just as daunting are the internal challenges Iran will face in sustaining the political and military influence it’s built in the region. Since the fall of 2019, massive political movements have emerged in Lebanon and Iraq protesting economic conditions, unemployment, corruption and rising inflation. A key feature of these protests has been mounting resentment of foreign interference – particularly by the U.S. military and Iranian proxies. In Iraq, elements of the nationalist Sadrist movement have been especially loud in their opposition to Iran, with some even attacking Iranian consulate buildings and IRGC-sponsored militia headquarters. In Lebanon, much of the anti-Iran sentiment has been directed at Hezbollah, a major beneficiary of Iranian political, military and financial support (even though sanctions have put a dent in aid in recent years). With the U.S. withdrawn, protesters will hone in on Iranian intrusion even more.
Syria is perhaps even more problematic. The country has been one of Iran’s strongest Arab allies for decades, and its presence in Syria depends overwhelmingly on President Bashar Assad remaining in power. There are signs, however, that Iran is struggling to keep influence there. Rumors have begun to circulate that Russian President Vladimir Putin, another staunch Assad ally, is unhappy with the Syrian government. Since 2015, Moscow has helped Assad stay in power, providing aid, airpower and infrastructural investment that has allowed the regime to regain a majority of rebel-held provinces. If Russia decides its gambit in Syria is no longer worth the cost, either withdrawing its forces or looking to an alternative source of power to unify the country, Iran is at risk of losing its proxy influence in Syria.
Then there is the U.S., which will still have plenty of in-theater capabilities in the Middle East. The U.S. 5th Fleet and air defenses aren’t going anywhere. The Air Force still maintains multiple squadrons of fighter jets in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and other undisclosed locations. And though the U.S. is reducing its physical footprint in the Middle East, it will increase its reliance on economic statecraft – sanctions, oil embargoes and foreign aid – as its primary mechanism to pressure Iran into financial and political collapse. Washington has already proposed extending the U.N. arms embargo on Iran, plans to sanction Iranian officials and companies that support the Assad regime under the Caesar Act, and is considering a blockade on Iran-Venezuela mutual assistance over recent Iranian oil shipments.
So while Iran may seem well suited to take the reins of the Middle East when the U.S. is away, the reality is more difficult. Its recession has gotten worse. Oil exports have crashed. The rial has been put on life support. The cost of living has skyrocketed. And there is a network of enemies and tenuous friendships that stand in its path to the Mediterranean. The U.S. departure from the Middle East may not create a proverbial power vacuum, but it will dramatically shift the regional balance of power in ways that will constrain Iran.
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Iran’s Pre-Deal Deceptions
Tehran denies U.N. inspectors access to two nuclear sites.
By The Editorial Board
June 9, 2020 7:19 pm ET
The Islamic Republic long has been deceitful about its nuclear ambitions, but for years the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has given the regime cover in public. Maybe not anymore.
“The Agency notes with serious concern that, for over four months, Iran has denied access to” two sites in the country, says an IAEA report sent to member states Friday and shown to the press. It adds that for nearly a year the Islamic Republic has failed to clarify “questions related to possible undeclared nuclear material and nuclear-related activities.”
The IAEA is particularly concerned about the location of an undeclared metal disk made of uranium and the use of other undisclosed nuclear material for research in the early 2000s. The report notes Tehran’s habit of scrubbing or destroying facilities.
The foundation of Barack Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal was ostensibly an honest accounting of Iran’s nuclear misdeeds. Yet the report, and Tehran’s intransigence, make clear the country has been hiding nuclear facilities and material. The evidence raises anew the suspicion that the regime’s plan was to reap the accord’s economic rewards, then—assisted by hidden materials and research—move to produce a weapon once the deal’s restrictions expire.
A separate IAEA report sent Friday noted that Iran had increased its uranium stockpile, though the government has stopped short of weapons-grade enrichment. On June 1 Tehran also told the agency it was now preparing new centrifuges at the Natanz facility, after it began injecting uranium gas into Fordow’s centrifuges last year.
Critics of President Trump’s “maximum-pressure” sanctions say the violations prove the strategy has failed. But this is an expected response to increased economic pressure. Tehran’s escalations are calculated to scare other signatories without pushing them out of the 2015 deal. Mr. Trump has generated significant new leverage to renegotiate a new nuclear accord that also addresses the regime’s regional activity and missile program.
But it’s unlikely Iran will act before the 2020 U.S. presidential election. It’s no secret Tehran wants Mr. Trump to lose. Iranian hackers have targeted the President’s re-election campaign, according to Google and Microsoft. And Joe Biden has said he would re-enter the 2015 nuclear deal before pursuing a new agreement.
No matter who wins, it would be unwise to throw away the new leverage built by maximum pressure. And it would be downright foolish to ease sanctions on Iran amid its IAEA dispute. The nuclear watchdog’s frank report should startle both candidates. There’s no way to negotiate a new deal, or return to the old one, without a real accounting of the country’s nuclear materials and research.
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https://pjmedia.com/columns/p-david-hornik/2020/07/07/report-in-devastating-blow-israel-sets-back-irans-nuke-program-two-years-n610794
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https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/total-iranian-intelligence-breakdown-analysis-634605
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https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/explosions-power-outages-reported-near-tehran-634574
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https://americanmilitarynews.com/2020/07/video-at-least-7-iranian-ships-on-fire-latest-in-pattern-of-unexplained-fires/?utm_source=breaking_email&utm_campaign=breaking_mailchimp&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Master+List&utm_campaign=9940fed239-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_07_15_03_33&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_9c4ef113e0-9940fed239-61658629&mc_cid=9940fed239
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16224/iran-nuclear-rewards
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16261/iran-maximum-pressure
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Recommended to me by a highly knowledgeable peron:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/07/the-explosions-rocking-iran.php
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The U.S. ‘Snaps Back’ at Iran and the U.N. With Restored Sanctions
4 MINS READ
Aug 21, 2020 | 18:16 GMT
HIGHLIGHTS
Iran will wait until after U.S. elections to decide whether to withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in response to the United States' move to restore all U.N. sanctions. Europe, China and Russia, meanwhile, will forgo any large arms sales to Iran due to the expanded sanctions risk, despite not officially recognizing the U.S. action. On Aug. 20, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo notified the United Nations that the U.S. government was "snapping back" all sanctions on Iran, citing Tehran's significant non-compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal. The letter comes nearly a week after the U.N. Security Council rejected Washington's proposed resolution to indefinitely extend the U.N. arms embargo on Iran. Only the Dominican Republic sided with the United States on extending the arms embargo, which is currently set to expire on Oct. 18....
Iran will wait until after U.S. elections to decide whether to withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in response to the United States' move to restore all U.N. sanctions. Europe, China and Russia, meanwhile, will forgo any large arms sales to Iran due to the expanded sanctions risk, despite not officially recognizing the U.S. action.
What Happened
On Aug. 20, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo notified the United Nations that the U.S. government was "snapping back" all sanctions on Iran, citing Tehran's significant non-compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal. The letter comes nearly a week after the U.N. Security Council rejected Washington's proposed resolution to indefinitely extend the U.N. arms embargo on Iran. Only the Dominican Republic sided with the United States on extending the arms embargo, which is currently set to expire on Oct. 18.
In order to restore U.N. sanctions on Iran, the United States is making the controversial argument that it remains a "participant state" to the JCPOA, despite formally withdrawing from the deal in 2018. Washington claims that because of this, it still has the authority to bypass the deal's dispute resolution mechanism and trigger the snapback sanctions process under U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231, should it believe Iran is demonstrating "significant nonperformance" in adhering to the terms of the agreement.
The U.N. Security Council's other permanent members — France, Germany, Russia and the United Kingdom — have opposed this justification, arguing the United States relinquished its authority to unilaterally trigger such sanctions when Washington announced that it was "ceasing [its] participation in the JCPOA" in May 2018.
What It Means for Iran and Its Partners
While its rhetoric against the United States will be harsh, Iran will restrain its response to the new U.S. sanctions for fear of alienating Europe and a potential new U.S. administration. Rather than having the United States re-enter the JCPOA entirely, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden would likely instead focus on securing an initial agreement with modest sanctions relief for Iran, setting the stage for a longer process of talks to cover more contentious issues, such as nuclear enrichment and Tehran's missile programs. But extreme actions by Iran before the U.S. election in November, such as withdrawing from either the JCPOA or the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, would make launching outreach with a Biden administration far more difficult. Such drastic moves would also risk pushing Europe toward the United States, and could potentially prompt European countries to trigger the snapback sanctions themselves. In the interim, Iran is thus likely to announce a more modest response in line with the incremental moves it's made over the last two years following Washington's previous sanctions threats, such as resuming additional nuclear activities barred by the JCPOA.
Russia and China may still be willing to sign some defense deals with Iran, but they will be narrow in scope and largely only cover sales not included in the U.N. arms embargo, such as missile defense systems. Even sales that are allowed to go through will be selective, as Moscow and Beijing seek to avoid undue escalation in the Middle East that could alienate their relationships with Israel and Arab Gulf monarchies. Technology transfer and cooperation to help Iran continue to build its own domestic defense capabilities will still occasionally occur, but Tehran's financial isolation and limited resources will ultimately constrain its ability to buy large weapons systems from China and Russia.
Even if the U.N. arms embargo expires in October, Russian and Chinese defense companies will be concerned about U.S. sanctions cutting off their access to international financial transactions. Russian and Chinese banks and other financial institutions will also avoid processing any defense-related transactions due to similar concerns.
Both China and Russia have publicly opposed U.S. sanctions on Iran's oil sector, but most of their companies have still been careful to keep their business ties to Iran below the level that would trigger such sanctions.
Under the threat of expanded U.S. sanctions, Russia and China will be willing to transfer some technology components that could be embedded in Iranian military platforms. Such transactions, however, will likely be narrow enough to ensure they can be done covertly in order to avoid catching Washington's attention.
While sales of larger systems (such as fighter jets) to Iran are unlikely, defense agreements with Russia and China that have long delivery dates — and dates that can be delayed indefinitely — are possible as a symbolic show of support.
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16437/iran-us-bomb-target
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16437/iran-us-bomb-target
And vice versa.
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https://freebeacon.com/national-security/iran-caught-stockpiling-enriched-uranium-needed-for-bomb/
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October 2, 2020 View On Website
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Iran’s Nuclear Dilemma
For many Iranians, the nuclear program is a key part of restoring the country’s past glory.
By: Hilal Khashan
Nationalism is a powerful force in Iran's political consciousness. But in recent centuries, military defeats, external occupations and foreign interference have tempered its citizens’ sense of historical and cultural pride. One of the more recent examples of foreign meddling is Operation Ajax, a U.S. plot to take down Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953 after he nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and replace him with the shah. This event registered as an example of Western domination and helped motivate Iranians to reclaim their past glory.
The Iranian nuclear program is a continuation of this long-standing endeavor. Iranians, regardless of their political leanings, believe becoming a nuclear power is part of their national redemption story. They argue that they are surrounded by enemies who have violated their territorial integrity time and again. Even if they accept a new political deal that restricts their nuclear activity, they likely won’t abandon their goal of becoming a nuclear power altogether.
The Evolution of the Nuclear Program
During the Cold War, the United States considered the shah a component of its Soviet containment strategy. Iran, which saw the Soviet Union as its main security concern outside its own borders, was strategically located, forming with Turkey) the northern tier that would prevent the Soviet Union from encroaching on the oil-rich Persian Gulf. The shah recognized benefits of partnering with Washington. As part of President Dwight Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace program, Iran signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with the U.S. in 1957. In 1959, the shah ordered the establishment of a nuclear research center at Tehran University, and nine years later, Iran’s U.S.-provided 5MW atomic reactor became operational. With Anglo-American backing, he sought to make Iran a regional power and the security broker of the Persian Gulf.
The shah secured technical expertise and enriched uranium to establish Iran’s nuclear program. Until his ouster in 1979, Iran collaborated with the U.S., France, India, Argentina, South Africa and Germany to help build the Bushehr nuclear reactor. The shah spent $6 billion to construct nuclear facilities and planned to spend another $30 billion to build 20 nuclear reactors. The annual budget of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, which he founded in 1974, totaled $1.3 billion, second only to the National Iranian Oil Company. Even though Iran signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Agreement in 1968, there was no doubt that the shah’s ultimate goal was to develop nuclear weapons.
Many Iranians, especially poorer rural folks who migrated to cities during the shah’s economic modernization campaign, saw no point in squandering the country’s oil resources on such an outlandish project. After the revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, citing Islamic jurisprudence’s view that manufacturing atomic weapons is immoral, ordered the dismantling of the country’s nuclear program and allowed Iranian scientists to emigrate to foreign countries.
Khomeini seemed convinced that his revolution would soon spread throughout the Islamic world. He and the mullahs in Tehran did not expect Iraq to invade in September 1980, despite the fact that Iran had been provoking Iraq by planting explosives, launching cross-border shelling, attempting to assassinate senior officials, and encouraging Shiites to overthrow the Baathist regime. After they saw the damage weapons of mass destruction could do in the Iran-Iraq War, leaders came to regret dismantling the nuclear program and purging the armed forces after the revolution, both of which weakened the country against Iraq. They concluded that they must create a deterrent military capability consisting of conventional arms and weapons of mass destruction.
The war bloodied Iran, ravaged its economy and engendered a determination among the elite to acquire nuclear technology. Iran emerged militarily weak and had difficulty replenishing its depleted conventional military hardware with modern equipment. It sought to accelerate its nuclear program to achieve a deterrent capability and expand its ballistic missile program to offset a lack of sophisticated aircraft.
In 1989, Iran and the Soviet Union signed their first atomic deal. And in 1993, after Germany declined to resume the construction of the Bushehr nuclear reactor, Boris Yeltsin announced that Russia would complete it. Since the 1990s, however, the Iranians have toned down their public push for nuclear capabilities, recognizing that the international community is hell-bent on preventing Iran from acquiring an atomic bomb.
Motivations
Iran says that its nuclear ambitions are driven by a need for energy security, but considering the country’s enormous oil and gas deposits, that argument is unconvincing. (The cost of generating electricity from these supplies is less than 20 percent of the cost of generating electricity from nuclear power.) In truth, Iran believes it needs to become a nuclear power in order to be seen as an equal of one of its rivals, Israel. It also wants to improve its strategic outlook relative to Turkey, Central Asia and Pakistan. Iran borders hostile countries in Central Asia and shares porous borders with Pakistan in Baluchistan, and it believes that the best way to keep them at bay is by acquiring nuclear capabilities.
For the Iranian people, history goes a long way in explaining the need for a nuclear program. Since the rise of the Safavid dynasty in 1501, Iran has felt isolated. The defining Battle of Chaldrian in 1514, in which the Ottomans soundly defeated the Persian army, shocked the Safavids and created a perennial security complex for them. Then, after a series of defeats at the hands of czarist Russia, Iran lost Transcaucasia to the Russians following the signing of the 1819 Treaty of Gulistan. In the 20th century, Iran’s strategic vulnerability became worse after an uneven encounter with Russia and Great Britain.
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Iranians thus view their modern history as a history laden with defeat and abuse at the hands of foreign powers. They remember the 1890 tobacco concession deal in which Nasir al-Din Shah gave a British company a monopoly over the country’s tobacco industry for a ludicrously low price, and the 1901 D’Arcy concession that gave a British businessman the right to dominate the country’s oil industry. They also remember the Russian occupation of Tabriz in 1908. Iranians believe acquiring nuclear weapons would protect the country against future foreign meddling in their domestic affairs.
For Iran’s ruling conservatives, the nuclear program is necessary to maintain the country’s regional standing. They realize that the legitimacy Iran garnered through Khomeini’s revolution is eroding and believe the nuclear standoff with the U.S. is providing the regime with a new source of legitimacy.
U.S. and Israeli Concerns
Israel is adamant that it will not allow the Iranian nuclear program to continue. Over the past few years, agents apparently associated with Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency assassinated four Iranian scientists and wounded one more. Last July, a mysterious explosion caused by either a bomb or cyberattack destroyed a centrifuge workshop producing enriched uranium at the Natanz nuclear facility, 200 miles south of Tehran. Even though Iran has pledged to rebuild the plant deep inside the mountains, it was a major setback for the Iranian nuclear program that would require at least two years to overcome.
In May 2018, the U.S. withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal and reinstated crippling sanctions on the country. President Donald Trump believes the sanctions will force Iran to dismantle its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and end its support for its proxies throughout the Middle East. But Iran is too invested to back down. Iranians have seen their country withstand many challenges in the past and seem to believe that they will persevere again.
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Answering the Question of Iran
The U.S. can’t truly leave Iraq without dealing with Iran.
By: Allison Fedirka
Earlier this week, the U.S. special representative for Iran said Washington would keep putting additional pressure on Iran in the days and weeks ahead. He also said that Iran had reached a moment where it recognized it could not indefinitely withstand such pressure and would have to either sign a new nuclear deal with Washington or abandon its regional strategy – that is, using proxies to carve out a sphere of influence to the Mediterranean Sea. The U.S. and Iran spar verbally all the time – and sometimes violently – but there’s reason to believe there’s bite behind Washington’s barks, and that tensions may soon intensify again.
The U.S. wants to reduce its global military footprint, especially in the Middle East, as it pivots to the Indo-Pacific. The ideal outcome would be a light security presence in certain hotspots that can be quickly scaled up in case of emergency. Though Washington has already done much in that regard, Iran’s presence in Iraq complicates the withdrawal. The U.S. doesn’t want to leave a country it has been at war with for nearly 20 years just to see Iran gain more political and security control there than it already had. Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, moreover, threaten to destabilize the region, and an unstable region will be more difficult to vacate. Squaring away the U.S. military departure from Iraq along with the Iraqi economy’s reconstruction efforts means finding a way to reduce the threat of Iranian influence. In other words, time is winding down to settle the status of Iran.
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In light of an uptick in rocket attacks conducted by Iran-backed Shiite militias against U.S. targets, there are now signals coming out of Iraq suggesting what the U.S. plan is. A strong military response by the U.S. is a nonstarter; it would be counterproductive to withdrawal efforts. But Washington can use political pressure, economic incentives and smaller-scale security moves to support Baghdad cracking down on the militias. For example, Washington appears ready to follow through on its threat to relocate its embassy in the Green Zone if security there remains suspect. There were also reports from Kurdistan late last week that U.S. coalition airstrikes against the Islamic State in northern Syria also hit targets belonging to the Popular Mobilization Forces, the loose collection of Iraq’s Shiite militias, in Anbar province. (The PMF initially confirmed the story but later denied it.)
Baghdad seems to have acquiesced to U.S. demands. Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi called for the creation of a military and security commission to investigate the recent rocket attacks, particularly those targeting U.S. assets. National Security Adviser Qasim al-Araji will oversee the investigation and report results directly back to the prime minister in 30 days. However, curbing Iranian influence among Iraqi militant groups will rely on the Iraqi federal government’s ability to stand on its own against militias sympathetic or financially beholden to Tehran – something the Iraqi government has been unable to do thus far.
Meanwhile, there are signs that Israel, a critical ally in the U.S. coalition against Iran, is also increasing pressure on Tehran. It has taken more responsibility for military strikes against Iranian proxy forces, largely because they are positioned along Israel’s borders. Just last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia, of maintaining a missile storage facility in a suburb of Beirut, which, if true, could lead to an Israeli attack. (Tactically, Israel is in a tough spot. It cannot afford to sit idly by, but attacking a site such as the one Netanyahu identified would cause mass civilian casualties and all but guarantee war.) For its part, Lebanon is trying to maintain the status quo with Israel, as evidenced by its agreement to reengage with U.S.-mediated maritime and land border talks. But talks have broken down before, and there’s no guarantee that these won’t either.
Two other developments together suggest that a move against Iran may be near. The French Foreign Ministry announced Oct. 1 that the European-led maritime surveillance mission’s mandate to operate in the Strait of Hormuz has been extended through 2021. Though the mission is not directly part of the U.S. pressure campaign and these waters have been relatively quiet in the past few months, that the statement was made at all shows that the potential for escalation still exists.
More directly related is the Oct. 6 statement from an official of Iran’s Ministry of Economic Affairs and Finance that Tehran was struggling to pay overtime, bonuses and pensions. The government had been selling surplus properties to acquire the needed funds to make ends meet, but the parliament temporarily stopped the practice on legal grounds. Whatever the case may be, the government is clearly hurting financially, and though it has the tools to temper public unrest, political patronage and protection come much easier with a fuller treasury.
It’s not entirely clear what more, if anything, the U.S. has in store for its maximum pressure campaign against Iran. Washington relied nearly exclusively on economic and diplomatic sanctions lately, so much so that it’s hard to imagine what else is left to sanction. It’s also unclear if Israel is truly prepared to move on Iran beyond airstrikes in Syria – or what would have to shift to change Israel’s mind. What is clear is that the U.S. has to settle the Iran question before it vacates Iraq, and that in the meantime, the Iranian people will bear the brunt of the suffering.
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November 13, 2020
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US Sanctions on Iran in 2020
By: Geopolitical Futures
(click to enlarge)
As a part of the Trump administration’s maximum pressure campaign against Iran, the U.S. government has imposed new sanctions on Iran throughout 2020. The sanctions were aimed at forcing Tehran to give up its nuclear ambitions, end support for its proxy forces in Iraq, Lebanon and Syria, and halt its efforts to become a major Middle East military power. The campaign has primarily targeted Iran’s oil industry (last year, 30 percent of the government budget relied on petroleum exports), but also non-oil sectors like shipping, finance and banking, arms and the Iranian cyber program.
The sanctions have exacerbated Iran’s ongoing recession, causing its gross domestic product growth to plummet and the currency to reach record lows. This week, the State Department’s special representative to Iran and Venezuela, Eliot Abrams, announced that the U.S. plans to impose more sanctions on Iran every week until Jan. 20 when a new administration takes office, in an effort to dissuade any future effort to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
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https://www.nationalreview.com/news/rush-limbaugh-trumps-legal-team-promised-blockbuster-stuff-and-then-nothing-happened/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR%20Daily%20Monday%20through%20Friday%202020-11-23&utm_term=NRDaily-Smart
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wrong thread?
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Yup, let's try again:
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/11/stubborn-facts-facing-biden-on-iran/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR%20Daily%20Monday%20through%20Friday%202020-11-23&utm_term=NRDaily-Smart
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always a big mouth lib under every crack nook and cranny
https://www.axios.com/israeli-military-prepares-trump-iran-0d0a5725-c410-4f5c-a0ea-9c6f9add4966.html
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before DJT leaves the WH
not sure what next is in store
may be big though:
https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/iranian-nuclear-scientist-assassinated-near-tehran-report-650457
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...
https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/iranian-nuclear-scientist-assassinated-near-tehran-report-650457
Israel has done good work on this front. Who knows what happened in this case.
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https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/iranian-nuclear-scientist-assassinated-near-tehran-report-650457
Israel has done good work on this front. Who knows what happened in this case.
https://nypost.com/2020/11/29/irans-mohsen-fakhrizadeh-killed-hit-squad-report-says/
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An Extremely Puzzling Assassination
by Potkin Azarmehr
IPT News
December 1, 2020
https://www.investigativeproject.org/8648/an-extremely-puzzling-assassination
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Iranian state media was suspiciously quick to report and show images of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh's killing.
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, said to be Iran's senior-most nuclear scientist, was assassinated Nov. 27. Iranian media announced Fakhrizadeh had been killed within 30 minutes of the attack.
It is unprecedented for Iranian state media to acknowledge an incident of this gravity so quickly. Fakhrizadeh was a mysterious figure who was rarely seen or photographed in public but the reports of his death quickly included several pictures of him never seen previously, as if they were ready to announce the news.
Moreover, the regime's rapidly changing and improbable narratives of how he died, cast doubts on anything that has previously been officially stated about Fakhrizadeh.
The flurry of rapidly changing and even contradictory narratives put out by the Iranian regime and top officials raise doubts about who killed Fakhrizadeh and why. Iran's past record of falsely blaming internal killings on Israelis and the CIA, or its pattern of complete silence, denial and Internet shut downs when other alleged acts of "terrorism" occur only add to the questions about this man's death.
For seasoned Iran watchers, the pattern of contradictory narratives to hide the real truth is a familiar one. It happened when Iran shot down Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 and would not immediately acknowledge its own missiles hit the plane. It happened last month when a top al-Qaida official was assassinated in Tehran, but the mullahs denied it ever happened.
In 2012, Iran tried to frame Majid Jamali Fashi as an Israeli spy who murdered the Iranian quantum field theorist Masoud Alimohammadi, who likely was killed by an Iranian government hitman. The Iranians similarly framed Mazyar Ebrahimi as an Israeli assassin for killing other Iranian nuclear scientists when he says he was tortured into a confession.
Judging by the regime's previous track record in situations of such high sensitivity, one would have expected the internet to be shut down within minutes of Fakhrizadeh's death. But pictures and videos of the scene were also immediately posted online by eyewitnesses without any security prevention or interference.
The killing quickly became headline news around the world, with the narrative that yet another "Iranian nuclear scientist" was assassinated by a foreign secret service agency, likely to be the Israelis. To back this conclusion, the mainstream media all pointed to the fact that the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had mentioned Fakhrizadeh by name three times in 2018 while unveiling Iran's nuclear archive, which Israel shipped out from a secret outpost in Tehran's outskirts. "Remember his name," Netanyahu said.
Who was Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, full name Mohsen Fakhrizadeh Mahabad, and what exactly happened in Absard, 70 kilometers east of Tehran, in this green picturesque small town with its yellowish hills overlooking the Alborz mountains?
Little is known about Fakhrizadeh's life before 1979. He was born in 1957, in the religious city of Qom, the main hub of Iran's Shia seminaries.
After the 1979 revolution, he obtained a Master's degree in solid state physics from Khajeh Nassir Toosi University of Technology in Tehran.
He then got involved with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and various military and defense projects. Since 2005-2006, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had asked to interview Fakhrizadeh, but Iran refused to make him available.
A UN Security Council resolution in 2007 identified him as a senior scientist in Iran's Ministry of Defense and Logistic of Armed Forces and as the former head of the Physics Research Center (PHRC) at Lavizan-Shian, an alleged undeclared nuclear site northeast of Tehran, where 140 metric tons of topsoil reportedly were removed to sanitize the site before an IAEA inspection.
More recently, Fakhrizadeh became the head of the AMAD project and then finally its successor, the Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research, or known by its Persian acronym SPND.
Iran's official narrative of his assassination has changed substantially in just a few days, raising questions about what happened. The contradicting versions raise fundamental doubts about what exactly happened and who was responsible for Fakhrizadeh's assassination.
Initially, a truck driver interviewed by state media claimed he saw a blue Nissan pickup truck van explode, followed by a gunfight from both sides of the road. He then saw one of the assailants lying on the road shooting at him, which prompted him to reverse away from the scene. He told state TV that five or six people were involved in the shootout.
Fereydoon Abbasi-Davaani, the former head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, gave a more detailed account on Iran's state television about a Nissan pickup truck stopping in front of Fakhrizadeh's convoy and exploding to stop Fakhrizadeh's car, and then an assault squad consisting of two snipers and four gunmen in a Hyundai Santa Fe opened fire. Four motorcycles were also reportedly used by the assailants.
The pro-regime Iranian documentary filmmaker, Javad Mogouei, who knew one of Fakhrizadeh's bodyguards, then posted more details of what had happened on his Instagram account. Mogouei said there were 12 assailants in total, and only four bodyguards were protecting Fakhrizadeh and his family members. Mogouei also claimed that one of the bodyguards, Haamed Asghari, was killed after he threw himself on Fakhrizadeh trying to protect him.
Iranian news media also reported the death of the bodyguard and praised his ultimate sacrifice and martyrdom to protect the country's top scientist.
State TV also interviewed Iran's defense minister, Brigadier General Amir Hatami, who claimed Fakrizadeh was targeted "Because he had recently innovated a Corona test kit which was instrumental in our struggle against the coronavirus and they didn't want us to succeed in this struggle."
While the narrative of the 12 enemy assailants against only four heroic bodyguards explained the why the "enemy" won the day against an "invincible" Iranian security service, due to their superior numbers, it also raised questions as to how 12 attackers could have gotten away so quickly and disappeared into the thin air.
There is just one road between Absard and the nearest towns in both directions. How could 12 attackers manage to kill Iran's top scientist in broad daylight and get away with it, in a high security designated area where many of Iran's top rank revolutionary guards have their weekend homes?
Pictures of Fakhrizadeh's Nissan Teana raise other questions. Taken from different angles, the pictures show a car that seemed remarkably intact with a few bullet holes in its windshield and the small rear window. The images do not match the dramatic shootout described by Iranian state media.
Later, official news denied that bodyguard Haamed Asghari had been killed, saying he suffered slight injuries as a result of his heroic action and will soon leave the hospital.
This report was followed by a completely revised narrative published by the official Fars News Agency. It claimed that there were no assailants at the scene, but Fakhrizadeh was killed by a remote controlled machine gun with Israeli military markings that was on the back of the Nissan pickup truck.
Later, Iran's Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), Ali Shamkhani made a bizarre claim that Iran "knew Fakhrizadeh was going to be assassinated and when and where the hit was to take place and we were ready for it. However, they used a new professional specialized technique unknown to us."
At the same time, the regime issued posters of four Arab separatists wanted in conjunction with the assassination.
Based on all the above, there can be many different scenarios as to what actually happened. Was he killed by a highly elite foreign agency? Or is it possible that it was yet another internal purge that got rid of Fakhrizadeh?
Without committing to any of the possible scenarios, there are definite advantages for the regime from Fakhrizadeh's death. One is that if the Islamic Republic is keen to get back to renegotiating the nuclear deal, given the possibility of a new administration in the United States, they no longer have to worry about a precondition of letting the IAEA interview Fakhrizadeh.
Claiming Israel was behind the assassination also provides Iran with the justification to further violate the nuclear accords by enriching more uranium, for Iran lobbyists and Israel haters like the former CIA chief John Brennan to accuse Israel of violating international laws, and to justify possible Iranian retaliatory missile launches.
As the world collectively bemoans this "criminal act" and almost gives a license to Iran to retaliate against Israel, the only ones really smiling today are the mullahs in Iran.
IPT Senior Fellow Potkin Azarmehr is a London-based investigative journalist, business intelligence analyst, and TV documentary maker who was born in Iran. He regularly contributes to several newspapers and television stations on Iran and Middle East related news. You can follow him @potkazar.
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A New Iranian Law Could Bring the Nuclear Issue to a Crisis Point Under Biden
6 MINS READ
Dec 3, 2020 | 23:26 GMT
Members of Iranian forces pray around the coffin of slain nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh during his burial ceremony at Imamzadeh Saleh shrine in northern Tehran on Nov. 30, 2020.
Members of Iranian forces pray around the coffin of slain nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh during his burial ceremony at Imamzadeh Saleh shrine in northern Tehran on Nov. 30, 2020.
(HAMED MALEKPOUR/TASNIM NEWS/AFP via Getty Images)
HIGHLIGHTS
The Iranian parliament's ratification of a new bill expanding Iran's nuclear program reflects growing pressure by Iranian hawks on Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and their expectation of early engagement with the incoming Biden administration to address bilateral issues. If the law is implemented entirely it would bring the Iran nuclear issue on the cusp of a crisis within the first 100 days of the Biden administration because the moves that Iran makes under the law would be aimed at significantly reducing Iran's nuclear breakout, the time Iran would need to produce enough weapons-grade material for one device....
The Iranian parliament's ratification of a new bill expanding Iran's nuclear program reflects growing pressure by Iranian hawks on Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and their expectation of early engagement with the incoming Biden administration to address bilateral issues. Conservatives and hard-liners who have led parliament since February 2020 elections secured passage of the bill less than a week after the assassination of Mohsen Fakrizadeh, but its rapid approval and minor modifications by the Guardian Council suggest that conservative factions are seeking to weaken their moderate rivals ahead of June presidential elections, assessing that any suspension of long-standing sanctions will demonstrate to voters that a more hard-line strategy was successful. Nonetheless, ambiguities in the law and political options available to the powerful Supreme National Security Council and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei suggest that Tehran will choose how to exercise provisions of the law depending on progress with the United States and Europe over the sanctions impasse.
Elements of the legislation call for an increase in nuclear activities such as renewed efforts to increase uranium enrichment beyond the 20 percent threshold while denying International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors access to Iranian nuclear sites should talks not meet Iranian expectations.
During a Dec. 2 Cabinet meeting, Rouhani said that the bill was "harmful to diplomatic efforts."
Iran is slated to hold presidential elections on June 18, 2021; Rouhani cannot run due to term limits.
Highlights Of Iran's Strategic Action Plan For Lifting Sanctions
The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) is required to boost uranium enrichment levels to 20 percent and produce at least 120 kilograms annually at the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant.
The AEOI must boost enriched uranium production per month by 500 kilograms.
The AEOI must install and start injecting uranium gas into at least 1,000 IR-2m centrifuges at the Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant within three months.
The AEOI is required to start "operations" at a uranium metal plant in Isfahan within five months.
The AEOI is required to start rebuilding the Arak Heavy Water Reactor within four months.
If the United States does not lift sanctions and so allow European customers to purchase Iranian oil within two months, the Iran government is required to stop implementing the provisional Additional Protocol allowing IAEA access to sites.
If the law is implemented entirely it would bring the Iran nuclear issue on the cusp of a crisis within the first 100 days of the Biden administration because the moves that Iran makes under the law would be aimed at significantly reducing Iran's nuclear breakout, the time Iran would need to produce enough weapons-grade material for one device.
Most of the more time-consuming and difficult work in producing enriched uranium that could be used in a nuclear bomb is done in the initial enrichment up to 20 percent. After uranium is enriched to 20 percent, getting to higher enrichment levels needed for a device, such as 90 percent, can be done relatively quickly. Under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran's enrichment was capped at 3.67 percent and thus far it has only moderately exceeded that by boosting enrichment to 4.5 percent.
Installing more advanced centrifuges will increase the throughput capacity and reliability of Iran's enrichment program. The JCPOA allowed Iran only to use older first-generation centrifuges with smaller capacities prone to failures.
Under the JCPOA, Iran was converting the Arak Heavy Water Reactor to a light-water reactor; reversing that redesign would alarm the West because the original design would have produced plutonium as a byproduct that could be used in a nuclear weapon.
The production of uranium metal would also be alarming because uranium metal's main application is in nuclear warheads — bringing into question whether Iran would restart the weapons side of its nuclear program, which Fakhrizadeh had headed and which by all publicly available information has been largely suspended for nearly two decades.
The suspension of the Additional Protocol would also leave the United States and Europe unable to monitor all of these developments, making the situation very reminiscent of 2011 and 2012, when a strike on Iran's nuclear facilities was a very realistic possibility before talks between Iran and the United States began.
The Biden administration will likely try to negotiate with Iran for an initial 'compliance-for-compliance' deal in early 2021 to avoid a crisis, but escalation is likely if Biden is unable to quickly enter talks and offer concessions. The incoming Biden administration has said that it wants to open talks with Iran, but it will be under significant pressure from the Republican Party — which will want to maintain oversight of any sort of sanctions relief akin to the review act it had over the JCPOA — not to negotiate with Iran under threat. Even a deal that sees Iran reenter the JCPOA will be controversial because Iran hawks want to use sanctions leverage to extract other concessions, such as on Iran's missile program and support for regional proxies. Those issues have become more critical in their eyes due to Iran's expanded use of that strategy over the last five years. Nevertheless, Iran has made it clear it will not negotiate on nonnuclear issues without a U.S. suspension of sanctions. The dramatic increase in Iran's nuclear program is designed to increase the number of concessions Iran can make on its nuclear program so that it does not have to make as many concessions on other issues that Iran views as more critical to its national security. If the Biden administration does not, or is unable, to prioritize negotiations with Iran despite increased nuclear activity, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and other hard-liners in Iran will likely push for an even more aggressive regional strategy akin to incidents seen in 2019 to make the Iran question a higher U.S. priority.
The strategy is inherently risky, as moving forward with enrichment to 20 percent and starting the production of uranium metal are the types of moves that will not only push the European Union, France, Germany and the United Kingdom's — all members of the JCPOA — position closer to that of the United States, it would also increase the potential for military and covert actions against Iran. Even China and Russia would express some level of concern. Iran's moderates and reformists fear the provocative moves will do just that, unite Europe with the United States against Iran. The moves would also result in Israel — and possibly the United States — pumping even more resources into covert actions designed to degrade Iran's nuclear program. While the assassination of Fakrizadeh may have had only a limited impact on Iran's nuclear program right now, the June and July explosions at the Khojir missile complex and Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant — likely carried out by Israel — had a more direct impact on actual operations, and are examples of how deep into Iran's missile and nuclear programs Israeli covert capabilities have penetrated. If Iran starts implementing aspects of the bill before Jan. 20, outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump could also sign off on a preemptive strike on an Iranian facility such as Isfahan, Natanz or Fordow to stop it.
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/12/blame-america-first-crowd-resurrects-an-old-myth/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MJ_20201204&utm_term=Jolt-Smart
As Democrats return to power, beware their warped history of the late Iranian PM Mohammad Mossadegh.
For the “blame America first” crowd, the ouster of Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953 has long been a useful crutch. Now that a new administration is preparing to put Democrats back in the White House, this crutch is once again being trotted out as an excuse for rejecting the Trump administration’s successful approach to the Middle East — an approach that united Israel with the Arab world while isolating Iran — and returning to failed Obama-era policies.
Who was Mossadegh? It depends on whom you ask, and which Mossadegh you’re asking about. The Mossadegh that accrued enough political power and respect to be appointed prime minister in 1951 was a fierce Iranian nationalist motivated by noble goals: to reclaim Iranian’s most valuable natural resource, oil, and to modernize and democratize his country. For Democrats with an indefensible policy agenda to defend, this is who he remained until the bitter end.
But one must reckon with Mossadegh’s behavior during as well as prior to his premiership to get a fuller picture of both the prime minister, and the events that led to his removal from power. After nationalizing the oil industry, long controlled by the British through the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, Mossadegh refused to negotiate in good faith over what the British role would be moving forward or otherwise compensating them for their losses. The British responded by threatening to boycott European companies doing business with the Iranians and intercepting Iranian oil tankers, devastating the Iranian economy.
The U.S.’s role in this was as a mediator. It cautioned the British against military action, declined to participate in a plan to remove Mossadegh from power, and continued to aid Iran through economic aid packages.
While Mossadegh presented himself and his present-day American admirers portray him as a staunch believer in republicanism, the Mossadegh of history sought to consolidate power in himself. In August 1952, for example, Mossadegh demanded that he be granted “emergency powers” that the New York Times called “full dictatorial powers,” and that an Iranian senator said practically amounted to “the death of the constitutional regime.” Even Mossadegh’s son-in-law opposed this transparent power grab, which was initially rebuffed but later approved by the Iranian parliament. This, combined with his earlier demand that he be allowed to appoint the minister of war — the Iranian constitution granted this power to the shah, Iran’s monarch — demonstrated that Mossadegh was only a committed democratic advocate if all the powers of Iran’s democracy were invested in him.
Iran’s simultaneous slide toward economic ruin and dictatorship — which can be directly attributed to Mossadegh’s mismanagement and ambition, respectively — led to a decay in support among the once-broad coalition he had commanded. This was especially true of his middle-class supporters, who suffered enormously from his botched nationalization effort, and of religious leaders, who resented his goal of modernizing Iran. That the times were a-changin’ for the prime minister became clear in February 1953, when the shah of Iran announced that he would be leaving the country for undisclosed medical reasons. This act was seen by the public as a sign of a rift between their monarch and Mossadegh and resulted in widespread protests in support of the shah.
That July, Mossadegh again confirmed what should have been obvious by that point: His primary objective had become holding on to power. When anti-Mossadegh forces appeared to be reaching a critical mass in parliament, he had his supporters there resign. Without a quorum, Mossadegh maintained that a referendum was needed to determine what to do next. A plebiscite described by Ray Takeyh, a scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations, as characterized by “boycotts, voting irregularities, and mob violence” ratified Mossadegh’s decision to dissolve parliament.
Mossadegh’s falling star at home and the succession of the Truman administration by that of Dwight D. Eisenhower resulted in a shift in U.S. policy toward Iran. The instability of Mossadegh’s government, the U.S. rightly worried, could lead to a Communist takeover. This confluence of factors led to the development of TPAJAX, a joint operation planned by the U.S., U.K., and a group of high-profile Iranian officials, generals, and religious leaders fed up with Mossadegh. The existence of this last group is particularly important to recall. While those who invoke Mossadegh’s name today would have you believe that Mossadegh’s removal was solely the consequence of U.S. meddling, this couldn’t be further from the truth. General Fazlollah Zahedi — once a minister in Mossadegh’s cabinet — Ayatollah Abdel Qassem Kashani, and most crucially, the shah, were not merely accessories to the plan, but its anchors.
The key to the operation was getting the shah to dismiss Mossadegh as prime minister, an action within his constitutional power, but that he was nevertheless hesitant to take. The U.S.’s chief role in Mossadegh’s removal was convincing the monarch, largely through intermediaries such as his sister, to take this necessary step
What is often overlooked is that the U.S.’s planned “coup” (can it be called a coup if it was carried out by constitutional means?) failed. Mossadegh was tipped off about the plan, and instead of heeding the shah’s dismissal, he had the officer who was sent to inform him of his unemployment arrested. Zahedi, the muscle behind the operation, went into hiding. So did the figure that lent it legitimacy, the shah.
This news was greeted with much gnashing of teeth in Washington, where the operation was seen as an abject failure. General Walter Bedell Smith, then serving as an undersecretary of state, informed President Eisenhower that the U.S. would “probably have to snuggle up to Mosaddegh if we’re going to save anything there.”
CIA operatives on the ground continued to publicize the shah’s constitutional dismissal, as well as to disseminate other anti-Mossadegh materials. But it was Iranians, not Americans, who ultimately succeeded in achieving TPAJAX’s objectives. In the days after Mossadegh’s decision to ignore his dismissal, chaos reigned in Iran. Communists and radical members of Mossadegh’s party, the National Front, poured into the streets to call for the abolition of the monarchy, among other changes. This triggered a backlash from both religious and military leaders and average Iranians. The latter were more loyal to the shah than the prime minister, who had brought so much political and economic hardship upon them. Loy Henderson, the U.S. ambassador to Iran, still speculated that these events “would probably have little significance.”
How wrong he was. Civilian crowds incited by Kashni and other religious leaders came out in even greater numbers than the radicals had. Mossadegh ordered the military to restore order, but most troops sided with their countrymen and the shah, bringing, in a stunning turn of events, an end to Mossadegh’s premiership on August 19, just six days after the shah’s failed dismissal of him.
The U.S. played an important and necessary precipitating role in Mossadegh’s removal then, but not the caricaturized one that is weaponized by people such as Marik von Rennenkampff, a State and Defense Department official in the Obama administration. In an op-ed for The Hill, von Rennenkampff conveniently ignores Mossadegh’s abuses of power and diplomatic intransigence, as well as the considerable Iranian opposition to him. Instead, he pins the 1979 Revolution and hostage crisis and all subsequent U.S.–Iranian hostilities on the Mossadegh imbroglio, casting the U.S. not only as the party responsible for the initial iciness between the two countries, but also as the primary aggressor over the last 40 years. He even goes so far as to dismiss the hostage crisis as merely “decades of anger boil[ing] over.” It is worrying that von Rennenkampff once held positions of some significance within the U.S. government. Even more alarming is that his historically and morally backwards perspective on American–Iranian affairs may once again be returning to power alongside Joe Biden.
After all, Biden’s old boss, President Barack Obama, was fond of promulgating a simplistic and anti-American telling of the Mossadegh ouster. In 2009, the newly minted president claimed that “in the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government.” Other Democrats, including Hillary Clinton and Madeleine Albright, have made similar assertions. Why? To justify their illogical but dogged attempts to cozy up to Iran’s evil, explicitly anti-American regime at the expense of our relationships with Israel and the Arab world, both of which are much more natural fits as U.S. allies in the region.
With Democrats returning to power, Americans should beware of the revival of the Mossadegh myth. The people who will be wielding the levers of power in the executive branch will not hesitate to interpret history in the most uncharitable way possible to the country they serve if they believe it will help them fit their square peg into an obviously round hole.
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16840/terrorism-iran-europe
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https://webmail.earthlink.net/wam/index.jsp?x=1464068706
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https://dailycaller.com/2020/12/24/house-democrats-letter-return-iran-deal/?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2360&pnespid=mLhmraNeHQONlAyUkImvg5Y1LTnGCXXAvqeeyEFw
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https://townhall.com/tipsheet/bethbaumann/2021/01/02/iran-is-planning-its-revenge-for-the-death-of-soleimani-n2582445
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16903/beating-drum-iran-mullahs
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What to Make of the Latest Uptick in Iranian Aggression
5 MINS READ
Jan 4, 2021 | 22:09 GMT
HIGHLIGHTS
Security risks, including threats to tanker traffic, in the Persian Gulf and Iraq will remain heightened after U.S. President-elect Joe Biden takes office, despite his intent to enter negotiations with Tehran. The uptick in Iranian nuclear and naval activity since Dec. 31 risks provoking a military response in the region from foreign actors, including a potential U.S. strike on Iranian soil. On Jan. 3, Acting U.S. Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller announced that the USS Nimitz would forgo its redeployment away from the Middle East due to “recent threats issued by Iranian leaders against President Trump and other U.S. government officials.” Although the Pentagon did not specify what Miller was alluding to, the comments come after a Dec. 31 statement made by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was initially translated as saying Trump would be ousted from “life.” Iranian officials have since this was a mistranslation, specifying that Rouhani was referring to Trump’s...
Security risks, including threats to tanker traffic, in the Persian Gulf and Iraq will remain heightened after U.S. President-elect Joe Biden takes office, despite his intent to enter negotiations with Tehran. The uptick in Iranian nuclear and naval activity since Dec. 31 risks provoking a military response in the region from foreign actors, including a potential U.S. strike on Iranian soil.
On Jan. 3, Acting U.S. Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller announced that the USS Nimitz would forgo its redeployment away from the Middle East due to “recent threats issued by Iranian leaders against President Trump and other U.S. government officials.”
Although the Pentagon did not specify what Miller was alluding to, the comments come after a Dec. 31 statement made by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was initially translated as saying Trump would be ousted from “life.” Iranian officials have since this was a mistranslation, specifying that Rouhani was referring to Trump’s “political life.”
The reversal of the USS Nimitz’s plans comes amid a series of recent Iranian acts of aggression:
Dec. 31: A suspicious object suspected to be a limpet mine was found on a tanker near Iraq’s Al Basrah Oil Terminal (ABOT). Iran is believed to have been behind the incident.
Jan. 1: Iran notified the International Atomic Energy Organization (IAEA) that it planned to begin boosting uranium enrichment levels to 20 percent at the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant. The IAEA confirmed on Jan. 4 that Iran had begun the process.
Jan 4: Iran ostensibly detained the South Korea-flagged Hankuk Chemi tanker, which was transiting the Persian Gulf en route to the United Arab Emirates, for allegedly polluting the waters.
Jan 5-6: Iran’s army is planning to hold two-days military exercises involving multiple unarmed aerial vehicles.
The tanker incidents signal that Iran remains willing to restart attacks against oil and gas infrastructure if the Biden administration does not include sanctions relief in negotiations. In doing so, Iran hopes to increase the cost of maintaining sanctions to the United States and its allies. By forcing both a security and nuclear crisis, Iran’s leaders are seeking to ensure the busy Biden administration prioritizes negotiations with Tehran upon taking office. If such pressure successfully yields sanctions relief, Iran’s conservatives and hardliners will then reap the political benefits in the upcoming June 18 presidential election — granting them more say in future talks with the West, as well as any potential economic and political reforms accompanying the relaxation of sanctions that could threaten their interests.
Boosting enrichment to 20 percent is one of the steps mandated under a new law the Iranian parliament recently passed that aims to ramp up Iran’s nuclear program over the next six months.
In 2019, Iran launched several attacks against tankers in the Persian Gulf and Saudi Arabian oil infrastructure. The last significant attack occurred in September 2019, against Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq and Khurais oil processing facilities.
Iran’s high-risk/high-reward strategy will increasingly threaten the physical security of targets in its immediate periphery by raising the risk of punitive strikes from the United States and Israel. Washington and Israel will view the increase in uranium enrichment levels to 20 percent as particularly worrisome, as stockpiling of uranium enriched to that level would substantially reduce the time needed to make a weapon. In his remaining few weeks in office, Trump appears to be more willing to conduct a physical strike against Iran than his successor. Any actions that directly target U.S. interests or result in American casualties in the coming days — such as the harassment of U.S. vessels transiting the Persian Gulf, or the deaths of U.S. soldiers in Iranian-backed militia attacks in Iraq or Syria — are most likely to prompt a response from the outgoing Trump administration. Even after Biden takes office, Israel will also still consider unilateral action against continued Iranian acts of aggression, particularly against Iran’s nuclear program.
Maritime traffic will face an increased risk of being targeted over the next few months, particularly tanker traffic linked to Western countries or countries viewed as backing the U.S. position against Iran. Specific threats would include unsafe approaches by Iranian vessels, armed boardings to detain crewmembers, and the use of limpet mines.
Iran is less willing to directly carry out frequent attacks onshore Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates for fear of further weakening Iran’s fraught negotiating capital with those states, as well as emboldening U.S. demands that Iran’s missile and drone program be included in talks. But infrequent attacks against these neighboring countries akin to those seen in 2019 remain possible.
Iran will also likely bolster its capacity to carry out cyberattacks in the region, including against both commercial and government targets. Less frequent, Iran-backed hacks against targets beyond the Middle East also cannot be ruled out.
Iran’s aggressive strategy may initially unlock some sanctions relief, though it will come at the cost of hardening the international community’s position against Tehran in longer-term negotiations. Over the last two years, Iran has demonstrated that it is willing to use its missile and drone capabilities to target commercial interests in the region. The continued use of such tactics will push European countries into broader alignment with the United States on the need for broader ongoing talks with Iran in order to ink a new nuclear deal, as well as discuss other concerns beyond just Tehran's nuclear program. This desire to include other issues in talks will make full normalization between the West and Iran difficult to achieve without a significant change in policy. Iran is hoping that the fear about broader conflict and its nuclear ambitions will at least keep the United States and European countries’ most effective countermeasure — broad sanctions — reserved for Tehran’s nuclear program in order to avoid having to make more significant concessions on other parts of its national security.
In a Jan. 3 interview with CNN, incoming National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said that Iran’s ballistic missile program should be included in “follow-on” negotiations.
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16975/iran-nuclear-extortion
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16987/europe-iran-nuclear-antics
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Setting the terms for Iran. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Iran needed to return to full compliance with the terms of the nuclear deal before Washington would consider coming back. Meanwhile, the head of U.S. Central Command arrived in Israel to discuss Iran with Israel Defense Forces leadership.
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So far Blinken seems to be better than feared from Xiden.
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I have great idea
that fits into to the democrat plan
we close down fracking
we convert to solar over the next 30 yrs
and in meantime secure a promise from Iran they will not go nuclear
and in return we will buy their oil
and of course throw in 2.5 billion in 20 dollar bills
flown over in hollywood jets
Hollywood would get to shoot a movie in Tehran and the Ayatollah can have a bit celebrity party
John kerry and Susan rice and obama's daughters
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17010/iran-agents-us
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17053/iran-pursuit-nuclear-weapons
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17090/iran-biden-weak-president
edited to add:
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/iranian-supreme-leader-threatens-to-raise-uranium-enrichment/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=breaking&utm_campaign=newstrack&utm_term=23015457
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I am a huge fan of George Friedman but this effort of his IMHO has some serious squishiness-- first and foremost its failure to mention that the Obama-Kerry-Biden deal would openly allow Iran to go nuclear after a certain number of years (12?). It also fails to mention the $150B that the deal gave Iran up front.
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America’s Iran Strategy
By: George Friedman
President Barack Obama’s administration had a primary goal in the Middle East: It did not want Iran to become a nuclear power. It did not want Israel to be forced to launch a preemptive strike against a nuclear Iran, triggered by the public declaration of Iran’s intentions against Israel. American allies in the region – Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, among others – were frightened that a nuclear Iran might compel them into a subordinate position. And the Obama administration, dedicated to military disengagement from the region, was afraid that to calm regional fears, the U.S. would have to take military action against Iran’s emerging power, with dangerous consequences.
Obama’s administration engineered an agreement with Iran under which Iran would agree to stop its nuclear weapons program and permit international technical monitoring of the program. Implicit in the agreement was that if Iran complied with the terms of the deal, broader agreements would emerge, allowing Iran to normalize its relationship with the outside world and increase its economic well-being.
The agreement was criticized at the time for three reasons. First, Iran was capable of both permitting inspections and evading them, by shifting the location of the nuclear program. Iran has many caves and tunnels where nuclear activities could be concealed. Inspections are focused on known facilities because of the dearth of inspectors and the breadth of the country. In other words, inspections appear to be a reliable guarantee, but their reliability is inherently uncertain. Second, the agreement did not address Iran’s relations with other countries in the region, against which Iran has carried out covert and overt operations. So it did not do anything against Iran in Syria, Lebanon or Yemen, nor did it do anything about Iranian destabilization of and strikes against other countries, such as its attack on a Saudi refinery. Finally, it did not address Iran’s missile program, which seems to involve missiles of multiple ranges and payloads. If Iran were building a nuclear-capable medium-range missile, as some claimed, then there was a mystery. If Iran were abandoning its nuclear program, why spend scarce resources on these kinds of missiles?
The Obama administration’s position was that all of these were important issues but that reaching a long-term understanding with Iran required a step-by-step approach. If the U.S. sought everything at once, it would achieve nothing, and the goal was to use economic incentives to draw Iran forward. His critics said that the patient approach left the door open to dangerous offensive operations, and that, as protecting the agreement would inevitably become a political objective, Iranian actions that violated American interests but not the agreement would be overlooked with the hope of preserving the nuclear deal. There were arguments to be made on both sides, but the core issues were that the guarantees against a continued nuclear program were uncertain in their performance and that the agreement left Iran with significant nonnuclear opportunities.
An element of Donald Trump’s election campaign was his opposition to the Iran nuclear deal. He unilaterally insisted that the agreement go beyond nuclear weapons to the missiles that delivered them. Rather than using an incentive of further economic relations, he imposed significant sanctions on Iran and made their removal the incentive. In other words, where Obama sought not to weaken Iran economically but to focus entirely on the issue at hand, Trump chose to weaken Iran economically in order to expand the goals of the agreement to cover missiles.
Trump also sought to decrease Iran’s foreign operations, or at least increase the cost, by supporting a system of relations, beginning with Israel and the United Arab Emirates and expanding to other countries, that was designed to both isolate Iran and limit its ability to play off one Arab country against another. By the end of the Trump administration, the map of the region had shifted, and with it Iran’s position. Its economy was in steep decline, the hostility of the Arab world was consolidated, and the assumption was that between coalitions and economic costs, the Iranian political and military operations in the Arab world would decline, something not yet clearly visible. But economic weakness and a degree of political unrest in Iran are obvious.
Joe Biden ran against Trump’s Iran policy, as Trump had run against Obama’s. All of this gave the shift a political dimension. Trump favored the actions he took, but he also welcomed them as an attack on Obama’s position. Similarly, while we don’t have a clear sense of Biden’s strategy on Iran, he has a political imperative to reject Trump’s policy.
The Middle East is at the moment a radically different place than it was at Obama’s or Trump’s point of decision. The coalition that was formed had the American imprimatur, even if the mechanics of the creation were primarily in the hands of local powers. But now Biden must consider not only the nuclear deal and Iran but also the effects on the way in which recognition of Israel formed a coalition that even countries that have not formally recognized Israel are part of. The foundation of this organization arises from hostility to Iran, and the fear that when it reemerges, its power will swamp the region. Israel fears Iran’s nuclear weapons, the Saudis fear Iranian drones and Iranian proxies in Yemen, and so on. On the whole, these countries welcomed Trump’s revision of Obama’s approach for the reasons given.
The inclination of Biden, given the American political process, is to reinstitute Obama's strategy and repudiate Trump’s. But the problem is that a return to Obama’s strategy, with the withdrawal of sanctions, would reasonably quickly revive the Iranian economy, strengthen the Iranian hardliners who refused to bend in the face of Trump’s policy and would then be vindicated, and create a massive crisis in the Middle East.
There are those who would argue that the Abraham Accords are a house of cards unable to hold together. That may be true. But it is there now, and it is there because of Iran. A shift in U.S. policy on sanctions will be read in this region as the U.S. moving to a pro-Iran position, a view that might not be true but will appear to be the case. Israel will see it as a mistake, and the UAE and the rest of the Sunni world will argue that whatever the subjective intent of the Biden administration, the objective fact is that its policy is strengthening Iran. And as a result, the anti-Iran construct that is seen as American in its root will in fact fragment. And in a fragmenting Middle East, war is a frequent accompaniment.
Biden obviously doesn’t want this, and his pledge to resurrect Obama’s nuclear deal will pass. Consider that if Israel draws the conclusion that the Abraham system is of no importance and allows it to fragment, Israel will conclude that the management of the Iranian threat is solely an Israeli problem, and Israel strategically cannot allow the threat to evolve. The Saudis, who are facing the Iranians in many ways and who are being investigated by the Biden administration for human rights violations, will have to pick a new direction. It is not in the American interest to have allies (however distasteful to the current ideology) start choosing new directions. At the moment the region is relatively peaceful. If Iran were let out of its box without major concessions and controls, the region would go back to looking how it normally looks. And given Biden’s opposition to “America First,” instability there will draw the U.S. in.
Like every American president, Biden has his campaign position and then his governing position, just as the campaign advisers who were awarded senior positions find themselves more liability than asset. In any case, if he moves ahead to serious talks with Iran, the rest of the Middle East will be extremely frightened. A U.S.-Iran entente – which is how it will be seen – is not compatible with a U.S.-Israel or U.S.-Arab alliance. Candidates may speak of things that become impossible in the light of victory. They get over it.
It may seem as if I am charting a history based on the whims of a president. But presidents are simply trapped by reality. Put another way, the U.S. sought to pacify the Middle East. One fear was Iranian nuclear weapons, and the first focus was on them. But the concern about Iran in the region went beyond nuclear weapons to other dimensions of Iranian power. The U.S. then generated a broader response, from sanctions to a regional coalition. But the coalition is fragile, and concerns about Iran’s nuclear program are still there. A return to the initial agreement is attractive, but since it will unleash other forces the U.S. doesn’t want to see, the problem becomes more complex.
The U.S. had to withdraw major military force from the region as the initial intervention failed to achieve its goals. (MARC: Strongly disagree; the withdrawal by Obama-Biden threw away the stability that had been finally achieved and enabled ISIS, etc) But the U.S. can’t be indifferent to the region because it is a strategic part of Eurasia, and other great powers can take advantage of it. In the long run, it is easier to manipulate the region to American ends than to dislodge another major power, or face the emergence of a regional power destabilizing the region. And thus we see Israel and the Arab coalition. Speaking of presidents is a useful marker, but their policies are crafted by reality, not the other way around.
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https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2021/02/23/south-korea-to-unlock-7-billion-in-iranian-assets-after-consultations-with-biden-admin/
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What I Learned in an Iranian Prison
U.S. foreign policy isn’t to blame for the mullahs’ deep-rooted hatred of America and Americans.
By Wang Xiyue
Updated Feb. 24, 2021 4:07 pm ET
Iran, Europe and many American progressives are pressuring the Biden administration to revive the 2015 nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA. Official groupthink has coalesced around a singularly misguided belief: The U.S. has so badly mistreated Iran in the past that it must engage and appease the Islamic Republic now. I understand this view because I was once taught to believe it. This mindset is what convinced me in 2016 that I could safely do research for my dissertation in Iran. My optimism was misplaced. Not long after I arrived, I was imprisoned by Iran’s brutal regime and held hostage for more than three years.
When I went to Iran, I shared the prevailing academic view of the Middle East. I had absorbed the oft-repeated lesson that political Islam arose in response to Western colonialism and imperialism, and that the West—particularly America’s Middle East behavior—was chiefly responsible for the region’s chaos. My professors taught that the U.S. had treated Iran with a mixture of Orientalist condescension and imperialist aggression since the founding of the Islamic Republic in 1979. I believed America’s role in the 1953 coup that removed Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh explained everything that had gone wrong in Iran. Convinced that the mullahs’ hostility toward the U.S. was exaggerated, I often dismissed allegations of the regime’s malign behavior as American propaganda.
Since it was obvious that American foreign policy itself was the problem, and that the regime would happily normalize relations once the U.S. pivoted away from disrespect, I assumed I’d be left alone in Iran if I remained apolitical and focused on historical research. Imagine my shock when the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence arrested me on false espionage charges in August 2016, shortly after the implementation of the JCPOA—during what appeared to be a period of rapprochement between the U.S. and Iran. I was thrown into solitary confinement, forced to confess things my interrogator knew I had not done, and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
My interrogator made clear that my sole “crime” was being an American. He told me I was to be used as a pawn in exchange for U.S.-held Iranian prisoners and the release of frozen Iranian assets. (I was released in a 2019 prisoner swap.)
My terrible 40-month imprisonment was a period of intense re-education about the relationship between Iran and the U.S. The Islamic Republic is an ambitious power, but not a constructive one. It’s a spoiler, projecting influence by exporting revolution and terrorism via its proxies in the Middle East. Domestically, the mullahs have failed to deliver on their political and economic promises to the Iranian people, on whom they maintain their grip through oppression.
Nothing I’d learned during my years in the ivory towers of academia had prepared me for the reality I encountered in an Iranian prison. I learned what many Iranians already know: The regime’s hostility toward the U.S. isn’t reactive, but proactive, rooted in a fierce anti-Americanism enmeshed in its anti-imperialist ideology. As I witnessed firsthand, Tehran isn’t interested in normalizing relations with Washington. It survives and thrives on its self-perpetuated hostility against the West; a posture that has been integral to the regime’s identity.
The regime didn’t regard President Obama’s engagement as a goodwill gesture, but rather as an “iron fist under a velvet glove.” Iran’s revolutionary regime retains power through conspiracy and intrigue, and views everything through that lens. The notion that it will be difficult for the U.S. to regain Iran’s trust after quitting the JCPOA is incorrect. The Iranian regime has never trusted the U.S., and never will.
When I was being interrogated in Evin Prison in summer 2016, my interrogator boasted that he and his hard-line colleagues were eager to see Donald Trump elected, not because the regime viewed him as the type of pragmatic leader they could deal with, but because it would justify a more confrontational stance against the Great Satan.
The menace of the Islamic Republic can’t be appeased. It must be countered and restrained. Only the U.S. has the capacity to lead such an endeavor. For 42 years Iran has demonstrated that it changes its behavior only in response to strength in the form of American-led international pressure. If the Biden administration returns to the JCPOA without extracting concessions from Tehran beyond the nuclear threat, it will relinquish all U.S. leverage over the regime.
Diplomacy can’t succeed without leverage. Only by showing strength of will can President Biden hope for genuine progress in containing the Iranian threat to peace.
Mr. Wang is a doctoral candidate in history at Princeton and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
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I regard this piece as profoundly foolish and glib in its denial of Iran's nuclear ambitions and in its indifference to whether we keep Trump's economic pressure on Iran. Once Iran gets its nukes, it will have an umbrella against retaliation for expansion of its misdeeds.
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February 26, 2021
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For Iran, Nuclear Weapons Can Wait
There’s a lot more to Iranian ambitions than nuclear weapons.
By: Hilal Khashan
The last two years have been the toughest for Iran since its 1979 revolution. Most Iranians have been negatively affected by Western sanctions as well as the ongoing pandemic. At least one-third of the population lives in abject poverty. Malnutrition is rampant, especially among children in rural areas. Meat is becoming increasingly scarce, and the price of food staples such as rice, grains and legumes is skyrocketing, with the consumer price index for food increasing by 67 percent in January compared to the previous year. More than 1.2 million Iranians lost their jobs because of COVID-19, divorce rates have risen by 7 percent and the number of people treated in rehabilitation centers has jumped to 663,000 from 417,000.
Because of Iran’s mounting economic and social problems, the mere prospect of reviving the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), following U.S. President Joe Biden’s election last year, is a godsend for Iran. While the acquisition of nuclear weapons continues to be a strategic objective for Iran, the country is in no rush to achieve it, considering that doing so could jeopardize its ability to resuscitate its economy, consolidate its regional influence and build its conventional military might. In the immediate term, its main objectives are to salvage the regime, improve standards of living and relaunch the economy, while also maintaining and accelerating its regional gains. Nuclear weapons can wait.
What Iran Really Wants
Over the past six centuries, Iran has suffered military defeats, territorial losses, foreign power manipulation and, in the 20th century, occupation by British and Soviet troops. It also, however, has a long history of territorial expansion and imperial drive. The Sasanian Empire (224-226) seized the Caucasus, the entire coastline of the Arabian Peninsula, Egypt and Asia Minor, and even reached India’s doorstep. In the 16th century, the Safavids built an empire that included the Caucasus, though they gradually lost territory to czarist Russia, and their Qajar successors lost what territory remained. The revolutionary clerics regretted dismantling Iran’s nuclear program and its formidable army and air force, which the shah had built with U.S. backing, arguing that Iraq would not have attacked Iran in 1980 had they remained intact.
Sasanian and Safavid Empires
(click to enlarge)
Iran now wants to become a regional hegemon once again. Its leaders see Iran as entitled to become the leader of the Middle East, or at least an equal of Israel, which is currently the region’s only real power. Its challenge, however, is that Israel is resistant to having any nation rise to its level, and so has actively pushed back against Iranian expansionism. But the Iranians are playing the long game and will bide their time. As the Israelis understand better than most, there’s a lot more to Iranian ambitions than nuclear weapons.
The Nuclear Issue in Perspective
Every U.S. administration since the Iranian Revolution has been keen on avoiding direct military confrontation with Iran. Like former President Donald Trump, Biden sees the divisive issues with Tehran – its nuclear and missile programs and burgeoning regional influence – as part of the same package. The only difference between the two presidents is that Biden is more flexible, believing that there’s no need to weaken an already emaciated Iran.
Biden is keen on resolving the standoff over Iran’s nuclear program through diplomacy and is focused on reaching a better deal than the JCPOA, which in reality would have only delayed Tehran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. The Biden administration knows that Iran’s ballistic missile program and regional policy are nonnegotiable, and believes Tehran’s regional meddling is beyond the scope of the nuclear talks, important as it may be for Middle East stability. Trump, on the other hand, chose to apply a maximum pressure campaign, hoping to force Iran to sign a new, more rigorous deal that would further slow Iran’s nuclear program while also downsizing its ballistic missile program and curtailing its regional adventurism.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also opposed to merely renegotiating the nuclear deal. But Israel’s threats of military action are more posturing than warning of imminent conflict. Realizing that Biden cannot ignore Israel’s concerns, Israel is trying to secure more concessions from Iran by voicing its opposition to nuclear talks. Iranian officials are also adept at the politics of brinkmanship. As expected, they reached a temporary, last-minute deal with the International Atomic Energy Agency to ensure Iran’s nuclear sites were still monitored even after it suspended compliance with the JCPOA’s voluntary protocol. Last December, Iran’s parliament approved a bill to stop cooperation with the agency and increase uranium enrichment to 20 percent. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that the government respected the parliament’s decision but would continue cooperation with the atomic agency, adding that the parliament’s decision is reversible if the U.S. cooperates.
For Iran, acquiring nuclear weapons is not an immediate goal. The dispute over its nuclear program has been ongoing for more than 15 years, and it hasn’t manufactured a nuclear weapon yet. Indeed, lifting sanctions takes precedence over everything else – even acquiring nuclear arms – because the ruling mullahs want to modernize the economy and provide for the basic needs of Iran’s restive population.
There is a real concern, however, that lifting sanctions would enable Iran to consolidate its regional presence and further weaken embattled Saudi Arabia, which has been hit by several drone attacks from Iran-linked groups like the Houthis in Yemen. The Houthis are launching the final battle in Yemen’s oil-rich Marib province, the last remaining bastion of control for President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. If their offensive succeeds, Yemen as we know it would no longer exist. The United Arab Emirates already controls the south, the Houthis would tighten their grip on the north, and Saudi Arabia would emerge as the biggest loser.
Territorial Control in Yemen
(click to enlarge)
But Washington is gradually losing interest in Saudi Arabia as a country of vital national interest. Former President Barack Obama once called Saudi Arabia a free-rider, without directly naming it, and Trump, during his 2016 election campaign, said, “If Saudi Arabia was without the cloak of American protection, I don't think it would be around.” For his part, Biden said the U.S. would halt arms shipments to Saudi Arabia and terminate support for its war in Yemen. He also withdrew Trump’s letters to the U.N. that led to the reinstatement of Iran sanctions and expressed his willingness to work with the Europeans to reach a new nuclear deal. Biden’s Middle East policy seeks to reduce regional tensions, deal separately with various explosive issues and introduce an elaborate system of balances that does not exclude Iran. Regardless of who rules Iran, the country is essential to Washington’s balance of power policy.
Indeed, it’s too late to end Iran’s meddling in its neighbors’ affairs anyway. In Iraq, the government says that the pro-Iran Popular Mobilization Forces report to the Ministry of Interior. They receive their budget from the central government in Baghdad – which amounted to $1.6 billion in 2020. In Lebanon, Hezbollah is part of the political system and runs Lebanon along with its Maronite Christian ally, the Free Patriotic Movement. In Yemen, the Houthis have been removed from the U.S. list of terrorist groups.
Iran's Sphere of Influence
(click to enlarge)
Iran will resist any attempt to cut it off from its regional proxies, without whose support it cannot realize its regional ambitions. Tehran’s Shiite Arab allies are more crucial than its nuclear program for expanding its sphere of influence. Iran is still militarily weak, and it needs allies who can fight on its behalf. The more Iran organizes military exercises and announces breakthrough defense innovations, the more it reveals its inability and unwillingness to get involved in a general war. As it has been doing since the revolution, it prefers to fight through proxies, be they in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria or Iraq.
Inevitable Domestic Change
Despite the facade of cohesion, state resolve and military preparedness, Iran is more vulnerable than ever. Endemic bureaucratic corruption, poor economic planning, austere sanctions and the pandemic have nearly crippled the country and exposed its weakness. Iran’s reformists accuse power-wielding conservatives of benefiting from the sanctions through their parallel economy, whose profits they claim run around $25 billion annually. Iran’s ruling conservatives probably face more problems at home than abroad, with many Iranians frustrated by the lack of action and preferring a secular and democratic political system to replace the Wilayat al-Faqih system. Some Iranian intellectuals, academics, political activists and former officials even expressed hope that Trump would win a second term to increase the pressure on the regime.
Over the past 50 years, Iranian society has changed markedly. Even though 90 percent of its population is Shiite, according to statistical yearbooks, only 32 percent describe themselves as Shiites. Most others profess no religious affiliation or see themselves as agnostic, atheist or Zoroastrian. The regime is not facing an existential threat, and it can rely on its extensive coercive powers to suppress protests. The dilemma of the ayatollah and the regime is that they are ruling a population that not only resents their religious ideology but is continuously drifting away from them.
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17089/iran-appeasing-mullahs
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17109/nuclear-inspectors-iran
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second post
Israeli officials say Iran was behind the mysterious blast.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Pointing fingers. Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz blamed Iran for an explosion on an Israeli-owned cargo ship in the Gulf of Oman over the weekend. The ship is currently in the port of Dubai undergoing repairs. Israeli Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi said the incident is a reminder that the threat posed by Iran is not just nuclear. Meanwhile, Israel carried out its own attacks over the weekend, targeting Iran-backed militias in southern Damascus, according to the Syrian military.
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The US, Iran and Bargaining Positions
By: George Friedman
The Iranian government has announced that it will not attend the first round of negotiations over restoring the agreement that limited its ability to develop nuclear weapons. Tehran says sanctions imposed by the administration of former President Donald Trump must first be removed for talks to begin.
Obviously, this is a tactic meant to improve its bargaining position with the United States. But that position must be credible, and read that way by both sides. Iran reads President Joe Biden to be particularly vulnerable on this issue. Biden has long maintained that abandoning the nuclear agreement was a mistake that he would correct at the first opportunity.
Biden therefore needs to resurrect the original agreement or replace it with something similar. Iran understands U.S. politics as well as anyone, and it has proved to be an excellent negotiator. If officials believe Biden must restore the agreement, they will make it as difficult as possible.
One of the best ways to negotiate is to appear irrational. Rational actors believe themselves to be reasonable and operate under the assumption that their counterparts believe them to be rational too. Negotiators might well be rational, but showing their cards in a reasonable way gives the counterpart a roadmap of how to calm the talks. Iran is a master at appearing suicidal, when, in fact, it is as scared of nuclear annihilation as any other country. Religious fanaticism about the annihilation of Israel, for example, doesn’t comport with reality. The Israelis have a substantial nuclear arsenal and years of experience gaming possible Iranian threats. Any planned Iranian attack would be detected early in the process, and Israel would strike preemptively. In other words, the worst place Iran could be is close to completing a nuclear weapon, and its leaders know it.
The value of a nuclear program, on the other hand, is substantial. It shows an attempt to possess a nuclear weapon without giving any indication of already having one. It is the program that is perfect for Iran. It frightens without forcing anyone to take risky actions. The tools for building a program are lying on the floor with apparently earnest efforts to put it together. Iran gets to negotiate concessions for not building a nuke, even without itself being directly threatened by nuclear annihilation.
Meanwhile, it also tries to assert its power in a more effective way – by providing support, for example, for the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces in Syria, and by becoming deeply involved in Iraq. Iran’s most effective foreign policy tactic in the region is delivering covert support to non-Iranian forces that can bring pressure on Sunni Arab states, Israel and U.S. forces still deployed in the region. Nuclear weapons are a notional concept designed to magnify Iranian power. Their real power rests on their ability to destabilize certain countries. This strategy carries with it only minimal risk compared to building a nuclear weapon and the missiles to deliver it. Iran wants the ability to go nuclear without going nuclear while engaging Israel, the Arabs and the Americans with covert operations that are difficult to counter.
Refusing to discuss the old nuclear treaty serves two purposes. It tests the new American president to see how badly he needs this agreement, and it allows the Iranians to escalate their actual priorities by using the American desire for a resurrected agreement. There’s no real downside for Iran. What Tehran needs more than anything is the lifting of sanctions. The sanctions imposed on Iran after Trump abrogated the nuclear agreement are wrecking its economy and, in turn, generating political opposition to the architects of the first agreement. (This was compounded by the budding coalition between Sunni Arab states and Israel, a nominally defensive alignment that could, as Iran well knows, turn offensive quickly.)
Politically, if Biden wants to make good on his promises, he needs to resurrect some version of the old treaty. The Iranians read this need as an opportunity to extract concessions, particularly removing sanctions but also, in the long run, minimizing the threat from the forces across the Persian Gulf. These are critical to Iran.
Biden’s problem is that he has not yet begun to govern. The first few months of any new administration is an extension of the campaign. Thus, Biden ordered an airstrike against Iran-backed militias in Syria to demonstrate that he is willing to strike at their prized covert operations. The Iranians are watching carefully to see if the left-wing of the party governs or if the center governs. Similarly, following his campaign commitment to human rights, Biden went after Saudi leader Mohammed bin Salman – who, according to U.S. intelligence, authorized the murder of Jamal Khashoggi – before trying to heal whatever breach in relations it might have caused.
The United States needs the Israel-Arab coalition to block Iranian covert ambitions, so it needs Saudi Arabia to be part of it. All presidents must figure out how to square the circle of what they promised to do and what they must do. And in this sense, Biden has a problem: He is pledged to resurrect an agreement that did not really address the problem of Iran, and he must do it to show the Europeans that he is not Trump while making clear to the Iranians that he is not giving away Trump’s strategy without making a fundamental change in America’s Iranian policy. And Iran will make this as hard as possible for him.
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Opportunity Beckons in the Mideast
The Biden administration called Iran’s bluff early. It should continue to play the strong hand it was dealt.
By Jared Kushner
March 14, 2021 3:35 pm ET
The geopolitical earthquake that began with the Abraham Accords hasn’t ended. More than 130,000 Israelis have visited Dubai since President Trump hosted the peace deal’s signing this past September, and air travel opened up for the first time in August. New, friendly relations are flowering—wait until direct flights get going between Israel and Morocco. We are witnessing the last vestiges of what has been known as the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The conflict’s roots stretch back to the years after World War II, when Arab leaders refused to accept the creation of the state of Israel and spent 70 years vilifying it and using it to divert attention from domestic shortcomings. But as more Muslims visit Israel through Dubai, images are populating on social media of Jews and Muslims proudly standing together. More important, Muslims are posting pictures of peaceful visits to the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, blowing a hole in the propaganda that the holy site is under attack and Israelis prevent Muslims from praying there. Every time Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tweets something positive in Arabic about an Arab leader, it reinforces that Israel is rooting for the success of the Arab world.
One of the reasons the Arab-Israeli conflict persisted for so long was the myth that it could be solved only after Israel and the Palestinians resolved their differences. That was never true. The Abraham Accords exposed the conflict as nothing more than a real-estate dispute between Israelis and Palestinians that need not hold up Israel’s relations with the broader Arab world. It will ultimately be resolved when both sides agree on an arbitrary boundary line.
The Biden administration is making China a priority in its foreign policy, and rightly so—one of Mr. Trump’s greatest legacies will be changing the world’s view of China’s behavior. But it would be a mistake not to build on the progress in the Middle East. Eliminating the ISIS caliphate and bringing about six peace agreements—between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, Morocco and Kosovo, plus uniting the Gulf Cooperation Council—has changed the paradigm.
During his 2017 visit to Saudi Arabia, Mr. Trump called on Muslim-majority countries to root out extremist ideology. As the custodian of the two holiest sites in Islam, Saudi Arabia has made significant progress in combating extremism, which has greatly reduced America’s risk of attack and created the environment for today’s new partnerships. In Mr. Trump’s final deal before leaving office, he brokered the end of the diplomatic conflict between Qatar and Saudi Arabia, restoring an important alliance to counter Iran.
The Biden administration, however, has one asset that the Trump administration never had—a relationship with Iran. While many were troubled by the Biden team’s opening offer to work with Europe and rejoin the Iran deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, I saw it as a smart diplomatic move. The Biden administration called Iran’s bluff. It revealed to the Europeans that the JCPOA is dead and only a new framework can bring stability for the future. When Iran asked for a reward merely for initiating negotiations, President Biden did the right thing and refused.
Mr. Trump has said that Iran has never won a war but never lost a negotiation. This negotiation is high-stakes and, thanks to his policies, America holds a strong hand. Iran is feigning strength, but its economic situation is dire and it has no ability to sustain conflict or survive indefinitely under current sanctions. America should be patient and insist that any deal include real nuclear inspections and an end to Iran’s funding of foreign militias.
If the threat from Iran decreases, so can the region’s military budgets. Imagine how many lives could be improved if that money, an outsize share of gross domestic product, were invested in infrastructure, education, small business and impoverished communities.
Following the new road map will prevent the Biden administration from repeating the mistakes of the past and unlock opportunities for U.S. businesses. On Friday the U.A.E. announced a $10 billion fund to invest in Israel; the Arab world is no longer boycotting the Jewish state but betting that it will thrive. There are also several more countries on the brink of joining the Abraham Accords, including Oman, Qatar and Mauritania. These relationships should be pursued aggressively—every deal is a blow to those who prefer chaos.
Most important, normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel is in sight. The kingdom dipped a toe in the water by granting overflight rights to Israel and, most recently, allowing an Israeli racing team to participate in the Dakar Rally. The Saudi people are starting to see that Israel is not their enemy. Relations with Israel are in the Saudi national interest and can be achieved if the Biden administration leads.
I was touched when I read in the Associated Press of a Jewish man who said he felt more comfortable wearing a yarmulke in Dubai than in France. The estrangement between Jews and Muslims in the Middle East over the past 70 years is not the norm. As Jews and Muslims now travel more freely through the region, they return to the tradition of ages past, when members of the Abrahamic faiths lived peacefully side by side.
The table is set. If it is smart, the Biden administration will seize this historic opportunity to unleash the Middle East’s potential, keep America safe, and help the region turn the page on a generation of conflict and instability. It is time to begin a new chapter of partnership, prosperity and peace.
Mr. Kushner was a senior adviser to President Trump.
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/03/iran-probably-already-has-the-bomb-heres-what-to-do-about-it/?fbclid=IwAR3Fl8A-4H2eGWbP4mtW5FtFSTivWpq-ld-7sifzrn6Qv7XFJHqHqIoddwQ
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are the "great satans "
wait till they get a load of China........
for now they are likely allies ... for now
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/03/iran-probably-already-has-the-bomb-heres-what-to-do-about-it/?fbclid=IwAR3Fl8A-4H2eGWbP4mtW5FtFSTivWpq-ld-7sifzrn6Qv7XFJHqHqIoddwQ
From the article:
"Iran’s nuclear and missile programs are not just indigenous, but are helped significantly by Russia, China, North Korea, and probably Pakistan."
- I know it's true but isn't it also outrageous? If we know these rogue nations are helping the world's number one sponsor of terror develop nuclear weapons, isn't our policy toward them a bit lackadaisical? Hardly shunned, one of those nations, China, is hosting the Olympics, ho hum? A public relations event of the largest possible scale, and we endorse it?
Are we suicidal watching all this happen and doing nothing about it? The authors get it but their answer is to harden our targets and build missile defense while Iran and the like build and aim nuclear missiles at us. What could go wrong?
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17162/arabs-warning-biden-iran
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17214/iran-hiding-nuclear-program
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https://www.nationalreview.com/news/state-department-open-to-lifting-sanctions-on-iran-to-restore-nuclear-deal/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MJ_20210408&utm_term=Jolt-Smart
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9459427/Israel-launches-cyber-attack-Iran-nuclear-facility-Tehran-decries-act-nuclear-terrorism.html
Better yet!
April 12, 2021
Iran says it was a victim of "nuclear terrorism" during a power outage at it Natanz uranium plant as U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin visited Israel this weekend. The damage occurred as the Biden administration and Iranian officials danced around talks about returning to compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal that had slowed Tehran's progress toward nuclear weapons.
The Sunday blackout followed an explosion at the site "that completely destroyed the independent — and heavily protected — internal power system that supplies the underground centrifuges that enrich uranium," the New York Times reports.
Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, said the explosion was an act of "nuclear terrorism" and called upon the international community to act.
"We will take revenge on the Zionists," Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif told parliament today. "Military and political officials of the Zionist regime have explicitly said they will not allow progress in removal of the unfair sanctions and now they think they reach their goal," he said, according to the Wall Street Journal.
FWIW: Russian officials say they hope whatever happened won't "undermine" progress on nuclear talks, Agence France-Presse reports.
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second post
Iran’s need to secure sanctions relief in newly restarted nuclear talks will limit its response to the suspected Israeli attack on Iran’s Natanz facility. Any act of Iranian retaliation, however, will increase overall global scrutiny on the negotiations between Tehran and the West. Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility south of Tehran suffered an overnight electricity blackout early April 11 after an explosion reportedly destroyed the internal power system that supplies the underground centrifuges. The timing of the incident follows the first indirect diplomatic engagement between the United States and Iran in three years, and comes amid ongoing tit-for-tat maritime and regional escalations between Israel and Iran. This further indicates the incident was intentional sabotage, with the intent to disrupt Iran’s nuclear program progress, as well as potentially spoil talks between Iran and the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany), which are set to continue in...
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17273/iran-biden-administration
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17273/iran-biden-administration
Our policy toward Iran [and China, NK and Venezuela] should be regime change.
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https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/kerry-iran-american-deserve-explanation-michael-pompeo
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democrat ketchup barrons
do not need to explain
good luck
with that
while Biden and the Dem mob is in power
their response is always the middle finger to the Right
coumo is governor leader for corona ?
rahm emanuel gets ambassador ship to japan
we always get the middle finger from the left
biden was always this way
those who keep saying he is/was a moderate are fools
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17371/biden-iran-temptation
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https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2021/05/detente-iran-could-unlock-foreign-policy-gold-mine/174107/
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/may/23/iran-says-inspectors-may-no-longer-get-nuclear-sit/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=newsalert&utm_content=newsalert&utm_term=newsalert&bt_ee=omWp2EpvMoSrw0Z6Vi%2BUMt6XYe9vS0%2FKMd%2FA8U4CjwxeoZ3%2BVC%2FooLOfkKeHgarW&bt_ts=1621770925535
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17400/iran-will-pursue-nukes
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https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/26/iaea-chief-on-iran-nuclear-program-only-countries-making-bombs-are-enriching-at-this-level.html
‘Only countries making bombs’ are enriching uranium at Iran’s level, IAEA chief says
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https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/26/iaea-chief-on-iran-nuclear-program-only-countries-making-bombs-are-enriching-at-this-level.html
‘Only countries making bombs’ are enriching uranium at Iran’s level, IAEA chief says
Better start loading up pallets of cash! It's the only option!
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https://washingtontimes-dc.newsmemory.com/?token=5f8a54c4d53220144bd9141f810b50aa_60b4e22c_6d25b5f&selDate=20210531&goTo=A01&artid=1&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=washingtontimes-E-Editions&utm_source=washingtontimes&utm_content=Read-Button
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https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/irans-largest-warship-mysteriously-catches-fire-and-sinks-gulf-oman?utm_campaign=&utm_content=Zerohedge%3A+The+Durden+Dispatch&utm_medium=email&utm_source=zh_newsletter
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17470/biden-iran-policy-carrots
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July 8, 2021
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Iran’s Pretense of Strength
Iranian threats don’t match up with Iranian actions.
By: Hilal Khashan
Iran presents itself to the outside world as the mighty Islamic Republic, built on strength, perseverance and independence. But in reality, Iran is a weak country. Its military hardware is obsolete, and its economy is hurting. It became a regional power only by default following Iraq’s loss in the 1991 Gulf War and the subsequent crippling blockade. The uprisings that shattered several Arab countries didn’t affect Iran, which then gained a modicum of power and influence in the region, despite its internal weakness. Iran thus succeeded in transforming its mediocre capabilities into assets in a turbulent Middle East, but this should not be confused with real strength.
Iran's Sphere of Influence
(click to enlarge)
Empty Rhetoric
Iranian officials often issue fiery statements against the West threatening violence and retribution for any moves targeting Tehran. A former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, for example, threatened to level Tel Aviv and Haifa if Israel attacked Iran. In 2018, the IRGC’s commander-in-chief promised to annihilate Israel, saying, “If there is war, the result will be your destruction.” That same year, the head of the Iranian army predicted that Israel would disappear in 25 years. Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also threatened to wipe Israel off the map.
But despite their aggressive rhetoric, the Iranians know that acting on their threats could provoke a response they’d rather avoid. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei described the killing of Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force, by a U.S. drone in 2020 as a declaration of war and promised to have no mercy on his killers. But Iran’s retaliation – hitting two Iraqi bases housing U.S. troops and having its proxy Popular Mobilization Forces fire rockets at a military base near Baghdad – was a feeble response to the murder of the second-most powerful person in the country.
Indeed, Iran’s leadership understands the rules of the game, and it abides by them. It knows that U.S. President Joe Biden does not want war or regime change in Tehran. Former President Donald Trump committed to withdrawing U.S. troops from the Middle East and, in 2020, ordered that the number of soldiers stationed in Iraq be slashed by one-third.
The Iranians, meanwhile, have also learned lessons from past experience. In 1988, the USS Samuel B. Roberts frigate hit a naval mine laid by Iran in the Persian Gulf during the Tanker War. The U.S. then launched Operation Praying Mantis, which sank six Iranian ships and destroyed two oil rigs. In 2019, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bragged about the Israeli Air Force’s ability to reach any target in Iran, which could not respond in kind. A year earlier, three Israeli F-35 fighter jets flew over Tehran and returned safely to base. Israel launched hundreds of airstrikes on Iranian convoys loaded with weapons for Hezbollah, and neither Iran nor Hezbollah dared to fight back. Last month, a former Iranian intelligence minister admitted that Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency has penetrated Iran and is increasing its influence, especially among Iran’s minority groups. Israel’s assassination last November of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, known as the father of Iran’s nuclear program, revealed the extent of Iran’s vulnerability to Israeli subversion.
Hungry for Recognition
In 2014, when the U.S. assembled a coalition to try to oust the Islamic State from Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, Iran wanted to join it, in part to reduce its global isolation and in part to deflect attention from its nuclear program. The U.S., however, preferred to engage instead with Iran’s proxy group, the Iraq-based Popular Mobilization Forces.
For the anti-IS coalition, there was little direct collaboration with Iran. The U.S. Air Force provided support to an offensive that included Iraqi army troops, peshmergas and PMF units to oust IS from Amerli, a Shiite Turkmen town in northern Iraq some 100 kilometers (60 miles) from Iran’s border. But for the most part, the U.S. opposed Iran’s involvement. Washington’s view was that both the Islamic State and Iran presented serious threats. Its opposition drove Iran to denounce U.S. military action in Syria and Iraq as a violation of their national sovereignty and international law.
Iran claims it defeated IS and other radical Islamic movements in Syria and Iraq. But in Syria, government forces and their Iranian allies were on the defensive until 2015, when the Russian air force joined the fighting. And in Iraq, the decisive factors in the Islamic State’s defeat were the U.S. Air Force and the Kurdish troops on the ground.
Contrary to official claims, Iran is eager for Israeli recognition as an equal regional power. Israel, however, prefers to negotiate peace treaties with Arab countries, not Iran, which had no role in the Arab-Israeli conflict and recognized Israel as a de facto entity in 1950.
To make itself appear more powerful, Iran grossly exaggerates the value of its weapons industry. In 2007, it introduced a copy of the 1950s Northrop F-5 fighter, and in 2014, it replicated a U.S. RQ-170 drone that landed in Iranian territory in 2011. Aviation experts say the Iranian version is nothing more than a propaganda tool. Similar doubts shroud Iran’s Qaher 313, allegedly a fifth-generation stealth plane that looks more like a replica of the F-313 trainer.
Weak Retaliation
Despite their bombastic rhetoric, Iran and its allies regularly fail to retaliate against attacks on their personnel and assets. When Israel killed top Hezbollah military commander Imad Mughniyeh in 2008, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said he would destroy the Israeli army, but of course that never happened. Similarly, the PMF condemned last month’s U.S. airstrikes against its bases in the Iraqi-Syrian border area but refrained from retaliating.
For the past two years, Israel has been attacking Iranian ships transporting strategic supplies for the Syrian regime and Houthi rebels in Yemen. Iran calibrates its reaction to avoid casualties or severe damage to Israeli ships. Iran has been exceptionally keen on not sliding into a full-scale war with the U.S. or Israel, cleverly using Iraq’s PMF and Yemen’s Houthis to wage asymmetric attacks on its behalf.
The PMF use unguided rockets and drones against U.S. bases in Iraq to avoid inflicting casualties and provoking retaliation. When firing rockets at the vast U.S. Embassy in Baghdad or military bases housing U.S. troops, the PMF makes sure they land outside the perimeter of the facilities. These attacks are a means of communication, not a serious attempt to inflict harm.
Meanwhile, U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil exports have severely hurt its already weak economy. Iran’s oil exports dropped from 2.8 million barrels per day in 2018 to 300,000 barrels per day in 2020. (They rose recently to 750,000 barrels per day.) Iran responded cautiously by attacking Saudi and Emirati oil tankers in the Persian Gulf because it knows that they would not retaliate, unlike the U.S. and Israel. The Houthis continue to launch frequent attacks on air bases and other military and infrastructure facilities in southwest Saudi Arabia. Members of the PMF in southern Iraq attacked oil facilities in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province in 2019. The Saudis do not respond to provocations from Iraq, and their airstrikes against the Houthis have not affected the Houthis’ control over most of Yemen.
Iran is a country engulfed in economic problems ranging from deep-seated corruption to debilitating U.S. sanctions to economic domination by religious institutions and IRGC-affiliated companies. Its conservative clerics and senior commanding officers have put up a facade of military prowess that has been less than convincing for critically minded Iranians. Still, the regime in Tehran remains secure, despite the occasional protest. The ruling elite seem convinced that Iran has a bright future ahead, while the reformists face an uphill battle to secularize the country.
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Iran Redux
by Potkin Azarmehr
Special to IPT News
July 16, 2021
https://www.investigativeproject.org/8943/iran-redux
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Iranian Terror Comes to America
There will be dangerous consequences if Biden doesn’t respond strongly to the kidnapping plot.
By Navid Mohebbi and Cameron Khansarinia
July 20, 2021 6:24 pm ET
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The foiled kidnapping plot against activist and journalist Masih Alinejad, an Iranian-born U.S. citizen living in New York City, has sparked a wave of outrage. The Justice Department’s indictment and detailed court documents indicate the Islamic Republic’s significant investment in the plot. The most troublesome part of this case, however, has been the Biden administration’s weak public response, which invites more malign behavior from Tehran.
Hundreds of dissidents have been threatened, kidnapped or assassinated since 1979, when the current regime rose to power in Iran. Since 2018, however, the Islamic Republic has carried out its campaign of terror with a new fervor. In 2019, Tehran lured, kidnapped and killed Ruhollah Zam, an Iranian dissident journalist residing in France. In July 2020, the Islamic Republic abducted Jamshid Sharmahd in Dubai and brought him to Iran, where he has been detained ever since. Mr. Sharmad is a lawful permanent resident of the U.S. The regime also abducted Habib Chaab, an Iranian-Swedish political activist, in October 2020.
Like other Iranian activists, the Brooklyn-based Ms. Alinejad has long faced threats for her opposition to the clerical regime. But attacking a U.S. citizen on American soil is something the Islamic Republic hasn’t attempted in more than four decades. Why now?
Iran, pressed to show its strength by the tide of discontent rising among its restive population, is likely taking these actions to send two messages. The first is to the Iranian people: No matter where you flee to, if you speak up, we will find you. This is at a time when antiregime protests are erupting in the country. The second and more important is meant for the U.S.: We will come after your people on your soil, spreading terror and brutality in the belief that, as the regime’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, put it, “America can’t do a damn thing against us.”
So far, President Biden has proved Khomeini prescient. His cowed stance is dangerous not only for those residing within the U.S. but for liberty’s advocates all around the world. The plot to kidnap an American citizen from New York has thus far gone unrecognized and uncondemned by Mr. Biden. The one tweet that did come from Secretary of State Antony Blinken didn’t even name Iran as the perpetrator or mention that an American citizen had been threatened on U.S. soil.
Ignoring this threat will have three lasting consequences. First, for dissidents of all types, it sets a horrifying precedent. Those who left their homelands for the promise of safety and freedom are realizing the current administration doesn’t care. If Tehran can be caught trying to kidnap a U.S. citizen in Brooklyn and receive billions of dollars in sanctions relief on the same day the U.S. government announces the foiled plot, what stops the Chinese or Russian government from attempting the same? The Biden administration is putting not only Iranian-Americans but also Cubans, Venezuelans, Hong Kongers and other dissident communities who sought refuge in America in physical danger.
Second, the message to the Iranian negotiating team in Vienna couldn’t be clearer: Washington wants a deal at any cost. Word is already emerging that the Biden administration has made massive concessions to the world’s leading state sponsor of terror in negotiations to return to the now defunct Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. By letting the Islamic Republic get away with the plot against Ms. Alinejad and other dissidents, the U.S. shows there’s nothing it isn’t willing to give away for a deal.
The third, and perhaps most lasting, consequence of ignoring the threat against Ms. Alinejad, is that the world now knows Mr. Biden’s promise to give human rights priority in U.S. foreign policy was nothing more than a slogan. Dictators and tyrants will feel emboldened, realizing there will be no price to pay for abusing their citizens.
The president can avert this. All he needs to do is put serious pressure on Tehran. At the very least, Mr. Biden should halt negotiations in Vienna, expel the remaining diplomats at the Iranian regime’s Interests Section in Washington—the country’s de facto embassy—and open a substantial dialogue with activists, dissidents, and the secular democratic opposition.
The president has a choice to make. He can show that while his administration values diplomacy, it values the lives of Americans more. Or he can shirk his most basic responsibility to keep American citizens safe and let dictators’ sovereignty extend into places like Brooklyn.
Mr. Mohebbi, a former political prisoner in Iran, is policy fellow at the Washington-based National Union for Democracy in Iran, where Mr. Khansarinia is policy director.
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New Nuclear Deal Would Empower the Iranian Regime
by Hany Ghoraba
IPT News
July 21, 2021
https://www.investigativeproject.org/8945/new-nuclear-deal-would-empower-the-iranian-regime
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https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2021/07/how-ai-revealing-secrets-irans-nascent-centrifuge-factory/184113/
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https://hotair.com/jazz-shaw/2021/07/20/did-biden-pull-anti-missile-systems-from-middle-east-as-a-concession-to-iran-n403332
Whatever reason Obama had to coddle the world largest state sponsor of terrorism must be the same reason Biden is doing it. Too bad they don't tell us what reason that is.
All we know is that coddling Iran is not in America's best interest.
"Did Biden pull anti-missile systems from Middle East as a concession to Iran?"
Why would anyone pull and anti-missile defense system? Didn't they win the cold war for us?
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17604/iran-killing-us-eu-silence
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https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/917909/report-israel-vows-to-respond-to-iranian-attack-if-us-does-not
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17611/iran-rouhani-presidency
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17633/iran-sea-war
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1) How far is it from Jerusalem to Teheran?
2) How far is it from Teheran to Bagram AF Base?
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17678/iran-taliban-victory
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https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2021/09/02/u-s-afghan-military-equipment-iran/
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The U.S. and Iran. Robert Malley, the U.S. special representative for Iranian affairs, will be in Russia and France until Friday to discuss the Iran nuclear deal. Malley said the U.S. cannot wait forever for Iran to resume talks. His visit to France comes a week after French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian spoke by phone with his Iranian counterpart, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, during which he emphasized the need for Iran to resume nuclear deal negotiations and France’s desire to use its relationship with Iran to achieve a happier outcome. It also comes after Washington hosted Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to discuss Iran and other regional security issues. Israel’s foreign minister has already been invited to Washington to continue discussions on this matter.
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https://andmagazine.com/talk/2021/09/18/iranians-to-get-uranium-for-their-nuclear-weapons-courtesy-of-biden-administration/
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September 30, 2021
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Prospects for Saudi-Iranian Talks
Both countries have come to the table but hurdles abound.
By: Hilal Khashan
In recent months, regional rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia have been in talks with the aim of improving bilateral relations and maintaining regional security. Their rivalry intensified over the past several years over regional conflicts in which they supported opposing sides. But the competition between them goes back to 1969, when U.S. President Richard Nixon established the Nixon Doctrine, which defined both countries as “twin pillars” of the Middle East but designated Tehran as the guardian of Persian Gulf security. Their political conflict during the shah’s rule became an ideological conflict after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini planned to export throughout the region. It now plays out in places like Syria and Yemen, where both Riyadh and Tehran are trying to influence regional power dynamics.
Iran's Sphere of Influence
(click to enlarge)
Saudi Misconceptions
In 2007, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah welcomed the arrival of Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad at the Gulf Cooperation Council summit in Doha. The Gulf countries wanted Ahmadinejad to make clear that Iran had no intention of damaging regional security. Instead, he condescendingly stated repeatedly that the Gulf was Persian and urged GCC states to take advantage of Iran’s vast range of scientific and technical innovations. The summit was a fiasco, and since then, Saudi Arabia has frequently accused Iran of breaching U.N. conventions on national sovereignty and non-intervention in other countries’ domestic affairs.
Gulf Cooperation Council Countries
(click to enlarge)
According to the Saudis, Iran’s meddling is done through proxies like the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthi rebels in Yemen. However, Riyadh has exaggerated the ties between Iran and the Houthis, making it appear as if Tehran controls the rebels’ actions. In reality, the Houthis are a homegrown movement that emerged in 1992 from the economically marginalized Zaydi sect, which ruled Yemen for a millennium and went to war against the Yemeni government on numerous occasions after a 1962 coup led to the establishment of a republican state. Thus, whereas Tehran created the PMF and Hezbollah, the Houthis existed prior to Iran’s support and do not take orders from Tehran. After the war began in 2014, they even initially sought the support of Saudi Arabia, which chose instead to maintain its ties with the Yemeni government.
Coming to the Table
The first round of talks between Saudi Arabia and Iran occurred in Baghdad last April – though Riyadh denied that the discussions took place. Chief among the issues that need to be resolved is Yemen, where the protracted conflict has tarnished Saudi Arabia’s reputation as a regional power. Houthi ballistic missiles and drones have hit targets in Saudi Arabia, including Aramco’s oil installations. It squandered $700 billion on the war while turning to local and international banks for money and shelving most infrastructure projects related to its Vision 2030 initiative.
While the two countries negotiate this and other issues, Iran is also in talks in Vienna with the U.S., EU and others over the 2015 nuclear deal. It’s no coincidence that the two negotiations are happening simultaneously. The U.S. is keen to avoid reaching a new nuclear deal that the Saudis oppose, as they did the previous one. The Saudis, meanwhile, want to avoid being left in the dark, as they were during secret talks in Oman between the U.S. and Iran that paved the way for the 2015 deal. They understand that Iran wants to negotiate bilaterally and refuses to discuss relations with Riyadh during the Vienna talks to avoid facing international pressure.
Riyadh has two principal reasons for wanting to communicate with Tehran. First, the kingdom is concerned about the consequences of the U.S. withdrawal from the Middle East and about the economic and security ramifications of its own involvement in the Yemeni war. Second, Riyadh cannot count on its GCC partners to back its Iran policy. Saudi Arabia severed diplomatic relations with Iran in 2016 after Iranian demonstrators, angry at the execution of a prominent Shiite cleric, set the Saudi embassy in Tehran on fire. Unwilling to embroil themselves in a full-scale conflict with Iran, the GCC states, with the exception of Bahrain, decided not to follow suit. Instead, they merely recalled their ambassadors in Tehran and canceled a few flights as a gesture of solidarity.
Iran’s main reason for coming to the table is that it’s desperately trying to relaunch its economy, which has been devastated by sanctions and needs a respite from regional and international crises, without compromising its core political objective of regional preeminence. It wants to end U.S. sanctions and is also interested in halting the Gulf countries’ quest for political and economic normalization with Israel, driven in part by their concerns over the specter of Iranian regional hegemony. The Iranians worry that hostilities with most GCC countries will eventually allow Israel to fill the vacuum left by the U.S. exit from the Middle East.
Iran prefers to include Iraq, Qatar and Oman – with whom it shares good relations – in the talks to guarantee compliance with the terms of any agreement. The critical stumbling block is Iran’s meddling in its neighbors’ affairs. It’s keen on getting Saudi Arabia to inform the U.S. that it ironed out this matter with the Iranians – without making a solid commitment to Riyadh.
The French Connection
Complicating this scenario are the French, who are trying to replace the U.S. as the most influential Western power in the Middle East. When the U.S. announced that National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan would visit Riyadh this week to discuss Yemen, French President Emmanuel Marcon immediately called Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman to talk about the deteriorating security and humanitarian situation in Yemen. (The developments came as the Houthis closed in on Marib, Yemen’s hydrocarbon-rich region.) In Lebanon, French cooperation with Iran suddenly made it possible for Lebanon’s political factions to form a Cabinet and end the yearlong stalemate.
France has been a staunch defender of Iran in Europe and in the Vienna talks, primarily because of lucrative business deals the two countries have signed. Before the U.S. imposed sanctions on Iran under the Trump administration, Tehran signed a deal with Airbus worth $25 billion to purchase 118 aircraft and another with French oil firm Total worth $5 billion to develop the South Pars 11 gas field. Paris expects the deals to be reactivated after the sanctions are lifted. In addition, Iran earlier this month pressured Iraq to sign a $25 billion contract with Total to develop oil projects in southern Iraq.
Aware of the opportunistic relationship between France and Iran, Riyadh started economic talks with Paris despite Mohammad bin Salman’s previous reservations concerning the difficulty of making deals with France. The Saudi investment minister recently visited Paris to explore business opportunities with French companies.
What to Expect
Saudi Arabia’s King Salman recently addressed the U.N. General Assembly and expressed hope that talks with Iran would build confidence and reestablish their pre-1979 relations. The government in Tehran has done its best to minimize their points of contention, saying that the negotiations have gone well. But there’s a massive gap between what the Iranians say and what they do. Tehran promised Riyadh it would use its influence with the Houthis to halt their attacks on Saudi territory, but the frequency of their missile and drone strikes hasn’t declined. More troubling is that the Houthis have stepped up their offensive on Yemen’s oil-rich regions to improve their bargaining position ahead of a negotiated settlement to end the war.
Both the Saudis and the Iranians don’t expect a quick fix. The Saudis fear that Iran hasn’t abandoned its historical claim to regional predominance, while the Iranians reject Saudi stereotypes that view them as apostates and violators of the faith. It’s unlikely therefore that they can resolve their long-standing political differences; at best, they can work out an interim agreement with no winner or loser to deal with their pressing domestic issues and improve how the outside world perceives them.
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Colombia Uncovers Another Iranian Foreign Assassination Campaign
by Potkin Azarmehr
IPT News
October 1, 2021
https://www.investigativeproject.org/9018/colombia-uncovers-another-iranian-foreign
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17825/nuclear-armed-iran
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IIRC Israel had a refueling agreement with Azerbaijan which would have given its aircraft round trip capability to hit Iran until Obama leaked about it.
=============
Azerbaijan’s Defiant Message to Iran
Washington should take note of its alliance with Israel.
By Michael Doran
Oct. 11, 2021 6:44 pm ET
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev poses with a Harop drone in Jabrayil, Azerbaijan.
PHOTO: PRESS SERVICE, REPUBLIC OF AZERBAIJAN
A picture is worth a thousand policy briefs. On Oct. 4, Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan, mugged for the cameras. Beaming before reporters, he stroked, patted, and put a loving arm around a Harop, a kamikaze drone manufactured by Israel.
Technically classified as a “loitering munition,” the Harop behaves, in the latter stages of its mission, like a cruise missile, crashing into its targets and exploding on impact. In the early stages, however, it functions as a drone, circling high above the battlefield, waiting for targets to emerge. The Harop is well known in Azerbaijan, thanks to the role it played in the victory last year against Armenia.
But it was for Iran’s benefit that Mr. Aliyev organized this photo-op. In recent weeks, Tehran has engaged in a crude campaign of intimidation that included military exercises on Azerbaijan’s frontier—a surprise move that elicited an angry response from Mr. Aliyev. “Why now, and why on our border?” he asked publicly. “There were no such incidents in the 30 years of Azerbaijan’s independence.”
Iranian officials answered by demanding that Azerbaijan end its alliance with Israel. “We do not tolerate the presence and activity against our national security of the Zionist regime, or Israel, next to our borders,” said Hossein Amirabdollahian, the Iranian foreign minister. “And we will carry out any necessary action in this regard.”
Iran has good reason to be worried. Its economy is in shambles, and unemployment is rampant. By contrast, Azerbaijan’s economy is strong, and its army is even stronger, thanks in part to the assistance from Israel, which organized a military airlift to resupply Azerbaijan during the 2020 war with Armenia.
Seen from Tehran, Israeli influence in Baku appears especially ominous because of the extraordinary reach into Iranian society that Azerbaijan enjoys. Ethnic Azerbaijanis, a Shiite Turkic people, form a large portion of Iran’s population, somewhere between 20% and 30%. They are concentrated in the northwest part of the country, on the border with Azerbaijan. Though a major secessionist movement hasn’t developed, discontent is rife, and strong feelings of solidarity with Azerbaijan are often on display.
The Iranian government has long assumed that Israel owes the successes of its covert war against Iran’s nuclear program to clandestine Azerbaijani networks. In 2012, after two men on a motorcycle attached a magnetic bomb to the car of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, an Iranian nuclear scientist, Iran’s foreign ministry summoned the Azerbaijani ambassador and protested the assistance Azerbaijan was thought to have provided to Israeli intelligence.
Whether Israel is truly receiving direct assistance for its covert operations is anyone’s guess. Whatever the case may be, the Israelis clearly recognize that the rise of Azerbaijan is knocking the Islamic Republic off balance. When members of the Azerbaijani minority in Iran learned that Iran was helping Russia to resupply the Armenian army during the war, they sabotaged transport vehicles and launched public protests. Moreover, the subsequent victory of the Azerbaijani army has all but shut Tehran out of the postwar diplomacy in the South Caucasus. On none of Iran’s other borders does Tehran feel so exposed and powerless to shape events.
To say that Azerbaijan, with a population of only 10 million, has deterred Iran without American help is an understatement. At times the U.S. has actively obstructed. In 2012, when the Obama administration was courting Iran, senior American officials briefed the press on military cooperation between Azerbaijan and Israel with the clear intention of scuttling it.
Now Washington is again courting Tehran. Although it is doing nothing to impede cooperation between Baku and Jerusalem, its supine posture in the face of Iranian aggression has created an environment that invites acts of intimidation such as those to which Azerbaijan is being subjected.
The Biden administration would be better served by following Israel’s example. The benefits to the U.S. of a rising Azerbaijan extend well beyond the effort to counter Iran. Azerbaijan is the only country to border both Iran and Russia. A strong and self-confident Baku is also a counterbalance to Moscow.
The chaotic pullout from Afghanistan demonstrates that, if the U.S. is to remain the leading power in global politics, it must find a way to deter nasty international actors while simultaneously respecting an electorate that is wary of military interventions. The best way to balance these imperatives is to forge productive understandings with countries that wield capable militaries—and who aren’t afraid to use them.
When Mr. Aliyev hugged the Harop he was intentionally sending a message of defiance to Iran. Unintentionally, he was also sending a piece of sage advice to Washington: New challenges require new friends.
Mr. Doran is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17860/biden-iran-china-empowered
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GPF
Daily Memo: Cyberattack Targets Iranian Fuel, Beijing Reaches Out to the Taliban
Many gas stations in the country were forced to close.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Cyberattack in Iran. A cyberattack forced the closure of gas stations across Iran on Tuesday. The attack made it impossible to purchase subsidized fuel using government-issued electronic cards, which many Iranians rely on for fuel. Authorities initially called it a technical failure, but local media, citing sources close to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, later confirmed the disruption was due to a cyberattack. An investigation is underway.
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https://washingtontimes-dc.newsmemory.com/?token=b2e226fafe2fce300401944f74522405_617fe787_6d25b5f&selDate=20211101
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17949/iran-mullahs-concessions
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https://www.oann.com/secy-of-state-blinken-says-iran-doesnt-seem-to-be-serious-about-compliance-with-nuclear-deal/
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https://freebeacon.com/national-security/biden-admin-waives-sanctions-on-iran-as-nuclear-talks-restart/
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The vaginitis is strong with that one , , ,
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The Iranian Weapons Triangle that Drives Tehran's Regional Entrenchment
by Yaakov Lappin
IPT News
December 7, 2021
https://www.investigativeproject.org/9083/the-iranian-weapons-triangle-that-drives-tehran
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https://americanmind.org/salvo/the-mullahs-declare-cyberwar/?utm_campaign=American%20Mind%20Email%20Warm%20Up&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=193412940&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-86gDqAtdVJssV4BEvTS-X3PMc5qS4CVxhfUJzuT55NugcnSs8waYpftSTaik1H5ZZxTf7JL4-brpvfzeZ4-Ak7hwj4DA&utm_content=193412940&utm_source=hs_email
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Note the part about EMP capability
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18023/iran-nuclear-deal-biden
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18091/iran-nuclear-blackmail
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18091/iran-nuclear-blackmail
https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-labor-force-participation-rate.htm
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18095/iran-biden-nuclear-deal
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https://www.nysun.com/editorials/a-staggering-act-of-appeasement/91963/
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https://www.nysun.com/editorials/a-staggering-act-of-appeasement/91963/
Biden is out of patience with the unvaxxed Americans, but will endlessly coddle the terrorist country of Iran.
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but look how it is reported by MSM :
IT WAS S KOREA WHO PAID THE 18 MILLION
and hardly a mention: "with US approval" and likely US direction.
https://www.reuters.com/world/skorea-says-iran-regain-un-vote-after-delinquent-dues-paid-with-frozen-funds-2022-01-23/
nothing to see here.
it was SKorea.........
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Differences Splinter U.S. Team Negotiating With Iran on Nuclear Deal
Some members of the U.S. team have left or stepped back after urging a tougher approach in talks on Iran’s nuclear program
Iran has refused to sit directly with the U.S. in the nuclear-deal talks.
PHOTO: ABEDIN TAHERKENAREH/SHUTTERSTOCK
By Laurence Norman
Follow
Jan. 24, 2022 4:19 pm ET
With talks to restore the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran reaching a critical phase, differences have emerged in the U.S. negotiating team over how tough to be with Tehran and when to walk away, according to people familiar with the negotiations.
U.S. officials confirmed over the weekend that Richard Nephew, the deputy special envoy for Iran, has left the team. Mr. Nephew, an architect of previous economic sanctions on Iran, had advocated a tougher posture in the current negotiations, and he hasn’t attended the talks in Vienna since early December.
Two other members of the team, which is led by State Department veteran Robert Malley, have stepped back from the talks, the people familiar said, because they also wanted a harder negotiating stance.
Among the issues that have divided the team are how firmly to enforce existing sanctions and whether to cut off negotiations as Iran drags them out while its nuclear program advances, the people familiar with the negotiations said.
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The divisions come at a pivotal time, with U.S. and European officials warning that only a few weeks remain to rescue the 2015 deal before Iran acquires the know-how and capability to quickly produce enough nuclear fuel for a bomb. Under the agreement, the U.S. lifted most international sanctions on Tehran in exchange for strict but temporary limits on Iran’s nuclear work. The Trump administration exited the agreement, seeing it as insufficient to restrain Iran, and the Biden administration is trying to reverse course.
Iran has refused to sit directly with the U.S. in the talks, though on Monday Iran’s foreign minister said Tehran would consider doing so if talks progress.
Richard Nephew, the deputy special envoy for Iran and an architect of previous economic sanctions on Iran, has left the U.S. negotiating team.
PHOTO: SUSAN WALSH/ASSOCIATED PRESS
With no deadline set to end the talks, some Western diplomats doubt whether the Biden administration is prepared to call it quits. Doing so could trigger a crisis, with Iran accelerating its nuclear-enrichment program at a time of heightened tensions between Washington and Moscow over Ukraine. Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.
A senior State Department official said that the administration at its highest levels has settled on a policy toward Iran after careful consideration of multiple viewpoints and that a return to the 2015 agreement offers an opportunity to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
The official confirmed Mr. Nephew’s departure from the negotiating team; he remains with the State Department. The official said another member of the negotiating team requested to be removed from the Vienna talks. No other team member has been sidelined, the official said, or departed for “anything other than normal personnel reasons.”
Strains within the U.S. team have been growing since the summer over a range of issues that have been debated—and sometimes decided—at the highest levels of the Biden administration, the people familiar with the negotiations said.
Some in the team urged leaving the talks in early December after a new Iranian negotiating team returned to Vienna and reversed most of the concessions the previous government made in the spring 2021, the people said.
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While Iran says it isn’t trying to build nuclear weapons, a look at its key facilities suggests it could develop the technology to make them. WSJ breaks down Tehran’s capabilities as it hits new milestones in uranium enrichment and limits access to inspectors. Photo illustration: George Downs
Other tension points, the people said, included whether to get the United Nations’ atomic agency to censure Tehran last year for preventing inspectors from monitoring its nuclear work and its refusal to cooperate with a separate probe into nuclear material found in Iran. Differences also flared over how aggressively to enforce sanctions on Iran, especially with China over imports of Iranian oil.
Also debated, the people said, is at what point would it become impossible to restore a central aim of the 2015 deal—keeping Iran 12 months away from having enough nuclear fuel for an atomic weapon.
U.S. and European officials decided to plow on with the negotiations in December despite Iran’s toughening of its negotiating stance. They have also drawn back from taking action at the International Atomic Energy Agency board to censure Iran, a move that Tehran said could scuttle talks.
Mr. Nephew played a key role in designing the web of sanctions imposed on Iran from 2006-13 and was a senior member of the team that negotiated the 2015 nuclear deal. While he strongly backed that agreement, he has written that the use of broad sanctions was crucial in persuading Iran to negotiate seriously.
His appointment as deputy Iran envoy in March sparked criticism in Iran. A conservative Iranian newspaper, Vatan-e-Emrooz, photoshopped a poster from the 1997 horror film “The Devil’s Advocate,” in which an ambitious attorney becomes a lawyer for Satan. In the Iranian newspaper, Mr. Biden is depicted in the devil’s role, standing behind Mr. Nephew as the lawyer.
The talks in Vienna are aimed at agreeing on the steps Iran and the U.S. would take to re-enter the nuclear deal. A year after the Trump administration exited the deal in May 2018, Iran started expanding its nuclear program. It has now breached most limits in the 2015 accord, is producing near weapons-grade nuclear fuel and is thought to be just a few weeks from having enough highly enriched uranium for a bomb.
The Biden administration set restoring the nuclear deal as a foreign-policy goal, though it has kept almost all the Trump sanctions in place. Republicans and Democrats in Congress have criticized the administration for allowing Iran to build up its nuclear work even while the talks dragged on.
—Michael R. Gordon contributed to this article.
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IRAN
Intrusion shows Iran’s cyber vulnerabilities
Dissident group hacks state TV, radio
BY JON GAMBRELL ASSOCIATED PRESS DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES | Multiple channels of Iran’s state television broadcast images on Thursday showing the leaders of an exiled dissident group and a graphic calling for the death of the country’s supreme leader, an incident that authorities later described as a hack.
For several seconds, graphics flashed on screen, interrupting the broadcast to depict the leaders of the opposition group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq. The name of a social media account, which claimed to be a group of hackers who broadcast the message honoring the dissidents, also appeared. Two state radio stations were also interrupted.
Shahin Gobadi, a Paris-based MEK spokesperson, later told The Associated Press: “We, like you, were just informed about the issue.”
“It appears that it was done by supporters of the MEK and resistance units within the regime’s radio and television stations,” he said, without directly claiming responsibility.
The hack represented a major breach of Iranian state television, long believed to controlled and operated by members of the Islamic Republic’s intelligence branches, particularly its hardline Revolutionary Guard. Such an incident hasn’t happened for years.
A clip of the incident seen by the AP showed the faces of MEK leaders Massoud Rajavi and his wife, Maryam Rajavi, suddenly superimposed on the channel’s regular 3 p.m. news programming. A man’s voice chants, “Salute to Rajavi, death to [Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei.”
Then, a speech from Mr. Rajavi briefly plays over the images. He can be heard saying, “Today, we still honor the time that we declared death to the reactionary. We stood by it.”
Mr. Rajavi hasn’t been seen publicly in nearly two decades and is presumed to have died. Maryam Rajavi now runs the MEK.
Iran’s state TV said authorities would investigate the intrusion. It apparently marked the latest in a series of embarrassing cyberattacks against the Islamic Republic as world powers struggle to revive Tehran’s tattered nuclear deal with world powers. Other attacks, which Iran has blamed on Israel, have been directed at its nuclear program.
In October, an assault on Iran’s fuel distribution system paralyzed gas stations nationwide, leading to long lines of angry motorists unable to get subsidized fuel for days. A cyberattack on Iran’s railway system caused chaos and train delays. Another hack leaked footage of abuses at its notorious Evin prison.
Iran, long sanctioned by the West, faces difficulties in getting up-to-date hardware and software, often relying on Chinese- manufactured electronics or older systems. Some control room systems in Iran run Windows 7, for which Microsoft no longer provides security updates. Pirated versions of Windows and other software are common across Iran.
Reza Alidadi, a top state TV official, later told the broadcaster that the attack possibly involved help from foreigners.
“It seems the incident is not simple and it is a complicated job that [only] owners of the technology are able to use,” he said, without elaborating.
Interruptions in Iranian state television broadcasts have happened before. In 1986, those watching state TV in Iran were surprised to see the country’s exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi appear to give a speech for about 11 minutes. He expressed his determination to fight Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, and asked Iranians for their support.
At the time, people speculated that Mr. Pahlavi potentially received assistance from a foreign intelligence agency that had smuggled a transmitter into the country to hijack the signal. Amid the revelations of the Iran-Contra affair, reporting showed the CIA backed that transmission, as well as the work of an exile radio station in Cairo broadcasting against the Islamic Republic.
The CIA did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Thursday’s inciden
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second
Why Russia and China Build Up Iran
Though vulnerable, Tehran is the ideal Middle East partner in an alliance to destroy the U.S.-led order.
By Bryan Clark and Michael Doran
Jan. 27, 2022 6:29 pm ET
The Ukraine crisis exposes a flaw in President Biden’s Iran strategy. Washington engages with Beijing and Moscow as if they share core U.S. interests with respect to Iran, when instead they are working with Tehran to undermine the American-led global order.
That’s certainly what officials in Tehran are saying. Last Wednesday, Mahmoud Abbaszadeh-Meshkini, a spokesman for the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, said: “In the new world order, a triangle consisting of three powers—Iran, Russia, and China—has formed.” He was clear about the goal: “This new arrangement heralds the end of the inequitable hegemony of the United States and the West.”
The Biden team isn’t listening. Last Friday Secretary of State Antony Blinken met in Geneva with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who proposed an interim deal to break the deadlock in the Iranian nuclear negotiations. “Russia shares our sense of urgency,” Mr. Blinken said, “and we hope that Russia will use the influence . . . it has with Iran to impress upon Iran that sense of urgency.”
As Mr. Blinken spoke, Russia was holding joint naval drills with China and Iran in the Indian Ocean. The day before, President Vladimir Putin hosted Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Moscow. In a speech before the Duma, Mr. Raisi discussed “Resistance”—the movement Iran leads to destroy the U.S.-led order in the Middle East. Resistance, he said, drove the Americans from Afghanistan and Iraq, and it also generated “the successful model of cooperation between Iran and Russia in Syria.” In that spirit, Mr. Raisi parroted Mr. Putin’s main grievance with respect to Ukraine. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Mr. Raisi said, “seeks to infiltrate various geographical areas with new alibis that threaten the common interests of independent states.”
Mr. Putin’s campaign to bring Ukraine under Moscow’s control has a direct connection to the joint Russian-Iranian project of propping up the Assad regime in Syria. Russia’s naval bases in Sevastopol, Crimea (which Mr. Putin annexed from Ukraine in 2014), and in Tartus, Syria, serve as operational hubs for Russia’s Mediterranean presence. A strong, independent Ukraine threatens Moscow’s ability to project power into the Middle East.
Mr. Putin may agree that Iran should never possess nuclear weapons. Cooperating closely with the U.S. to achieve that goal, however, interferes with his more urgent priority, which is to undermine the American-led order.
For his part, Chinese President Xi Jinping makes a similar set of calculations. Thanks to one of history’s most rapid military buildups, China now has Asia’s largest air force, the world’s largest army by number of active-duty troops, and largest navy by number of vessels. According to U.S. Indo-Pacific Command leaders, the Chinese military will be poised to invade Taiwan successfully by 2027. The Pentagon is playing catch-up. It is acquiring new weapons and technologies capable of deterring China, but these won’t be fully integrated into the force until late this decade. China’s optimal window to conquer Taiwan, therefore, will be between 2025 and 2030, when its military modernization peaks while U.S. forces are still adapting.
Which brings us back to Iran. In the event of war in Taiwan, China will look to Tehran and its proxies to mount threats to shipping—to pin down one or more American carrier groups in the Persian Gulf. But the value of Iran’s “Resistance” doesn’t end there. Beijing is heavily dependent on Middle East oil imports. It aims to protect its long and vulnerable supply lines by toppling the U.S. as the region’s pre-eminent power. It isn’t strong enough to mount a direct challenge, so it uses Iran as its stalking horse.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian recently announced that the 25-year strategic accord between Iran and China, forged last year, has entered into force. At the heart of the accord is oil for security assistance. Is China actively encouraging Iran to unleash its proxies against America’s Gulf allies? Not that we know of. But it is building up Iran and doing nothing to counter its most malign behavior. Beijing cannot but have noticed that when U.S. allies turn to Washington for help, they encounter a weary and distracted America, one ever less eager to deter Iran. Increasingly exposed, the allies hedge, tentatively tilting toward Beijing.
China’s influence in Middle Eastern military affairs has therefore increased substantially. It sells military equipment to most of the Middle Eastern allies of the U.S. and manufactures weapons in partnership with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. It is helping the Saudis master nuclear technology. In the spring of 2021, U.S. intelligence observed China secretly building a military site at Khalifa Port near Abu Dhabi. The construction stopped only after arm-twisting by Washington.
The interim deal on the Iranian nuclear program that Mr. Lavrov discussed with Mr. Blinken reportedly calls on Iran to reduce its stockpiles of enriched uranium in return for lifting sanctions. But this would only fuel Iran’s economy while allowing it to retain the capability of generating enough fissile material to build a nuclear weapon at short notice. The proxy wars will expand, and the nuclear blackmail will continue.
In sum, China and Russia are building up Iran. Both need a partner in the Middle East devoted to “Resistance”—to undermining U.S. power. Why is the Biden team going along for the ride? Washington’s approach should be more strategic. Among the members of the global alliance dedicated to destroying the American-led order, Iran is the most vulnerable. The job of the U.S. is to defang it.
Messrs. Clark and Doran are senior fellows at the Hudson Insti
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WT
Biden restores Iran nuclear sanctions waivers
U.S. calls move to open participation critical to return to negotiating table
BY JOSEPH CLARK THE WASHINGTON TIMES
President Biden has restored sanctions waivers allowing for certain countries to participate in Iranian civil nuclear projects as the administration presses forward on talks to salvage the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal.
The State Department said the waivers were not granted as part of a “concession to Iran,” but were “issued as part of a policy discretion.”
“We are issuing the waiver now for a simple reason: it will enable some of our international partners to have more detailed technical discussions to enable cooperation that we view as being in our non-proliferation interests,” a senior State Department official said.
The administration said restoring the waivers was critical for returning to the negotiating table with Iran in the hopes of returning to the nuclear agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
“The waiver with respect to these activities is designed to facilitate discussions that would help to close a deal on a mutual return to full implementation of the JCPOA and lay the groundwork for Iran’s return to performance of its JCPOA commitments,” the State Department said in a notice to Congress obtained by the Associated Press.
The so-called “civ-nuke” waivers restored by the Biden administration specifically allow third countries to work on Iranian civil nuclear projects at the Bushehr nuclear power station, Arak heavy water power, and Tehran Research Reactor.
“Absent this sanctions waiver, detailed technical discussions with third parties regarding the disposition of stockpiles and other activities of nonproliferation value cannot take place,” a senior State Department official said.
Mr. Trump withdrew from the nuclear agreement in 2018 and reimposed the sanctions that had previously been lifted as part of the accord.
Mr. Trump maintained the “civ-nuke” waivers until May 2020, when he removed them as part of his “maximum pressure” campaign.
Mr. Biden has committed to returning to the deal, and U.S. officials have warned that the administration has just weeks to reach an agreement given Iran’s nuclear development progress.
Tehran is demanding that the administration restore sanctions relief granted under the original deal.
Lawmakers have been critical of the administration for reentering the negotiations despite Tehran’s blatant disregard for its commitments under the agreement.
“I am deeply concerned these waivers show the administration is preparing to cut a nuclear deal with Iran that would be worse than the original JCPOA,” said Rep. Michael T. McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee from Texas. “We already know that Iran will enter any new deal closer to amassing enough fuel for a nuclear weapon than it was under the JCPOA.”
“Another bad deal is worse for our national security than no deal,” he said.
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A lot of interesting backward looking here from NRO, a Trump hostile publication. Much of it sounds quite believable, but OTOH I can imagine from President Trump's POV, informed by broad and deep resistance from the State Dept and foreign policy establishment, that he might say to himself "Fukk it, deal with it!"
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The Limits of ‘No’
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The Part That Comes After ‘No’
In Vienna, representatives from the parties to the U.S.–Iran nuclear deal — which is either dead or dying — have convened to jaw-jaw. Harold MacMillan once said (and Winston Churchill did not) that jaw, jaw is better than war, war, which it is — until it isn’t.
Under the Barack Obama administration, the United States, Iran, and several other interested parties — Russia, China, Germany, France, the European Union, and the United Kingdom — came to an agreement that bore the simultaneously sterile and pretentious name “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,” five words that give the impression of saying something without quite doing so. Under the JCPOA, Iran agreed to some limitations on its nuclear-development program, but not to the abandonment of the program; in return, Iran was to receive relief from sanctions imposed variously by the United States, the European Union, and the United Nations. Like many of the big projects of the Obama administration, the JCPOA looked better on paper than it turned out in practice.
Not that critics, especially on the right, were especially impressed with the plan on paper. National Review writers railed against it, and, as a presidential candidate, Donald Trump in his usual maximalist style called it the “worst deal ever negotiated.” But as president, Trump had some trouble getting out of JCPOA. Writing in National Review in 2017, John Bolton, who would later serve as Trump’s national security adviser, asked some uncomfortable questions:
Although candidate Donald Trump repeatedly criticized Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear agreement, his administration has twice decided to remain in the deal. It so certified to Congress, most recently in July, as required by law. Before the second certification, Trump asked repeatedly for alternatives to acquiescing yet again in a policy he clearly abhorred. But no such options were forthcoming, despite “a sharp series of exchanges” between the president and his advisers, as the New York Times and similar press reports characterized it.
Many outside the administration wondered how this was possible: Was Trump in control, or were his advisers?
At Steve Bannon’s request, Bolton drew up a proposal for getting out of the JCPOA. The Trump administration, in response, gave its usual kind of performance: a tantrum and a convulsion with very little follow-up. Trump pulled out of the JCPOA, but left the hard work undone. In his memo, Bolton had prescribed a program of sustained diplomacy (“Early, quiet consultations with key players such as the U.K., France, Germany, Israel, and Saudi Arabia” . . . “Prepare the documented strategic case for withdrawal” . . . “A greatly expanded diplomatic campaign should immediately follow the announcement, especially in Europe and the Middle East” . . . “Develop and execute Congressional and public diplomacy efforts to build domestic and foreign support,” etc.) but very little of that happened at all, and practically none of it was executed with any competence. Trump insisted that he had consulted extensively with U.S. allies and that the United States and its critical partners were “unified in our understanding of the threat,” which was obviously and transparently false. The leaders of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom put out a joint statement of their “regret and concern,” insisting that the JCPOA had been effective and that “the world is a safer place as a result,” which was also obviously and transparently false. In the end, our European allies, along with China and Russia, stuck with the JCPOA, though without the participation of the United States this was effectively an almost purely formal matter.
About the JCPOA, the Europeans were wrong on the substance, with Bolton having the better case:
The JCPOA’s vague and ambiguous wording; its manifest imbalance in Iran’s direction; Iran’s significant violations; and its continued, indeed, increasingly, unacceptable conduct at the strategic level internationally demonstrate convincingly that the JCPOA is not in the national-security interests of the United States. . .
Even the previous Administration knew the JCPOA was so disadvantageous to the United States that it feared to submit the agreement for Senate ratification. Moreover, key American allies in the Middle East directly affected by this agreement, especially Israel and the Gulf states, did not have their legitimate interests adequately taken into account.
But walking away — simply blowing up the deal, denouncing it as a misadventure of the Obama administration, and then reimposing sanctions — was not enough, in Bolton’s view:
U.S. leadership here is critical especially through a diplomatic and public education effort to explain a decision not to certify and to abrogate the JCPOA. Like any global campaign, it must be persuasive, thorough, and accurate. Opponents, particularly those who participated in drafting and implementing the JCPOA, will argue strongly against such a decision, contending that it is reckless, ill-advised, and will have negative economic and security consequences. . . . We will need to assure the international community that the U.S. decision will in fact enhance international peace and security. . . .
There were many directions that the United States might have gone after leaving the JCPOA. David French and Eli Lake each argued for regime change in Tehran, with the United States assisting and encouraging liberal-democratic opponents of the ayatollahs’ regime. “The most urgent task now for Trump is increasing the odds of success for Iran’s democracy movement,” Lake wrote. “We must beat Iran on the battlefield,” French insisted, “not by invading or declaring war but instead by ensuring the endurance and ultimate victory of our allies in the proxy conflicts raging across the Middle East. We must not abandon our allies in Syria, and we must not cede even an additional inch of territory to the combined Iranian/Russian/Assad forces in that country’s northeast. We should provide prudent and proper aid to Israeli efforts to weaken Iranian-backed forces in Syria and Lebanon. And we must work to curb Iranian influence in Iraq.”
That was excellent advice, which the Trump administration mostly ignored, abandoning our Kurdish allies in Syria. The Biden administration, which is much closer to the Trump administration on key issues such as national security and international relations than either camp would care to admit (this should not surprise us — Trump is very much a man of Biden’s generation and spent much of his adult life as a big-city Democrat), continued the policy of general retreat, abandoning Afghanistan to the Taliban. Biden makes the necessary conventional Atlanticist noises about diplomacy and multilateralism and such, but, like Trump, he views U.S. global security leadership mainly as a heavy national burden for which Americans go unrecompensed. (If you think American leadership costs us too much, wait until you see how much Chinese leadership costs us.) We could say with charity that he does not bring quite as much passion or ambition to the issue of Iranian nuclear ambitions as he does to the project of putting money into the pockets of his labor-union cronies.
The Obama-Trump-Biden progression contains many similar sequences. Take the so-called Affordable Care Act, another Obama project that, like the JCPOA, was a sloppily built and poorly conceived program that would have required something close to perfect execution to produce something like a reasonably successful result. Republicans would have liked to have done the same thing with ACA as they did with JCPOA: repeal it and walk away without providing a better way forward. The Trump administration spent four years being two weeks away from announcing its big health-care proposal (Kubla Khan kept 5,000 mastiffs, and he still didn’t have enough dogs to eat all that homework), but Republicans could never really build any consensus behind anything except repealing the ACA, and they lacked the political will even to do that.
There is a lot to be said for Republicans’ being the Party of “No.” (Sometimes, there’s a case for being the Party of “Hell, No!” but there is also a time to be the Party of “No, Thank You.”) “No” is the most important thing for conservatives to say. But it isn’t enough. Consider another Obama administration initiative, the illegal and unconstitutional Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. The Trump administration rescinded that one, too, and was right to do so. But, then . . . what? Programs such as DACA create their own constituencies, and these do not simply evaporate when one presidential action is negated by a subsequent one. As with the JCPOA, there were many ways that we might have gone after DACA, but what happened in fact was that we ended the program and then did approximately squat.
The Obama administration cooked up JCPOA. The Trump administration killed it. The Biden administration is working halfheartedly to revive it or something like it. And the result is that Iran is today a much more advanced and capable nuclear power than it was in 2015 when JCPOA was signed. Among other things, Iran has produced a substantial amount of 60-percent-enriched uranium, which has no civilian purpose and serves only as a marker on the road to a nuclear weapon. “In other words,” as Senator Bob Menendez put it, “Iran has already done most of the heavy lifting.”
It is good and necessary to say “No” in both domestic and foreign affairs. It is the part after “No” that is giving us some trouble. Sanctions are not entirely useless, but the examples of Cuba, North Korea, and Iran must force us to conclude that they are not the economic or diplomatic equivalent of bunker-busting weapons. Echoing earlier bombastic rhetoric, Senator Menendez threatens Russia with “the mother of all sanctions” instead of the “mother of all bombs,” and it is not quite the same thing. But there is a great deal of diplomatic territory between sanctions and bombs. Unfortunately, it requires sustained effort and offers very little near-term political reward.
And if you will forgive me for closing with the repetition of two things I keep coming back to, we have trouble with the part after “No” for two main reasons: The first is that our foreign policy is comprehensively dominated by domestic politics; it is healthy and normal that domestic politics should influence foreign policy to some considerable extent, but there must be something left over that is still foreign policy itself unless our foreign affairs are to be completely absorbed by the totemic contests of our ongoing domestic tribal rivalry. The second is that the United States does not seem to know what it wants — from Iran, from Russia, from China, from any other international relationship. We are like the decadent Romans denounced by Coriolanus, citizens “that like nor peace nor war.” But our relationship with Iran is at the moment neither peace nor war, and that not-peace/not-war is going to be even uglier, more complicated, and more dangerous if Tehran acquires nuclear weapons. We do not have very many attractive options right now, and we will have even fewer against a nuclear Iran
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SSESSMENTS
The Final Hurdles Facing a New U.S.-Iran Nuclear Deal
8 MIN READFeb 15, 2022 | 22:22 GMT
U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) arrives at the U.S. Capitol before a classified Senate Foreign Relations briefing on Iran on Feb. 9, 2022.
U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) arrives at the U.S. Capitol before a classified Senate Foreign Relations briefing on Iran on Feb. 9, 2022.
(Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Iran, the United States and major world powers appear to be inching toward a deal to resume compliance with the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), but an agreement is not assured nor would it necessarily survive past the U.S. presidential election in 2024. Western, Russian and Chinese officials have suggested that a new U.S.-Iran nuclear deal could soon be reached as talks, which resumed in Vienna on Feb. 8, enter what many Western diplomats have described as the final stage. For the West, time is of the essence due to the rapid advancement of Iran’s nuclear program.
Russian Ambassador Mikhail Ulyanov said talks had made “significant progress” on Feb. 13 after meeting with officials from Iran and the P4+1 countries (China, France, Germany, Russia, and the United Kingdom). That same day, a reporter with The Wall Street Journal said there was “firm consensus” between the United States and the P4+1 countries on the final shape of a deal that would see both Washington and Tehran return to compliance with the original nuclear agreement.
Following the latest round of talks, a Western diplomat told Reuters that the United States and Iran could reach a deal by “around early March, if all goes well,” which Iranian officials have also said was a realistic timeline. But on Feb. 14, Iran’s foreign minister said Western officials should stop “playing with time” in negotiations — noting that Tehran was in hurry to reach a deal, but only one that’s in its interests.
The United States and Iran both have a strategic interest to reach a deal, which means that an agreement is possible in the coming weeks or months. For Iran, the suspension of U.S. sanctions on its oil exports would provide much-needed financial relief and enable the country to capitalize on crude prices nearing $100 per barrel. Although Iran’s economy has endured U.S. sanctions, annual inflation in the country is hovering around 40% and the youth unemployment rate is around 16%. For the United States, having Iran return to compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal would enable the White House and its partners in the Middle East to focus on Iran’s other regional activities, like Tehran's support of Houthi rebels in Yemen and its transferring of missile technology to such proxies. It would also free the United States to focus on more pressing foreign policy issues — namely, the ongoing Russia-Ukraine standoff and China's global ascent. Adding more Iranian oil back to the global market would help stabilize rising fuel prices as well, which have become a political liability for U.S. President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party ahead of November’s midterm elections. And finally, for Western and regional countries wary of Iran’s nuclear advancement, the reinstatement of the JCPOA would also make it easier to detect whether Iran was moving toward developing a nuclear bomb by enabling the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, to continue monitoring Iranian nuclear activity.
According to a Feb. 3 report in The Wall Street Journal, the United States assessed in late 2021 that a return to the JCPOA would still leave Iran capable of stockpiling enough enriched uranium to build a nuclear bomb within a year — abandoning a key selling point of the JCPOA made by the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama in 2015. The Biden administration’s decision to still move forward with nuclear talks after making this assessment reflects a pragmatic approach to pursuing a new deal with Tehran despite such limitations.
The United States also appeared to extend an olive branch on Feb. 4 when it reinstated sanctions waivers for Iran’s civilian nuclear program to allow Chinese, European and Russian companies to collaborate with Iran on certain projects. Former U.S. President Donald Trump reinstated the sanctions in 2020 as a part of his maximum pressure campaign on Iran.
While there are still significant obstacles to a U.S.-Iran deal, none are insurmountable. Critical issues that remain unresolved include the scope of sanctions the United States would suspend, what to do with many of Iran’s more advanced centrifuges that have become operational over the last four years, and Iranian guarantees that the United States will not simply re-exit the deal again in the future.
Scope of U.S. sanctions relief: Iran has demanded that all punitive measures be “lifted,” including the sanctions imposed on more than 300 Iranian individuals and entities since 2015 for both nuclear and non-nuclear reasons. The United States plans on suspending all of the sanctions imposed under the JCPOA, including those targeting Iran’s oil exports. But when it comes to removing additional sanctions designations, Washington has suggested it will only lift those inconsistent with the 2015 nuclear deal. Many of the sanctions designations that the United States has imposed against Iran in recent years, however, are over terrorism or human rights issues, not Iran’s nuclear program. In 2019, for example, the Trump administration sanctioned current Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi (who was then the head of Iran’s judiciary) for various human rights abuses, and also formally designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (arguably Iran’s most important military branch) as a foreign terrorist organization.
Iran’s nuclear program: Since accelerating its nuclear program in retaliation for the United States leaving the JCPOA, Iran has installed a number of more advanced centrifuges for nuclear enrichment, including more efficient IR-2m and IR-4 centrifuges at its Natanz enrichment plant and IR-6 centrifuges at its Fordow enrichment facility. Western negotiators have pushed for Iran to dismantle and transfer the advanced centrifuges abroad, but Iran has demanded that they be stored in Iran. This is probably the West’s stickiest outstanding issue with Tehran as it’s key to slowing Iran’s nuclear development and the pace at which it would be able to ramp back up enrichment if the JCPOA falls apart again. For Iran, domestic storage would provide insurance that it could quickly increase nuclear activity again if the United States abandons the JCPOA.
Guarantees against another U.S. exit: Iran is looking to protect itself from signing another deal that a future U.S. president could again abandon. Iran has demanded the Washington promise not to leave the JCPOA in the future, but the Biden administration cannot speak for future administrations and thus far has only provided assurances that, barring a major escalation with Iran, the United States will not leave the deal as long as Biden remains in office. While Iran will probably weaken this demand, it will want the United States and Europe to offer some concessions that would make it more likely for financial institutions to be comfortable working with Iran and not be as concerned about a future breakdown of the deal. One of Tehran’s criticisms of the original 2015 deal is that companies and financial institutions were hesitant to work with Iran despite the JCPOA over concerns about future sanctions and compliance risks. Iran is likely going to want Washington to issue waivers, FAQs and letters to financial institutions to help convince them that doing business with Iran will not incur sanctions or compliance risk. But even if this happens, many institutions will continue to perceive the deal as fragile.
Iran will likely continue nuclear research and retain key technology to quickly reactivate its nuclear program for fear that a deal with the United States may not survive if a Republican candidate wins the 2024 presidential election. U.S. Republican lawmakers have criticized the Biden administration’s Iran policy. In the wake of the positive atmosphere surrounding negotiations, a group of 31 Senators led by Texas Senator Ted Cruz also sent Biden a letter demanding any new U.S.-Iran deal be reviewed by Congress. Without control of either the Senate or the House of Representatives, however, Republicans do not currently have enough power in Congress to block such a deal, which would require passing legislation — likely with a filibuster-proof majority. But if they regain control of both houses after midterm elections in November (which they are well-positioned to do), Republicans could pass legislation that imposes mandatory sanctions on Iran, and could also attach that legislation to annual must-pass bills, like the annual defense budget bill. While it could add enough stress that the White House reimposes a limited amount of sanctions on Iran in the short-to-medium term, such legislation is unlikely to force the Biden administration to exit a new nuclear deal entirely. A Republican victory in the 2024 presidential race, however, would increase the likelihood of another U.S. withdrawal, depending on how Iran-U.S. relations evolve over the remainder of Biden’s current term and U.S. foreign policy priorities vis-a-vis China and Russia. Ironically, the threat of a Republican administration retaking the White House in January 2025 may only reinforce Iran’s desire to reach a deal with Biden, which would at least give Iran a couple of years of financial relief before the potential return of a more hawkish U.S. leader with whom securing any deal would be nigh impossible.
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February 17, 2022
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Iran’s Bargaining Tightrope in Vienna
Tehran may be setting its sights too high in the nuclear negotiations.
By: Hilal Khashan
Last February, the U.S. expressed its willingness to return to negotiations to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Former Iranian President Hassan Rouhani lauded Tehran’s humiliation of “the Great Satan” and predicted the immediate removal of sanctions. His remark was a testament to the Iranian regime’s failure to understand how the U.S. formulates its foreign policy on matters of national interest. Iran’s principal objective in participating in talks with the U.S. in Vienna was to gradually remove all the sanctions imposed by Washington. Iranian negotiators insist that they are fully committed to abiding by the terms of a nuclear agreement, and are even willing to go beyond the sunset provisions for resuming their atomic activities and to keep extensive monitoring in place for additional years. But they say the U.S. is reluctant to lift all sanctions – and is now even demanding the release of four American prisoners in Iran – which, in their opinion, creates a significant hurdle in the two countries’ search for a balanced agreement.
Lifting of All Sanctions Unlikely
Since the beginning of the negotiations last April, Iran has made it clear that its regional activities and missile program are off the table. Contrary to the solemn mood in Tehran, Iranian negotiators have regularly touted the progress being made in Vienna, even as they returned last December for the eighth round of talks. Iran’s lead negotiator alluded to the U.S.’ firm position on Iran’s non-nuclear activities, saying a win-win outcome is possible when good intentions supersede suspicion and intransigence. U.S. officials have opposed wholesale termination of the sanctions regime on Iran because not all of them are related to its nuclear program.
U.S. officials, including President Joe Biden, frequently refer to Iran’s destabilizing activities, including its use of regional proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, as compelling justifications for maintaining some sanctions. Last year, Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed the U.S.’ unwavering resolve to impose “the toughest possible sanctions to deal with Iranian support for terrorism.” Blinken’s deputy, Wendy Sherman, echoed his statement when she emphasized the U.S.’ determination “to keep sanctions that deal with human rights abuses, [and] state sponsorship of terrorism.”
Iran's Sphere of Influence
(click to enlarge)
For the U.S., eliminating all sanctions would require more than Tehran’s compliance with the terms of an agreed-upon nuclear deal; it would necessitate a change in its regional behavior. And Biden has made some concessions to push Iran in this direction. Shortly after taking office, he removed the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen from the foreign terrorist organization list to encourage a negotiated settlement to the conflict there. Iran, however, did not persuade its Houthi allies to scale down their offensive to grab more territory. Biden also ignored Iran’s oil sales to China that violated the sanctions. But his goodwill gestures had little impact on how Iran conducted its regional policy.
Iranian negotiators went to Vienna, assuming the U.S. wanted to close the nuclear issue at any cost before withdrawing from the Middle East to focus on the Pacific. The Iranian public viewed with suspicion the diplomatic skills of President Ebrahim Raisi’s negotiating team in Vienna, perceiving them as less adept than Rouhani’s experienced diplomats. Raisi, a hardliner who previously opposed the negotiations, instructed his Vienna team to make maximalist demands such as assurances of the immediate lifting of the sanctions and guarantees that there would be no snap back to U.S. and U.N. sanctions.
Why Must Iran Settle for Less?
Success in the Vienna talks hinges not on removing all sanctions but on making sanctions relief resilient. Iran has no delusions that some sanctions will remain in place. It badly needs a truce with the U.S., a cease-fire to reclaim some of its $100 billion in frozen foreign assets, to finance its foreign policy goals and urgent domestic needs. Iran cannot afford a failure in the Vienna talks because it would mean tightening the stranglehold on its struggling economy at best, coupled with possible military action against its nuclear facilities should the diplomatic route break down.
Before reaching the JCPOA, Iran’s economy registered a growth rate of -1.3 percent. In 2016, it grew by 13.4 percent. After President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the nuclear deal and reimposed austere sanctions, Iran’s economy dipped back into recession with -6.8 percent growth. Iran cannot afford the consequences of additional sanctions and the repercussions of war amid growing public discontent.
Biden has given Raisi’s administration ample time to moderate its policies and lower its expectations about dropping the sanctions without fundamentally transforming Tehran’s aggressive policies. Time is running out, and failure to reach an agreement, even if provisional, will be at Iran’s expense. Raisi remains adamant, however. In a defiant speech on the Islamic Revolution’s 43rd anniversary, he shouted angrily that the Iranian leadership put its hope “in the east, west, north, south … and never had hope in Vienna and New York.” His speech rang hollow because Iran wouldn’t have gone to Vienna had it not hoped to achieve a diplomatic breakthrough without compromising its regional ambitions. Iran’s relations with Arab nations are in turmoil because of its relentless campaign to coerce them to recognize its regional preeminence. Russia and China have no interest in Iran’s rise as a dominant regional power, and they only support Tehran to undermine Western interests in the Gulf.
We do not entirely know what’s going on in Vienna, especially since Blinken said the U.S. has concerns beyond Iran’s controversial nuclear program. It would not have been that difficult to return to the JCPOA if there were no other issues. Several other countries, such as Argentina and South Africa, had nuclear programs that caused alarm, but these fears were resolved with the International Atomic Energy Agency. Iran’s issues with the West and Middle Eastern countries exceed its nuclear program, threatening as it is, extending to its destabilizing regional policies.
Considering Iran’s restive population, Raisi does not have the luxury of allowing his negotiators in Vienna to maintain their adamant posture. While Raisi was celebrating the revolution’s anniversary, angry Iranians in Tehran posted signs on the streets reading “death to the dictator and the Islamic Republic.” In Fardis city, posters about the expiry of the supreme leader’s sanctity tainted his once irreproachable image.
Iran’s Unachievable Ambitions
Iran is playing a risky game that it cannot win. It presents itself as a model for humanity but is unwilling to behave as a normal country and eschew meddling in its neighbors’ internal affairs because the ruling conservatives believe they are on a mission to export the revolution and achieve a preeminent status in world affairs. A former foreign affairs minister made the ideological choice very clear, saying: “We have chosen to live in a different way [and] we do not want someone telling us how to live.”
Tehran is unwilling to abandon its regional ambitions and proxies whose operations made Iran a regional power, overshadowing Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates and competing only with Israel. It prefers to live with some sanctions to save its four decades of achievements rather than being forced to retreat and focus solely on domestic politics, which would imply that the Islamic Revolution has failed.
Iran took its subversion to Turkey, its economic lifeline to the outside world. Turkish authorities recently arrested 14 members of a espionage group responsible for kidnapping Iranian opposition activists, illegally repatriating them to Iran, and planning to assassinate an Israeli businessman to avenge the killing of nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in November 2020. In addition, a shadowy, pro-Iranian group in Iraq named True Promise Brigades warned the UAE that its attacks are not limited to drone and ballistic missiles. It urged Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Zayed to seize the opportunity and extricate the UAE from Yemen’s war before destroying the progress it has made since its formation in 1971. The warning coincided with advice from Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, who told UAE leaders that the best defense for their country was to withdraw from the war in Yemen. The U.S and Israel responded to the hostility of Iran’s Yemeni and Iraqi proxies by pledging to defend Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates against their aggression.
In recent weeks, the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen has achieved significant territorial advances against the Houthis, pushing them back from oil-rich Shabwa and most of Marib, in addition to a critical stronghold in the Houthi heartland in Saada. Territorial acquisition in Yemen will determine the shape of any negotiated settlement to end the war. In Syria, Israel has launched more than 1,000 air raids against Iranian-linked groups like al-Quds Brigade, Iraqi Shiite militias and Hezbollah. The Israeli command was reluctant to launch the first air raid in 2013 for fear of reprisal. To its surprise, neither the Syrian regime nor Iran and its proxies retaliated. Israel conducted subsequent air raids, including recent commando operations, with impunity. Evicting Iran from Syria is a critical Israeli objective that the Russians do not oppose despite their public opposition.
Territorial Control in Yemen
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Iran remains unwilling to live in harmony with its neighbors. Its ruling mullahs subscribe to medieval divine right thinking. Their domestic policies, let alone foreign adventures, do not align with Iran’s secular-minded people. The Iranians staged two revolutions in the 20th century, in 1905 and 1979. Anglo-Russian meddling sabotaged the first, and Khomeini hijacked the second. It is always the third that works
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February 24, 2022
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Iran’s Ideological Imperative
Tehran’s ambitions in the nuclear talks go far beyond lifting sanctions.
By: Hilal Khashan
A nuclear deal in Vienna is on the horizon. Iran knows it will not succeed in imposing its preconditions for returning to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from in 2018. Despite the rhetoric coming from Iranian officials about having Washington lift all sanctions with assurances that it will not rescind its promises again, they have resigned themselves to grudgingly accepting Washington’s position that an agreement is not a legally binding treaty. State-controlled media outlets do not present an honest view to the Iranian public of what’s going on in Vienna, stressing instead that the outcome of the negotiations will meet Iran’s expectations. But Tehran’s goals here are broader than merely having sanctions removed. It needs a respite from its hostilities with the West to return to the oil market, undergo critical economic reforms and restore its regional diplomatic relations before it can resume its ideologically driven regional ambitions.
Limits of Returning to the JCPOA
The original JCPOA did not lift all sanctions on Iran, although it extended renewable economic relief, especially by allowing Iran to export its oil. Iranian negotiators understood that demanding the lifting of the entire sanctions regime was an unrealistic bargaining position, finally acquiescing to a multistage deal to roll back its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions related to the program being dropped. In 2015, Iran preferred to endure the non-nuclear sanctions to avoid curtailing its regional activities and ambitious missile development plans. The Iranians pushed for a timeframe to move from one stage to another to ensure an expeditious return to the oil market. The new agreement demands Iran reduce its uranium enrichment to 3.67 percent, dismantle its advanced centrifuges and store them in designated areas outside the country before sanctions relief takes effect. Since Iranian officials established a reputation for using evasive tactics and procrastination, the U.S. insists on its complete compliance before sanctions are removed.
During Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s visit to Moscow last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin urged him to accept the U.S. deal because the six world powers involved in the Vienna talks had reached a consensus that required Iran to fully comply with certain terms for returning to the 2015 nuclear agreement. Last June, U.S. President Joe Biden reached an agreement with Putin to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Ahead of Raisi’s visit, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett called Putin, with whom he has developed close relations, and urged him to take a tough stand against Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Lifting the sanctions on Iran’s nuclear program, however, will not be sufficient to resolve its financial problems and end its isolation, especially in the Middle East. Iran is therefore trying to build bridges with other countries in the region. Raisi recently visited Doha in a surprise diplomatic stunt and signed several economic agreements with Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. Raisi’s principal target is Saudi Arabia because lifting sanctions stemming from Iran’s destabilizing activities depends on repairing Tehran’s ties with Riyadh. He wants to use Qatar’s good offices to expedite normalizing relations with Riyadh, especially since the meetings in Baghdad between Iranian and Saudi diplomats did not lead to a breakthrough. The Saudis are equally interested in engaging the Iranians, and their desire to have Doha play mediator swayed King Salman to end Saudi Arabia’s three-and-a-half-year blockade on Qatar.
Iran’s Ideological Objectives
The ongoing Vienna talks have not addressed Iran’s regional policies, human rights violations and missile development activities. Therefore, the related sanctions will stay in effect until the Iranians resolve these outstanding issues. The U.S. has already informed the Iranians to settle directly with Riyadh what the Saudis consider Tehran’s regional subversive activities.
Middle East
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It’s nearly impossible to separate Iran’s foreign policy from its ideological objectives. Since the shah’s fall in 1979, Iran has been trying to export its revolution throughout the Arab region. Its successes in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen attest to Iran’s perseverance and the weakness and fragmentation of the Arab political order. Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini’s exhortation of Iraqi Shiites to topple Saddam Hussein’s regime triggered the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War. The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 enabled Iran to gain a foothold in Iraq, eventually establishing numerous loyal Shiite militias and dominating Iraqi politics. Iran’s encouragement of Shiites to rebel against injustice put it on a collision course with Saudi Arabia, the leading country in the Gulf Cooperation Council. Iran drew closer to the Saudi border, galvanizing politically and socially marginalized Shiites in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain to demand political inclusion and fair access to material resources.
The restive Shiite minority in Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich Eastern Province is an impoverished and ostracized subcultural group that comprises 15 percent of the local population. Encouraged by the success of the Iranian Revolution, it rebelled in November 1979 against the government. The military crushed the rebellion and initiated a reign of terror in the Eastern Province until 1983. Residents again took to the streets during the 2011 Arab Spring and after Saudi authorities executed Shiite activist cleric Nimr al-Nimr in 2016. Iran reacted angrily to al-Nimr’s execution, and protesters attacked the Saudi Embassy in Tehran, leading to the severance of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
Central to Khomeini’s revolutionary ideological approach was the concept of backing oppressed peoples and supporting their fight against tyrannical rulers. Under these pretenses, Iran justified its selective interference in its neighbors’ domestic affairs and forging of alliances with local forces in these countries. The fact that Raisi insists on removing the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, especially its extraterritorial branch the Quds Force, from the U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations clearly demonstrates that Iran intends to pursue its destabilizing regional policies.
Since the revolution, Iran has held annual international Islamic conferences and celebrations to promote pan-Islamic unity. But these publicity events contradict Iran’s focus on Shiism and ascendant Persian nationalism at home. Indeed, Iran’s national policies have a solid sectarian tendency. The Iranian constitution declares Twelver Imami Shiism the official religion of the Islamic Republic and specifies that its president must be an Iranian who believes in its religious orientation.
Iran's Ethnic and Religious Composition
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Iran’s Islamic ideology combines Shiism and historically rooted Persian society, culture and civilization. It is worth noting that the Islamic Republic is not only about religion and affinity to foreign Shiite sects. It cannot ignore the pluralist social fabric of Iranian society that antedates the revolution – provided demands for political change do not denounce or undermine the Islamic Revolution. National security necessitates tolerating the opposition that works within the boundaries set by the state. Iran’s diverse political spectrum includes extremely nationalist groups with no regard for Islam and ultrareligious groups focused solely on Islamic identity. Between these two extremes, many other groups display a mosaic of political-religious preferences that oppose the Islamic Republic’s foreign policy, especially its emphasis on the Arab region.
Regional Outlook
Israel is not the only Middle Eastern country worried about Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates also believe that the negotiations with Iran will not end its nuclear aspirations but merely postpone them – essentially because after 2031, Iran will be free to enrich uranium beyond 3.67 percent at its Fordo and Natanz facilities. Saudi Arabia knows that the U.S. wants to reach a nuclear deal with Iran, and that it cannot obstruct it. The Biden administration prefers that the Iranians and Saudis settle their differences separately from the talks in Vienna. The Saudi royals do not have an option except to communicate with the Iranians. The Saudis need an agreement to end Yemen’s seven-year war, which overburdened its financial resources and dissuaded foreign entrepreneurs from investing in its Vision 2030 plan to wean itself from dependence on oil revenues and achieve economic development.
Iran and Saudi Arabia might reach an entente, but it’s unlikely to last because their regional visions are incompatible. For decades, the foundations of Saudi foreign policy rested on avoiding conflict and promoting regional stability. In contrast, Iran led an aggressive regional approach to spread its influence and reshape the region to its advantage. The two countries need a break from conflict to ponder their internal politics. Iran needs to rebuild its economy and placate its impoverished population. The Saudi royals desire a smooth leadership succession and a move from a rentier to a knowledge-based economy. Iran is interested in developing its economic ties with the Arab world, especially the sizable Saudi market. By opening to Saudi Arabia, Iran hopes to send a clear message of goodwill to other countries in the region that it is a legitimate regional power.
Iran is not rushing to impose its regional hegemony, perceiving it as a worthwhile historical endeavor. It uses soft power – for example, spreading its culture, providing scholarships, extending invitations to visit Iran, and interacting with government officials, clerics and intellectuals – to influence the Arab public. Iran helped Hezbollah launch a cultural revolution among Lebanese Shiites, who no longer associate with Lebanon. It altered the demographic composition of Syria, a project it cautiously initiated in the early 1980s, transforming it into a country that looks more Shiite than Sunni. Iran attempted to spread Shiism in Morocco, Egypt and Sudan, and succeeded partially in Yemen and Gaza, thanks to its partnership with the Islamic Jihad Movement in the Palestinian territories. The leaders of the Islamic Republic constantly search for opportunities to infiltrate the region at the mass level and try to take advantage of interstate political divisions. When the Saudis and Emiratis led a regional effort to enforce an austere blockade on Qatar in 2017, Iran immediately opened its skies to flights to and from Doha. It also established a sea route to supply essential goods to Qatar. Iran is constantly looking for opportunities to influence foreign events and consolidate its status as a significant regional power. In the politically volatile Middle East, opportunities never cease to present themselves for watchful Iran.
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Iran Nuclear Deal: What to Know as Talks Enter Final Stretch
Western countries have growing concerns over Iran’s nuclear work, but recent weeks have seen negotiators get closer to a deal to limit it
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi visiting the Bushehr nuclear-power plant in southern Iran in October, in this photo handed out by the presidential office.
PHOTO: PREASIDENT OFFICE/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK
By Laurence Norman
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and Sune Engel Rasmussen
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Updated Feb. 25, 2022 1:05 am ET
Iran, the U.S. and other world powers are nearing a deal to revive a 2015 agreement that curbs Tehran’s nuclear work in return for relief from international sanctions.
Negotiators are still wrangling over some significant final demands from Iran, but the delegations have in recent weeks made the most significant progress since talks to revive the deal began in April 2021. Officials involved in the talks say an agreement could be completed in Vienna in the next few days.
Reviving the 2015 accord, which former President Donald Trump exited in 2018, is a top foreign policy goal of the Biden administration. Iran responded to U.S. sanctions imposed by the Trump administration by advancing its nuclear activities, which Western officials worry would scuttle hopes of reviving the deal.
The White House views a nuclear agreement as a vital tool to monitor and restrain Tehran’s nuclear work. It also views an agreement as key to stability in the Middle East, which would allow the U.S. to focus on Russia and China.
After negotiations resumed in November, following a six-month hiatus due to presidential elections and a change of government in Iran, Tehran stepped up its demands, Western diplomats said. It sought the scrapping of sanctions imposed by the Trump administration after the U.S. withdrew from the deal in 2018 and walked away from steps it had committed to taking to rein in its nuclear activities and return to compliance with the deal.
The U.S. responded by seeking to increase the economic pressure on Iran.
Over the past two years, Iran has stopped adhering to most provisions in the 2015 deal, reducing the time it would need to produce enough nuclear fuel for one weapon to as little as a month. These steps away from the deal, a response to U.S. sanctions, have put at risk the survival of an agreement that helped remove sanctions on Iran and open it to business with the West.
The Biden administration says it wants to restore the agreement and then use that as a platform to negotiate a longer, stronger agreement. Tehran has repeatedly criticized the Biden administration for keeping in place the Trump-era sanctions even while seeking to restore the deal.
What was agreed under the 2015 nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action?
The nuclear deal, or JCPOA, was sealed in July 2015 after two years of negotiations between the U.S., Iran and other major powers, the first prolonged negotiations between Washington and Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. It took effect in January 2016.
The agreement obliged Iran to scrap or send abroad 98% of its enriched uranium stockpile, remove two-thirds of its centrifuges that produce nuclear fuel, and stop work on a heavy-water reactor that could have produced plutonium for a nuclear weapon. Iran also agreed to inspections from the U.N. atomic agency and stopped enriching uranium at a well-fortified underground nuclear site at Fordow.
Most restrictions on Iran’s nuclear work and oversight were designed to last for as long as 25 years. However, Iran was allowed under the deal to produce unlimited amounts of enriched uranium after 2031, with no cap on the purity of that material.
In return, Iran received international sanctions relief. Restrictions were lifted for Iran’s energy sales, its shipping industry, much of its banking sector and other industrial production. U.S. energy and banking sanctions remained but no longer affected other countries. Human-rights, ballistic-missile and terrorism sanctions were kept in place.
The deal allowed Iran to bring home over $100 billion in oil-sales revenues locked overseas because of U.S. sanctions. The Obama administration secretly organized an airlift of $400 million worth of cash to Iran that coincided with the January release of four Americans detained in Tehran.
Former President Donald Trump took the U.S. out of the deal in May 2018, arguing that once the restrictions in the deal start to sunset, the pact would fail to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
The administration also said any agreement with Iran should include binding restrictions on Iran’s missile program, an end to Iran’s terrorism links and Iranian pledges to rein in its regional interventions. Iran refused to negotiate with the Trump administration.
Does Iran have nuclear weapons?
Iran has never had nuclear weapons, although the U.N. atomic agency and Western governments have said Tehran had a dedicated weapons program until at least 2003. Some officials have said they believe Iran at least kept alive elements of its weapons program after that date.
Iran says its nuclear work is entirely for peaceful purposes.
While the amount of time it would take Iran to amass enough nuclear fuel for one weapon has shrunk to around a month, there are a range of estimates about how long it would take Tehran to develop a nuclear weapon if it chose to.
Some experts say Iran is as little as a year from being able to produce a rudimentary nuclear weapon. Others say it could take two to three years to mount an effective warhead onto its ballistic missiles.
What is the state of Iran’s current nuclear program?
Iran has been scaling up its nuclear program since mid-2019, a year after the Trump administration exited the nuclear deal and then imposed sanctions.
Before this year, Iran breached the limits on its uranium stockpile, the purity of the nuclear fuel it was producing and resumed work at the underground Fordow site.
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"Some experts say Iran is as little as a year from being able to produce a rudimentary nuclear weapon. Others say it could take two to three years to mount an effective warhead onto its ballistic missiles."
we heard this over 5 yrs ago
so did the "deal" delay them ? or are these numbers all hogwash?
"What is the state of Iran’s current nuclear program?
Iran has been scaling up its nuclear program since mid-2019, a year after the Trump administration exited the nuclear deal and then imposed sanctions."
"Before this year, Iran breached the limits on its uranium stockpile, the purity of the nuclear fuel it was producing and resumed work at the underground Fordow site."
I read Fordow is a new deeper more impenetrable facility now.
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https://twitter.com/polarisnatsec/status/1500466439018491905?fbclid=IwAR0dI5f7eSDhBjfN0RW_Br123lqfGnQIg7TDWpbBx0UznMUtJ0XzqS56LdE
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https://twitter.com/polarisnatsec/status/1500466439018491905?fbclid=IwAR0dI5f7eSDhBjfN0RW_Br123lqfGnQIg7TDWpbBx0UznMUtJ0XzqS56LdE
You'd think they'd send Kamala there for that.
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http://ace.mu.nu/archives/398137.php
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https://www.dailywire.com/news/cruz-biden-set-to-become-number-1-funder-of-terrorism-in-the-world?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=dwbrand&fbclid=IwAR3fQxxFzKU1mjHD5RK4vZuXz_ewJBgT_26jyOzezxE1wrEEZ0db-xLgH3M
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He left 85 billion of weapons and equipment and the country of Afghanistan to the Taliban.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/cruz-biden-set-to-become-number-1-funder-of-terrorism-in-the-world?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=dwbrand&fbclid=IwAR3fQxxFzKU1mjHD5RK4vZuXz_ewJBgT_26jyOzezxE1wrEEZ0db-xLgH3M
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He left 85 billion of weapons and equipment and the country of Afghanistan to the Taliban.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/cruz-biden-set-to-become-number-1-funder-of-terrorism-in-the-world?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=dwbrand&fbclid=IwAR3fQxxFzKU1mjHD5RK4vZuXz_ewJBgT_26jyOzezxE1wrEEZ0db-xLgH3M
VERY important point on both sides of that! It would be funny politically - if it wasn't so real, so true and so deadly.
When the Biden administration and the Iranians sit down at the table, the top state sponsors of terrorism are all present. And then you have 'ally' on the deal Russia...
I hate to say it but the voters who put the man who promised to do this deal with Iran in the White House, and still support him, are complicit.
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https://nypost.com/2022/03/19/joe-bidens-iran-plan-is-a-total-disaster/?fbclid=IwAR3SOPA_yqdD7b8cwLJX88XTAVOwEsz8VtHPSP8Zu7Z0t7ma0D7j1n04yoc
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18358/iran-deal-biden-obama
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18385/russia-iran-axis-of-evil
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18426/iran-us-russia-ukraine
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18418/iran-nuclear-threat
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June 2, 2022
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Why Iran Won’t Compromise in Nuclear Talks
Tehran isn’t willing to give up on what it sees as its divine duty.
By: Hilal Khashan
A year after the start of Iran nuclear negotiations in Vienna, talks ended unsurprisingly without an agreement on the core issues. Although Iran needs to reach a deal to help alleviate its social and economic problems, it considers the costs of compromise on the key questions – namely, the role of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – too high to accept. Iran’s ultra-religious ruling elite believe they are on a mission to spread their ideology throughout the Middle East and that any concessions in the talks could undermine the country’s divine purpose.
Ideological Motivations
Despite Iran’s worsening economic situation and the growing public frustration, its leaders will not compromise on what they consider matters of high principle. They believe that the negotiators in Vienna will not suspend the talks permanently and that a deal with the U.S. will eventually be reached. They therefore see no need to rush into a less-than-favorable agreement. Some in Iran support this approach, believing that the country is a regional superpower that deserves to lead the Middle East and all Islamic states. Since the 1979 revolution, Iran has penetrated the region, finding local allies in places where Arab political systems failed to establish a state of justice and citizenship, integrate Shiites and attend to their fundamental demands.
These views on the country’s role in the Islamic world stem from centuries of religious teachings. According to Shiite beliefs, the 12th imam in the Prophet Muhammad’s line of succession, Muhammad al-Mahdi, went into occultation in 874, fearing for his life. Shiites believe that the Sunni-dominated Islamic caliphate murdered the 11 preceding imams and that it was imperative for him to disappear in order to safeguard the interests of the Islamic community and prepare it for the reappearance of Mahdi, who would carry out the task of ending injustice and oppression. The ultimate goal of Mahdi’s return would be to lead humanity into salvation and redemption in a just and divine state. Iranians insist that making unnecessary concessions in the Vienna negotiations would violate the divinely mandated mission of the hidden imam.
Stalled Negotiations
The U.S. and Iran went into the Vienna talks with two different mindsets and expectations. Since the Iranians refused to discuss their country’s ballistic missile program and the IRGC’s activities, the U.S. stressed that only the sanctions linked to Iran’s nuclear program could be lifted if Tehran fully implements the terms of a new agreement. The Iranians, meanwhile, insisted that the U.S. take the IRGC off its list of foreign terrorist organizations with no strings attached as a precondition for the talks.
Today, the negotiations are deadlocked and unlikely to resume before 2023, having been stalled by congressional opposition to Tehran’s demands and the Ukraine war. The top U.S. negotiator recently said that the prospects for reaching an agreement in the foreseeable future are “tenuous at best.” Each side bargained to maximize its gains, but after a year of intermittent negotiations, the U.S. decided it could not remove the IRGC from the FTO list. It’s concerned not just about Iran’s nuclear activities but also about its establishment of local militias and its subversive activities, which threaten the security of many Middle Eastern countries with which Washington is on good terms.
After Ebrahim Raisi’s election in 2021, which tightened the conservatives’ grip on power, Iranian negotiators resisted any compromise on the outstanding issues because backing down would undermine the ideological foundations of the Islamic Republic. In this case, compromise would make irrelevant the office of the Supreme Leader as the guardian of the faith. Still, Tehran is keen to avoid escalating and reaching the point of no return in the negotiations, despite being weeks away from producing sufficient fissile material to manufacture at least one atomic bomb.
Many years of U.S. containment policies enabled Iran to develop an efficient system to bypass the sanctions imposed against it. (Last week, Washington introduced new sanctions on an international network led by the IRGC involved in money laundering and oil smuggling.) The surges in oil prices and in Chinese demand for Iranian oil have also provided Tehran with financial resources to hold on to a firm negotiating position.
The Iranians always claimed that an agreement was within reach, even when they had no reason for optimism. The U.S. wants Iran to present acceptable demands within the scope of the Vienna talks. It prefers to reach a workable deal on the nuclear issue while postponing action on complex problems, such as the status of the IRGC and Iran’s missile program. This cautious approach may face less opposition in the U.S., but driven by a feverish religious zeal, Iran’s conservatives think that time is on their side to conclude a more favorable deal.
Playing With the Big Powers
To help alleviant some of the pain from the sanctions, Iran has tried to strike partnerships with other major powers. But China and Russia will not solve Iran’s economic problems, and there are reasons to doubt the sincerity of their gestures of goodwill.
In 2016, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Iran to discuss investing $400 billion over 25 years in banking, communications, ports, railways, health and information technology. The secretive deal, dubbed the “Lion and the Dragon Pact,” has divided Iranian public opinion over its implications for the country’s sovereignty. Many Iranians doubt that Beijing will treat Tehran as an economic partner on equal footing, and claim that China’s primary objective is to obstruct U.S. efforts to contain Beijing. (These efforts include a military cooperation deal signed by the U.S., the U.K. and Australia last year and the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework signed by 12 other countries in the region last month.)
Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad harshly criticized the 2016 pact – which was negotiated in secret and outlined only in vague terms – arguing that the Chinese often make promises they fail to honor. Iranian nationalists have also voiced their opposition to stronger economic ties with China, comparing the issue to the tobacco concession that triggered protests in 1891 and the 1901 D’Arcy concession that gave an English prospector exclusive rights to explore for oil in Persia. Critics have also compared the Lion and the Dragon Pact to the 1813 Treaty of Gulistan and the 1828 Treaty of Turkmenchay with Russia, which cost Iran territory in the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea areas.
As for Russia, its semblance of cooperation with Iran in the Caucasus and Syria falls short of a strategic alliance. The legacy of Russian imperial wars and territorial expansionism is embedded in Iran’s collective consciousness. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was as distrustful of the Russians as he was averse to the U.S., calling the two countries “two blades of the same scissors.” Russia was critical of Iran’s 1905 constitutional movement, and in 1911, Russian artillery shelled the National Iranian Assembly. Russia’s colonial legacy, including the Red Army’s occupation of northern Iran in 1941, continues to be a barrier to the formation of cordial and trusting tries between the two countries.
Growing Disaffection at Home
The future of Iran hinges on the future of the supreme leader position. It’s doubtful that this office will survive Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s death. While Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini commanded the unwavering support and respect of Iran’s clerical establishment, Khamenei’s controversial religious credentials do not hold the same weight among many of his peers. Moreover, Khamenei, who was personally designated to the post by his predecessor, cannot name the next supreme leader. The office has not been institutionalized, and it’s doubtful that Khamenei’s successor would preserve the religious edifice of the regime. Iran now faces the prospect of falling into the hands of the IRGC, which would rule the country as a military dictatorship.
There’s no strong kingmaker among Iran’s ruling conservatives who could keep the political system together and avoid a constitutional crisis. Iran is ethnically heterogeneous, and Shiism is what keeps it from falling apart. Since the Safavids, who ruled Iran from the beginning of the 16th century, the regime’s legitimacy has been embedded in religious doctrine. The shah lost power in 1979 because he alienated the religious establishment. The rise of a military dictatorship would bring Iran’s ethnic divisions to the surface, threatening its survival as a unitary state.
Many ayatollahs in Najaf and Qom supported separating religion from politics, a position that Iranian-born Ayatollah Ali Sistani still holds. Khomeini took the opposite approach and decided to revolutionize religion. Iranians look at clerics today with disdain, viewing them as the representatives of a corrupt political system. They dread having to wear their religious dress in public to avoid ridicule and even physical assault. There is a new generation of young clerics who affiliate with the reformists and believe in dismantling the sacred pillars of the state, including the supreme leader’s office. Iran’s political system is decaying faster than many observers think. The Iranian people don’t often rise against the state, but when they do, they make history.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhEibqHhD9M&t=74s
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Israel’s Shadow War With Iran Goes Nonnuclear
The Jewish state escalates its effort by targeting a broader range of security personnel and facilities.
By Jonathan Spyer
June 15, 2022 6:24 pm ET
The killing of Iranian Col. Hassan Khodaei outside his Tehran home signaled a major shift in Israel’s strategy toward Iran. The Jewish state’s apparently considerable efforts on Iranian soil had formerly been directed at the Iranian nuclear program. But Jerusalem seems to have adopted a broader definition of the challenge it faces—and the measures it will adopt to address it.
Khodaei, who was killed May 22, had no known connection to the nuclear program. Rather, he was one of the most seasoned special-operations men in the Quds Force, a branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Khodaei was engaged in external operations said to include kidnappings and assassinations. He played an important role in the transfer of drone and missile technology to Lebanese Hezbollah, Tehran’s key regional proxy. According to Hebrew media reports, he was in the midst of masterminding a plan for the abduction of Israelis overseas at the time of his demise.
Khodaei’s killing was the second known operation carried out this year by Israel on Iranian soil against a target unconnected to Tehran’s nuclear program, and the first to directly target a specific individual. An earlier strike, at an air base at Kermanshah in mid-February, destroyed hundreds of drones.
Israeli operations on Iranian soil in recent years have included the theft of the Iranian nuclear archive in 2018, the killings of scientists associated with the nuclear program, and probably also acts of sabotage against nuclear facilities, such as the December 2021 explosion at the enrichment complex at Natanz. These actions indicate that Israel has succeeded in thoroughly penetrating Iran’s defenses.
More broadly, Israel has engaged in a shadow war against Iranian efforts at power-building across the Middle East. Israeli air power has been active in disrupting and damaging Iranian infrastructure in Syria. Individual assassinations have taken place in Syria and probably also in Lebanon. Israeli planes have struck as far afield as Iraq.
But the extension of Israel’s campaign against Iran’s nonnuclear subversive activities onto Iranian soil is a new development and a significant escalation. Such a change isn’t merely tactical in nature, and a decision to adopt it wouldn’t have been taken without the prime minister’s approval. The growing perception in Israel is that the Iranian nuclear program can’t be seen in isolation from Tehran’s broader strategy for regional domination.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has long been vocal in support of this view. While serving as defense minister in February 2020, Mr. Bennett told Israeli reporters: “When the octopus tentacles hit you, you must fight back not just against the tentacles, but also make sure to suffocate the head. . . . For years on end, we have fought against the Iranian tentacles in Lebanon, Syria and the Gaza Strip, but we have not focused enough on weakening Iran itself. Now we are changing the paradigm.”
In June, 2020, the Israel Defense Forces established the Strategy and Third Circle Directorate, assigned to formulate a comprehensive view of the Iranian threat facing Israel in all its aspects. It now appears that this approach is being extended to the sphere of action. Israel sees Iran as engaged in a comprehensive, strategic drive intended to result in Tehran’s emergence as the dominant or hegemonic power in the Middle East. The destruction of Israel is a key element in this strategy. This project focuses on political and proxy military activity, investment in Iran’s ballistic missile program, and the development of a nuclear capacity intended as a kind of insurance policy for the other two elements.
The Jewish state, in turn, is in the process of formulating and implementing a comprehensive response. A counterenvelopment of Iran through deepening ties with states surrounding it—including Azerbaijan to the north and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia to the southwest—forms part of this approach. Israel’s 2021 transfer to the U.S. Central Command’s area of responsibility offers potential for making these growing links operational in key areas, such as missile defense.
It appears that a bold change of the rules of engagement, in which the totality of Iranian strategy will now be opposed also on Iranian soil, forms an additional component of this effort. The strike on the drone fleet at Kermanshah and the killing of Khodaei in Tehran were the first manifestations of this new approach. Three additional unexplained deaths of senior Iranian security personnel have occurred in subsequent weeks. The shadow war between Israel and Iran has entered a new phase.
Mr. Spyer is director of the Middle East Center for Reporting and Analysis and a research fellow at the Middle East Forum. He is author of “Days of the Fall: A Reporter’s Journey in the Syria and Iraq Wars.”
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Iran Descends into Outright Piracy and Confrontation with the West
by Ioannis E. Kotoulas
Special to IPT News
June 23, 2022
https://www.investigativeproject.org/9193/iran-descends-into-outright-piracy
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FA is very much a Deep State publication:
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What America Should Do If the Iran Nuclear Deal Talks Fail
Outsourcing Middle East Security to Israel Is a Bad Plan B
By Maria Fantappie and Vali Nasr
July 1, 2022
Get a link
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/israel/2022-07-01/what-america-should-do-if-iran-nuclear-deal-talks-fail
U.S. President Joe Biden’s July trip to the Middle East comes at a delicate moment. There is a last gasp effort underway to revive stalled talks between the United States and Iran on restoring the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the deal aimed at preventing the Islamic Republic from being able to develop a nuclear weapon. Since the last round of talks in Vienna, Tehran has accelerated its program and will soon become a threshold nuclear state. When the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)—the UN nuclear watchdog—censured the country for failing to cooperate with inspectors, the Iranian government further curtailed IAEA monitoring of its nuclear program and announced new underground advanced enrichment facilities.
Israel, however, has long promised that it will not tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran, and it is working outside of multilateral institutions to realize that goal. Israel has assassinated Iranian scientists and military officials. It has conducted air attacks on Iranian targets in Syria and expanded its strike capabilities, presumably in preparation for new attacks on Iranian nuclear sites and military facilities. With American backing, the Israelis are also seeking to organize a number of Arab states into a military alliance against Iran. According to The Wall Street Journal, the United States convened a meeting last March with security officials from Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to integrate intelligence sharing and air defense systems to combat aerial threats from Iran.
These developments are scrambling Washington’s plans for the Middle East. The Biden administration has argued that the revival of the JCPOA is the best way to control Iran’s nuclear program. But failing that, it appears prepared to adopt Israel’s current approach to containing Iran. That entails further tightening the economic noose around Iran’s neck by forcing the country out of the oil market. And it means the United States would support Israel in carrying out attacks inside Iran and in its effort to weave a coalition of Arab states to contain the country. The latter is, in essence, a new function for the Abraham Accords, the signature foreign policy achievement of the Trump administration, which tied Israel to Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates in what amounts to an anti-Iran bloc. Left unspoken is that the accords may evolve into a functioning military defense pact, buttressed by the United States.
The situation recalls the 1970s, when U.S. President Richard Nixon subcontracted Middle East security to the shah of Iran. Similarly, the Biden administration is, in effect, handing over the task of containing Iran to Israel. This is a risky approach: unlike some 50 years ago, this time the U.S.-designated policeman for the region is not trying to avoid conflict but is the regional actor most clearly pushing for escalation. Washington should adopt a different strategy, one aimed at averting conflict by combining beefed-up regional security with encouraging stronger diplomatic ties between Iran and Arab states—one of the few things that could help reduce the mounting tensions in the Middle East.
THE ISRAELI OCTOPUS (?!?)
Israel has long vowed that it will not allow Iran to become a nuclear power. Outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett believed that a return to the nuclear deal would give Iran more resources to pursue its nuclear and regional ambitions. But unlike his predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu, Bennett spent little time campaigning against the deal and instead stepped up efforts to not only sabotage Iran’s nuclear program but to undermine the Islamic Republic.
In early June, in anticipation of the IAEA’s formal censure of the Iranian government for failure to cooperate with nuclear inspectors, Bennett told the Knesset that “the days of immunity, in which Iran attacks Israel and spreads terrorism via its regional proxies but remains unscathed—are over.”
Israel has long vowed that it will not allow Iran to become a nuclear power.
Bennett unleashed a so-called octopus strategy (???) against Iran. This included sabotage, assassinations, cyberwarfare, and attacks on Iran’s military personnel and infrastructure, as well as those of its allies in Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria. The new approach, which goes beyond targeting nuclear facilities to focus more broadly on the Islamic Republic itself, has been less predictable, more aggressive, and more complex than previous Israeli campaigns. In recent weeks, for example, Israel has expanded its assassination targets beyond those associated with the nuclear program, most notably when Mossad agents apparently killed a colonel in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) in Tehran. That was not an isolated incident: there have been many recent reports of mysterious deaths and suspicious explosions and industrial accidents.
Critical to Bennett’s strategy has been building Israel’s capabilities on Iran’s borders. According to sources in the region, the Israeli sabotage and assassination campaign inside Iran has relied on bases in Azerbaijan, which shares a border with Iran in the north, and Iraq’s Kurdistan region, which borders Iran in the west. Bennett also hoped that the Abraham Accords would provide a regional counterweight to the Islamic Republic. The accords have already expanded Israel’s reach in the Persian Gulf through security arrangements with Bahrain and the UAE, whose leaders share many of Israel’s concerns about Tehran’s nuclear and regional ambitions. It is now concluding free trade agreements with the UAE, as well as supplying sophisticated air defense systems, radars, and cybertechnology to its Gulf allies. Washington is also encouraging Egypt and Jordan to deepen security ties with Israel and supporting efforts to bring Saudi Arabia into the accords to solidify an Arab axis to contain Iran. That issue will likely be on the agenda when Biden speaks with his Saudi counterparts on his trip to the Middle East.
IRAN’S LONG GAME
While Israel is going on offense, Iran is seeking to buy time. By avoiding direct confrontation with Israel, Tehran can fortify its nuclear program, enhance its missile and drone program, and expand its military capabilities in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen. Iranian officials also believe that if Israel managed to draw Tehran into a larger conflict, the Biden administration would be compelled to intervene militarily. Furthermore, mounting hostilities would increase the probability that more Arab states would cast their lot with Israel.
That said, Iran is attacking Israel, mostly through proxies such as Hamas and Hezbollah. Over the last few months, Hezbollah flew a drone inside Israeli territory, Iraqi militias aligned with Iran allegedly carried out a cyberattack on Israel’s primary airport, and Hamas launched rockets at Israeli planes. Iran is also showing a growing willingness to target Israeli intelligence outposts close to its borders and increase the costs to states that facilitate Israeli operations against Iran. That is particularly true when Israel has gone after members of the IRGC, the branch of the armed forces that exercises profound influence over the Iranian government. After Israeli airstrikes killed two IRGC commanders in Syria and a presumed Israeli drone attack launched from Iraqi Kurdistan territory in Iraq decimated a military facility in western Iran, Tehran carried out military drills on its borders with Azerbaijan and attacked targets in Iraqi Kurdistan, including an alleged Mossad base.
Tehran has also pressured its Iraqi allies to pass a law that criminalizes normalization of ties with Israel. Ambiguous in its text, the law intends to keep Iraq out of Israel’s expanding sphere of influence and also pressure the semiautonomous Kurdistan Regional Government to reduce its cooperation with Israel. These steps have not gone unnoticed in Israel. After the Israeli attack on Damascus International Airport, the Israeli government advised its citizens to stay away from Turkey, a popular tourist destination among its citizens, out of concern that Iran was planning to retaliate by attacking Israeli nationals.
REVIVING THE NUCLEAR DEAL
In the midst of this brewing turmoil, members of the Biden administration are negotiating in Doha, in coordination with EU officials, to revive the JCPOA. That is, in many ways, an exercise in damage control: U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the nuclear deal in 2018 has shortened the period of time Tehran would need to create a bomb and strengthened the hand of hardliners in Iran. Under the original deal, Iran would have been a year away from acquiring enough fissile material for one bomb. Now, under a new deal, that timeframe will be shaved down to six months.
The pressure and sanctions the Trump administration placed on Tehran forced much of Iran’s oil trade underground, leading the IRGC to secure its budget by managing a good deal of this illicit trade directly. Since 2018, Iran has sold oil surreptitiously, and the bulk of its trade has gone through black markets, allowing the IRGC to sell its own share of oil and build economic conglomerates. As a result, the bulk of the IRGC’s revenue now sits outside the official government budget.
Influential individuals within the IRGC now have a powerful incentive to argue against a new nuclear deal, because Iran’s oil revenue would once again go to the Iranian government. The IRGC would have to submit its budget to civilian oversight and would likely face public pressure to relinquish a portion of it. That development would be particularly unwelcome at a time when the IRGC is seeking to increase its military capability to maintain strategic parity with Israel. Mounting Israeli attacks have strengthened the IRGC’s resistance against the deal, which they suspect is a U.S. machination to undermine Iran’s capability to respond militarily.
To be sure, a deal would breathe life into Iran’s economy at a time when popular discontent is growing. And it would generate trade opportunities with Iran’s neighbors at a time when Israel is extending its ties with Arab states. Those among Iran’s leaders who favor a deal could overcome IRGC resistance if the economic promises of a deal are significant and immediate, and if Iran could be confident they will be realized. Failing to reach a deal also heightens the risk of escalation with Israel. But the IRGC holds powerful sway over the Iranian government. Ironically, both Israel and IRGC oppose the nuclear deal and are preparing for a looming conflict.
A PATH FORWARD
In the coming weeks, U.S. engagement will be critical to keeping the shadow war between Iran and Israel from spiraling out of control. Escalating attacks by Israel and Iranian proxies could explode into a larger confrontation, inflaming tensions from the Levant to the Arabian Peninsula. This could prolong the political crises in Iraq and Lebanon; derail a fragile truce between Iranian-backed Houthis and Saudi-led forces in Yemen; and even reignite the conflict in Syria. It would drag the United States back to deal with the region at a moment when it wishes to focus on Russia and China.
To avoid these outcomes, the Biden administration must set redlines with the Israeli government and insist on limits to provocative attacks. The United States also must outline a strategy for Middle Eastern stability that is not merely based on containment and confrontation with Iran or securing a short-term reduction in oil prices. Rather, it must establish a durable framework for preventing conflict. The most effective way to do this would be to conclude a new nuclear deal with Iran. To be sure, a deal will not go far enough to satisfy Israel, nor will it shut down the activities of the IRGC and its proxies in the region. It will, however, hold the line on Iran’s nuclear program in a way that would make urgent Israeli action unnecessary. And that would lessen the likelihood of Iranian retaliatory actions in the region—including against tankers and oil facilities—that could roil world energy markets.
A breakthrough could also transform Iran’s relations with its Gulf neighbors. Tehran has attempted to strengthen its ties with Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar. Iran also has been keen to improve relations with Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. After five rounds of talks between Iran and Saudi Arabia, a cease-fire in Yemen is now entering its third month. A nuclear deal will add impetus to this initiative. Conversely, more sanctions and an Israeli offensive against Iran’s nuclear program are likely to stop it in its tracks, setting the region on a dangerous escalatory path.
U.S. engagement is critical to keeping the shadow war between Iran and Israel from spiraling out of control.
Even without a nuclear deal, greater Arab-Iranian engagement could serve as a brake on Iran’s more aggressive regional activities. But that is only if there is a veritable path to improving Arab-Iranian relations. Although Persian Gulf monarchies fear Iran and have deepened their security ties with Israel, they do not want a war between Iran and Israel. Arab states want Israeli security protection but fear they would become collateral damage in a military showdown. Persian Gulf countries also have an interest in ending regional conflicts, most notably in Yemen. Building on the current cease-fire in that country requires continuation of Saudi-Iranian dialogue, divorced from the fate of the nuclear deal.
The growing push for stronger diplomatic relations between Iran and its Arab neighbors presents Washington with an opportunity to reorient regional security. By working closely with Arab states—not just signatories to the Abraham Accords, but those with a vested interest in Persian Gulf and the Red Sea security—Washington can build broader support for controlling escalation between Israel and Iran. It must couple the imperative of containing Iran militarily with encouraging regional diplomacy to influence its behavior. Israel is wooing Arabs to join an anti-Iran security umbrella. Iran has every reason to dissuade Arabs from taking that step. Arab states can use this leverage to encourage both Iran and Israel to desist from risky provocations and keep in check their shadow war. Biden should use his trip to the region to encourage them to do just that.
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https://www.reuters.com/world/us-israel-sign-joint-pledge-denying-nuclear-weapon-iran-2022-07-14/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=daily-briefing&utm_term=07-14-2022
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18706/biden-administration-friendliy-iran
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18762/iran-military-expansion-europe
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https://freebeacon.com/national-security/u-s-trained-afghan-commandos-fled-to-iran-with-weapons-report-finds/
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18818/biden-demands-iran-deal
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U.S., Iran: Washington Says Iran Has 'Crossed the Rubicon' Toward Possible Nuclear Deal
2 MIN READAug 23, 2022 | 19:49 GMT
What Happened: Iran has reportedly dropped several of its key demands hanging up a nuclear deal, including its demand that the United Nations' nuclear watchdog close its probe into Iran's nuclear activity at three undeclared sites, Reuters reported Aug. 23, citing a senior U.S. official. The official added that the United States thinks Iran has, ''finally crossed the Rubicon and moved toward possibly getting back into the deal on terms that President Biden can accept.''
Why It Matters: The dropping of Iran's key demands — if they remain off the table — makes a nuclear deal more likely, but much will depend on the final stretch of talks, as Iran has previously thrown last-minute curveballs when negotiators appeared ready to ink an agreement. A deal would reduce U.S.-Iran tensions in the Middle East, but it would not deescalate Israel-Iran tensions, keeping security risks in places like Syria and Lebanon high. A restored nuclear deal would also see the United States remove sanctions on Iran's oil sector, which could ease the global energy crisis by bringing more Iranian oil to the market.
Background: Iran submitted its written response to the EU-mediated roadmap on restoring the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal on Aug. 15. In June, the International Atomic Energy Agency's board approved a report calling on Iran to provide information related to material found at the three undeclared nuclear sites.
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I thought we didn't negotiate with terrorists, and there were good reasons for that. Now we send them planeloads of money in exchange for [empty] promises.
I don't get why the Obama-Biden "advisers" are hellbent on doing this. Valerie Jarrett born in Iran doesn't explain this.
One more failure of the Bush Cheney Republicans: As hawk VP Dick Cheney lost his influence in the late years of the W. Bush meltdown, Bush-Cheney left office without dealing with the Iran threat, while R's nominated a moderate and America elected the Senate's most liberal member to kick off the America Apology Tour. He got the Nobel Peace Prize and we got an emboldened Iran, NK, China and Russia.
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et al sabotaged Israel's plan to take preemptive military action
now the bunkers must be so hardened that Israel from what I can gather could not really
destroy them
what I don't understand is how we were told Iran was only months away from nuclear bomb grade
material
yet we here they probably have and are just trying to get them in missiles I think
Like Bolton always said
if you don't like Iran now
just imagine what they will be like with nucs on missles
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Biden's appeasement of Iran continues:
till More Dangerous New Concessions by Biden Administration for a Nuclear Deal with Iran's Mullahs
by Majid Rafizadeh • August 27, 2022 at 5:00 am
Newly leaked information from inside Iran, obtained by Iran International, reveals that the Biden administration has made even more concessions to revive the nuclear deal, which have not been revealed to the public. According to the report, "the US guarantees that its sanctions against IRGC would not affect other sectors and firms: e.g. a petrochemical company shouldn't be sanctioned by US because of doing business with IRGC."
The Biden administration seems to have been bragging that Iran's leaders have dropped a key demand: removing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) from the US foreign organizations terrorist list. But if other sectors that are linked to the IRGC can freely do business under the nuclear deal, then the designation of the IRGC as a terrorist organization, as well as the sanctions against the IRGC, are merely cosmetic.
The IRGC has a large stake in almost every industrial sector in Iran, which includes the energy sector, mining, telecommunications, gold, shipping and construction. Private sector competitors are not permitted in these sectors because the more closed the economy, the more easily the IRGC can monopolize it.
As a result, any economic growth in these sectors will directly benefit Iran's military, the IRGC and its elite Quds Force branch, and Iran's militia and terror groups across the Middle East. Since Iran's economy is predominantly controlled by the IRGC or the state, additional revenues will likely be funneled into the treasury of the IRGC and the office of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The other critical concession being reportedly made is that "the participants note the firm commitment of the US President [without mentioning Joe Biden by name] for returning to JCPOA compliance as long as Iran remains committed to the deal." This probably means that future US presidents are obliged to continue with the implementation of the nuclear deal. But why should the US guarantee the implementation of the nuclear deal if it is not even a legally binding treaty, approved by two-thirds of the Senate, in accordance with Article II, section 2 of the US Constitution? In addition, it is illegal for any president to commit future presidents to anything that has not been approved as a formal treaty by two-thirds of the Senate.
This is a much worse deal than the 2015 nuclear deal. Because, first, the US or EU3 (France, the United Kingdom and Germany) cannot call for reinstating sanctions on Iran unilaterally even if they believe that the Iranian regime is violating the nuclear deal. In the previous nuclear deal, at least, any single party to the deal could unilaterally trigger the snap-back sanctions clause. In addition, with the new deal, restrictions on the regime's nuclear program could be lifted only two years after the agreement is signed; and the Iranian regime will not be obliged to reveal its past nuclear activities, which had military dimensions; and Russia will be trusted to store Iran's enriched uranium, a task for which Moscow will be paid.
Reportedly, another concession that the Biden administration has made to Iran is that the IAEA is expected to halt its investigation into the regime's past nuclear activities.
"This shift to appeasement was never going to solve any of the world's issues with the Islamic Republic. The regime's problem with the West is the West's very existence, which obstructs its path to a global caliphate." — Reza Pahlavi, eldest son of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and an advocate of secular democracy for Iran, Wall Street Journal, August 8, 2022.
The Biden administration's policy towards the Iranian regime has been one of capitulation and giving concessions, and it appears determined to enrich and empower what the State Department has called "the world's top state sponsor of terrorism," whose core policy since its Islamic Revolution in 1979 has been to "export the revolution," as anchored in "Death to America" and "Death to Israel". Pictured: A member of the Islamic Basij volunteer militia burns an American flag in Tehran, Iran, on July 16 2022. (Photo by Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images)
Since assuming office, the Biden administration's policy towards the Iranian regime has been one of capitulation and giving concessions to the ruling Islamist mullahs of Iran. So far, they include suspending some of the anti-terrorism sanctions on Iran-backed Houthis, then revoking the designation of Yemen's Houthis as a terrorist group; disregarding Iran's oil sales to China; shipping oil to Syria, Lebanon's Hezbollah and Venezuela in direct violation of US sanctions; ignoring the Iranian regime's crackdown on protesters, smuggling weapons to the Houthis and Venezuela; attempting to murder US former officials and citizens on American soil, and taking more foreign hostages.
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Khaled Abu Toameh: Iran Prepares to Take Out Israel – Right after Iran Deal Is Signed
Uzay Bulut: Turkey Accuses Sweden, Finland of 'Supporting Terrorism', Meanwhile Releases Turkish Hizbullah Terrorists from Prison
Iran Prepares to Take Out Israel – Right after Iran Deal Is Signed
by Khaled Abu Toameh • August 24, 2022 at 5:00 am
The mullahs appear convinced that once the Biden administration capitulates completely to their demands for reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, they will be able to step up their already significant efforts to eliminate Israel and export their Islamic Revolution to Arab and Islamic countries. Iran already occupies four Arab countries: Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq.
Iran's mullahs appear to be so confident that the Biden administration has turned its back on its Arab allies in the Middle East that they are issuing direct threats not only against Israel, but also against any Arab country that dares to cooperate with the Israelis.
Meanwhile, the mullahs are busy trying to open a new battlefront against Israel, this time in the West Bank.
The mullahs appear to be so emboldened by the Biden administration's weakness that they are now openly talking about using the West Bank as a launching pad to attack Israel and kill Jews.
Under pressure from the Iranian regime, Hamas and Islamic Jihad representatives held a meeting in the Gaza Strip earlier this week to discuss ways of stepping up the "resistance" against Israel.
In an attempt to appease their masters in Tehran, Hamas and Islamic Jihad issued a joint statement after the meeting in which they pledged to step up the "armed struggle" against Israel "until the liberation [of all of Palestine]," a euphemism for the destruction of Israel.
Iran's mullahs appear convinced that once the Biden administration capitulates completely to their demands for reviving the 2015 nuclear deal, they will be able to step up their already significant efforts to eliminate Israel and export their Islamic Revolution to Arab and Islamic countries. Iran already occupies four Arab countries: Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq.(Image source: iStock)
As the Biden administration seems to be moving closer to reaching a new nuclear deal with Iran, the mullahs in Tehran are encouraging their Lebanese and Palestinian terrorist proxies to prepare for waging war on Israel.
The mullahs appear convinced that once the Biden administration capitulates completely to their demands for reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, they will be able to step up their already significant efforts to eliminate Israel and export their Islamic Revolution to Arab and Islamic countries. Iran already occupies four Arab countries: Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq.
The mullahs are not oblivious to the growing voices in the Arab world that complain about the weakness of the US and how the Biden administration's policy of appeasement towards Iran is undermining the Americans' credibility and jeopardizing the security and stability of Arab and Islamic countries.
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still trying to figure out why the Mullahs hate Israel so much
as the relationship between Israel Iran is rather complicated.
https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/iran/2018-05-08/ty-article-magazine/how-israel-and-iran-went-from-allies-to-enemies/0000017f-f633-d887-a7ff-fef71e7f0000
After reading this I do not really understand the reasons
as Iran has not traditionally been so anti Jew or Israel:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_Jews
https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/iran/2018-05-08/ty-article-magazine/how-israel-and-iran-went-from-allies-to-enemies/0000017f-f633-d887-a7ff-fef71e7f0000
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Isn't there a thread Israel and its neighbors? can't find it
this belongs there too
to bad there is not a way to simply click a button and post on an additional pertinent thread.
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"... still trying to figure out why the Mullahs hate Israel so much"
"After reading this I do not really understand the reasons
as Iran has not traditionally been so anti Jew or Israel"
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I don't know either. It seems to be in the Islamic religions to hate Jews. Is the root of it territorial?
Israel offered them water technology (for free) that would really help the Iranian people:
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/florida-jewish-journal/fl-jjps-water-0627-20180619-story.html
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https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2022/08/iranian-navy-tries-steal-us-unmanned-vessel-sea/376513/?oref=defense_one_breaking_nl
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https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Global-Viewpoint/2013/0124/Why-Middle-East-Muslims-are-taught-to-hate-Jews
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/references-to-jews-in-the-koran
"... still trying to figure out why the Mullahs hate Israel so much"
"After reading this I do not really understand the reasons
as Iran has not traditionally been so anti Jew or Israel"
----------------------
I don't know either. It seems to be in the Islamic religions to hate Jews. Is the root of it territorial?
Israel offered them water technology (for free) that would really help the Iranian people:
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/florida-jewish-journal/fl-jjps-water-0627-20180619-story.html
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A Deal Based on Lies: The Iran Nuclear Agreement Will Make War More Likely
by Richard Kemp • September 1, 2022 at 5:00 am
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These are the effects of the proposed nuclear deal brokered by the EU, Russia and China. Why is it brokered by the EU, Russia and China? Because the United States was outrageously banned from direct negotiations by Tehran. It is not outrageous that Iran demanded it, but that the US tolerated its own exclusion.
[T]he deal that is about to emerge will be even worse [than the 2015 deal]. The argument of the "bad" dealers is that it buys time for the West, with Micawberish optimism that "something will turn up". This thinking is clear from President Biden's preposterous hope that he can "lengthen and strengthen" the deal once it has been struck.
While in office, Obama declared that Iran would not be allowed to build nuclear weapons on his watch. He must have known that the only way to prevent that was through military action or perhaps crippling sanctions, but was unwilling to do either and the result was the JCPOA, which kicked the problem down the road onto someone else's watch.
Tehran can legitimately commence operation of advanced uranium enrichment centrifuges in two years, all the while working flat out to develop nuclear-capable ballistic missiles that, along with Iran's terrorist activities, are not covered at all in the agreement.
The "buying time" argument, and indeed an argument for any agreement, only works if you do not understand Iran and are naive enough to believe the regime will honor what it agrees to.
The reality that the optimistic and the unschooled fail to grasp is that the regime in Tehran will ignore constraints imposed by the deal that it does not like.
Tehran will continue to develop the nuclear capability that it sees as its right — deal or no deal — at the speed it wants until it is physically stopped from doing so. Whatever shape Biden's deal takes there are only downsides for the West and the Middle East and only upsides for Tehran.
More than that, according to Israeli prime minister Yair Lapid, Tehran will receive $100 billion a year as a result of lifted sanctions.
Released from sanctions, Iran will be used as an economic refuge by Moscow to evade its own international sanctions.
Under the draft deal, Iran will be able to retain the uranium that it has been illicitly producing since the original JCPOA, enriched beyond any requirements for a peaceful nuclear programme.... t seems likely that Russia — despite its own repeated nuclear threats — will be handed control of this existing uranium stockpile.
This chilling scenario — for which the world will pay a very high price — is about to be made more likely by the ill-judged actions of governments in America and Europe, which lack the resolve and courage to apply sufficient economic pressure and military deterrence to put a stop to Iranian nuclear ambitions. Instead, as they did in response to Russian aggression, they are again opting for appeasement, the opium of the faint-hearted.
Under the proposed renewed nuclear deal, Iran can legitimately commence operation of advanced uranium enrichment centrifuges in two years, all the while working flat out to develop nuclear-capable ballistic missiles that, along with its terrorist activities, are not covered at all in the agreement. Pictured: Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi speaks during a press conference in Tehran on August 29, 2022. (Photo by STR/AFP via Getty Images)
As Western governments quake in the face of Russian nuclear threats, they are on the verge of striking a deal that will give Iran that same power over them.
Even after six months of war in Europe, they cannot seem to grasp the parallels between the two. Putin risked invading Ukraine because of Western weakness and appeasement, naively welcoming Russia back into the family of nations after it devoured large parts of Ukraine in 2014, while at the same time filling its war chests with ever more billions of euros from energy exports to Europe.
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The Biden Administration's Nuclear Deal Is the Biggest Gift to the World's 'Top State Sponsor of Terrorism'
by Majid Rafizadeh
September 3, 2022 at 5:00 am
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The main beneficiaries of the increased revenues will most likely be the office of Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and more importantly the IRGC's elite branch the Quds Force, which carries out extraterritorial operations to advance the revolutionary principles of the Islamic Republic abroad.
A considerable part of the economy and Iran's financial systems are owned and controlled by the IRGC and the Office of the Supreme Leader.... This economic haven means that state and non-state actors, such as the Houthis, Hezbollah, the Shiite militias in Iraq and Bashar Assad's Syria, will be the next major beneficiaries of Biden's sanctions relief and new nuclear deal.
The Biden administration will more likely contribute to more tensions between Iran and other countries in the region, and lead to further regional insecurity, destabilization, humanitarian tragedies, and most likely a major war.
Biden's new nuclear deal is the biggest gift that one could give to the world's "top state sponsor of terrorism": unlimited nuclear weapons, no inspections past present or future, the missiles to deliver them, enriched uranium to be held by Russia and returned to Iran or wherever they both decide, "$100 billion per year to spread terror around the globe" -- in short, assured expansion of the "Revolution" not only throughout the Middle East but further, straight into America's soft underbelly, Venezuela.
The main beneficiaries of increased revenues from a renewed nuclear deal will most likely be the office of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and more importantly the IRGC's elite branch the Quds Force, which carries out extraterritorial operations to advance the revolutionary principles of the Islamic Republic abroad. Pictured: IRGC members on parade, marking the anniversary of the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war, on September 22, 2018, in Tehran. (Photo by Stringer/AFP via Getty Images)
The Biden administration's new nuclear deal with the ruling clerics will lift economic sanctions against the Iranian regime the moment the deal enters into effect.
At that moment, the Iranian regime will receive approximately $90 billion. The Biden administration will also instantly be lifting sanctions on the Iranian regime's energy sector, which will also significantly boost the regime's oil and gas revenues.
The ruling mullahs will be able to ramp up their oil exports to pre-sanctions levels, roughly quadrupling their oil sales, thereby bringing billions of dollars in additional revenues to the theocratic establishment. For example, after the implementation the 2015 nuclear agreement (known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action - JCPOA) under the Obama administration, crippling sanctions were lifted and Iran rejoined the global financial system. Iran's oil and gas industries had a fresh start, the regime increased its oil exports from 1 million barrels per day (bpd) to approximately 4 million bpd.
Oil and gas revenues, as is no secret, are crucial for the ruling mullahs: Iran reportedly has the second-largest natural gas reserves and the fourth-largest proven crude oil reserves after Saudi Arabia, Canada and Venezuela. The sale of oil accounts for nearly 60% of the regime's total revenues and more than 80% of its export revenues. Several Iranian leaders have spoken about the country's major dependence on oil exports. Former Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, for instance, acknowledged in 2019 that "Although we have some other incomes, the only revenue that can keep the country going is the oil money."
The Biden administration's removal of sanctions will, in addition, help the ruling mullahs increase their revenues by attracting foreign investments in their energy sector and other industries. After the 2015 nuclear agreement under the Obama administration, for example, Tehran succeeded in signing major agreements with some of the world's largest aviation, oil and gas corporations. The energy producer Total signed an agreement with the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) "for the development of phase 11 of South Pars, the world's largest gasfield". Another agreement was sealed with Royal Dutch Shell, which signed a provisional agreement with NIOC "to further explore areas of potential cooperation". The Iranian regime also signed a deal with Boeing -- the first business deal Tehran concluded with an American aviation corporation since the 1970s. Iran also began negotiating to purchase planes from the European company Airbus.
Not only will the Biden administration help the Islamist mullahs to become vastly wealthier, but it will also help the Iranian regime to gain global legitimacy as it rejoins the international financial system. The main beneficiaries of the increased revenues will most likely be the office of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and more importantly the IRGC's elite branch the Quds Force, which carries out extraterritorial operations to advance the revolutionary principles of the Islamic Republic abroad.
A considerable part of the economy and Iran's financial systems are owned and controlled by the IRGC and the Office of the Supreme Leader. The IRGC alone controls between a third and half of Iran's gross domestic product. The IRGC owns several major economic powerhouses and religious endowments, such as Astan Quds Razavi in the northeastern city of Mashhad.
This economic haven means that state and non-state actors, such as the Yemeni Houthis, Lebanese Hezbollah, the Shiite militias in Iraq and Bashar Assad's Syria, will be the next major beneficiaries of Biden's sanctions relief and new nuclear deal.
The Biden administration's nuclear deal will also help the IRGC and Quds Force to more powerfully interfere in other countries, support terror and militia groups that target Americans and their allies, and attempt to kill Americans on US soil. The Biden administration will more likely contribute to increasing tensions between Iran and other countries in the region, and lead to further regional insecurity, destabilization, humanitarian tragedies, and most likely a major war.
Biden's new nuclear deal is the biggest gift that one could give to the world's "top state sponsor of terrorism": unlimited nuclear weapons, no inspections past present or future, the missiles to deliver them, enriched uranium to be held by Russia and returned to Iran or wherever they both decide, "$100 billion per year to spread terror around the globe" -- in short, assured expansion of the "Revolution" not only throughout the Middle East but further, straight into America's soft underbelly, Venezuela.
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a business strategist and advisor, Harvard-educated scholar, political scientist, board member of Harvard International Review, and president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He has authored several books on Islam and US Foreign Policy. He can be reached at Dr.Rafizadeh@Post.Harvard.Edu
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18855/arabs-iran-deal-war
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Iran and Russia: The New Alliance
by Judith Bergman • September 14, 2022 at 4:00 am
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Significantly, Russia and Iran's cooperation extends to the military and space fields, with Russia recently helping Iran to launch a new satellite into space.
Iran's Khayyam satellite "will greatly enhance Tehran's ability to spy on military targets across the Middle East... [and give] Tehran "unprecedented capabilities, including near-continuous monitoring of sensitive facilities in Israel and the Persian Gulf." — The Washington Post, August 4, 2022.
"Iran could share the imagery with pro-Iranian militia groups across the region, from the Houthi rebels battling Saudi-backed government forces in Yemen to Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon and Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria." — Unnamed Middle Eastern official, The Washington Post, June 10, 2021.
"As Iran perfects its missile arsenal... alongside its growing UAV capability throughout the Middle East –being able to sync those capabilities with satellite capabilities and surveillance will only increase the lethality of the Iranian threat." — Richard Goldberg, former Iran analyst in the Trump administration's National Security Council, The Washington Post, August 4, 2022.
Iran has also become a major developer and producer of drones.... Most recently, Iran claimed that it had developed a long-range suicide drone "designed to hit Israel's Tel Aviv, Haifa."
Despite this acknowledged "profound threat" emanating from the mutually beneficial alliance between Russia and Iran, the Biden administration nevertheless has been making dangerous concessions to revive the nuclear deal, which would only deepen the threat and benefit not only Iran, but also Russia.
Let us hope that the new "Iran nuclear deal," reportedly "off the table for the time being" is off the table for good.
Russia and Iran's cooperation extends to the military and space fields, with Russia recently helping Iran to launch a new satellite into space. Pictured: Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi hold a meeting in Tehran on July 19, 2022. (Photo by Sergei Savostyanov/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images)
Iran and Russia have been strengthening their alliance recently, growing it gradually to such an extent that the Wall Street Journal wrote on August 27 that the two countries were "forging tighter ties than ever," as both countries face continued international isolation.
In recent months, Russia and Iran have signed a multitude of agreements, especially in trade, oil and gas, and military cooperation.
In June, an agreement on the establishment of mutual trade centers in St. Petersburg and Tehran was signed, to generate further trade between the two countries in the sectors of energy, transportation, electronics, agriculture, food, pharmaceuticals and construction, by helping Iranian and Russian businessmen establish contacts and conduct financial transactions.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpAzyLQsmR0
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18945/biden-russia-iran-nuke-deal
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Russia Will Use Its Ally, a Nuclear-Armed Iran, to Better Threaten the West
by Con Coughlin
October 3, 2022 at 5:00 am
As one of the signatories of the original Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the flawed nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration, Russia, as well as China, will ultimately have a say in any new agreement that emerges from the Vienna talks.
Rather than seeking to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions, Beijing and Moscow are more interested in forming an alliance with Iran to counter what they denounce as America's unilateralism, and thwarting "draconian" US sanctions.
Given Moscow's open hostility towards the West, it is abundantly clear that the Kremlin wants to exploit the weakness of the Biden administration to ensure the negotiations provide an even more unsatisfactory deal than the one signed off by Barack Obama in 2015, one that completely fails to address the very real threat Iran's nuclear weapons will pose to the wider world.
From Moscow's perspective, having a nuclear-armed Iran, one that is Russia's ally, will greatly enhance its ability to challenge the West.
In return, Iran has formed a new "axis of evil" with Moscow, providing it with weaponry, such as sophisticated drones, to support its war effort in Ukraine, while at the time providing assistance to Tehran to evade the effects of Western sanctions.
While these two despotic regimes seem determined to forge an ever closer alliance, however, their objectives are completely at odds with the demands of their respective citizens, whose primary concern is securing their freedom, not supporting the military aspirations of the ruling elites.
There is growing concern in Washington that US President Joe Biden is preparing to sign a new deal with Tehran once the midterm elections have been concluded, and that his officials are prepared to sign a far weaker version of the deal than that originally agreed to in 2015.
That would be a grave miscalculation on the part of the Biden administration.
This should be the moment when the US and its allies are intensifying the pressure on both Iran and Moscow, not capitulating to their interests with a weak nuclear deal which will only encourage them to indulge in further acts of aggression against the West and its allies.
More at https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18950/russia-ally-nuclear-iran
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second
The Islamic Republic’s impasse has once more exploded in the streets. The triggering event was the killing of Mahsa Amini by Iran’s morality police last month. But the tension—the rot in the Islamic system depressing the country—lies much deeper. For the clerical regime, it’s an insoluble predicament.
Among the casualties of this uprising may be the White House’s desperate quest to restore Barack Obama’s nuclear deal. Even before the streets erupted, Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, wasn’t biting at the new agreement proffered in Vienna this summer. When beset by regime-shaking domestic discontent, Iran’s theocracy tends to scorn diplomatic mediation. Repression at home produces truculence abroad.
One of the persistent problems with American policy toward Iran has been mirror-imaging. The Islamic Republic’s foreign minister, Hussein Amir-Abdollahian, revealed that Tehran had received word from the Biden administration, after the protests had started, that it remains committed to reviving the nuclear deal—that the “will and goodwill” to do so remain.
It isn’t hard to imagine Western functionaries believing that Iran’s internal turmoil gives them a diplomatic opening. When presidents and prime ministers get into trouble at home, they often look for foreign-policy triumphs. With the same logic, the clerical oligarchs would now be prone to come to terms to refurbish their domestic appeal. All this misses the fundamental fact that Iran’s theocrats, who claim to know the mind of God, pay little attention to public opinion.
For nearly two decades, arms control has dominated the Western approach to Iran. It is predicated on two assumptions. First, that the other side is pragmatic and can shelve ideological impulses for the sake of an agreement. Second, that the Iranian government is a responsible stakeholder and can be trusted with residual nuclear assets. Even when a revived accord’s sunset provisions expire, the logic goes, Iran’s theocrats would be too allured by commerce to do anything rash.
Such assumptions about the Islamist regime have always been wrong. We have clung to them either because of our poverty of mind (secularists don’t analyze the religious well) or because we fear the daunting alternatives. Devising a patient policy of undermining the Islamic Republic, as America once did against the Soviet Union, exceeds our imagination and political will. By default, we offer concessions.
As surreal as it may seem to Mr. Biden’s Iran team, the administration’s urgency for a new nuclear agreement may well be seen by many within Iran’s ruling elite as a Western trap. “Washington is always trying to weaken Iran’s stability and security although it has been unsuccessful,” a foreign ministry spokesman opined after the Amini protests started.
This isn’t mere rhetoric, an excuse to give the regime some comfort in a land seething with anti-theocratic sentiment. Conspiracy-obsessed, Mr. Khamenei and his henchman have always seen sinister Western hands lurking behind oppositionists, especially those who seek greater personal freedom and democracy. The regime has its own lexicon: demands for democracy without clerical oversight are seditious innovation, and calls for relaxation of cultural strictures are apostasy.
In Iran, state and society now exist on different planes. The divine republic may be smug, corrupt and cruel (as more-sensitive members of the clergy acknowledge), but the theocracy genuinely believes it is following God’s blueprint. A restless citizenry chanting “Mullahs get lost!” and “We don’t want your Islamic Republic!” rejects it all. Even if the regime can wait out the protesters, killing as few women as possible, it can’t escape the fundamental challenge: If the hijab falls, so does the theocracy.
What is most striking about the regime’s response so far is its relative lack of violence. Revolutionary Guard commanders worked out a riot-control plan after crushing the massive pro-democracy Green Movement in 2009. The regime effectively deployed this hit-hard-quickly approach in nationwide protests in 2017 and 2019. In the latter clash, which was a violent eruption of the poor, the Revolutionary Guards reportedly used automatic weapons. Hundreds died.
That hasn’t happened yet against the thousands of women protesting. Like all declining dictatorships, the clerical regime has had a failure of imagination—in this case, about how to handle protesting women. Islamic societies treat women as legally inferior to men. Their protection is at the core of male identity and pride. To slaughter women in large numbers, or to rape them in police detention, puts severe pressure on the traditional Islamic pillars that give this regime legitimacy. The religious state could fall because women are forcing their men into action.
The Biden administration has now run into this buzzsaw of sexual politics and faith. If the president were wise, he would throw his lot in with Iranian women. Mr. Biden wasn’t going to stop the Iranian bomb in Vienna. Aligning American policy behind the rebels at least gives the administration a chance at regime change. It also gives the White House a chance to restore American dignity.
Mr. Gerecht is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Mr. Takeyh is a senior fellow at Council on Foreign Relations.
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last section is on Iran
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvNfHJcJeKg
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19011/russia-iran-crush-ukraine
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October 26, 2022
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Iran’s Islamic Republic Will Survive – For Now
The regime has cracks but isn’t ready to break.
By: Hilal Khashan
Protests in Iran continue for the sixth consecutive week following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in custody of the morality police. Some observers see the demonstrations as a sign of the Iranian regime’s looming demise. Their persistence and expansion to all regions of the country have presented the government with the most significant challenge to its authority and legitimacy since the widespread demonstrations over the 2009 presidential election. Still, it would be wrong to assume the regime’s fall is immediate.
The leaders of Iran’s Islamic Revolution built a formidable internal security apparatus that has proved time and again capable of crushing protests – irrespective of their size or duration. Though the regime has been weakened by sanctions and its international isolation, the protests do not pose a threat to its survival. It seems that Iranian officials, who consistently blame foreign enemies for conspiring against the Islamic Republic, are confident that the major powers, namely the U.S., still believe Tehran can be transitioned from foe to friend.
Cracks in the Regime
Since its establishment in 1979, the Islamic government in Iran has failed to establish a modern, industrialized state. Instead, it has created a vast military establishment and propaganda machine that have deluded its people and the outside world into believing it is capable of remaining independent, dominating the region and waging war.
The Iranian regime is run by an aging leadership, with mediocre administrative and economic competencies, and obsolete public service institutions. Its policies, applied using heavily coercive methods, stalled the country’s development. But despite this failure, the regime claims it is in the position to challenge the U.S., the world’s uncontested superpower, and continue its subversive regional activities. After suffering for years under severe sanctions and isolation, the nuclear deal, signed under the Obama administration, gave Tehran new hope that it could revive its economy and become the regional power it claims to be. Instead of correcting its past mistakes, however, the regime doubled down, expanding its regional adventurism and increasing its internal repression. In 2018, the Trump administration reinstated the sanctions, challenging the regime’s ability to continue its policy of expansionism.
It’s against this backdrop that the protests of the past six weeks have unfolded. They have produced a new force in Iranian society. For several decades, many have believed that the presidency has alternated between two political currents: conservative and reformist. But Amini’s death has led to a new, leaderless opposition that rejects the political establishment and distrusts the reformers’ ability to change a medieval-minded, dogmatic religious system. The protesters object to the dominance of the conservatives and reformists over the political arena and see no point in reforming a failed system.
The new generation doesn’t relate to the revolution of their parents’ era against the now-defunct shah regime. It aspires to remove the shackles of the ayatollahs’ regime that isolated them from the outside world. They deny Tehran’s accusations about foreign interference in the protest movement, while also criticizing Western countries for watching their suffering and only verbally condemning the regime’s heavy-handed tactics.
Government officials have been critical of the uprising, led by young women, saying they were influenced by social media. The deputy commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps even said that the average age of those detained because of the unrest is 15. However, their demands for greater freedom are supported by much of the rest of Iranian society.
Protest Activity in Iran, October 24
(click to enlarge)
The demonstrators, who have chanted slogans like “We are in the last days of the dictator Khamenei,” have also enjoyed widespread support of Iranians abroad. On Oct. 22, thousands of Iranians residing in Europe converged in Berlin to hold their own demonstration against the supreme leader in solidarity with the protesters at home. In addition, an Iranian-American activist compared the veil, which triggered the massive protests, to the Berlin Wall, threatening to bring down the regime. In her opinion, if Iranian women could say no to those who tell them what to wear, they could also say no to a dictator.
The protesters’ resolve in the face of the excessive force used by security forces has compelled President Ebrahim Raisi to call for a review of certain laws that limit personal freedoms, especially those related to women’s dress. It’s unlikely that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would have given in in this way, fearing that it could undermine the regime’s Islamic foundations. But the protests have gained momentum, spreading throughout the country, especially to regions dominated by ethnic and religious minorities – mainly the Kurds in the west and the Baluchis in the east, where the Basij paramilitary forces killed more than 90 demonstrators in late September who were protesting the rape of a girl by a policeman. The demonstrations also spread to Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, despite the public prosecutor’s assertion that the clashes at the facility, which killed eight prisoners and wounded dozens, had nothing to do with the violence that ensued after Amini’s death.
Regime Will Endure
The unrest has revealed the regime’s defensiveness and brought the country to an impasse. Still, a regime that launched a successful revolution of its own knows how to stifle one if it needs to. The country has seen unrest before; it experienced some 4,000 protests in 2021 and more than 2,200 in the first half of this year. The current demonstrations are still largely spontaneous and lack a visible leadership with a clear plan to establish an alternate system. The protesters agree on the need to overthrow the religious regime but differ fundamentally on the role of ethnic and religious groups if the regime collapses. The politically dominant Persians will not recognize minority groups’ cultural differences and demands for regional autonomy.
Meanwhile, the regime has supporters of its own who have also organized rallies. Pro-government protesters have praised the security forces and railed against the women who burned their headscarves, accusing them of doing the U.S.’ bidding. They apparently believe in Raisi’s claim that only when Iranians recognize the conspiracies hatched by the enemies of the Islamic Revolution can they confront them through national unity and cohesion.
The Green Revolution that took place in response to the rigged 2009 presidential election was crushed by the IRGC. It could be said that that movement inspired and eventually led to the protests we’re seeing today. The government, however, remains robust, with its survival dependent on the IRGC. The IRGC took precautionary measures to prevent security forces from failing in front of the demonstrators, which explains their use of excessive force against the protests. The Iranian interior minister said the government was in complete control of the situation but warned that jeopardizing Iran’s security would negatively affect the stability of the Gulf states, which is inseparable from Iran’s own peace and stability.
U.S. Opposes Regime Change
The current wave of unrest has spread to provinces that have rarely seen anti-government demonstrations since 1979, including Baluchistan, on the Pakistani border, and Gilan, Mazandaran and Golestan. In the past, the regime could count on the passivity of these provinces at times of anti-regime discontent in Tehran and other Persian regions. The dilemma of Iran, however, is that you can’t change it from within. The successor to the Islamic Republic would be a secular regime with the same domestic and regional roles that existed during the shah’s rule. If the current regime collapses, national politics, especially concerning minorities, will not change dramatically, and Iran’s regional posture will remain the same, albeit without the interest in exporting the regime’s ideological system of governance.
If the government is overthrown, elements of some ethnic groups may try to secede or establish autonomy as they did during the 1979 revolution. In 1945, Azerbaijanis and Kurds took advantage of the Soviet army’s presence in northwestern Iran and declared the Autonomous Republic of Azerbaijan and the Kurdish Mahabad Republic, which surrendered to the Iranian military after the Soviet withdrawal in 1946. After the shah’s departure, ethnic groups such as the Kurds, Turkmen and Arabs tried to secede from Iran, and the Azerbaijanis tried to establish autonomy.
The U.S. has avoided escalation against Iran, fearing its disintegration, as happened in Yugoslavia in 1992, which created havoc in the Balkans. Despite Washington imposing sanctions on people responsible for killing Amini and providing Iranians with free internet access through the Starlink network, its reaction does not reflect the seriousness of the situation. The Biden administration could have used more effective measures if it wanted to get rid of the regime, starting with reactivating the Magnitsky Act and taking the matter to the U.N. Security Council.
The U.S. special envoy to Iran, Robert Malley, expressed Washington’s position, saying the U.S. demanded respect for human rights but didn’t seek regime change. The State Department, meanwhile, continued its anti-Iranian rhetoric without taking any practical measures on the ground. What has prevented the U.S. government from responding more forcefully is its desire to reach a new nuclear deal and avoid more tensions with Iran – especially while it searches for alternative energy sources to Russia. Washington has been similarly silent on Iran’s frequent bombing of sites in northern Iraq.
Iran isn’t ready to establish a democratic, non-sectarian state that respects its citizens and does not interfere in its neighbors’ affairs. The likely successors to the existing regime would oppose any change in Iran’s borders and its national fabric. Persian opposition groups wouldn’t even agree to allow minorities to teach their mother tongues in schools, let alone enjoy any kind of autonomy. If the regime collapses, these factors would set the stage for a violent conflict.
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/nov/5/terror-weapon-with-starring-role-in-ukraine-irans-/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=newsalert&utm_content=newsalert&utm_term=newsalert&bt_ee=rnS%2BDi2qv4rgxYAH8XYu182tK60jp3HZt6C9pw%2Br0zztyIIW8VtEo4aecNP5JIFQ&bt_ts=1667674134816
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New pipeline. Russia and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding on building a pipeline known as Tabesh to transport oil products. The pipeline, which will have a capacity of 150,000 barrels per day, will stretch about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from Rafsanjan to Mashhad and will have two pumping stations and three terminals. Moscow has been strengthening cooperation with Tehran since its invasion of Ukraine.
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Iran's Missiles Keep Russian Invasion of Ukraine Alive
by Ioannis E. Kotoulas
IPT News
November 15, 2022
https://www.investigativeproject.org/9285/iran-missiles-keep-russian-invasion-of-ukraine
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With its invasion of Ukraine stalling, and Ukrainians liberating as much as half their seized territory, Russia is turning to Iran to procure missiles to continue its campaign against Ukraine's civilian infrastructure.
Russia reportedly wants powerful Iranian Fateh-110 and Zolfaghar short-range ballistic missiles (SRBM). The Fateh-110 can travel up to 300 kilometers. Its guidance system and movable fins help steer it toward a target. The Zolfaghar carries a smaller warhead but can travel up to 700 kilometers.
"The Iranian missiles are important to the Russian war effort," military analyst Savvas Vlassis of Greek international security website Doureios Ippos, told the Investigative Project on Terrorism, "because the Russian Air Force has not affected substantially the course of the war. Iran appears willing to support the Russian war effort with a considerable number of [short range ballistic missiles], especially the Fateh-110 3rd or 4th generation missiles carrying a 500 kilogram warhead. Russia has depleted the greater part of its stockpile of ballistic and cruise missiles, therefore they need the Iranian missiles to keep the pressure on Ukraine."
"Iranians have to find a working balance between helping their Russian allies and preserving their own military capabilities against their rivals," Vlassis said.
The Russian army already has used Iranian drones extensively in its attacks, causing havoc with a series of strikes on densely-populated Ukrainian cities and critical infrastructure.
Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, a confidante of Russian President Vladimir Putin, met in Tehran Nov. 8 with Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council. Patrushev reportedly met with other high-ranking Iranians, including hardline Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, to discuss cooperation between Tehran and Moscow. The two sides stressed the need to further enhance strategic relations.
"The most decisive response to U.S. sanctions ... is the cooperation of independent countries," Raisi said. The meeting also covered cybersecurity and "measures countering the interference of Western security services in the internal affairs of both countries," according to an Iranian press communique.
Iranian Missiles in Ukraine
The Iranian missiles are expected to be delivered to Russia before the end of the year. According to reports by Ukrainian intelligence agencies, Iran will also supply additional drones, more than 200 Shahed-136 and Arash-2 kamikaze drones, and Mohajer-6 reconnaissance and combat UAVs.
Iran initially denied its involvement in the Ukraine war in both official statements and contacts with the EU despite the fact that its drones, notably the one-way attack Shahed-136 model, were undeniably identified in the deadly attacks. As the evidence grew too much to credibly deny, Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian finally admitted Nov. 5 that Iran has provided drones to Russia. Iranian officials tried to downplay their involvement, claiming that the drones were sent to Russia months before the Ukrainian war and therefore the Iranians were unaware of Russian intentions to use them. However, evidence from Ukrainian military intelligence suggests otherwise, as many drones were dispatched after the start of the invasion in late February.
Interestingly enough, conservative circles criticized the change in official rhetoric. They worry about possible repercussions of Iran's active support of the Russian invasion. The Iranian government should have not allowed Moscow to use the Iranian drones against Ukraine in the first place," argued Massih Mohajeri, editor of Jomhouri-e Eslami (Islamic Republic) newspaper.
In reality, not only was Iran aware, it has also dispatched personnel to Russian-held territories of Ukraine to train Russian troops, according to an Oct. 12 report by the Institute for the Study of War and reports by Ukrainian media.
In addition to helping an ally, Iran's supply of drones and rockets targeting population centers provide a testing ground for weapons that could be used in a future attack against Israel.
On this point, Iran is menacingly candid. A newspaper affiliated with Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), designated by the United States as a foreign terrorist organization, on Monday published an open threat in Hebrew language on its front page. The Sobh-e-Sadegh newspaper warns that a new hypersonic missile reportedly developed by Iran could reach Israel in "400 seconds."
Hypersonic missiles can evade defense systems with their great speed and maneuvers. Such a weapon could first dismantle Israel's aerial defense system, laying the ground bare for massive drone attacks. "The new missile can pass through all missile defense systems, and I don't think that the technology capable of intercepting it will be achieved in the decades to come," triumphantly declared General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the IRGC's Aerospace Force. "It can target the enemy's anti-missile systems, and its production marks a huge generational leap in the development of a new generation of missiles."
Hajizadeh's bloody record includes the downing of an Ukrainian airliner in 2020, killing all 176 passengers and crew.
Russia is actually losing this war due to superior Western military technology provided to the Ukrainian side. After almost nine months of a conflict that the Russian side thought would only last a week, Russia is now running out of high-precision weapons. Russian frontline units suffer up to 500 casualties daily and morale among the troops is collapsing, while 400,000 conscription-aged men have fled the country.
The Putin regime is in clear danger and holding on to power is intricately connected with some kind of success in Ukraine. As the once unbelievable prospect of a Russian tactical defeat in Ukraine is becoming clear, Iran is coming to the aid of Russia with its deadly missiles.
IPT Senior Fellow Ioannis E. Kotoulas (Ph.D. in History, Ph.D. in Geopolitics) is Adjunct Lecturer in Geopolitics at the University of Athens, Greece. His latest book is Geopolitics of the War in Ukraine.
Copyright © 2022. Investigative Project on Terrorism. All rights reserved
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19155/biden-russia-iran-nuclear
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Where Are the Protests in Iran Headed?
8 MIN READDec 1, 2022 | 20:40 GMT
The mass protests in Iran are highly unlikely to change the country's political system, but their persistence will drive domestic instability, harden the government against social reforms, and damage Iran's foreign relationships. Over the past two months, Iran has seen large-scale anti-government protests following the in-custody death of a young woman who was arrested for improperly wearing her hijab. The government has responded with a heavy-handed crackdown, resulting in clashes with security forces that activists say have so far killed over 400 protesters. But thousands of Iranians have nonetheless continued to take to the streets nationwide, even in the face of violence and repression. This resilience — along with the size and geographic scope of the demonstrations — has drawn a significant amount of international attention and solidarity. It has also stoked questions about the movement's political consequences. While an end to the Islamic Republic remains unlikely, the protests will probably endure at a low level and have a slow-moving effect on the country's political system and social policies over time.
On Sept. 16, a 22-year-old Iranian woman named Masha Amini died after morality police arrested her in Tehran earlier that week for allegedly violating Iran's strictly enforced dress code by improperly donning her hijab. The demonstrations over her death have since spread to all 31 Iranian provinces. Clashes on the street have so far killed over 50 members of Iran's security forces; the Iran Human Rights NGO estimates at least 448 people have been killed in the unrest, including demonstrators.
Some protesters are demanding gradual changes to the Iranian government's social policies and treatment of women, including liberalizing the strict dress code that led to Amini's arrest. Others are calling for a total overhaul of the country's current system of governance, arguing that Iran's four-decade-old Islamic theocracy does not represent the interests of Iranians.
Pro-reform protests are common in Iran. But the current rash of demonstrations is more geographically widespread than usual and more intersectional between multiple Iranian social classes and groups, revealing broad anti-government sentiment.
Unity between Iran's political authorities, legal institutions and security apparatus will help the government maintain its crackdown on the movement and defend itself against protesters' growing calls for sweeping political change. Iranian legislative, judicial and executive authorities are united in their resolve to quelch the anti-government demonstrations without offering reforms. For Tehran, enacting some of the reforms protesters are demanding would risk signaling that other protest demands — including the downfall of the political system — are also within reach and set a dangerous precedent of caving into demands that could fuel future protests. Out of self-preservation, the Iranian government is thus unlikely to pursue meaningful reforms beyond some surface-level adjustments to how the country's morality police operate. Security forces — including local police, Basij militia forces, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) — have remained cohesive and aligned with government imperatives and orders to dispel the unrest. President Ebrahim Raisi's government and Iran's powerful unelected ruling elite are both heavily conservative and support a more hard-line position on issues like women's rights and freedom of the press. Most of the country's elected lawmakers and unelected leaders are also against offering minimal concessions that could appease some of the demonstrators. It would take cracks within Iran's ruling elite, signs of solidarity between security forces and protesters, and obvious policy disagreements between elected legislators and unelected politicians, for demonstrations to be able to force authorities to introduce reforms — none of which are currently happening.
In Iran, elected officials — which include members of parliament and the president — can influence domestic policy. But their decision-making power is limited within the country's political system, which largely favors unelected bodies like the Supreme National Security Council, Guardian Council and the Expediency Council. These unelected councils — which are composed of clerics and led by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — oversee major decisions impacting Iran's economy, government institutions, foreign policy and national security.
Sporadic protests in Iran will likely keep cropping up over the next year, but may not survive a severe crackdown from Iran's security forces. The evolution of the movement will hinge on Iranians' determination to continue protesting in the face of crackdowns and arrests in the coming months. Grassroots energy driven by long-standing social and economic grievances is propelling the protests and making it difficult for the government to extinguish them altogether. But while they may persist for several more months, the demonstrations will likely eventually subside amid the government's unrelenting crackdown. Authorities will continue to restrict internet access and block popular social media sites in order to disrupt protesters' attempts to organize and generate more support for their cause. Iranian security forces will also continue to physically restrain and arrest demonstrators (and journalists) in the hopes of deterring future rallies and squelching dissent. This — along with the protest movement's lack of clear leadership — will keep demonstrations scattered and limit their size, thereby reducing their power to force the government to initiate reforms.
Iranian authorities have arrested an estimated 15,000 demonstrators, activists and journalists over the last two months, removing some of the movement's organizing power and likely spooking some would-be protesters from participating.
The 2009 Green Movement protests were the last substantial demonstrations in Iran motivated by similar social and political factors. The movement was sparked by allegations of election fraud after incumbent candidate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defeated a reformist candidate in Iran's 2009 presidential race. The Green Movement protests lasted for approximately six months before government crackdowns disbanded them. According to opposition estimates, only 72 Iranians were killed in clashes between security forces and demonstrators in those six months, compared with the hundreds who have so far been killed in just the two months since the demonstrations over Amini's death began. This indicates that the current wave of protests may be facing a harsher crackdown by Tehran and increased resolve by protesters.
Even if the current wave of protests eventually dies down, the ground will remain fertile in Iran for social and political movements to demand reforms in the future. The influence of Iran's reformists, who generally push for more socially liberal policies, has been reduced in recent years amid electoral losses and efforts by unelected conservative officials to disqualify them from running for office. Reformist political figures are almost sure to channel the sentiment being seen on the streets to bolster their support in future elections, as well as inspire new reformists to run for office. Iran's conservative and hardliner leaders, meanwhile, will point to the current unrest as evidence that reformist leaders pose a national security threat and may disqualify popular ones from standing in elections. This, along with efforts to silence reformists through arrests or co-optation, will help conservatives and hardliners maintain their hold on power in the short term. However, without substantial social and political reforms, new waves of protests could emerge in the future — inspiring a new generation of reformist leaders seeking to change Iran's political system.
Instead of parties, Iran's political system has factions that range from reformist (the most socially liberal) to hardline (the most socially conservative). Reformists in Iran believe that in order for the country's political system to survive and thrive, it needs to evolve through the gradual introduction of social, economic and political changes.
The IRGC — the most powerful of Iran's armed forces — has expanded its political influence in recent years, with IRGC and other military-affiliated officials holding more cabinet positions and frequently running in elections. If Iran's religious leadership appears incapable of stamping out the current unrest, the IRGC could seek to place its members in more positions and call for harsher policies in response. It could also try to replace some of Iran's more overtly religious institutions with more secular, military ones in an effort to protect the country's overall governance system from attacks on its clerical aspects. This ultimately would not structurally change the Iranian government, but would gradually alter how the government presents itself domestically.
The protests will worsen Iran's relations with the West, making progress on issues like Tehran's nuclear program all the more unlikely.
The Iranian government has been blaming external forces and foreign media for inspiring the protests. Western governments have also been imposing new sanctions on the Iranian entities involved in the heavy-handed crackdown on demonstrations. This is exacerbating Iran's fraught foreign relationships, especially with the United States and Europe. Increased tensions between Tehran and the West will further dim prospects for any breakthroughs in stalled negotiations to restore the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. The current wave of anti-government protests will also make Tehran all the warier of appearing weak by conceding to external powers over issues like the country's nuclear program.
U.S.-Iran nuclear negotiations have been frozen for months, and show no sign of resuming anytime soon. Iran, meanwhile, has been steadily advancing its nuclear development beyond the limits established in the 2015 deal.
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https://www.mediaite.com/news/hillary-clinton-breaks-with-biden-admin-says-u-s-should-not-negotiate-with-iran-we-need-to-stand-with-the-people/
still trying to stay relevant.
god help us
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In Addressing Iran's Nuclear and Non-Nuclear Activities, the U.S.'s Options Are Slim
11 MIN READDec 14, 2022 | 19:20 GMT
Iran's expanding missile and drone program, along with its increased weapon transfers to Russia, are hardening the U.S. position in nuclear negotiations to the point where restoring the 2015 nuclear deal (or reaching any successor agreement) may become politically infeasible — raising the risk of an Iran-U.S. nuclear crisis and potential military confrontation. In recent weeks, Iran has made announcements highlighting the acceleration of its nuclear and missile programs, both of which concern Western governments and show that the United States' strategy of separating Iran's nuclear program from the rest of its national security agenda is becoming increasingly untenable. On Nov. 10, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' aerospace unit said Iran had successfully developed hypersonic missiles — which theoretically could carry a nuclear warhead — and claimed the missile would be able to ''breach all the systems of anti-missile defense.'' On Nov. 22, the International Atomic Energy Agency said that Iran had begun enriching uranium to 60% at its Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant and that Tehran intended to install 14 cascades of its advanced IR-6 centrifuges. Iran has also been sending missiles and drones to Russian troops fighting in Ukraine, causing further alarm in the United States and Europe.
Iran appears to be developing a hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV), which is a warhead that can fly at hypersonic speeds and remain maneuverable. This makes them far more difficult to counter compared with ballistic missiles, which follow a specific path.
Prior to enriching uranium to 60% at Fordow, Iran had only been enriching uranium to 60% at its Natanz plant. Fordow is an underground facility, making it more difficult for Israel or the United States to attack and destroy.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on Dec. 9 that Iran and Russia had seen ''an unprecedented level of military and technical support that is transforming their relationship into a full-fledged defense partnership,'' citing both Iranian-Russian plans to jointly manufacture drones in Russia and Russia training Iranian pilots to fly Russian Sukhoi Su-35 fighters.
Iran has aggressively advanced and deployed its drone and missile programs since the United States left the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018. Ballistic and cruise missile (and more recently drone) technologies have long been a crucial component of Iran's national security strategy. And in recent years, the importance of these weapons to Iran's national security agenda has only grown. Iran's missile and drone programs enable it to project force beyond its border and compensate for shortcomings in Iran's conventional air force and army. Iran also needs to develop its ballistic and now hypersonic missile capabilities in case it decides to develop nuclear weapons, because in order to have the reliable deterrent that nuclear weapons provide, Iran would need to have a delivery system. Moreover, Iran's drone and missile programs are critical in increasing the military capacity of the various foreign militias Tehran supports in the region (like Houthi rebels in Yemen) against better-equipped adversaries.
Iran's air force and army largely still depend on old Western systems sold to the country before its 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iran's air force, for example, is heavily reliant on F-4 and F-14 fighters developed over 50 years ago.
Iran has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to deploy its arsenal of ballistic and cruise missiles against U.S. and Israeli interests, including the January 2020 attack on an Iraqi air base hosting U.S. troops and the March 2021 attack on an Israeli ship in the Arabian Sea. Iran's drones (and missiles) have also been used either directly or indirectly to target Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, including the 2019 attack claimed by Yemen's Houthi rebels on Saudi Arabia's Abqaiq oil processing facility (which is arguably the world's most important oil facility, with a processing capacity of about 7 million barrels per day, or roughly 7% of the global oil supply).
The United States is becoming increasingly concerned about Iran's drone and missile program and the broad threat it could pose to U.S. interests in the Middle East and elsewhere, given Tehran's demonstrated willingness to not only use such weapons but provide them to other countries like Russia. Prior to 2015, the United States' primary concern with Iran beyond its nuclear program was Tehran's financial, logistical and small arms support of militias and terrorist groups carrying out physical attacks against U.S. troops in the Middle East and U.S. regional partners, such as Israel. Washington has always been concerned about Iran's missile development — particularly ballistic missiles that could be used in a fully functional nuclear weapon. But Tehran's increased use of drones and missiles (coupled with the U.S. drawdown of troops in the Middle East) over the past five years has pushed it up on Washington's list of priorities. Moreover, Iran's transfer of weapons to Russia has been a significant focal point in the United States this year, with the U.S. Pentagon and State Department both making several public announcements about Iran sending weapons to Russia and Russia training Iranian pilots. For Washington, Iran's recent arms exports to Russia demonstrate that Tehran's drone and missile program, which had once predominantly been a concern about regional stability, could have broader implications. And this emerging reality is making it more difficult for the United States to segment Iran's ballistic and drone programs from Iran's nuclear program in its talks with Iran, given that the former is now clearly having a much more significant impact on Washington's primary interest: the ongoing war in Ukraine.
On Nov. 14, the U.S. State Department's Iran envoy said the United States was not pushing for renewed nuclear talks with Iran due to Tehran's recent drone sales to Russia, as well as the Iranian government's heavy-handed domestic crackdown on ongoing protests over the death of a young woman in police custody.
On Oct. 17, a U.S. State Department official said Iran was violating a U.N. Security Council resolution by sending drones to Russia for use in Ukraine.
But Iran's nuclear program remains a critical part of its national security and one the United States cannot overlook, as Iran's nuclear breakout time is likely down to just a few months. Despite ostensibly saying it has no nuclear weapon ambitions, Tehran appears to be trying to gain as much of the technological capabilities needed to build a nuclear weapon and enrich uranium to 90%, or weapons-grade. Since the JCPOA broke down in 2018, Iran has enriched uranium to 60% — well above the 20% threshold generally considered the top end of enrichment needed for most civilian applications. Iran has also started efforts to produce uranium metal, which Western diplomats say has no civilian use. Iran has begun researching and installing more advanced and efficient centrifuges as well, which could enable Tehran to more rapidly enrich uranium to weapons grade if wanted. Even if Iran agrees to dismantle these centrifuges in the future as part of a new deal, the know-how it's currently developing would still reduce the country's nuclear breakout time in the future. But Iran also uses the threat of its nuclear program to draw Western attention away from other issues, including its missile and drone strategy. By having a provocative nuclear program, Iran hopes to narrow the scope of any talks with the West over sanctions relief to the nuclear issue, which is likely of less importance to Tehran than its other activities. Washington's growing attention on Iran's transfer of drones and missiles to Russia is thus only granting Tehran a greater incentive to escalate the nuclear issue further.
Iran's enrichment to 60% is of particular concern to the West as there is very little work (measured in separative work units used to measure the amount of effort needed to enrich uranium to a certain level) to enrich uranium to 90% once it is already enriched to 60%.
While Washington is currently focusing more on Iran's growing defense relationship with Russia, an Iran-U.S. nuclear crisis is probably bubbling under the surface, as negotiations remain stalled and the JCPOA likely no longer adequately addresses U.S. concerns. The JCPOA is technically in force despite the U.S. withdrawal and Iran suspending its compliance, which means that many of its sunset clauses are starting to go into effect. One of the key sunset clauses that expire in October 2023 is the U.N. ban on the transfer of ballistic missile technology to and from Iran (i.e. Iran's sales of missiles to Russia). Under the deal, the United States is also supposed to remove (and not just suspend the application of) sanctions on Iran in October. Washington wants none of these sunsets to occur, making a simple re-entry into the JCPOA difficult. Moreover, from a proliferation standpoint, the technical conditions prior to the signing of the JCPOA have changed because Iran has more advanced centrifuges, has enriched uranium to higher levels and has seen Washington exit the deal before — something that Tehran will be more concerned about as the 2024 U.S. election approaches, which yield a new White House administration. These make some of the technical conditions that the JCPOA has included more difficult to revert to. There may still be a brief window to revive the JCPOA (and largely ignore some of the sunset clauses) during the first few months of 2023, before the October deadline for those clauses to take effect start looming ever larger over negotiations. But the United States is unlikely to seize that window due to its growing concerns with Tehran's missile and drone programs and weapon transfers to Russia. The embattled 2015 deal is thus highly unlikely to be restored and more likely to become, at best, a blueprint to start from in drafting up a new Iran-U.S. nuclear agreement.
The United States has no good diplomatic options to address Iran's growing nuclear and non-nuclear activities, and its focus on the Ukraine war and Iran's role in it is likely to ensure that diplomacy fails to reach a new agreement. There are two main diplomatic options the United States can pursue beyond the JCPOA, but neither is good. First, the United States could try to use the 2015 nuclear deal as a starting point to negotiate another broad deal where it would offer similar sanctions relief in exchange for similar restrictions on Iran's nuclear program. The White House may try to include Iran's missile and drone program in talks, but Tehran has repeatedly ruled out such inclusion and will likely continue to do so. There is virtually no trust between Washington and Tehran, and Tehran won't agree to similar conditions on its nuclear program without substantial guarantees from Washington that it won't exit the deal. In order for this option to actually yield an agreement, the United States might have to settle for fewer restrictions on Iran's nuclear program, making it more difficult to sell at home. But such an agreement would also allow Iran to save face and say it gained concessions from the United States. The United States' other option is pursuing a limited agreement with Iran similar to the 2012 Joint Plan of Action that preceded the JCPOA. In such an arrangement, Washington would try to freeze Iran's nuclear activities at current levels or at levels significantly higher than the 2015 JCPOA (such as at 20% enrichment). The United States would only offer limited sanctions relief in exchange for placing a cap on Iran's nuclear program. While this may provide a temporary fix from Washington's perspective, it wouldn't necessarily reduce Iran's breakout time significantly. The United States also proposed such a limited agreement as an interim deal in 2021, which Iran quickly rejected. A narrow agreement, however, would allow the U.S. to tie broader sanctions relief to non-nuclear issues in addition to nuclear issues in the future.
Should diplomatic efforts fail, the United States will face increased calls from Iran hawks both at home and in Israel to escalate against Iran, potentially even militarily. With Iran's nuclear breakout time probably at no more than six months, Iran hawks in Israel and the United States will likely propose covert and overt options to disrupt and push back Iran's nuclear program, even if temporarily. The Biden administration will likely try to keep the Iran nuclear issue on the back burner to maintain its focus on the Ukraine war, but Iran's nuclear advancement may make this impossible. There remain several triggers that could lead to more aggressive U.S. action, including Iran announcing it will enrich uranium to 90%, Iran rejecting IAEA inspections under the Additional Protocol, Iran withdrawing from the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and Iran announcing more advancements in uranium metal production. In Israel, former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's expected return to office will also likely lead to an even more hawkish position and call for strikes on Iran. Even if Biden avoids those calls during his presidency, military escalation in the future under a different administration — potentially as early as 2025, if the Republicans gain the White House — will become more likely.
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https://dailycaller.com/2022/12/21/investgation-tech-iranian-drones-ukraine/?utm_medium=email&pnespid=7udrDSRWa6YUw_DPomS_Ep.RvRi3DMpmJ7asy_JysR1mreZtUb.JUsgb4LnGnJs7H1xrjE1s
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https://www.foxnews.com/world/mossad-chief-warns-irans-growing-advanced-weapons-supply-russia-efforts-enrich-uranium?fbclid=IwAR3BQD_c_HpHG4j126oNslHAQh5kwQA3XYHkhGbcGPiEuRocH_LUl2ClfD0
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https://www.newsmax.com/world/globaltalk/iran-nuclear/2023/03/01/id/1110586/
well Obama sabotaged Israel from bombing the nuclear bomb making facilities
so the Left can blame the Trump now as though Iran was not building bombs during Obama (remember reports about hardened deep underground facilities
yet we have no problem providing Ukraine support
I know different situations
but as John Bolton said
if you think iran is dangerous now just imagine if what it will be like with the nuclear bombs .
WELL WE ARE HEAR IF REPORT IS TO BE BELIEVED
Israel is screwed.
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Remembering a CIA Coup in Iran That Never Was
Mohammed Mossadegh was not a democrat or democratically elected, nor was he toppled by nefarious foreigners
BY
PETER THEROUX
MARCH 05, 2023
Keystone/Getty Images
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/cia-coup-in-iran-that-never-was-mossadegh?fbclid=IwAR15vW7lm4-q0B0yrNU9pY6hytC_w0lFsIP4aG67P8IZcx5VjX5Hvp4xG1Y
‘The prime minister had a deep strain of decency, but was an inept visionary who overplayed his hand’KEYSTONE/GETTY IMAGES
When anti-regime protests spread like wildfire throughout Iran in mid-October of 2022, the regime’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was quick to lay the blame on the usual foreign suspects. “I say explicitly that these riots and this insecurity were a design by the U.S. and the occupying, fake Zionist regime and those who are paid by them,” he told a class of cadets at a police college in Tehran. He suggested that the ultimate goal of the U.S. and Israel was regime change in Iran.
This elicited a response on Twitter from Iranian rapper Hichkas, who defended foreign support for the uprising, saying that it represented solidarity, not collaboration. He ended his riposte with a taunt that was retweeted or liked more than 50,000 times:
“And you can shove that Mossadegh tale you’ve lived off of for a lifetime.”
The rebellious young hip-hop star was connecting dots that Khamenei had only implied: that in 2022, the United States and its allies were once again seeking to overthrow an Iranian leader, just as in the summer of 1953 the United States had cooperated with players inside and outside Iran to help end the political career of the doomed nationalist prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh.
For anyone who needs a reminder of the significance of that episode, whose 70th anniversary falls this year, let Columbia University’s professor Hamid Dabashi provide one, from his book Iran: A People Interrupted:
As Iranians never get tired of repeating (for this is the defining trauma of their modern history), the CIA, aided by British intelligence, mounted, paid for, and executed a military coup, overthrew the democratically elected government of Mosaddeq, and brought the corrupt Mohammed Reza Shah back to power.
This Ivy League encapsulation of the events of August 1953 in Iran contains at least four remarkable untruths, though “As Iranians never get tired of repeating” is not one of them.
First, the CIA did not mount or execute a coup. Second, Mossadegh was not democratically elected. Third, the shah was not yet corrupt. Fourth, he was not brought back to power, because he had never left it: Assassinations were a fact of life in 1950s Tehran, and having survived an attempt on his life in 1949, Mohammed Reza chose to wait out Mossadegh’s fall in Baghdad and Rome but never abdicated.
What actually happened in the land which once harvested prime ministers more promiscuously than Henry VIII harvested queens was this: After Shah Mohammed Reza’s Prime Ministers Mohammed-Ali Foroughi, Ali Soheili, Ahmad Qavam, Mohammed-Reza Hekmat, Ebrahim Hakimi, Abdolhossein Hazhir, Mohammed Saed, and Ali Mansur, came Ali Razmara, who was assassinated in March 1951. Following the brief caretaker premiership of Hossein Ala, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi wanted Seyyed Zia Tabataba’i, but in deference to the aged Qajar aristocrat Mohammed Mossadegh, had him offered the job, feeling confident he would decline. To everyone’s surprise, Mossadegh accepted, and the Majlis concluded a brief poll to endorse him. Then the shah gave Mossadegh the job. Again, the sequence of events is significant: The shah chose a prime minister, the parliament consented, and the shah appointed him.
Between 1953 and 1979, the shah would appoint and dismiss 10 more prime ministers, including Mossadegh twice. Not even the most overheated Iran historian describes these changes as coups.
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https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/cia-coup-in-iran-that-never-was-mossadegh?fbclid=IwAR15vW7lm4-q0B0yrNU9pY6hytC_w0lFsIP4aG67P8IZcx5VjX5Hvp4xG1Y
Between 1953 and 1979, the shah would appoint and dismiss 10 more prime ministers, including Mossadegh twice. Not even the most overheated Iran historian, in Islamic Iran or American academia, describes these changes as coups. The difference is that when Mossadegh’s second government went down in flames in August 1953, there were some American would-be arsonists in the wings who may or may not have shared responsibility, but who insisted on claiming the lion’s share of the credit, however implausibly or unwisely.
Constitutionally, appointing prime ministers in imperial Iran was the sole prerogative of the shah. As Gholam Reza Afkhami wrote, “The Constitution … gave the Crown and only the Crown the power to appoint or dismiss the ministers (Article 46, Supplementary basic Law) …” In George Lenczowski’s Iran Under the Pahlavis we read that “The Shah’s authority embraced the right to appoint and dismiss the prime minister and ministers.” However, according to Afkhami, “over the postwar years it had become the accepted practice for the shah to ask the Majlis to express its preference before he appointed a prime minister.”
Article 46 of the Supplemental Constitutional Law of the Iranian constitution in force at the time was blunt: “The Ministers are appointed and dismissed by the decree of the King.“ The poll noted above to align king and legislature behind a prime minister was “a tentative consent of the majority of the Majlis which was ascertained in the form of a vote of investiture known in Iran as raye tamayel (“vote of inclination”), prior to the issuance of Royal farman appointing the prime minster,” as Iranian American scholar Sepehr Zabih put it in The Mossadegh Era. Mossadegh scholars Darioush Bayandor and Christopher de Bellaigue call it a straw vote or straw poll.
The Iranian parliament’s role in the choice of a prime minister was similar to, but weaker than, the U.S. Senate’s role in confirming presidential appointments, such as, among others, Supreme Court justices, some cabinet posts, and ambassadors. Yet despite this even stronger legislative role, no one refers to “the democratically elected Justice Samuel Alito,” the “democratically elected Secretary of State Anthony Blinken,” or “the democratically elected Ambassador Pamela Harriman.”
This fetishistic formulation, applied to Mossadegh is even odder, for reasons that are worth examining. First, though, it’s worth retracing Mossadegh’s steps on his way out of power.
The story of Mossadegh’s departure from power is notorious among Middle East scholars, on par with the JFK assassination or abdication of Edward VIII. Hence retelling it is a little laborious, with sensationalism vying in a death match with numbing familiarity.
Once in power, Mossadegh quickly achieved national hero status by getting a bill through the Majles nationalizing the Iranian oil industry. However, negotiations with the British Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, AIOC, went in circles over details such as management and future compensation to the British. As the U.S. worked with the British toward a solution, the Brits were annoyed by the Washington upstart’s idealism towards Mossadegh, while Washington was peeved by London’s anachronistic, patronizing greed.
The U.S finally dispatched Averell Harriman to work with Mossadegh toward a resolution. The canny old man’s posturing and slippery illogic inclined the Americans to sense that he plainly did not want an agreement. As the Iranian prime minister himself conceded, he was wary of “my fanatics” in the Iranian polity who would kill him for making concessions. Harriman went home empty-handed, and Eisenhower soon replaced Truman.
The British, having been talked out of military action by the Yanks, pulled AIOC staff out of Iran. The British pullout and boycott, combined with the lack of domestic Iranian expertise to produce or market oil, proved catastrophic for the economy, as increased production in Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia made the renamed National Iranian Oil Company, NIOC, irrelevant. Mosaddegh and his advisers were blind to these realities amid the nirvana of unanimous domestic support for their anti-imperialist bluster. Worse, his decision to end the oil talks were a signal event for Washington, who now joined London in seeing the prime minister as unstable and untrustworthy.
As the political and economic tides turned against him, Mossadegh sparred with the shah over who had the right to appoint the minister of war. This demand was a red line for the shah, who prized the military as his key constituency. The prime minister resigned in protest, but his brinkmanship got him what he wanted, his job back along with power over the War Ministry. He was quick to rename it the Ministry of Defense and appoint himself to head it, cut its budget by 15%, purge the services of 136 officers, install men loyal to himself, including his nephew General Vossuq (whom he named assistant minister), and obtain six months’ emergency powers, including the power to legislate. He then dismissed the Supreme Court, and, lacking support in the Majles, sought to dissolve it, too—a power that the constitution reserved to the shah.
This was the beginning of the end for the prime minister who spoke eloquently of democracy but, when given opportunities to exercise it, always showed a dictatorial bent. Claiming to seek legitimacy not from the legislature but from “the people,” Mossadegh set up a national referendum on dissolving the Majles, with no secret ballot: Yes and no votes were cast in different locations. Mossadegh’s stacked referendum gave him a landslide victory, which cost him the support of the Shia clergy, the National Front coalition, and even family members. Sattareh Farmanfarmaian, his niece, wrote in her memoir, Daughter of Persia, of how “wretched” she felt over this betrayal. Majles Speaker Ayatollah Kashani denounced him, and his former National Front allies called him a “worse dictator than Reza Shah.”
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Having lost nearly all political support except the communist Tudeh party, and with even his pro-oil nationalization supporters split, Mossadegh found himself with a reduced base composed of radical supporters and an increasingly united front opposing him: the clergy, the military, and the bazaar, with the U.S. and Britain now both solidly behind the monarch. Most importantly, the absence of a functioning Majles offered the shah an opening to remove his unpopular prime minister.
Previously, the shah had rejected repeated advice, domestic and foreign, to fire Mossadegh, though it was within his constitutional powers. There had already been 14 recess appointments or dismissals of prime minister, which Mossadegh knew well, but he boasted that the shah would not “have the guts” to dismiss him. His bluff backfired. Absent a parliament, Mossadegh could now be removed from power. All it took was royal will.
Despite the cresting of the feud between Mossadegh and the now less-deferential young shah, the latter hesitated to oust his prime minister. The British succeeded in persuading Eisenhower to connive against Mossadegh. Hands-off Ike bucked the conversation down to the working level, which was the Dulles brothers, Alan and John Foster, and the operational components of the CIA. London favored some form of a palace coup, using its network of Iranian agents, who with the rupture of Tehran-London relations had been passed to the local CIA station for handling.
The agency was barely six years old and years away from having its own headquarters in Langley. Still, it had already adopted practices like the secretive use of cryptonyms to conceal identities.
Long since declassified, TPBEDAMN was an anti-communist covert influence program in Iran. KGSAVOY was the shah, and TPAJAX was the plan for the rather tame machination—far removed from a British military invasion—to remove Mohammed Mossadegh from power legally and constitutionally, by persuading the shah to use his prerogative to replace him.
Enter RNMAKER, true name Kermit “Kim” Roosevelt, Teddy’s grandson and no stranger to the sandbox. In his book Arabs, Oil, and History (1949), he devoted a chapter to Iran, which in his telling is one of the “fringe lands,” as a Muslim but non-Arab country in the suburbs of the Middle East (there are Iranians who would punch him in the nose for this alone). On a trip through Iran, Kim is lectured by ragged tribals about bad royal priorities: “Why does [the shah] not give away some of his lands? Or spend what he spends for a B-17 on a program to combat trachoma?” Our good listener and deft name-dropper tells us that on a recent visit to the country, “The shah had told me much the same thing … As long as Iranian people are ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-educated and just plain ill there could be no real security against outside aggression.”
In a subsequent book, Countercoup: The Struggle for the Control of Iran, published in 1979, Roosevelt detailed the course of his plotting. Like Stephen Kinzer’s 2003 book All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror, which relies heavily on Roosevelt, it is overly padded and suffers from what H.R. McMaster would call strategic narcissism—the tendency to put the United States at the center of everything, deserving of both glory and blame, whether rightly or wrongly. Fittingly, McMaster uses the term, in his book Battlegrounds, to describe the posture toward Iran adopted by President Obama (who we shall see would also weigh in on the Mossadegh affair).
A good example of this world view occurred in the movie Shakespeare in Love, where we see the cast of Romeo and Juliet taking a break in a tavern. When the portly actor who plays the nurse is asked by a fellow drinker, “So what’s the play about, then?” he starts to explain, “Well, you see, there’s this nurse … “
This gets to the heart of the narratives around Mossadegh’s political demise. The isolated prime minister was entirely correct in his complaints to everyone from the shah to Harriman that he was being plotted against. Ray Takeyh writes that Mossadegh’s coming ouster was “the worst-kept secret in Iran.” While Roosevelt strategically and narcissistically spins tales of CIA plotting in Washington and London and secret meetings with the shah, the Iranian army brass was already assessing its options against Mossadegh, and had even approached the British Embassy in Tehran for support. Grand Ayatollah Borujerdi in Qom, Ayatollah Behbehani in Tehran, and Ayatollah Kashani, who had been dismissed from his Majles speaker post by Mossadegh, had already lined up against him.
One of the best accounts of the movement to oust Mossadegh is in Ervand Abrahamian’s Iran Between Two Revolutions, and in a dozen dense pages he scarcely mentions the CIA. Having inherited the (still closed) British Embassy’s human intelligence network, the CIA station in Tehran, in the person of Roosevelt, held secret meetings and moved some money around. Yet the already-existing network, meeting in the capital’s Officers Club, lacked neither motivation nor money. Abrahamian notes that Roosevelt’s support did help Major General Fazlollah Zahedi—the declared candidate to replace Mossadegh—win over key allies such as Imperial Guards Commander Nassiri, Air Force Chief Gilanshah, gendarmerie Chief Colonel Ardubadi, secret police Chief Mu’tazed, and the senior tank commanders of the Tehran army garrison.
The TPAJAX plan unfolded on the night of Aug. 15. Colonel Nassiri arrived at Mossadegh’s house with the royal edict, or farman, signed by the shah. This one dismissed Mossadegh as prime minister, another appointed Zahedi to replace him. Despite the weird circumstances—it was nearly midnight, and Nassiri was accompanied by two truckloads of soldiers—this was a legal and constitutional action. But because it was the worst-kept secret in Iran, Mossadegh had been tipped off. Tudeh had penetrations of the Imperial Guard and the military, according to Bayandor, and Abrahamian even names the leaker, one Captain Mehdi Homayouni. (Mossadegh may have had multiple sources—senior Tudeh leader Noredin-Kianuri claimed in his memoirs that he too had personally tipped off Mossadegh.) Mossadegh signed a receipt for the edict but refused to comply, and his men placed Nassiri under arrest.
The plan had failed, and the Americans had no plan B. Roosevelt was asked to return to Washington but preferred to stay in Tehran. The CIA passed a memo to Eisenhower conceding the failure and assessing that the U.S. would “probably have to snuggle up to Mossadegh.” The U.S. ambassador, Loy Henderson, who like the shah had sat out the operation abroad, returned to Tehran to meet on the 16th with Mossadegh, who denied having ever seen the royal edict dismissing him, but went on to say that even if he had and if it were real, he would have ignored it. When Henderson gave his account of the meeting to the media, he pointedly omitted the title of prime minister when referring to Mossadegh. Despite all the confusion and contradiction, the underlying fact was that Zahedi was the legitimate prime minister of Iran.
That was Roosevelt’s focus for the next couple of days. He arranged for photostats of the two farmans to be circulated to local newspapers, who published them. Skeptics of the Roosevelt legend point out that the only papers the CIA could suborn were low-circulation organs in south Tehran and thus of limited citywide influence.
On Aug. 19, demonstrations and counterdemonstrations broke out in Tehran, eventually converging on the radio station and Mossadegh’s house in Kakh (Palace) Street, which was defended by tanks. If Mossadegh’s fall is analogous to the JFK assassination, 109 Palace Street was Dealey Plaza. Violence broke out, and dozens were killed. The former prime minister’s house was damaged by gunfire. In the late afternoon, a tearful Mossadegh heard the public radio broadcast of Zahedi’s victory speech saying that Mossadegh’s “coup” had failed. He learned, but refused to believe, that his relative, the police chief Col. Daftary, had turned against him. When his house was overrun, he fled and turned himself in to Zahedi’s government the next day. He was treated respectfully.
Before flying home, the shah sent telegrams to Grand Ayatollah Borujerdi and Ayatollah Behbehani. The more senior ayatollah responded with elaborately polite hopes that the shah could now put an end to the country’s ills and bring glory to Islam. He closed, “Do return as Shiism and Islam need you. You are the Shiite sovereign.”
More than one Iranian historian has derided Roosevelt’s memoir as “prophecy made after the fact,” and Afkhami complained that “[t]his false history, fostered by pro-Mosaddeq Iranians and liberal and leftist westerners, has diminished Mosaddeq, demonized the shah, and turned Iranians into traitors or wimps.”
The highly detailed, if also highly redacted, U.S. government histories of the so-called coup make the same point. While rich on details of secret travels and meetings, money changing hands, successive British and American drafts of the TPAJAX plans, and intragovernmental communications, all of them—the National Security Archives’ “Secret History of the Iran Coup, 1953” of 2000, “Zendebad, Shah!” by the CIA history staff, partially declassified in 2017, and “Planning and Implementation of Operation TPAJAX, March-August 1953,” an archive of documents published by the Office of the Historian of the State Department, all concur that it is impossible to establish who, if anyone, was directing the protests and mob actions on the fateful and chaotic day.
In retrospect, Roosevelt did himself no favors in Countercoup. He places himself at the center of the action, including instances that stretch the imagination. He gives us a shah who spends long evenings listening to him and gushing with praise, as well as a remarkable instance of him lying to the monarch: In a final meeting before the ruler left Tehran and Nassiri would start enforcing the two royal edicts, Roosevelt lacked a message from Eisenhower, so he made one up. “Since [Eisenhower] had failed to send one, I put into words what he must surely be feeling,” he wrote. His fabricated message from the president to the king was, “If the Pahlavis and the Roosevelts working together cannot solve this little problem, then there is no hope anywhere!” That he chose to publish it just as the shah was overthrown provided the nascent Islamic Republic and its partisans with yet more reasons to hate America. Eisenhower, who had died a decade prior, would have been furious.
It is unsettling that the cult of democratic Mossadegh exists, even in the United States. When I asked a friend of mine who served as the CIA’s chief of Iran analysis—albeit more in the Qassem Soleimani than the Mohammed Mossadegh era—to explain this bizarre interpretive slant, he blamed “bias” and “an overinflated view of U.S. power and influence,” which he called “bullshit.” He added, “Whatever the wisdom of U.S. and UK involvement in his ouster—which was likely near at hand even absent foreign involvement—his removal from power sparked mostly public indifference and some celebration. His contemporaries, including many former supporters, were glad to see him go. Mossadegh’s fictional status as a victimized, heroic advocate of democracy was only later cynically conferred by those who sought and supported the decidedly undemocratic dictatorship that rules Iran today.”
Reuel Gerecht, another former CIA observer, but from the operational side, put it this way: “Look, the focus on ’53 among Iranians is primarily a reflection of, one, left-wing, tier-mondiste critique of American power after the Vietnam War went south—starting in the West before it started in Iran—and two, the growing dissatisfaction among Iranian leftists, most tellingly the Islamic left, with the course of the revolution. Imagining Mossadegh triumphing allowed them to see a democratic Iran where the Shah and Khomeini, Khamenei, Rafsanjani, et al, get deleted.”
Back home, there is a thread that runs through the Mossadegh literature, from Roosevelt’s and Kinzer’s wildly tendentious accounts, down to Shahzad Aziz’s In the Land of the Ayatollahs Tupac Shakur Is King, and even the Cambridge History of Iran. The thread combines hindsight versus historical context to connect American villainy, lack of Iranian agency, and an alarmist view of the future, always panicking about the folly of Washington’s next terrible moves but never Tehran’s. And then there is the purely magical phenomenon of those who loathe the CIA and its operatives yet who naively take Kim Roosevelt’s self-centered memoirs at face value. American spies overthrow democratically elected governments, but they never tell a lie.
The enduring myth is that the CIA dispatched its serpent, Kim Roosevelt, into a democratic Iranian Garden of Eden, and everything bad that happened over the next half-century can be attributed to this original sin.
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https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/cia-coup-in-iran-that-never-was-mossadegh?fbclid=IwAR15vW7lm4-q0B0yrNU9pY6hytC_w0lFsIP4aG67P8IZcx5VjX5Hvp4xG1Y
The enduring myth is that the CIA dispatched its serpent, Kim Roosevelt, into a democratic Iranian Garden of Eden, and everything bad that happened over the next half-century can be attributed to this original sin. (The “original sin” metaphor is everywhere—The New York Times even worked it into Ardeshir Zahedi’s obituary). On this, the tier-mondistes, American progressives, and Qajar memoirists all agree. A quick sampling:
Not only did Kinzer blame Mossadegh’s fall for the Islamic Revolution, he wrote that “From the seething streets of Tehran and the other Islamic capitals to the scenes of terror attacks around the world, Operation Ajax has left a haunting and terrible legacy.” His book is a warning against the U.S. projecting power—fair enough—but not satisfied with blaming the September 11 attacks on the Mossadegh action, his reissued 2018 edition contains a new and unhinged preface titled “The Folly of Attacking Iran.” In it, he slays vast legions of straw men, such as “the idea of attacking Iran and seeking to decapitate its regime,” which, he judiciously informs us, is “dangerous.”
I served in two of the most hawkishly anti-Iran administrations, Bush 43 and Trump, and while we heard out a foreign ally or two talk about hitting Iran’s nuclear program, no one spoke of anything more than that, and in fact no U.S. president, as we have seen, has ever agreed with those foreign allies, or done more than a single targeted attack against an internationally sanctioned Iranian terrorist.
In a similar but also unhinged and infinitely more turgid work, Going to Tehran, the team of Flynt and Hillary Leverett castigate Washington for overthrowing the democratically elected prime minister. The entire book makes the case for the U.S. to fold to the ayatollahs and for the U.S. president actually to go to Tehran, something the Tehran regime would never dream of allowing. Leverett is a former CIA analyst who has been wandering toward Code Pink territory for years now.
Obama repeats the “democratically elected” canard more than once in his memoir A Promised Land, unsurprisingly from the leader who would use the feckless John Kerry to negotiate the weak JCPOA and seek a legacy of accommodation with the regime. Those who recall Obama’s speech to the Muslim world in Cairo will remember that he not only mentioned Mossadegh but used Kinzerian wording.
Also unsurprisingly, Princeton University’s unsavory Hossein Mousavian, who served as Iran’s ambassador to Berlin during the Mykonos Café massacre of dissidents, wrote in his Iran and the United States (in which he denies that Tehran ordered the Mykonos killings or the Khobar Towers bombing), “the 1953 coup that toppled Iran’s first democratically elected government.” His whole book pleads the wounded innocence of the Islamic Republic.
Dabashi, unsurprisingly, lines up with Mousavaian on Mossadegh, with the difference that he opposes the Islamic regime, though he shares the mullahs’ hatred for Israel. He outdoes Kinzer in alarmism, lobbing brickbats not only at “warmongers” but at “native informers, imperial strategists”—Azar Nafisi and Ken Pollack—Bernard Lewis, and “self-loathing Oriental” Fouad Ajami. (He also thinks Salman Rushdie is Pakistani.)
Even innocuous books by writers with no apparent agenda repeat the error. Akbar Ganji, Mark Bowden, and Scott Peterson have all done it. I have a gripe with the monumental Cambridge History of Iran, whose chapter “The Pahlavi Autocracy” by Gavin R.G. Hambly tells us that “Iranians have never had the slightest doubt that the C.I.A. … organized the conspirators and paid the pro-Shah mobs … By 1982 this tenacious rumor had been fully confirmed and is now incontrovertible.” Hambly footnotes Roosevelt’s book, seeming to take its contents at face value.
For neutrality, readers must turn to the relatively obscure work of Diarioush Bayandor—fittingly, a resident of Switzerland—who possesses the most impartial moral sense among all Mossadegh historians. In his fastidiously sourced Iran and the CIA: The Fall of Mossadegh Revisited (2010), he delivers the verdict, that while “It is fair to conclude that even if the Shah’s dismissal order was not stricto sensu unconstitutional … it was a feature of a foreign scheme to bring about a change of government” and thus was of questionable legitimacy.
However harsh that is—and it is distinctly harsh, considering that at no time did the shah ever breach the laws of his country, while Mossadegh did promiscuously, and unapologetically—facts remain: Mossadegh was not democratically elected. He was not a democrat. He was not overthrown by the CIA, but by domestic forces he had repeatedly manipulated or misunderstood, and who welcomed a foreign hand of unmeasurable and uneven utility.
The controversy lives on in late prime minister’s story as told on stage and screen. The film Mossadegh, directed by Roozbeh Dadvand, recounts the man’s final days in under 30 beautifully shot minutes, but the opening title cards contain the jarring untruth that Mossadegh was “overthrown from power by U.S. and British forces.” Reza Allamehzadeh’s moving play Mossadegh concluded with his trial. When the military prosecutor tried to shame Mossadegh for his foreign minister’s having proclaimed that Iran no longer wanted a king (by then His Majesty had fled Tehran), Mossadegh brought the audience to its feet with the taunt, “And where was this king for anyone to want or not want him?”
Sentimentality toward Mossadegh is understandable. His nationalization project boosted the morale of a proud and often-humiliated country. He did seek a system with a weaker king, although more to gain power for himself than to pass it on to the people. He undoubtedly won hearts and minds with small acts of integrity like making his aristocratic mother pay her back taxes. Even more endearing is the incident when his daughter reported to him an altercation with a policeman who didn’t buy her “Do you know who I am?” defense. She demanded her father act, and he did—rewarding the cop with a promotion for his honesty. But character is fate. The prime minister had a deep strain of decency, but was an inept visionary who overplayed his hand.
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March 10, 2023
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The Evolution of Regime Change in Iran
There will be a lot of moving parts in a post-Khamenei transition.
By: Kamran Bokhari
The Islamic Republic of Iran turned 44 years old about a month ago despite being in the throes of evolutionary regime change for over a decade. The unprecedented scale of nationwide protests last year, sparked by the killing of a young woman who ran afoul of the country’s dress code, only added fuel to the fire. Though the demonstrations were never enough to truly threaten the regime, they did force it into a more defensive position by, for example, softening the anti-hijab law. And after the poisoning of some 1,000 schoolgirls by what many assume were religious extremists, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the perpetrators should be given the death penalty.
The problem is that there’s only so much Tehran can do to placate the public. If it compromises too much on issues like the hijab mandate, it risks emboldening the masses into pressing for greater change. The government understands that years of public dissent are increasingly a threat to the clerical establishment. Meanwhile, it has expended many resources on a national security strategy to maintain and expand Tehran’s sphere of influence throughout the region.
The 2011 Arab Spring uprising in Syria challenged this strategy and forced Tehran to dedicate even more resources to prop up the Assad regime. Around the same time, the United States tightened its sanctions campaign against Tehran to halt its efforts at developing a nuclear weapon. Things got so bad that Tehran could no longer balance its foreign policy objectives with the imperative to manage its domestic political economy. And so, in late 2013, the government of then-President Hassan Rouhani entered talks that culminated in the 2015 nuclear agreement with the U.S.
Tehran hoped that winning a degree of sanctions relief without entirely surrendering its nuclear weapons program would allow it to improve economic conditions at home while still allowing it to support its proxies in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Afghanistan. That effort, too, was quashed when the Trump administration nixed the nuclear agreement. Since then, Iran has been the target of several covert Israeli operations at home and in Syria. It’s little coincidence that at the same time it has experienced periodic unrest in response to economic disrepair.
Iran’s plan to manage these problems was to try to revive the nuclear deal with the Biden administration. Yet the process has stalled thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2021 election of hardliner Ebrahim Raisi in what is considered the most sham election in the history of the Islamic Republic, domestic political compulsions of the Biden White House, and most recently Iran’s support for Russia in the Ukraine conflict.
Under the circumstances, it’s highly unlikely that a new nuclear agreement will be reached. Iran’s economic conditions are likely to worsen. Since the beginning of the year, for example, the Iranian rial has lost 30 percent of its value, while inflation has reached 50 percent. The economic crisis has major implications for the political power struggles taking place at almost every level of the Iranian government.
The Iranian regime is a maze of institutions wired together in a complex, theocratic-republican architecture. Broadly speaking, the Iranian political system consists of three power centers: the clergy, led by the supreme leader; the military, dominated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps; and the government, headed by the popularly elected president. These three power centers have for decades shared and competed for power.
Iranian Political Power Structure
(click to enlarge)
The power of elected leaders has declined since the mid-2000s, when the clergy and the IRGC began packing the legislature with hardline loyalists and when Khamenei and then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had a public spat in 2009.
Though the clerics still have considerable authority, their power has declined too, mostly because the major clerics were founders of the country in 1979 and have since died off. But in some cases, those with better religious credentials have been sidelined in favor of those who are more loyal to Khamenei. It’s not an exaggeration to say Iran is Khamenei’s republic. He’s been at the helm for nearly 35 years, during which he has presided over appointments to top clerical, political and military posts and maintained oversight through elaborate mechanisms. (The 96-year-old Ahmad Jannati is the only other cleric from the time of the regime’s founding still holding office. Since 1980, he has headed the 12-member Guardian Council, which vets candidates for public office and has veto power over legislation, and in 2016 became chair of the Assembly of Experts, a clerical body that has the power to appoint, monitor and dismiss the supreme leader. That he heads the two most powerful clerical institutions underscores how the regime has run out of clerics to fill top positions.)
It was under Khamenei’s watch that the IRGC emerged as the single-most important institution in the country. Originally conceived of as an elite ideological military force responsible for regime preservation, it has since gained immense power and influence in the absence of trust for conventional intelligence, law enforcement and military apparatuses. It has become extremely powerful because Khamenei and the clerics have become utterly dependent on it for their political survival.
In the past few decades, the IRGC has gained control over domestic security, telecommunications, oil exports, industrial and service sectors, missile development and the nuclear weapons program. The parliament is well-populated by IRGC veterans, as are the Cabinet and provincial governments. And now that the clergy is in decline, the IRGC is well-positioned to fully dominate the whole of Iranian politics once Khamenei dies.
When that happens, a constitutionally mandated provisional leadership council comprising the president, the head of the judiciary and a cleric from the Guardian Council takes over until the Assembly of Experts elects a new supreme leader. This has never happened. Khamenei is only the second supreme leader in history; when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini died in 1989, Khamenei was president, and the top clerics rallied around him. Whoever succeeds Khamenei will be a weak cleric and thus a puppet of the IRGC.
Simplified Organizational Chart of Iran's Executive Branch and Intelligence Services
(click to enlarge)
Even so, the IRGC faces significant challenges, most prominently from the country’s regular armed forces, the Artesh, which is a numerically superior force. So far, the two militaries have been held together through a joint staff command structure that is nominally under the Ministry of Defense but reports directly to Khamenei. How the IRGC and Artesh work with one another in a post-Khamenei era, with the IRGC already having an outsized role in the republic, will be critical to the regime’s survival.
Indeed, what has helped the regime manage the latest wave of unrest is the fear of a power vacuum and uncertainty of the unknown. There are plenty of Iranians who want the regime gone but fear the anarchy that might follow. This could benefit the IRGC, the ultimate guarantor of security in the country, but only if it is seen as operating within the parameters of the constitution.
Given the public anger toward the clerics for its brutal imposition of Shitte Islamist ideology, the IRGC could strengthen its position by adopting more moderated stances on social issues. After all, the group is nowhere near as theocratic as the clerical establishment, even if many of its superior officers are more ideological. And this is to say nothing of the everyday difficulty of governance, nor of the million-strong ideological militia known as the Basij. There are simply too many moving parts to this regime that will have to adjust to the fast-approaching post-Khamenei era.
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19473/iran-nuclear-club
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Iran: Tehran Pledges to Halt Arms Shipments to Yemen's Houthi Rebels
2 MIN READMar 16, 2023 | 14:54 GMT
What Happened: Iran will halt covert arms shipments to Houthi rebels in Yemen as a part of the deal signed between Iran and Saudi Arabia on March 10 to reestablish diplomatic relations, The Wall Street Journal reported on March 16. Iranian and Saudi diplomats are reportedly trying to reach a new agreement before the March 22-23 start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Why It Matters: If Iran follows through on the deal, the subsequent decrease in arms supplies to Yemen will put more pressure on the Houthis to reach a cease-fire with the Yemeni federal government. Additionally, Saudi Arabia would likely move forward with re-opening its embassy in Tehran, which would facilitate warmer relations between the two countries. However, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has not publicly endorsed the Iran-Saudi Arabia agreement, opening up questions about whether or not the group will follow through with it. If IRGC resistance or other hurdles prevent Iran from reducing support to the Houthis, the deal with Saudi Arabia would likely fall apart.
Background: Gulf Cooperation Council countries have been quietly probing the possibility of easing ties with Iran throughout the years, but U.S.-Iran tensions and Iran's support for Yemen's Houthis have largely prevented such reconciliation.
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/mar/23/pentagon-has-multiple-options-ready-if-iran-builds/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=newsalert&utm_content=newsalert&utm_term=newsalert&bt_ee=OlikiXRrdiu4e89cZqMmCxJm7RGtmXAhGG0WgXNw5JqJ2Epfscyjp4f9lyIpXKtg&bt_ts=1679591598601
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19585/biden-iran-trust
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19590/negotiating-secret-iran-nuclear-deal
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19590/negotiating-secret-iran-nuclear-deal
Our top people are working on it. The finest minds in DC!
What could possibly go wrong?
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U.S. must expedite delivery of KC-46A aerial refueling tanker to Israel
Deterring Iran from nuclear weapons capability is vital national security interest
By Rep. August Pfluger, Rep. Rob Wittman, Chris Stewart and Michael Makovsky
Iranian has arrived at the nuclear threshold. It has already enriched uranium to just shy of weapons grade and could make a bomb’s worth of fissile material in just days. It is essential that the United States and its partners work together to deter and prevent Iran from advancing any further. One critical component of that deterrence is the new KC-46A aerial refueling tanker and ensuring that Israel receives, and is ready to fly, these aircraft as soon as possible.
Deterring Iran from achieving nuclear weapons capability is a vital U.S. national security interest. Each of the last four presidents has pledged to prevent a nuclear Iran because they understood that if the brutal regime in Tehran were to acquire such a dangerous weapon, it would threaten the existence of U.S. regional partners, trigger a proliferation cascade, endanger the free flow of energy, and distract from other U.S. priorities, such as competing with Russia and China.
The United States has the necessary capability to target Iran’s nuclear facilities, but the Biden administration appears unwilling to launch a strike. Yet the United States can contribute to deterrence against Iran, with minimal cost to itself, by enhancing Israel’s ability to launch a preventive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. The KC-46A tanker would provide the single greatest boost to Israeli capabilities against Iran and demonstrate U.S. support for its Israeli partner.
Currently, if Israel needs to launch a strike against Iran, it will face a trade-off between having its aircraft carry more fuel to extend operations or larger payloads to strike more targets. Midair refueling solves this problem by enabling aircraft to carry more and larger payloads and sufficient fuel to complete the missions.
Israel’s ability to operate at range, however, is limited because it operates roughly 50-year-old Ram refueling tankers, with limited refueling capacity and speed, not to mention defenses. The advanced and largely autonomous KC-46A would be a major upgrade. It can refuel three jets simultaneously in three to four minutes and has cutting-edge defensive systems.
Israeli KC-46As would not only benefit Israel’s refueling operations but, since they are interoperable with U.S. aircraft, would also expand U.S. capabilities in the Middle East — without the United States having to pay to station and maintain tankers in the region.
The United States has already agreed to sell Israel these modern tankers. In September 2021, the Pentagon announced a $927 million foreign military sale contract with Boeing to provide Israel with four KC-46As. But the first aircraft is not expected to arrive before 2025, after Iran could have acquired nuclear weapons capability.
Nor does it appear that Israeli pilots have been given the opportunity to train on flying or refueling the KC-46 to ensure that they are ready to use it as soon as it is delivered. For example, despite U.S. KC-46A aircraft participating in the recent Juniper Oak military exercise, the largest ever U.S.-Israeli drill, they did not refuel Israeli aircraft, a missed opportunity to promote interoperability and training.
The clear benefit to U.S. national interests and regional security that Israeli operation of the KC-46A would provide is why the Mach-1 Caucus is proud to sponsor a bipartisan and bicameral bill encouraging the secretary of the Air Force to prepare Israel to fly this advanced tanker as soon as possible.
As former military aviators, or having had lead oversight role of our military’s air capabilities, the Mach-1 Caucus believes that it is critical for the Air Force to begin immediately training Israeli pilots to fly, maintain and refuel the KC-46A.
Beyond ensuring that Israeli KC-46A, F-15I and F-35 pilots get trained on the KC-46A as soon as possible, it is also critical for the United States to expedite the tankers’ delivery. With Boeing producing roughly two of the aircraft each month and having already delivered 68 tankers to the Air Force, expediting the delivery of two KC-46As to Israel does not impose an undue burden on the U.S. acquisition process.
It would, however, provide immense benefit for Israeli refueling operations and CENTCOM in-theater capabilities. The bill, therefore, requires the Department of Defense to forward-deploy at least one KC46A in Israel until it receives its first tanker in 2025, which would serve as a powerful and consistent deterrent against Iran.
Airpower, not just our own but that of our partners as well, is a vital component of regional security. The United States should provide Israel with KC-46A tankers and train its pilots without further delay to ensure this uniquely capable partner can continue to defend itself and U.S. interests. August Pfluger is a congressman representing the 11th District in Texas; he is a member of the House Mach 1 Caucus. Rob Wittman is a congressman representing the 1st District in Virginia; he is chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee. Chris Stewart is a congressman representing the 2nd District in Utah; he is a member of the House Appropriations Committee, Defense Subcommittee. Michael Makovsky is president and CEO of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19617/eu-appeasement-iran
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19617/eu-appeasement-iran
The euros are going to do what they see as being in their best interest. The FUSA-Dumpster Fire still thinks it's a superpower. No one else thinks so.
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China and Russia Encourage Iran to Go Nuclear
An aloof U.S. leaves a regional vacuum that the Islamic Republic is exploiting brilliantly.
By Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takeyh
May 8, 2023 5:33 pm ET
Iranian-built centrifuges from a uranium enrichment plant in Iran, June 6, 2018. PHOTO: /ASSOCIATED PRESS
Iran has secured great-power patronage for the first time in four decades. Tehran now possess advanced centrifuges, a growing stockpile of highly enriched uranium, and a cadre of decent physicists and nuclear engineers. The clerical regime likely has no significant technical hurdle left to clear on its way to a nuclear weapon. Iran’s developing alliances with Russia and China have aided its atomic progress.
During Barack Obama’s presidency, as Iran’s nuclear program gained speed, the U.S. and Europe piled on sanctions, sometimes with the approbation of China and Russia. Today, geopolitics—as well as realpolitik nuclear calculations—are much friendlier to the Islamic Republic. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine made it crystal clear that Vladimir Putin doesn’t care for a world order led by Europe and the U.S. China, too, has retreated from being “a responsible stakeholder” in a liberal trading system. Instead it is trying to construct its own version of an East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, much of it designed to give Beijing dominion over Taiwan.
This revisionist alliance has ended Iran’s strategic loneliness. Russia, China and Iran all want to diminish American power. They recognize that they need to help each other militarily and economically to achieve common goals. This is why the Islamic Republic has supplied drone technology and artillery shells to Russia for use in a conflict that, at first glance, has no revolutionary Islamic interests. It is becoming increasingly hard to believe that Russia, which appears ready to deliver advanced Sukhoi Su-35 fighters and more sophisticated air-defense systems to Iran, is averse to sharing nuclear expertise and technology with the clerical regime—assuming Tehran is lacking something in its nuclear engineering.
For far too long, the Western foreign-policy establishment has gained comfort from the notion that Russia and China didn’t want a nuclear Iran. But Vladimir Putin would have no objections to a nuclear crisis in the Middle East if it diverted attention from his war in Ukraine. Unlike the U.S., Russia has lived with nuclear-armed states on its periphery for decades. The only thing new about an Iranian bomb would be the convulsive shock it would deliver to U.S. interests in the Middle East and beyond. For 20 years, American administrations have insisted that Iran would never be allowed to go nuclear. When it does, what’s left of America’s writ in the Middle East will evaporate.
China’s need for Middle Eastern oil has also roiled the region. Xi Jinping has shown few signs that he has any problem with Mr. Putin’s war to absorb Ukraine, which destabilized China’s second-largest trading partner, the European Union. Just before his invasion, Mr. Putin visited Mr. Xi and then proceeded with his assault.
An Iranian bomb could hasten U.S. withdrawal from the Middle East. The American political class has been allergic to the idea of military strikes against the clerical regime’s nuclear sites. It isn’t hard to envision them rationalizing that an Iranian bomb means little to the overall balance of power. A growing conventional wisdom in Washington counsels a shift of focus to Asia.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman may be an impetuous, brutal man, but he made a sensible calculation with his recent Chinese-brokered compact with Tehran. He understands that the clerical regime is about to go nuclear and is trying to make amends with Iran’s friends—the mass murderer of Sunni Muslims in Syria and the Palestinian rejectionists. The minuscule Gulf principalities, always inclined toward appeasement, will probably follow with their own concessions. Without the U.S., the Middle East is sorting itself out.
In all of this maneuvering, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei stands out. A man of humble origins who rose through the Islamic Republic’s eat-the-weak political system, he has steered his country through a gantlet of lethal enemies. When he remarked recently that “the U.S. wanted to put an end to the nuclear issue in accordance with its own plans of using the pressure of sanctions, but it failed” he was being, as he often is, coldly factual. Iran’s never-ending internal troubles may yet unseat him and his regime, but the cleric has done what only great rulers do: He has taken a weak hand and played it brilliantly.
Mr. Gerecht, a former Iranian-targets officer in the Central Intelligence Agency, is a resident scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Mr. Takeyh is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19675/iran-nuclear-program-biden-policy
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Taqiyya: Iran Actually Boasts About Deceiving the West in Nuclear Talks
by Raymond Ibrahim • June 9, 2023 at 5:00 am
Iran's Supreme Guide, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei "used the Islamic concept of 'Taqiyya' to describe the regime's decision to accept the 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal with the West. Taqiyya means the permissibility to deny or conceal one's real beliefs to secure a worthy goal." — iranintl.com, May 20, 2023.
"Khamenei's emphasis on "expediency" as the third principle in foreign policy was particularly notable, as he urged flexibility "in necessary instances" and circumventing "tough barriers" to continue a set course." — iranintl.com, May 20, 2023
If it was not clear what "heroic flexibility" meant then, it probably should be clear by now. Reports consistently document that Iran has been cheating since day one.
"[Khamenei] said that when a revolution hits a tough rock on its path, it need not break its head against it; the wisest course would be to try and go around it." — Amir Taheri, "Iran: Heroic Flexibility Returns," June 4, 2023.
" [A]l- Taqiyya is with the tongue only, (not the heart)." — Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti in his book, "al-Durr al-Manthoor Fi al-Tafsir al- Ma'athoor," quoting Ibn Abbas.
Taqiyya is actually all around us. Iran pretends that its nuclear program is just for peaceful purposes. Some Muslims pretend to convert to Christianity (past and present), or a Muslim gunman gains entrance into a church by feigning interest in Christian prayers.
It should not be surprising, therefore, that Khamenei is relying on taqiyya once again. What is surprising is that the Biden Administration is falling for it – after being told it would be used – and allowing itself to be sucker-punched, or pretending to allow it.
In 1994, PLO leader Yasser Arafat, after he signed the Oslo Accord with Israel, justified his actions by saying, "I see this agreement as being no more than the agreement signed between our Prophet Muhammad and the Quraysh in Mecca"— referring to a truce, the Treaty of Hudaibiyah, which Muhammad broke as soon as he had regained power and was able to attack.
Similarly, Khamenei, by referring to taqiyya in Iran's agreement to a nuclear deal with the West, is signaling that Iran is only going along for "expediency" — until it finds itself in a position to realize its nuclear aspirations and renege.
s there a single authority representing the West at these international nuclear talks that knows — let alone cares about — any of this? Or is the fix already in?
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Iran, U.S.: Countries Reportedly Nearing Deal on Uranium Enrichment and Oil Exports
Jun 8, 2023 | 17:04 GMT
Iran and the United States are reportedly nearing a deal that would see Iran cease enriching uranium to 60% and above in exchange for access to frozen funds abroad and exporting up to 1 million barrels of oil per day, the Middle East Eye reported June 8. ...
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"Iran and the United States are reportedly nearing a deal that would see Iran cease enriching uranium to 60% and above in exchange for access to frozen funds abroad and exporting up to 1 million barrels of oil per day, the Middle East Eye reported June 8. ..."
did we not already go through this :roll:
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Exactly so.
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the are now lovers in bed with each other:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/iran-helping-moscow-build-drone-factory-russia-us-says-rcna88542
so whoever runs the WH is making deals with Iran to trust they will stop nucs
wow, how smart :
https://apnews.com/article/iran-nuclear-natanz-uranium-enrichment-underground-project-04dae673fc937af04e62b65dd78db2e0
so they will have access to even more money. Of course, Biden will claim the money is for food clothing child care and pride rights and trans surgery funds, and other "humanitarian aid".
not for more drones not for nucs only for food and medicine.
they think they can sell us this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swampland_in_Florida
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June 12, 2023
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Explaining Iran’s More Deadly Attacks
Tehran sees an opportunity to accelerate the departure of U.S. forces.
By: Caroline D. Rose
A recent intelligence leak indicates that Iran-aligned militias have been beefing up their strike capabilities against U.S. forces in eastern Syria. They are reportedly preparing for more drone and rocket attacks and are testing sophisticated explosive devices such as EFPs (explosively formed penetrators) for use against U.S. convoys. This corresponds with intelligence published earlier this year in The Washington Post that a joint center for the Syrian army, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and other militias linked to Iran, as well as Russian forces, is coordinating activity against U.S. forces in northeastern Syria.
Washington has been engaged in tit-for-tat strikes against Iranian militias for years, but Tehran’s renewed strategy is notable for the questions it raises about Iran’s broader strategy toward the U.S. in the region. And as its nascent reconciliation with former foes such as Saudi Arabia – ostensibly a U.S. ally – shows, that strategy is much less risk averse than it once was.
Over the past three years, successive militia strikes against U.S. forces have put pressure on the mission in Iraq and Syria. After a period of heightened tensions following the killing of IRGC commander Qassem Soleimani, the U.S. reduced its presence in the region, maintaining just 2,500 troops in Iraq and 900 in Syria, transferring many of its bases to Iraqi and Kurdish forces, and formally reclassifying its mission as an advise-and-assist operation.
The drawdown is in keeping with Washington’s long-term objective to disengage from the Middle East and concentrate on Russia and China. It’s also in line with public opinion. Continued strikes and mounting casualties have renewed the debate about having boots on the ground. Legislative pushes reassessing deployments under the 2001 and 2002 Authorization for the Use of Military Force in Iraq and Syria have gained greater traction in recent years; the most recent initiative in March to withdraw all U.S. forces from Syria in under 180 days was ultimately voted down 321-103 in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Even so, the U.S. has maintained its grip in both Iraq and Syria and has frequently responded with retaliatory strikes when Iran-aligned militias up the ante against their positions. But it has done so cautiously; amid a war in Ukraine, escalating tensions with China, and efforts to disengage from the Middle East, the last thing the U.S. wants is a major escalation. Washington has thus made sure to retaliate proportionately in the hopes that this will be enough to deter Iran and its proxies. So far, it hasn’t. If anything, Tehran sees a chance to pressure the U.S. even more.
And it has every reason to do so. Iranian grand strategy is to expand its influence from the Zagros Mountains to the Mediterranean Sea. Pursuant to that strategy, Iran has established significant economic, political and defense ties with local groups to maintain leverage and to fracture local security. Put simply, the arrival of U.S. forces in Iraq and eastern Syria is an obstacle to Iran’s goals.
But like the U.S., Iran has had to be careful not to escalate the situation, especially during nuclear negotiations and its campaign for sanctions relief. Iran and its proxies therefore resorted to using drones and rockets on fortified U.S. defensive positions. These assaults were designed to send messages to Washington without inflicting major casualties. Things changed, however, after the killing of Soleimani, and now Iran and its proxies are accepting larger risks and launching deadlier strikes on U.S. positions.
As Washington disengages from the Middle East, regional actors, most of which have been partners of the U.S., are trying to make amends with Iran as they seek to build a new regional security architecture. Iran’s presence in conflict-plagued states like Yemen, Syria and Iraq makes this necessary. Yet while Iran has made concessions on Yemen, it has not yielded to regional hopes that it reduce its influence in the Levant, preferring instead to tighten its grip over local proxy forces.
Tehran is ultimately seeking to exploit the geopolitical shifts underway, seeing where normalization with former enemies goes while maximizing pressure on the U.S. and its partners to conduct a speedy withdrawal. With a reduced U.S. presence in Iraq and Syria – and having tested U.S. responses to proxy and direct strikes – Iran is betting that its newer, deadlier attacks will lead to a more timely U.S. withdrawal than a major, direct confrontation.
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The Biden Administration's Secret Capitulation to Iran's Regime
by Majid Rafizadeh • June 17, 2023 at 5:00 am
The Biden administration also reportedly wants to pump $17 billion dollars into the Iranian regime's treasury. These benefits will not only enable the mullahs' to finalize their nuclear weapons program, but also to send more arms to Russia to attack Ukraine, as well as to further enable the regime's ruthless expansion throughout the Middle East -- in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and the terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip -- and throughout Latin America.
The US, intriguingly, seems hell-bent on supporting a regime that its own Department of State has called the "top state sponsor of terrorism."
Based on Iran's abysmal track record of complying with its own agreements, any deal in which Iran might promise to stop enriching uranium is just a sick joke.
"I continue to believe, Biden said on July 14, "that diplomacy is the best way to achieve this outcome."
Someone recently replied, "Neville Chamberlain believed that diplomacy was the best way, too."
The Biden administration, by keeping the American people and the Congress in the dark regarding these ongoing secret negotiations with Iran, appear to understand that is doing something malign. The countries disastrously affected by any "deal" with the Islamist regime of Iran are "only" the US, the Gulf States, Israel, Latin America and Europe. The Biden administration nevertheless appears determined to give the ruling mullahs of Iran the ultimate $17 billion gift: the deadly nuclear deal -- so that Iran will promise not to use their nuclear weapons on this administration's watch.
The Biden administration, intriguingly, seems hell-bent on supporting a regime that the State Department has called the "top state sponsor of terrorism," by rewarding Iran with a nuclear deal that will pave the way for it legally to obtain as many nuclear weapons as it likes. (Image source: iStock)
In spite of strong opposition from the Congress, the Biden administration has been holding secret talks in Oman to reward the ruling mullahs of Iran with a nuclear deal that will pave the way for Iran legally to obtain as many nuclear weapons as it likes, empower the ruling mullahs with billions of dollars, lift sanctions, allow it to rejoin the global financial system and enhance the theocratic regime's legitimacy on the global stage.
The Biden administration also reportedly wants to pump $17 billion dollars into the Iranian regime's treasury. These benefits will not only enable the mullahs' to finalize their nuclear weapons program, but also to send more arms to Russia to attack Ukraine, as well as to further enable the regime's ruthless expansion throughout the Middle East -- in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and the terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip -- and throughout Latin America.
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Iran Extends its Reach With the Fourth-Generation Khorramshahr Missile
2 MIN READJun 30, 2023 | 14:52 GMT
The fourth generation of Iran's Khorramshahr missile is the latest version of its long-range ballistic missiles, and it boasts a range of up to 2,000 kilometers (about 1,243 miles). With this reach, the new Khorramshahr could strike Israel and multiple U.S. military bases throughout the region, and Iran will use this silent threat to deter direct Israeli and American attacks on Iranian soil. The Khorramshahr category is Iran's most powerful missile system, able to carry a 1,800 kilogram (3,968 pound) warhead and, with its latest version, able to store fuel for longer, making it easier for Iran to deploy the missile in times of sudden escalations. But while Iran's missiles are advanced, they face formidable regional air defenses and countermeasures, like Israel's new aerial defense system, David's Sling, and the U.S. Patriot missile, which has recently demonstrated its capabilities against similar Russian-made missiles in Ukraine. To overcome such defenses, Iran's typical pattern of missile use is to utilize barrages in case of escalation, as it did when it attacked U.S. forces in Iraq in 2020 in retaliation for the U.S. assassination of Gen. Qassem Soleimani. Should Iran use the Khorramshahr in a currently-improbable military escalation against an Israeli, U.S. or Gulf Arab target, it would likely be part of a similar barrage, with Iranian proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen also using short-range rockets, missiles, drones and cruise missiles to overwhelm their targets.
Iran's Ballistic Missile Arsenal
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19783/iran-deal-congressional-approval
Good summary of the recent history.
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19867/iran-russia-evade-sanctions
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Iran to Release Five Americans in Prisoner Exchange
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei waves during Eid al-Fitr prayer marking the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan in Tehran, Iran, April 22, 2023. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA via Reuters)
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By ARI BLAFF
August 10, 2023 1:08 PM
The White House secured the release of five Americans imprisoned in Iran in exchange for several Iranian nationals imprisoned in the United States as well as the release of nearly $6 billion in seized Iranian oil funds.
“The move by Iran of the American hostages from Evin Prison to house arrest is an important development,” Jared Genser, a lawyer representing one of the Americans released in the deal, told the New York Times.
“While I hope this will be the first step to their ultimate release, this is at best the beginning of the end and nothing more,” the attorney added. “But there are simply no guarantees about what happens from here.”
Three of the five – Siamak Namazi, Emad Sharghi, and Morad Tahbaz – were all taken prisoner by Iran on dubious charges of espionage and spying. Two other Americans – a scientist and businessman – have not had their names publicized, sources familiar with the situation told the Times.
The former was handed down a decade-long sentence and has been incarcerated in the notorious Evin Prison since 2015 for allegedly “collaborating with a hostile state.” Tahbaz was handed a similar sentence for having “contacts with the U.S. government.”
As part of the deal, the U.S. will transfer the $6 billion in seized Iranian oil revenue to a Qatari bank, the Times reports. The Qataris will be tasked with overseeing the funds and allowing the Iranians to withdraw the funds only to pay for humanitarian needs.
The prisoners have been transferred to a hotel in Tehran, according to their attorneys, where they will remain for several weeks until they board a plane bound for the U.S., only after the funds have been transferred.
The deal represents a breakthrough after nearly two years of stalled negotiations
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Iran's Plan To Turn The West Bank Into A Terror Base
by Bassam Tawil • August 17, 2023 at 5:00 am
Palestinian terrorists... have already turned the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip into a base for firing tens of thousands of rockets towards Israel. Now, the terrorists, with the help of Iran, are trying to use the West Bank to launch rockets at Israeli civilian communities.
Even worse, US Congressional oversight, required for any deal with Iran, was nullified this week when the Biden Administration, apparently to avoid oversight, announced its plans with Iran during Congress' summer recess.
The MEMRI report... noted that the armament efforts in the West Bank are energetically assisted by the Islamic Republic of Iran, on the orders of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Judging from the statements of the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad leaders, the Palestinian terrorists who are now firing rockets at Israeli communities from the West Bank could not have done so without the assistance of Iran. Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad do not recognize Israel's right to exist, period.
The Hamas Covenant... openly states: "There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad [holy war]. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors." (Article 13)
Those Americans and Europeans who are calling for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank are ignoring the threats by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad to continue the fight until the elimination of Israel. The rockets that are being fired from the West Bank should serve as a loud alarm bell to all those who continue to talk about the so-called two-state solution.
It is not difficult to imagine what would happen if Israel pulled out of [the West Bank]. After the Israeli pullout from the Gaza Strip in 2005, the Palestinian terror groups fired tens of thousands of rockets into Israeli cities and towns. An Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank would mean handing the area to the total control of Iran and its Palestinian terror proxies and turning it into yet another base for Jihad -- not only against Israel but the West.
Palestinian terrorists have already turned the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip into a base for firing tens of thousands of rockets towards Israel. Now, the terrorists, with the help of Iran, are trying to use the West Bank to launch rockets at Israeli civilian communities. Pictured: Palestinian terrorists fire a volley of rockets towards Israel from within a densely populated residential area of Gaza City on May 13, 2023. (Photo by Mahmud Hams/AFP via Getty Images)
Palestinian terrorists are working hard to turn the West Bank into a launching pad for waging war on Israel. They have already turned the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip into a base for firing tens of thousands of rockets towards Israel. Now, the terrorists, with the help of Iran, are trying to use the West Bank to launch rockets at Israeli civilian communities.
The US Administration's recent move to give Iran access to at least $16 billion, including $6 billion held in South Korea, as part of a prisoner exchange deal, will undoubtedly benefit Tehran's Palestinian terror proxies: Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The two terror groups, which seek the destruction of Israel, have long been receiving financial and military aid from Iran's mullahs.
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Predictable as the sunrise. I wonder why Obama-Biden wanted us to pay for that.
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August 24, 2023
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Upheaval in Eurasia and Iran’s Shrinking Options
With Russia and China mired in crises, Iran has no choice but to deal with the United States.
By: Kamran Bokhari
Eurasia is in a fit of historic change as Russia, China and India each undergo major transformations. Less obvious but no less impactful is what’s happening in Iran. After decades of trying to change the security architecture of the region, it is now being forced to adapt to pressure from within and without. The extent to which Tehran actually alters its behavior is unclear, but what is clear is that it must change, the consequences of which will affect the Middle East, the South Caucasus, Central Asia and South Asia.
Since its founding some 45 years ago, Iran has intermittently engaged in negotiations with the United States on a variety of issues despite otherwise hostile relations and the absence of formal diplomatic ties. But there is something different in what is happening now. In recent months, the two have been trying to reach a broader understanding rather than the usual narrow agreements on specific issues, particularly with regard to Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. And all of this takes place as Tehran tries to pause its rivalry with its primary regional adversary (and American ally), Saudi Arabia.
According to an Aug. 16 report in the Financial Times, Washington and Tehran have been trying to reach an “unwritten understanding” whereby Iran stops supplying drones and spare parts to Russia for use in the war in Ukraine. The talks have apparently advanced; Iran reportedly asked Russia to refrain from using the drones, though the U.S. wants “more concrete steps” on Iran's part. In return, the United States could not impose any new sanctions in certain areas (human rights excepted) and would be willing to more loosely enforce existing sanctions that target Iranian oil exports. Meanwhile, the commander of the of the Quds Force, the overseas arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, met with pro-Iranian Shiite militias in Iraq and instructed them to “stop all military operations against the U.S. and the global coalition forces at this time.”
Moreover, the Wall Street Journal reported on Aug. 11 that Iran had significantly slowed the pace at which it was accumulating near-weapons-grade enriched uranium and diluted some of its current stockpile. These moves come as Tehran and Washington negotiate the release of four American citizens in exchange for freeing up $6 billion in Iranian oil revenue. Western officials have informed their Iranian counterparts that if tensions ease this summer, there is a chance for broader negotiations later in the year. It’s in this context that on Aug. 18 Iran sent its foreign minister to Saudi Arabia – the first time in eight years – for talks with his counterpart and with the kingdom’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
There is nothing that suggests this flurry of diplomatic activity will actually lead to an accommodation, but the fact that it’s happening at all underscores just how much Iran needs to change with the new global climate. Until now, Iran has been able to pursue an aggressive foreign policy, facilitated as it was by four factors: The United States had been heavily focused on the Middle East and South Asia; Russia and China were on an ascendant trajectory; the Arab world was in a state of turmoil; and the domestic political and economic situation was manageable. This is no longer the case.
After 9/11, Washington spent two decades entangled in issues that intersected with Iranian interests. The fallout from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan gave Tehran a great deal of room to maneuver. The government fully exploited the situation and played a large role in shaping the circumstances that had Washington bogged down in the Middle East and South Asia. It took the U.S. years to extricate itself, but extricate itself it did, giving it the time and resources to focus on Russia and China.
Both Moscow and Beijing have long shielded Tehran from the outside, allowing the clerical regime to continue to push ahead with its radical foreign policy, which they saw as a useful tool for creating problems for, and thus concessions from, the U.S. However, Russia’s attempts to fix its position in Ukraine have made matters worse – hurting its relationships with many countries, including Iran, which now questions how serious Moscow is as a global player. That the world’s second-largest military force with its own industrial base is having to rely on Iranian drones to fight the Ukrainians means that Tehran can’t count on Moscow for its own geopolitical well-being. Similarly, China’s economic downturn and the pressure Washington is bringing to bear has seriously degraded Beijing’s ability to project influence abroad. Tehran has certainly noticed. It was only two years ago that it was hoping for hundreds of billions of dollars of Chinese investments under the Belt and Road Initiative. Tehran knows that the truce that it recently reached with Riyadh, ostensibly mediated by China, wasn’t so much the result of Beijing’s determination as it was a distraction from its own economy. The heavy lifting was done by Iraq and Oman, which along with Qatar serve as the middlemen of U.S.-Iranian diplomacy.
More important are the regional circumstances that compelled Iran to halt its aggressive push into the Arab world. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have stabilized a region that has been in disarray since the Arab Spring, in part by neutralizing Islamist forces backed by Turkey and Qatar. The Islamic State is no longer the threat it was. The Syrian government is being reintegrated into the Arab world. And the Abraham Accords signed by Israel, the UAE and other Arab states are bringing the Israelis and the Saudis together. These various developments have narrowed Iran’s room to maneuver.
At home, the government is trying to manage a crisis created by its inability to both finance an assertive foreign policy and maintain domestic stability. Social and economic conditions are in disrepair. The public is no longer willing to accept the Islamist edicts on which the current administration has double-downed. The country is fast approaching an impasse and will invariably undergo a regime change once the ailing 84-year-old supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is no longer at the helm.
The way Iran will change remains unclear, but it is increasingly mired in uncertainty. Its way of doing business is becoming untenable. Something has to give. Iran cannot face a hostile United States without significant third-party support or a diversion. The evolution in U.S.-Iranian relations is a result of the shifts in global forces. The United States is systematically building coalitions that include former hostile powers to improve its position relative to Russia and China in the event they emerge from their current crises. Iran is a key element in that regard.
Under the present circumstances, Iran cannot afford the risks of confrontation with the United States. It may be the case that Russia and China regain their footing and once again create problems for the United States. But the global system is definitely in flux for an extended period of time.
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There's been a general easing of tensions in the Persian Gulf of late.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Easing tensions. The International Atomic Energy Agency will announce next month that Iran is slowing its rate of accumulating weapons-grade uranium, according to a Bloomberg report. The announcement would coincide with a general easing of tensions in the Gulf that includes talks on a U.S.-Iran prisoner swap and increased oil supplies on the global market. Meanwhile, Israeli media reported on Wednesday that Israel and the United States will conduct a series of large-scale military exercises in the coming months that will include simulating an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. The U.S. is expected to transfer to Israel Patriot anti-aircraft missile systems and other weapons to participate in the maneuvers.
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Money for Tehran. South Korea is working on releasing Iranian funds frozen in South Korean banks, South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin said following talks with his Iranian counterpart, Hossein Amir Abdollahian. The move follows a deal between Washington and Tehran to unfreeze certain Iranian assets in exchange for the return of U.S. citizens. The ministers also reportedly agreed to expand cooperation between their countries.
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12506245/US-makes-deal-Iran-swap-five-American-prisoners-6billion-frozen-funds.html
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19971/biden-failed-iran-policy
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Obama Biden friends in Iran, the ones we just gave $6 billion ransom to, admitted mass murdering hundreds of Americans.
https://www.foxnews.com/world/iran-official-admits-countrys-role-terror-bombing-killed-241-us-military-members-report
Other than all the death to America chants, who knew?
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Biden Faces an Iran Reckoning
Tehran looms behind Hamas’s atrocities and Hezbollah’s next move.
By
The Editorial Board
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Oct. 11, 2023 6:20 pm ET
President Biden on Tuesday showed appropriate outrage at the wanton slaughter by Hamas this weekend, and his pledge of support for Israel is welcome. But there was a crucial word missing from his remarks at the White House: Iran. Tehran is Hamas’s terror master, and its assault on Israel exposes the failure of his Iran strategy.
The Journal has reported that Iran gave the approval for Hamas’s bloody assault at an Oct. 2 meeting in Beirut. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has denied it, and the U.S. is saying it has no “specific evidence” of Iran’s assent. But Iran has long been the chief benefactor of Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza, as well as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Shiite militias in Iraq and Yemen. All have praised the Hamas assault, as has Mr. Khamenei.
This is what Iran sends Hamas guns and money to do. Hamas killed at least 22 Americans in the attack at last count, and others are now captives. Mr. Biden has a duty to get them home and avenge those deaths.
It’s implausible that Hamas would have struck without Iran’s approval, knowing Israel’s response would be devastating. One question is whether the massacres were part of a deliberate strategy to court such a response. An Israeli ground assault could be the excuse for Hezbollah to open a second front in Israel’s north.
Hezbollah receives an estimated $700 million a year from Iran, and its missile stockpile runs to 100,000 or more with greater accuracy than rockets fired from Gaza. They could target most of Israel. A Hezbollah attack would also require Iran’s approval.
Mr. Biden on Tuesday warned unnamed countries not to take advantage of the war in Gaza, and his deployment of a carrier strike group to the Eastern Mediterranean is a useful show of support for Israel. But the question is whether Iran will believe this attempt at deterrence after Mr. Biden’s behavior over the past three years.
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It’s worth recalling how hard Mr. Biden has tried to accommodate the mullahs in Tehran. Upon taking office, his Administration ended Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign. It relaxed enforcement of sanctions on Iran’s oil sales, which has been worth tens of billions. It also dispatched Iranian sympathizer, Robert Malley, to renegotiate the 2015 nuclear deal. (Mr. Malley has since been sidelined for unexplained reasons that may be related to security concerns.)
Iran has refused these entreaties. The latest “understanding,” before the Hamas invasion, was that Iran would slow or stall its uranium enrichment for a bomb while the U.S. would let Iran have billions of dollars held by Iraq and South Korea. This included the $6 billion that was part of the trade for five Americans held as hostages by Iran.
Mr. Biden has also failed to respond aggressively when Iran’s proxies have attacked Americans. Under questioning from Sen. Tom Cotton, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Iran or its proxies have launched 83 attacks on Americans since Mr. Biden took office, but the U.S. has responded militarily only four times.
One goal of all this seems to have been to avoid any confrontation with Iran through the 2024 election. But Iran has clearly interpreted it as a sign of U.S. weakness. The Hamas assault should finally convince Mr. Biden that Iran has no intention of abiding by his timetable. It will order its proxies to strike when it serves its purposes and sees a vulnerability.
Iran’s current purpose may be to blow up the emerging rapprochement between Israel and Saudi Arabia—at a moment when the U.S. is also assisting Ukraine against Russia. Iran is run by a revolutionary regime that wants to destroy Israel and dominate the region. It wants a “Shiite crescent” of power from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean.
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The question now is whether Mr. Biden will adapt to this reality and drop his appeasement strategy. He can start by blocking the transfer of the $6 billion and return to maximum pressure. He may also soon face a decision on whether to assist Israel militarily if Hezbollah opens a second front in the north.
Israel can defeat both adversaries, but at great cost. If Israel’s new unity government, which was announced Wednesday, requests U.S. help from the air or otherwise, Mr. Biden would be wise to grant it. Iran and the world will detect further American weakness if he won’t help a steadfast ally. Sen. Lindsey Graham has proposed that the U.S. bomb Iranian oil facilities, and Iran has to know that its military sites, nuclear program and oil fields aren’t off-limits if it escalates its war against Israel.
The history of another Democratic President is instructive. For three years, Jimmy Carter sought detente with the Soviet Union. But the Soviets sensed weakness and promoted revolution around the world. When they invaded Afghanistan, Mr. Carter recognized reality and began a defense buildup that laid the groundwork for the Reagan rearmament.
President Biden now faces a similar reckoning with Iran. For three years he has tried to appease Tehran into taming its revolutionary ambitions. That hope has exploded with the Iran-backed slaughter of more than 1,000 Israelis and Americans. Can Mr. Biden make a Carter-like pivot back to reality? His legacy may depend on it
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America’s Middle East Imperative: Contain Iran
The Hamas attack on Israel is just the latest of the Islamic Republic’s proxy wars to destabilize the region and undermine American interests
By Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takeyh
Oct. 13, 2023 10:59 am ET
When the warriors of Hamas broke out of their fiefdom in Gaza to kill and kidnap Israelis, a historic failure of imagination came painfully into view. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government—and many in the country’s security and intelligence agencies—had seen the Palestinians as a manageable problem. Israelis were certainly aware of the growing missile threat from Gaza. The Israeli army and air force had ripped into Gaza in 2014 to destroy, among other things, missile factories. They knew that Hamas’s relations with Iran, which has developed great skill in missilery, had deepened. And Jerusalem knew that the meetings in Beirut last spring between the leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah and Ismail Qaani—chief of Iran’s Quds Force, which directs covert action for Islamic Revolutionary Guard—portended combined operations.
Still, Jerusalem and Washington both believed that momentum in the Middle East was on their side. After an initial reluctance to engage Muhammad bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince and de facto ruler, the Biden administration went all in on diplomacy between the kingdom, Israel and the U.S., hoping to add the Saudis to the Abraham Accords. Not only could these negotiations (in theory) transform the Jewish state’s place in the Muslim world, they could also jump-start Israeli diplomacy with the Palestinian Authority on the West Bank and enhance America’s standing in the region.
Netanyahu made normalization with Saudi Arabia his number one foreign-policy priority, seeing a new Middle East (and a revived political future at home) within grasp. The White House saw Iran, particularly its nuclear ambitions, as a serious vexation but one that might still be diminished without confrontation. This hopefulness was best expressed by Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser for President Biden, who said in September that “the Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades.”
But Iran’s clerical regime has long had a far better grasp of the region’s realities and power politics. In a deeply fractured Middle East, it knows the value of proxy wars waged by militias of various ideological hues. In the 1980s, it created Hezbollah in the Shiite slums of Lebanon. The mullahs’ deadly protégé has menaced Israel for decades and has done Iran’s bidding in Iraq and Syria.
Iran’s ties with Hamas, an offshoot of the Egyptian Sunni Muslim Brotherhood, were initially more distant. Hamas has its own agenda, its own sources of strength (it won the Palestinian legislative elections in 2006) and ample funding from the Gulf sheikhdoms (and indirectly from the European Union). After 9/11, as Sunni Arab rulers grew more concerned about Islamic militancy, tired of the Palestinian cause and nudged closer to Israel, Hamas found a willing partner in Iran. Its leader Ismail Haniyeh is a regular visitor to Tehran and this summer even boasted about how the Islamic Republic funds its missile program. Hamas is now a member of Tehran’s so-called “axis of resistance.”
American’s politicians and policy makers, eager to leave behind their Middle East inheritance, have been searching for allies of their own to bear the burden of a dysfunctional region. The Biden team hoped that local actors would patrol the region on its behalf while it concentrated on Asia. Israel and Saudi Arabia are unlikely partners in this endeavor—the former won’t project power into the Persian Gulf and the latter, though richly armed, is militarily incompetent—but building on the Abraham Accords, Biden sensed opportunities.
In recent weeks, as White House aides shuttled back and forth to the Middle East, timely leaks hinted that a deal was tantalizingly close. The U.S. had to offer security guarantees to Saudi Arabia, a la South Korea, and allow the kingdom to become a threshold nuclear state, with its own capacity to enrich uranium. The Israelis would need to accept Saudi Arabia’s eventual nuclearization, launch a new peace process with the Palestinians and at least nod toward the mirage of a two-state solution.
For this deal to get done, Iran and Hamas, however, would need to play dead. Some in the administration thought that China’s intervention in Persian Gulf politics earlier this year, which led to the restoration of relations between Riyadh and Tehran, might actually play to Washington’s benefit since it signaled, in their eyes, a certain pragmatism in the kingdom and the theocracy.
The Biden administration’s key mistake was to believe that the forbearance of Tehran and Hamas could be purchased. In the diplomatic lexicon, this is called “de-escalation.” The U.S. released $6 billion to the clerical regime ostensibly for the release of imprisoned dual citizens. In reality, the White House hoped that this would slow the Islamic Republic’s nuclear march and stop it from mauling American servicemen in Syria. If Iran played along, more money in sanctions relief would be forthcoming. Israelis thought that Hamas wouldn’t resort to terrorism and jeopardize the loosening of Israel’s embargo, which allowed up to 18,000 Gazans to work in Israel and generated a daily income of $2 million.
Iran and Hamas took the money and went to war.
There is a debate in Washington and Europe about whether the clerical regime ordered the attack or consented to Hamas’s initiative. Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, has been gloating since the invasion: “God willing, this cancer [Israel] will be eradicated at the hands of the Palestinian people and the resistance forces in the entire region.” The “Al-Asqa Flood,” as Hamas calls the attack, certainly showed a degree of competence, capacity, ingenuity and boldness not seen before in the group’s terrorist attacks on Israel. This is the level of aggression that the Islamic Republic has always encouraged in its allied militias.
But the fact is that both Iran and Hamas wanted to abort a regional alignment that threatened to integrate Israel more into the Middle East. American and Israeli diplomacy operated on the hubristic assumption that Iran didn’t have veto rights on this process And regardless of Israeli-Saudi-U.S. diplomatic initiatives, the clerical regime and Hamas take pleasure in watching Israelis die.
Ali Khamenei sees the U.S. on the run in the Middle East, which has helped to cement Iran’s alliance with Russia and China. From Tehran’s perspective, this was an excellent time to strike. So, too, for Hamas, which probably enjoys more popularity among young Palestinian men—the people who really matter—than does its West Bank rival and enemy, Fatah, which runs (and fleeces) the Palestinian Authority. Iran and Hamas needed a war, and they both understood that by inflaming the Arab street they could undo whatever Sunni Arab princes agreed to in their palaces.
When Israeli troops finally enter Gaza to dismantle Hamas’s terror apparatus and its missile factories, casualties will mount, and scenes of deprivation will beam across Arab satellite channels and social-media accounts. The Palestinian cause is still very much alive among the Arab lower and middle classes, and significant demonstrations—just the fear of them—have usually had an effect on the wobbly spines of Sunni Arab rulers. Zionist-friendly Arab potentates could make tactical retreats. The Europeans will surely call for mediation. The U.N. will convene sessions to criticize Israel. In the carnage, Hamas may lose its grip on power. It’s hard to imagine, however, that Fatah or any other Palestinian group will rise up, with or without Israeli subventions, to replace them.
The big winner in this mayhem will be the Islamic Republic. In a deeply fractured Middle East, the clerical regime has demonstrated impressive skill. In Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen and Gaza, Iran-allied militias have successfully challenged the ruling authorities, destabilizing or replacing them. In Iraq, Iranian machinations played a major part in defeating American power—a stunning achievement that made Qassem Soleimani, the former head of the Quds Force, a household name throughout the Middle East.
The genius of the Islamic Republic’s proxy war strategy is that it never provokes a meaningful response. The sequence of events is always eerily the same: Iran’s allied militias launch a devastating attack, and the targeted nation is too busy putting out the flames to focus on the source of fire. When the U.S. had its hands full in Iraq, it didn’t wish to expand the conflict by attacking Iran even though it was Iranian munitions and planning that were lacerating U.S. forces.
Today, Israel is in a similar bind. As it undertakes the daunting task of cleansing Gaza of Hamas, it will refrain from assaulting Iran for the fear of overloading the circuits. The clerical regime has additional leverage through Hezbollah, with its huge arsenal of missiles. But even if Hezbollah were to attack from Lebanon, the logic of restraint would still likely prevail as an Israel at war north and south wouldn’t wish to engage the Islamic Republic directly. Offense everywhere is probably the best strategy for Jerusalem, but the resources to do so, let alone the volition, are likely beyond Israeli means.
The clerical regime hasn’t just demonstrated a better grasp of regional politics than Washington. In the past few years, Iran has given itself breathing space by forging close ties to Russia and China. Moscow has opened its armory to Tehran, providing it with sophisticated aircraft and air-defense systems. Vladimir Putin has no problem with another distracting, Middle Eastern conflict.
China’s situation is different. Although no longer the “responsible stakeholder” that Henry Kissinger and Brent Scowcroft envisioned, Beijing wouldn’t want a war that could disrupt its energy supplies. But hardened authoritarian ideologues understand each other better than pragmatic Americans, with their eyes on balance sheets and cost-benefit analysis.
Khamenei took the measure of Xi Jinping and found a kindred spirit. After all, China had no problem with Russia’s war against Ukraine, despite the fact that Europe is China’s largest trading partner. The Chinese-brokered agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia has but one imperative: The clerical regime will not attack Saudi oil facilities as it did in 2019. Tehran has so far kept its part of the bargain and left Saudi oil installations unmolested—while undermining Riyadh’s regional pretensions.
Like the Obama administration, the Biden team has consistently played down the Islamic Republic’s ideological commitments, never taking the theocracy’s fiery rhetoric at face value. That’s a mistake, and it fails to see the dangerous dynamic that now defines Iran’s role in the region: As the country’s Islamic revolutionary spirit has withered at home, the regime has found it necessary to seek legitimacy and pride abroad, both through its proxy wars and the continued development of missile technology and nuclear weapons.
The unavoidable fact is that Western success in the Middle East involves containing the Islamic Republic, with an eye toward undermining its power at home. New nuclear “understandings” won’t arrest Tehran’s nuclear ambitions; sanctions won’t defang its lethal protégés. When American presidents don’t wish to do the hard things, they inevitably rely on their diplomats to launch inconclusive “processes.” Resuscitating Israeli-Saudi negotiations will surely prove the most tempting illusion—an abstract end-run around the Islamic Republic that brings no U.S. hard power to bear.
Fortunately, Iranians are in a rebellious mood. Discontent in the country is a vast magma pool. We don’t know when the next major eruption will occur; neither does the regime. But the average Iranian, who has increasingly taken to the streets since the nationwide protests of 2017, does not understand why his nation’s meager resources are wasted on Arab civil wars and terror campaigns against Israel.
Containment is always in part about the patient application of military power. For Israel it may entail, after the war in Gaza reaches a bloody, unsatisfying end, another assault on Hezbollah. The Lebanese group’s vast missile stockpile may deter Israeli leaders, but if Jerusalem decides to try to pre-empt the next missile war, Washington should have its back for what will surely be a long campaign that leaves even more of Lebanon in ruins.
The shadow of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan hang uneasily over Washington. The events of this week ought to make it unmistakably clear that the U.S. cannot leave the Middle East and pivot to more promising pastures. The region has a way of dragging reluctant powers back into its morass.
Finding victory on the cheap is unlikely. But beyond America’s military might, which no one in Washington wants to deploy, the U.S. does have a trump card—the Iranian people, whose emancipation would free not just themselves but the region as a whole. Can Democrats and Republicans find a bipartisan Iran policy focused on that task? Can they say, however quietly, “regime change”?
Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former Iranian-targets officer in the Central Intelligence Agency, is a resident scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Ray Takeyh is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20047/biden-helped-iran
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https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2023/10/10/dershowitz_now_is_the_time_to_go_after_iran_destroy_their_nuclear_reactor.html
I don't know Israel can penetrate the depth of nuc sites in Iran.
I don't know if they could do while fighting on their doorstep.
I don't know if even US could do. Conflicting reports on cable if even our "bunker busting bombs" could penetrate.
Being 33 trillion in debt, allowing CCP to steal all our technology, eroding the military with wokeness, and out country with antipatriotism, allowing illegals to flood our borders - I don't know if we can do anything now.
However, someone HAS to destroy Iran's nuc capability or else we know what will happen.
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Too bad Obama blew up Israel's landing rights deal with Azerbaijan by revealing its existence.
This might be a good moment to have a US carrier off shore from Iran.
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/10/bidens-iran-deal-is-even-worse-than-it-looked/?bypass_key=bnduT0NxdmNzdVFmWmhQaUs0Y2FhUT09Ojpja1pZTTBOd01raFZZV3BSZFZkamJFeGhPVmNyVVQwOQ%3D%3D
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who knew ? :wink: :roll:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/appeasing-iran-has-failed/ar-AA1ijvND?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=22273c96e50a492d95618706e5fe02e3&ei=14
I am still not clear if they have a working nuc device , means to deliver it or not
Remember when we were told they would make enough for device couple yrs ago
then I think Israel was able to sabotage their network
and now we are not told how close they are . only reports they could make one in 2 weeks
but we have been hearing this for a long time
does anyone know. Israel intelligence - ours ?
anyone hear anything more substantial in this regard.
We keep hearing threats from Iran - could they deliver a nuc explosion on Israel . It would only take 1 to 3 bombs to destroy Israel.
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This is one of the many puzzles of Leftism. Why did they take this course? Why did they return to it? Why is it so obvious to all of us it's wrong, and not to any of them. Appeasement could have just meant leave them alone, not send them planeloads of cash.
We thought maybe it was because Valerie Jarrett was born there, but that doesn't have any tie to these leaders and these policies.
No one ever seems to contest the allegation they are the world's number one state sponsor of terrorism. A pretty good definition of evil. This attack should lock up that title for a long time.
I heard an 'expert' from the Left interviewed on liberal radio saying how sending them the $6billion was great policy and Republicans are lying about that money was used to finance this attack. On the latter, given the timing, I could concede this money went to replace the money that financed that attack, and to pay for the next wave.
A liberal close to me said of our political differences, we all want the same thing just have different ideas of how to get there. Sending money to a ruthless enemy is a different idea of how to get where??!!
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"I could concede this money went to replace the money that financed that attack, and to pay for the next wave."
the usual shell game the crats play
sounds like something Paul Krugman would say while playing with the "data" to prove his economic point.
or rabid claims of Climate catastrophe right around the corner.
watch the real data closely whenever they speak.
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Republican Security Council
17h ·
We need to reverse Biden’s strategic calculus for the Middle East, which has once again proven completely wrong.
John Bolton: The Middle East is again in crisis, and the Biden administration was caught flat-footed. On September 29, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told a conference hosted by the liberal Atlantic magazine: “The Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades.”
Eight days later, Hamas attacked Israel. In due course, America (and Israel, which also missed the terrorist onslaught) will need a full accounting of how multiple intelligence agencies failed to detect preparations for the horror unleashed Oct. 7.
We need to reverse Biden’s strategic calculus for the Middle East, which has once again proven completely wrong.
The fundamental misperception, which pervades all aspects of regional policy, is that the mullahs leading Iran can be negotiated into civilized behavior.
They can be persuaded to renounce their three-decade-long quest for deliverable nuclear weapons, say Biden and his advisers.
They will see the light and give up their own state terrorism, perpetrated by the Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force, and their sponsorship of terrorist groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthi rebels and Iraqi Shia militias. To achieve this goal, Biden has pursued a policy of appeasement toward Tehran.
From day one of his presidency, his negotiators have made concession after concession to get back into the fatally flawed 2015 nuclear agreement.
That deal, one of the worst diplomatic mistakes in US history, was negotiated by many of the same people Biden hired to steer his Iran policy.
There is substantial evidence that an Iranian influence operation penetrated Team Biden, the full consequences of which are as yet unknown.
Rob Malley, Biden’s chief Iran negotiator, had his security clearance suspended in April.
Of course, Biden and his top advisers were already so favorably disposed toward Iran that Tehran may not have needed to bother infiltrating his government.
Other evidence of appeasement abounds, including weakening the enforcement of economic sanctions, particularly against the export of Iranian oil to countries like China, reimposed on Iran in 2019 after the Trump administration withdrew from the nuclear deal.
The most recent display of Biden on bended knee to the ayatollahs was the unfreezing of $6 billion in exchange for five American hostages Iran illegitimately held.
That act of human trafficking contravened decades of US policy not to engage in hostage ransoms or exchanges and undoubtedly impressed the Tehran regime that Biden is an extraordinarily weak and needy president.
Iran has long armed and equipped, trained and advised, financed and protected both Hamas and Hezbollah.
In recent years, these and other terrorist groups were forged into a “ring of fire” around Israel, a strategy conceived by former Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, who received an early departure in January 2020, courtesy of the United States.
Biden may fear acting, but Israel is about to show him how to treat Iran and its outriders.
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Iran's Direct Help to Hamas's October 7 War on Israel
The West Must Stand United Against Both Hamas and Iran
by Con Coughlin
October 17, 2023 at 5:00 am
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The precise details of Iran's direct role in authorising the attack are gradually coming to light, with officials involved in the investigation insisting that both Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah (a terrorist organization Iran controls) were involved in the planning of the Hamas terrorist operation.
This is hardly surprising given the estimated $100 million a year Tehran gives Hamas to help develop its terrorist infrastructure, part of the £13.1 billion Iran has spent on developing its terrorist network throughout the Middle East during the past decade, from supporting Houthi rebels in Yemen to Shia militias in Iraq.
The true extent of Iran's military support for Hamas was recently laid bare by the movement's leader, Ismail Haniyeh, when he revealed that funds received from Tehran had helped to fund the development of missile and defence systems designed and built in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
The significance of Iran's involvement with Hamas's terrorist activity was also evident at the weekend, when Haniyeh met with Iran's foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, in Qatar, a country that also has a long history of funding Hamas.
The extent of Iran's meddling in the current war in the Middle East should certainly serve as a wake-up call to the US and its European allies about the danger Iran poses not just to the region, but the wider world.
With the Saudi negotiations now on hold, the US and its allies should accept the folly of trying to maintain a diplomatic dialogue with Tehran in the hope that the Iranian regime may be persuaded to sign up to a new nuclear deal.
As Iran's open support for Hamas has demonstrated, the ayatollahs have no interest in reaching a peaceful accommodation with the West.
The Iranian regime is only concerned with supporting groups that carry out unimaginable acts of violence against innocent civilians, and should be treated with serious deterrence, if not more, and with the enemy status they fully deserve.
The precise details of Iran's direct role in authorising the Hamas attack on Israel are gradually coming to light, with officials involved in the investigation insisting that both Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah (a terrorist organization Iran controls) were involved in the planning of the Hamas terrorist operation. Pictured: Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei meets with Hassan Nasrallah, head of Lebanon's Hezbollah terrorist organization. (Image source: khamenei.ir)
While the total destruction of Hamas is understandably Israel's main priority in the aftermath of the organisation's horrific massacre of Israeli civilians on October 7, ultimately it should be Iran that is held to account for committing these atrocities.
Iran's complicity in Hamas's merciless assault against Israeli civilians cannot be underestimated; it has been reflected in the way the Iranian leadership has openly celebrated the indiscriminate slaughter of elderly women and babies as well as multiplying credible reports, including an almost comical one from Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, "Call[ing] On Iranians Not To Speak Out On Iranian Involvement In 'The Hamas-Israel Conflict' -- For Fear Of Harming Iranian Interests And International Status".
The Biden administration seems to be doing everything it can to avoid seeing direct involvement by Iran.
The precise details of Iran's direct role in authorising the attack are gradually coming to light, with officials involved in the investigation insisting that both Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah (a terrorist organization Iran controls) were involved in the planning of the Hamas terrorist operation.
This is hardly surprising given the estimated $100 million a year Tehran gives Hamas to help develop its terrorist infrastructure, part of the £13.1 billion Iran has spent on developing its terrorist network throughout the Middle East during the past decade, from supporting Houthi rebels in Yemen to Shia militias in Iraq.
Iran's ability, moreover, to continue funding terror groups across the Middle East has been aided by the Biden administration's decision to release $6 billion in Iranian assets as part of a recent hostage swap deal, on top of the "closer to $60 billion" Iran was able to acquire while the Biden administration "relaxed" sanctions for years.
Iran's support for Hamas has also been especially helpful in enabling the terrorist organisation to develop its own indigenous weapons, such as the thousands of missiles that have been used to attack targets throughout southern and central Israel.
The true extent of Iran's military support for Hamas was recently laid bare by the movement's leader, Ismail Haniyeh, when he revealed that funds received from Tehran had helped to fund the development of missile and defence systems designed and built in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
In a recent message addressed to Brigadier General Esmail Qaani, commander of the Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), in the summer, Haniyeh praised Iran as "a solid pillar upon which Palestinian resistance groups, and the Axis of Resistance in general, rest as they continue their primary struggle against the Zionist enemy and US hegemony."
The significance of Iran's involvement with Hamas's terrorist activity was also evident at the weekend, when Haniyeh met with Iran's foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, in Qatar, a country that also has a long history of funding Hamas. According to Reuters:
"During their meeting in Qatar's capital Doha, Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian praised the rampage as a 'historic victory' that had dealt a setback to Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory."
A statement later issued by Hamas said the two leaders "greed to continue cooperation" to achieve the terror group's goals.
Iran has certainly been quick to celebrate the terrorist atrocities committed by Hamas. Immediately after news of the attack emerged, Iran's foreign ministry declared that the attack was an act of self-defence by the Palestinians.
According to Iranian state media, ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said:
"This operation ... is the spontaneous movement of resistance groups and Palestine's oppressed people in defence of their inalienable rights and their natural reaction to the Zionists' warmongering and provocative policies."
There were also jubilant scenes in Iran's Majlis (parliament), with members of parliament rising from their seats on Saturday to chant "Death to Israel" and "Palestine is victorious, Israel will be destroyed".
Iran's open support for the massacres has inevitably raised fears that the regime could be tempted to respond militarily when Israeli forces launch their ground operation to destroy Hamas's terrorist infrastructure in Gaza.
Visiting Lebanon after his meeting with Haniyeh, Iran's foreign minister warned that the conflict might expand to other parts of the Middle East if Hezbollah joins the battle, and that would make Israel suffer "a huge earthquake."
Concerns that Iran could provoke a major escalation in the conflict by encouraging Hezbollah to open a new front against northern Israel has already seen a rise in tensions, with sporadic clashes reported between Hezbollah and the Israeli military on the Israel-Lebanon border.
Israeli warplanes have also been in action bombing airports in Syria, which are used by Iran to transfer weapons and supplies to the network of military bases it has constructed in southern Syria.
Washington's decision to deploy two US Navy carrier battle groups, headed by the USS Gerald R Ford, the world's largest aircraft carrier, to the eastern Mediterranean was taken as much to deter any further attempt by Tehran to escalate the crisis as to demonstrate American support for Israel.
The extent of Iran's meddling in the current war in the Middle East should certainly serve as a wake-up call to the US and its European allies about the danger Iran poses not just to the region, but the wider world.
The timing of the attack, after all, came at a time when the Biden administration was involved in delicate negotiations with Riyadh for Saudi Arabia to normalise relations with Israel in return for US security guarantees, a move that would have added further to Iran's international isolation.
With the Saudi negotiations now on hold, the US and its allies should accept the folly of trying to maintain a diplomatic dialogue with Tehran in the hope that the Iranian regime may be persuaded to sign up to a new nuclear deal.
As Iran's open support for Hamas has demonstrated, the ayatollahs have no interest in reaching a peaceful accommodation with the West. Rather, they have been working for years to encircle Israel with their proxies -- Hezbollah in the north and Hamas in the south -- with the intent of obliterating it. Iran has not only been advancing its nuclear program; on Wednesday, the ban on Iranian missiles expires. Iran will be able to send missiles into Gulf countries in the Middle East, as well as to Russia to launch into Ukraine.
The Iranian regime is only concerned with supporting groups that carry out unimaginable acts of violence against innocent civilians, and should be treated with serious deterrence, if not more, and with the enemy status they fully deserve.
Con Coughlin is the Telegraph's Defence and Foreign Affairs Editor and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute.
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too bad Bolton had to write the book about how much he hated Trump
he was (he obviously reads this board) right about Iran all along
I enjoy seeing him on CNN again now that he is not discussing Trump.
he was on yesterday on CNN.
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Appeasing Iran Has Failed
Obama and Biden’s effort at détente with Tehran destabilized the entire region and emboldened Hamas.
Walter Russell Mead
By
Walter Russell Mead
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Oct. 16, 2023 6:05 pm ET
The horrors don’t stop. The latest, as casualties continue to mount across Gaza, is the accumulating evidence that the killers from Hamas lacked even the humanity to grant their victims the mercy of a quick death. In far too many cases, the victims were tortured before they were killed.
But the horror is not limited to the Middle East. Decent people everywhere, including pious Muslims and fervent supporters of the Palestinian cause, recoiled from acts of barbarity that recall the darkest moments in human history. Basic decency, however, is not universal. There are Jew haters among us. Moved by bloodlust and orgiastic fantasies of revenge, they thronged the streets and squares of Europe and marched across American campuses.
There were those in the U.S. who justified violence against people with dangerous opinions in recent years by asserting that it was right and good to punch a Nazi. Today some of those same people have embraced the central cause of the Nazi movement. Jew hatred for them is a passion so pure, so justified, that those who torture Jewish children and slaughter helpless babies are heroes. The rest of us should take note and take care.
Meanwhile, not since the Russian invasion of Ukraine has the Biden administration exploded into political, diplomatic and military action as dramatically as in the aftermath of the massacres. President Biden has addressed the nation to share the pain and anger felt by Israelis and Americans at this horrendous and historic crime. Two carrier strike groups and other American military assets will patrol the theater with the aim of both preventing more Iranian proxies and Iran itself from joining their ally Hamas. And Secretary of State Antony Blinken has conducted a whirlwind tour of the Middle East, meeting with leaders from Israel to Qatar in hopes of containing the violence.
A crucial element is missing from this response. Even now, Team Biden does not seem to have internalized the reality that the American policy of “conciliate to evacuate”—to develop a U.S.-Iranian détente that would allow the U.S. to reduce its role in the region—remains, as it has since President Obama first began to implement it, a destabilizing force in the Middle East. It has discomfited our friends, disrupted our alliances, emboldened terrorists, and provided Iran’s mullahs with the resources to turn both Hezbollah and Hamas into formidably destructive forces.
The cynicism of Iran’s mullahs and their enablers is, in the end, the most shocking. Set aside the Israeli casualties and the blood of innocent Jewish children. Those who claim to rule Iran in God’s name do not care how many Palestinians die in the service of their ambitions. They despise the Sunni faith of the Muslim Brotherhood, to which Hamas belongs, and if they could, they would persecute tomorrow the terrorists they arm today.
Iran is unappeasable, but this truth is too inconvenient for the Biden administration to admit. Instead, administration spokesmen continue to minimize Tehran’s involvement with and responsibility for the murders. Iran, which at this point seems to have little fear from an administration it believes it has cowed, is more open. It makes no bones about its support for the murders in Gaza. After the attack, when it was already clear how indiscriminate the killing had been, Iran’s foreign minister embraced the head of Hamas, a man who lives in luxury in Qatar, a country that Mr. Biden last year designated a major non-NATO ally of the U.S.
Hamas must be dealt with, and the direct perpetrators of these unspeakable acts must give themselves up for trial or be killed. But justice demands and prudence requires more. While the perpetrators of these horrors came from Gaza, those ultimately responsible do not live there. It is the leaders of Hamas living in luxury in Qatar and other havens far from the poverty of Gaza who provided the organizational leadership and gave the orders. And it is the mullahs and the agents of the Islamic Republic of Iran who provided the resources, training and encouragement without which the Hamas leadership would neither have dared nor been able to unleash this evil on the world.
The truth is simple. Iran is at war with Israel and with the U.S. It does not seek compromise or accommodation. It does not want its interests respected or its grievances redressed. It wants what it says it wants: a holocaust in Israel and the destruction of the U.S.
This does not mean that we need to send an expeditionary force or a fleet of bombers. There are many ways to skin a cat. We can and should learn from our errors after 9/11. But we must be honest with ourselves. We have a war on our hands with the worst kind of enemy. Wishful thinking won’t make it go away.
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https://www.19fortyfive.com/2023/10/iran-may-exploit-israels-war-to-sprint-to-nuclear-weapons/
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On top of the 8 billion 'that did not pay for these attacks', we enriched them with 40 billion more in oil revenues based on US policies blocking US production.
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CTUP:
"Why Iran Loves Biden
Our latest CTUP study on oil production finds that the U.S. is down by two to three million barrels A DAY in domestic drilling (below the Trump-era trend) thanks to Biden's anti-fossil fuel policies.
It turns out that over that same time period, Iran has INCREASED its oil exports by about 1.5 million barrels a day.
This has put roughly $40 billion more into the coffers of the Iranian government. Terrorists can buy a lot of rockets with that much money."
(Doug). The policy of projecting weakness at home and around the world isn't going very well.
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https://townhall.com/columnists/victordavishanson/2023/10/20/does-iran-realize-its-own-growing-danger-n2630131
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Imagine the caterwauling if Russia had officials dug in this deep in the Trump admin:
https://pjmedia.com/columns/kashpatel/2023/10/24/how-iran-infiltrated-the-highest-levels-of-our-government-n1737345
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https://www.frontpagemag.com/bidens-iran-hostage-swap-allows-iranian-agents-to-remain-in-u-s/
To protect from this being Memory Holed, here is the content:
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Biden’s Iran Hostage ‘Swap’ Allows Iranian Agents to Remain in U.S.
“I am planning to resume teaching American politics at Umass Boston”
October 6, 2023 by Daniel Greenfield 35 Comments
Newsletter
In traditional hostage swaps, we get our hostages returned and we return some enemy agents back to their country.
For example, we freed a major Russian arms dealer and in return we got a pothead WNBA player.
But Biden somehow managed to negotiate an even worse hostage deal with Iran in which the Islamic terror state gets $6 billion and we free 5 Iranians… who then remain in the United States.
Picture a Cold War prisoner swap in which we free Soviet agents who then stay on in the United States.
Court filings seen by VOA show Kambiz Attar Kashani was released Monday from a federal prison in Michigan after receiving a presidential commutation of his sentence, while Kaveh Lotfolah Afrasiabi and Amin Hasanzadeh received presidential pardons as they awaited trial on federal charges. The clemency letters for the three men, signed by President Joe Biden on September 14, had similar conditions attached.
The other two Iranians granted clemency by the U.S. under the deal, Mehrdad Ansari and Reza Sarhangpour Kafrani, arrived in Tehran late Monday after being flown to Qatar earlier in the day.
Why aren’t they all in Tehran? Because the same folks negotiating a new Iran Deal got us the best deal ever.
Iran gets $6 billion and we get to keep their agents.
The frequent New York Times contributor pardoned by US President Joe Biden after being charged as a paid foreign agent of Iran says he’s planning to return to teaching.
“I am planning to resume teaching American politics and international relations as I did most recently in 2022 at Umass Boston,” Kaveh Afrasiabi told The Algemeiner by email.
I’m not sure how the next hostage deal could get any worse, but I have every faith that the Biden administration will find a way. Maybe next time the provisions will also name Iran’s agents to top positions at the Pentagon.
Sorry, that one already happened too.
Tabatabai’s bio now describes her as the Chief of Staff to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict. Up from a Senior Advisor last year.
In 2014, a year before Tabatabai began working as a NATO consultant, she joined an initiative by the Iranian Foreign Ministry to mobilize “Iranians who have established affiliations with the leading international think-tanks and academic institutions, mainly in Europe and the US.”
Before Tabatabai testified about the Iran Deal in Congress, she allegedly checked in with the head of an Iranian Foreign Ministry think tank. “I am scheduled to go to the Congress to give a talk about the nuclear program. I will bother you in the coming days,” she wrote.
Does she still have her job? Obviously.
So maybe in the next deal, Iran gets to name three of its agents as cabinet members. And then the next president.
Avatar photo
Daniel Greenfield
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.
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https://openthebooks.substack.com/p/biden-policies-delivered-50-60-billion
How come nobody argues with the Iran description, world's largest state sponsor of terror? Yet they keep sending them money.
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Note date
https://www.sps-aviation.com/news/?id=719&catId=1&h=Israeli-F-35-stealth-fighters-fly-secret-mission-undetected-in-Iranian-airspace&fbclid=IwAR0GLM1jNrJtvxlcTXHmXcjOdhcAq_ilF7xpy9IcD2VcEx4IoIXGPCOqtJg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTgTzhwM_jk&t=1s
Also there is the matter of nuke capable Israeli subs.
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second
October 30, 2023
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The US and Iran’s Not-Quite-Escalation
Neither has joined in on the Israel-Hamas conflict, but both have shown that they will not be ignored.
By: Caroline D. Rose
Iran has spent the better part of the conflict in Gaza engaged in a war of words. Its foreign minister said as early as Oct. 15 that the conflict could spread into multiple fronts. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei warned that Iran couldn’t be expected to hold back if Israeli attacks continued. And the deputy commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said Iranian-sponsored militia networks in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Iraq are ready to strike if Israel oversteps in Gaza. In no uncertain terms, Iran’s entry would mark a dramatic escalation in the conflict.
It’s not clear exactly what Iran’s red line is. And with the heavy cost of direct intervention against Israel – and, in that case, of inevitable confrontation with the United States – it’s also uncertain whether Iran would make good on its promises if Israel persists in its unabated campaign in Gaza. But it is clear that Iran is ready to ratchet up the pressure if it needs to.
In 2014, U.S. forces re-entered Iraq and, for the first time, stationed forces in Syria to confront the Islamic State, which was rapidly consolidating territorial control throughout the region. The fight against IS fractured the organization and crippled its capacity to launch large-scale attacks, but it also resulted in an increased presence of Iranian-backed militias, which were able to gain a stronger foothold in Iraq proper and along the Syria-Iraq border. (Iran has long employed militias to act as proxies throughout the region to extend its security and political influence in neighboring countries, build rapport in the region and pressure adversaries like Saudi Arabia, the U.S. and Israel.) This forced the U.S. to rethink its objectives in the Middle East in order to ensure that its presence in Iraq and Syria could also serve as a deterrent to Iranian ambitions.
Iran's Sphere of Influence
(click to enlarge)
The competition to achieve their respective goals naturally tends to produce a careful diplomatic dance of threats and tit-for-tat strikes on security forces. Over the past several years, they have exchanged rocket strikes on multiple occasions, with Iran targeting defensive assets but generally avoiding killing U.S. personnel so as not to escalate things past the point of no return. But things changed in January 2020, when the U.S. killed IRGC commander Qassem Soleimani, a key architect of Iran’s proxy strategy. Iran responded with 12 direct missile strikes against U.S. forces stationed at the al-Asad airbase in western Iraq and the airbase in Irbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, resulting in 110 casualties. The development prompted Washington to transfer assets throughout that spring and summer, consolidating the U.S. posture primarily to Irbil, Baghdad and a few other strategic posts in Iraq, reducing personnel to 2,500 and downgrading the mandate of Operation Inherent Resolve from a combat to an advisory role. Meanwhile, U.S. forces winnowed down the number of bases they had in northeast Syria and reduced their presence to 900 personnel, opting instead to rely on partners such as the Syrian Democratic Forces. Even so, U.S. forces continued to engage in occasional proportional strikes against Iranian-aligned militias.
Knowing that the situation in Gaza could escalate – and that if it does, it will almost certainly involve Iran – the U.S. sent a variety of assets to the region, including 2,000 Marines, two aircraft carriers and several warships. The idea was to deter Iran from tapping, say, Hezbollah to engage in large-scale attacks in northern Israel, and to have assets in place in case deterrence doesn’t work.
Iran has yet to enter the fray, but as with the U.S. deployments, it has signaled that it will not be ignored. Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen launched three ballistic cruise missiles and drones in the Red Sea, which were intercepted by a U.S. destroyer. (The U.S. said that they could have been directed at Israel.) In Iraq, U.S. forces stationed at the Ain al-Asad airbase, al-Harir airbase, Baghdad International Airport and elsewhere were targeted in drone and missile attacks. In Syria, U.S. forces stationed at the al-Tanf base were similarly targeted. No attack resulted in anything more than minor injuries, but they sent a clear message that if the U.S. sought to build up its presence in the region, Iran would do its best to make it as uncomfortable as possible. In these kinds of situations, it doesn’t take much for carefully measured threats to lead to indirect confrontation.
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Prepare for an Iranian Escalation
Tehran can’t sit back and watch Israel crush Hamas. Absent serious deterrence, it will open a second front.
By Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takeyh
Oct. 30, 2023 3:28 pm ET
Iran has patiently built up its “axis of resistance” over 20 years. This alliance among Iran, the Syrian regime, Hezbollah, Hamas and other radical Sunni and Shiite Arab militias is an expression of the Islamic Republic’s vibrant anti-Western ethos. It’s also a means by which the clerical regime can overcome the enormous damage the Syrian civil war has inflicted on its standing among Sunni Muslims. Despite the theocracy’s crucial role in driving Islamic sectarianism, its aspirations to be a vanguard for all Muslims still define Iran’s self-image.
Tehran can’t sit back and watch Israel obliterate Hamas. Fortunately for the clerical regime, its Palestinian proxy in Gaza will be hard to destroy. The farther the Israel Defense Forces advance, the more pressure will mount on the Islamic Republic to expand the conflict. Since the theocracy isn’t suicidal, it will try to calibrate its aggression. Tehran has never been willing to escalate with Jerusalem into direct confrontation. That fear ought to guide both Israeli and American actions.
The Islamic Republic has always relied on terrorist organizations to do its bidding. Since the 1980s, Tehran’s most operationally savvy protégé, Hezbollah, has given the regime the ability to manipulate Lebanese politics and kill scores of its enemies, including U.S. troops. In the aftermath of 9/11, especially after the 2010 Arab Spring, the Iranians fine-tuned their grand strategy. The collapsing Arab state system allowed the mullahs to assemble nonstate paramilitary outfits that they could deploy to various battlegrounds. Iran-aided militias helped evict the U.S. from Iraq, ensured the survival of Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship in Syria, and mauled Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in Yemen.
The axis of resistance has transformed the Islamic Republic into the region’s most essential power broker. No government can form in Iraq, Syria or Lebanon without its consent. Iran’s auxiliary forces also deter its enemies. Should Israeli or American leaders consider striking Iran’s nuclear installations, they have to take into account Hezbollah’s formidable arsenal of missiles. And the war in Gaza, for which the Islamic Republic had long been prepping Hamas, has reminded Arab potentates that expanding the Abraham Accords carries enormous risks.
Yet the axis of resistance needs Hamas to survive in some form. Going full martyr—Sunnis die, Shiites watch—would leave Iran caged and embarrassed. Iran’s theocracy has signaled its intent. On his recent tour of the Middle East, Iranian Foreign Minister Hussein Amir-Abdollahian warned: “If the Zionist aggression does not stop, the hands of all parties in the region are on the trigger.” Nor was he being coy about one set of hands. “The whole world knows that Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah”—Hezbollah’s leader—“is a man of action and has played an outstanding role in securing the region and Lebanon.” There have already been modest clashes on Israel’s northern border.
Behind Iran’s incremental war strategy is a reasoned diplomatic one. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei hopes that a gradual expansion of the war might hasten its end. Arabs will protest more. Europeans will dispatch mediation missions. The Biden team, which seems terrified of a larger conflagration, is already encouraging patience in Jerusalem. Washington has been arguing for limited military intrusions that would kill fewer civilians. Anxious Israeli generals, who would need to keep larger ground and air-force reserves for a more active northern front, may start talking again of “mowing the lawn” via periodic small incursions in Gaza, even though that tactic has failed miserably. Mr. Khamenei knows his regime can restore a degraded Hamas. If Hamas loses too much manpower and leadership, however, it might stay dead even if the spirit of resistance lives on.
The trickiest question for Mr. Khamenei is how an escalated conflict would affect the regime’s standing inside Iran. Direct retaliation by Israel, and especially by the U.S., might trigger a chain reaction of discontent with little rallying-around-the-flag effect. The Islamist regime is wobbly. A struggling economy and a rebellious public scornful of Arab and imperialist Islamist causes—Iran’s “forever wars”—weigh on the supreme leader’s decisions. The more direct the U.S. and Israeli threat is to the regime, the more likely that Mr. Khamenei will retreat. An explicit American threat to take the war to Iran would give Israel more breathing room to dismantle Hamas in Gaza, if that’s what Jerusalem decides to do. President Biden’s decision to bring two aircraft-carrier groups into the region helps. He should go further.
What the White House shouldn’t do is quietly warn Tehran not to meddle in Gaza or to unleash Hezbollah. The Islamic Republic is accustomed to back-channel admonishments. America’s armadas have patrolled the Gulf for years without sufficiently changing the mullahs’ calculus. To make a lasting impression on Mr. Khamenei, Mr. Biden needs to declare publicly a red line: Another Hezbollah missile attack on Israel will invite direct U.S. retaliation on Iran. In 2003, when Mr. Khamenei feared the possibility of the Bush administration unleashing its “shock and awe” warfare on Iran, the clerical regime suspended its uranium enrichment. When the perennially unpredictable Donald Trump killed the Islamic Republic’s famed commander Qasem Soleimani, Mr. Khamenei let loose a short missile barrage at U.S. forces in Iraq but went no further.
Iranian escalation this time around is a certainty. Jerusalem and Washington need to deny themselves wiggle room and threaten the clerical regime, not its proxies. This war is going to get worse. It’s past time for Israel and the U.S. to up the ante.
Mr. Gerecht, a former Iranian-targets officer in the CIA, is a resident scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Mr. Takeyh is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
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" Tehran can’t sit back and watch Israel crush Hamas. Absent serious deterrence, it will open a second front."
question
is
"DON'T enough of a deterrent?"
especially coming from Joe/Kamala .
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20122/iran-war-against-jews
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See Replies 4,5, 6, 7 of this thread and forward. Very interesting to see what has and has not changed.
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Good context re a significant player where Iranian appeasement is concerned:
https://www.commentary.org/articles/eli-lake/robert-malley-noxious-views-now-mainstream/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=website&utm_campaign=SocialSnap&fbclid=IwAR3Wm0JEyjMyW4aAWRnv0BPhKjvhm4MIzbVDmTVHVPYj0bAq1uuAdX0kbiI
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https://www.cbsnews.com/news/iran-involved-red-sea-attacks-white-house-claim/
It's the Biden White House now suddenly discovering Iran is our enemy after sending how many billion?
Why is it so obvious to me/us/all Republicans andi most Democrats and so difficult for Obama, Biden and top advisers to see with all the intelligence in the world?
One more area of disapproval of Biden policy on what should be a 90/10 issue against them.
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https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/john-bolton-military-action-iran/2023/12/28/id/1147548/
of course would never happen under this administration and especially with election coming up.
I wish Bolton did not have to write a book and go on every enemy news outlet to bash DJT.
I don't disagree with him overall but to cash in on it was, shall we say, not a display of chivalry or class.
That said I have otherwise always liked him and still value his opinion.
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Trump liked having him as his pitbull sitting at his elbow during negotiations with adversaries.
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From Free Press fight club
Oliver Wiseman:
Bombs and Bloodshed in Iran
Bomb blasts killed over 100 people at a ceremony to mark the anniversary of the death of former Iranian Revolutionary Guard leader Qasem Soleimani in Iran yesterday. Iranian officials condemned a “terrorist act” and promised retribution. The explosion, which also left 211 wounded according to Iranian state media, is the deadliest such incident in Iran since the revolution. It is also yet another destabilizing atrocity in a region only getting less stable.
But before we get to the wider context, the first question is: Who did this? At the time of writing, no group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told The Free Press the attack was most likely a “Sunni extremist group,” like Islamic State. Dubowitz called conjecture that Israel might be behind the attack “total nonsense,” noting that it “has none of the hallmarks of an Israeli attack.”
The incident, Dubowitz says, “underscores the extent of the domestic turmoil that has enveloped Iran over the past six or seven years. . . . It’s becoming increasingly obvious that the dissent inside of Iran may be more than the regime can handle.”
So that leaves the regime responsible for so much of the violence in the region right now—from attacks by the Houthis and Hamas to the groups striking U.S. forces in Iran and Syria—feeling less secure and more threatened.
Not exactly a reassuring thought.
To make matters worse, Wednesday also saw the Hezbollah chief respond to the killing of a Hamas leader in Beirut a day earlier. Hassan Nasrallah vowed “a response and punishment” after the suspected Israeli drone strike and said there will be “no ceilings” and “no rules” for his Iran-backed terrorist group if Israel attacks Lebanon. IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi addressed the prospect of war against Hezbollah last night when he told security officials that the military was in a “very strong state of readiness in the north.”
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U.S. Secretly Alerted Iran Ahead of Islamic State Terrorist Attack
Washington passed actionable intelligence to Tehran about the plot that killed 84 and wounded many more
By Michael R. Gordon Vivian Salama
and Warren P. Strobel
Updated Jan. 26, 2024 2:52 pm ET
The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the pair of explosions that killed dozens of people in Iran. The attack happened during a ceremony to mark the anniversary of the death of Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in 2020. Photo: Morteza Nikoubazl/Zuma Press
WASHINGTON—The U.S. secretly warned Iran that Islamic State was preparing to carry out the terrorist attack early this month that killed more than 80 Iranians in a pair of coordinated suicide bombings, U.S. officials said.
The confidential alert came after the U.S. acquired intelligence that Islamic State’s affiliate in Afghanistan, ISIS-Khorasan, known as ISIS-K, was plotting to attack Iran, they said.
American officials said the information passed to Iran was specific enough about the location and sufficiently timely that it might have proved useful to Tehran in thwarting the attack on Jan. 3 or at least mitigating the casualty toll.
Iran, however, failed to prevent the suicide bombings in the southeastern town of Kerman, which targeted a crowd that was commemorating the anniversary of the death of Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds force. Soleimani was killed in a January 2020 drone attack near the Baghdad airport ordered by then-President Donald Trump.
The blasts killed dozens of people earlier this month in Kerman, Iran. PHOTO: WANA NEWS AGENCY/REUTERS
“Prior to ISIS’s terrorist attack on January 3, 2024, in Kerman, Iran, the U.S. government provided Iran with a private warning that there was a terrorist threat within Iranian borders,” a U.S. official said, using an acronym for Islamic State. “The U.S. government followed a longstanding ‘duty to warn’ policy that has been implemented across administrations to warn governments against potential lethal threats. We provide these warnings in part because we do not want to see innocent lives lost in terror attacks.”
Officials with Iran’s mission to the United Nations didn’t respond to a request for comment. Iran’s state news agency IRNA later said it had been told by what it called an informed source that no alert of the attack had been provided. “If any messages had been sent by the United States, it would have been aimed at remaining safe from the Islamic Republic’s response,” IRNA said, quoting a second official that it described as a security source.
Despite the American warning, some Iranian hard-liners have suggested that Islamic State perpetrators were linked to the U.S. and Israel. At a ceremony in Kerman honoring the victims, Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami, the most senior Revolutionary Guard commander said Islamic State “has disappeared nowadays,” arguing the jihadists “only act as mercenaries” for U.S. and Israeli interests.
Iranian Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami suggested U.S. and Israel were responsible for the attack. PHOTO: SEPAHNEWS/ZUMA PRESS
U.S. officials declined to say what channels were used to warn Iran or divulge details of what was passed. Nor did they say if this was the first time Washington has passed such a warning to the Iranian regime.
Iranian officials didn’t respond to the U.S. about the warning, said one American official. It wasn’t clear why the Iranians failed to thwart or blunt the attack, several officials said.
The U.S. routinely shares warnings of potential terrorist activity with allies and partners. In some cases, it also warns potential adversaries. In December 2019, Russian President Vladimir Putin thanked President Trump for sharing intelligence that helped the Kremlin thwart a plot in St. Petersburg.
The bombings in Kerman, which killed 84 Iranians and wounded hundreds more, were the bloodiest terrorist attack inside Iran since the current government took over in the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
Islamic State claimed responsibility after the attack, saying that two of its operatives had detonated explosive belts. The ideology of Islamic State, a hard-line Sunni group, considers Shiite Muslims, a majority of Iran’s population, to be apostates. Islamic State and Iran have previously clashed.
ISIS-K first emerged in Afghanistan in 2015 after Islamic State militants declared a caliphate in Iraq and Syria. It was responsible for the bombing near the Kabul airport in August 2021 that killed 13 American troops and about 170 Afghan civilians as the U.S. military withdrew from Afghanistan.
The group has been a mortal enemy of the Taliban and had been greatly weakened during the American military presence in Afghanistan by attacks from U.S. and Afghan government forces and by the Taliban themselves.
With the departure of U.S. forces, ISIS-K has grown in strength. U.S. officials say it is one of the most dangerous groups in the region, eclipsing al Qaeda, with ambitions to strike targets in the West.
Biden administration officials confirmed soon after the Jan. 3 attack in Iran that they had information that ISIS-K was the culprit. But they didn’t reveal that the U.S. had advance intelligence about the attack or that they had tipped off the Iranians.
A U.S. intelligence community directive known as “duty to warn” requires spy agencies to warn intended victims, both U.S. citizens and non-Americans, if they are the target of a terrorist attack. There are exceptions, including if the intended victims are themselves terrorists or criminals, or if issuing a warning would endanger U.S. or allied government personnel, or intelligence or military operations.
In the case of Iran, Washington alerted an adversary that has armed multiple proxies, including Yemen’s Houthis as well as militias in Syria and Iraq that have carried out more than 150 attacks on American forces since mid-October.
One former U.S. official said there could be a number of reasons for Washington to warn Iran. In addition to protecting innocent civilians, such a warning might be intended to prevent Tehran from responding to the attack in a way that could create further instability in the region and potentially undermine U.S. interests.
Other former officials said that providing such a warning might also be a way to spur dialogue on foreign policy issues.
Relatives mourned family members killed in the explosions. PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES
“With Iran, it gets gray,” said former CIA officer Douglas London, because the U.S. has designated Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a foreign terrorist organization and yet most of the intended victims of the ISIS-K attack were civilians.
London, who worked on counterterrorism including duty-to-warn issues at the spy agency, said the decision to tip off Iran was likely made by senior officials at the White House and CIA. Passing the intelligence, he said, allowed the U.S. to take the moral high ground and could also be intended to encourage Iran to be receptive to dealing with Washington on some security matters.
Within the U.S. government, the warning to Iran has been a carefully guarded secret, a U.S. official said, suggesting that Washington was trying to minimize the risk that its contact with Tehran, even indirect, might be disclosed.
The ISIS-K bombings have posed a conundrum for Iran’s hard-liners, who have portrayed the U.S. and Israel as the regime’s enduring foes.
After ISIS-K took responsibility for the attack, Iran on Jan. 15 fired four Kheibar Shekan ballistic missiles at targets Tehran claimed were linked to Islamic State in Syria’s Idlib province. Fired from Iran’s Khuzestan Province, it was Iran’s longest missile strike, according to the IRGC Aerospace force commander.
An investigation by Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence, published on Jan. 10, reported that the attack was carried out by a team of Tajik operatives based in Afghanistan—where the local branch of Islamic State’s ISIS-Khorasan Province is based.
Alex Vatanka, director of the Iran program at the Middle East Institute, a Washington think tank, said that the ISIS-K attack was a humiliating setback for Tehran, whose strategy calls for training and equipping proxies across the Middle East so it doesn’t have to fight its foes at home.
“ISIS operatives were able to come in and attack in the birthplace of Soleimani,” Vatanka said. “The headlines wrote themselves: the Islamic Republic cannot protect the Iranian homeland.”
Benoit Faucon contributed to this article.
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January 28, 2024
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U.S. and Iranian Intentions
By: George Friedman
Three U.S. servicemen were killed during a drone attack last night on a military base in Jordan, located near the Syrian border. President Joe Biden has blamed Iran-backed militias, who have engaged in tit-for-tat strikes on U.S. forces for months but until today had been careful not to escalate too dramatically.
To understand how this plays out, we need to understand the respective imperatives and motivations of the U.S. and Iran.
The U.S. has been interested in the Middle East for some time, of course, and has been more or less actively deployed there since Operation Desert Storm, the goal of which was to prevent Iraq from attacking its neighbors and thus taking control of the area’s oil supply. Iraq is no longer the threat it once was, but it is very much in Iran’s sphere of influence. More recently, Washington has been focused on subnational movements that could destabilize the region. Put simply, the U.S. position in the Middle East is the same it has been since the 1950s: to maintain the flow of oil and to minimize violence by blocking countries and movements deemed hostile to U.S. interests. Thus, U.S. forces and allies are scattered throughout the region.
Much of Iran’s recent activity runs counter to that position. Nearly two weeks ago, Iran fired missiles at targets in northwestern Syria, Iraqi Kurdistan and southwestern Pakistan ostensibly in response to a terrorist attack in the Iranian city of Kerman. Tehran is also supporting Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who are using Iranian-supplied weapons and intelligence to attack oil tankers and other vessels in the Red Sea and nearby waterways. For the past few weeks, the U.S. and certain allies have been fighting a naval war against Houthis.
The U.S. goal, then, is to make sure its allies are not overthrown or destabilized – which requires supporting strategic forces. Iran’s goal is to undermine the U.S. position and become the most powerful force in the region – which requires a U.S. withdrawal. It is not enough that the U.S. withdraw from the region; Iran must be seen as driving them out. Secondarily, it needs to be seen as the leader of the fight against Israel through its mostly Shia proxies forces and thereby demonstrate the weakness of Sunni actors.
If the U.S. is forced out, then Iran is in a position to impose power on the Suez Canal and possibly further. If Iran is broken, the U.S. will dominate the region. Iran has the weaker military and is far less influential, and it seems to have determined that striking the U.S. with what power it has will cause the U.S. to eventually leave. But the stakes are different. The U.S. will survive if it “loses.” Iran’s very future is at risk.
The U.S. must attack Iranian targets of note if it wants to show it is prepared to fight – and win. Iran will have to counter similarly. If executed, the conflict will feature missile and air power to minimize casualties. Iran will use ground forces along with its drones, and the U.S. will try to destroy drone factories and storage areas. Tehran will attempt a short but very intense campaign to discourage U.S. allies from joining the fray.
If the United States must engage in a high intensity war against Iran, then it will be less able to supply Ukraine with needed support. We should therefore watch for possible Russian involvement because it will give Moscow an opportunity to become more effective than it has been.
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https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2024/02/02/guess-what-happened-after-biden-gave-iran-a-preview-of-its-retaliation-plans-n4926059
what we really need do is destroy (if we even can) their nuclear facilities.
but I am dreaming ....
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With current events in mind this may be a good moment to remember the willingness of the Iranian mullahs to take casualties-- even to the point of being willing to send waves of children tied together to prevent casualties to clear minefields as was done in the Iraq-Iran War:
https://www.wearethemighty.com/mighty-history/iran-iraq-war-child-soldiers-
Also worth remembering is that what this piece describes about Hussein's tactics was fully backed by Reagan as a way of retaliating for Iran having taken our embassy people hostage.
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ECONOMIC
Update on Global Oil Markets: Surge in Iran's Oil Exports and Strategic Shifts
Iran's oil export shipments have seen a significant boost in 2023, reaching an average of 1.3 million barrels per day. This increase of nearly 50% from the previous year is the highest in five years, with China being the main recipient of these exports. Despite strict US sanctions, Iran's oil production also rose to 2.99 million barrels per day, as per the International Energy Agency (IEA).
Meanwhile, global shipping logistics face disruptions reminiscent of the COVID crisis, with an increased volume of ships passing through the Suez Canal. Regional tensions, exacerbated by US and British airstrikes in Yemen, have led to heightened warnings for ships navigating this volatile area. Consequently, maritime trade faces potential prolonged challenges.
Shipping costs have surged, with Drewry Shipping Consultants reporting a 23% increase in the cost of shipping a 40-foot container, now averaging $3,777. Spot market rates for containers from China to Los Angeles have similarly risen by 38% to $3,860. Companies bound by long-term shipping contracts are now facing additional fees to cover the rising costs of shipping, fuel, and insurance.
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[as was everyone on the forum]
https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/lieberman-biden-trump/2024/02/04/id/1152218/
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Maybe he is wrong about Haley but he is right about Iran. Report on drudge they are week away from one nuc 1 mo away from 6 and 5 mo from 12. I don’t know if they have means to deliver by missle but can prob do by jet payload.
We won’t have to “imagine” world with nuclear armed Iran much longer. How does it look now Barack that you thwarted Israel from taking pre emptive action? The dirtball and his followers will blame Netanyahu with twisting logic around of course.
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Iran’s Long-Range Missile Ambitions
Tehran launches a satellite with technology useful for developing ICBMs.
By
The Editorial Board
Follow
Feb. 5, 2024 6:32 pm ET
Wonder Land: If you were an adversary looking at a U.S. uncertainty about its global leadership, what would you do? Answer: Up the ante—which is exactly what Iran, Russia and others are doing. Images: AP/AFP/Getty Images/Zuma Press Composite: Mark Kelly
President Biden’s retaliatory strikes in Iraq and Syria on the weekend were targeted to avoid hitting Iranians to avoid escalation. Imagine the restraints on the U.S. when Iran has nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them against U.S. allies or the U.S. homeland.
That’s the specter raised by Iran’s launch on Jan. 20 of a satellite 450 miles into space. There’s significant overlap between the technologies used for space-launch vehicles and longer-range ballistic missiles, including intercontinental ballistic missiles. In 2019 then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo described these technologies as “virtually identical and interchangeable.”
In its recent launch Iran for the first time used an all-solid propellant launcher, incorporating a state-of-the-art technology commonly used for long-range missiles, according to Fabian Hinz of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Weight is a factor for missile range and payload, so it’s notable that the satellite launch featured a lightweight carbon motor casing. Another dual-use feature was flexible nozzles for thrust control, which can also be used to steer long-range missiles.
Iran says it won’t develop missiles with a range of more than 2,000 kilometers, but that promise can’t be trusted. Even 2,000 kilometers is long enough to strike Israel and U.S. military bases in the Middle East.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) presided over the launch. Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam, the founder of Iran’s ballistic missile project, was working on its pursuit of space-launch vehicles and solid propellants before his death in 2011, according to Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. The IRGC officer’s brother told a state-owned newspaper that Tehrani Moghaddam had been working on a project “related to an intercontinental ballistic missile” in a story that was later edited to omit that quote, according to the BBC.
Unlike satellites, longer-range missiles must be capable of re-entering the earth’s atmosphere without burning up. It’s unclear how close Iran is to gaining this capability, but that’s a technology Russia has mastered and could share with Tehran. NBC News reported in August that a U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency spokesman referred to “indications that Russian technicians are helping Iran with its space-launched vehicle program, which could aid Tehran’s goal of developing intercontinental ballistic missiles.”
All of this underscores that Iran’s nuclear ambitions remain its main threat to world order, and Tehran is on the path to getting there.
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Iranian ICBMs
that is it.
we can't allow them period!
not only is this threat to Israel but also us and everyone else.
Bomb the nuc sites NOW!
Iran can't hit us now so what are we waiting for?
SA will then seek nucs .....
Barack thought we play nice assuming we can contain them when they get nucs
clearly resigned they will do so better then doing anything about it.
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https://dailycaller.com/2024/02/02/victor-davis-hanson-war-with-iran-middle-east-conflict/
I would only add Barack to this summary.....
Biden is only continuing his policies.....
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Formidable summary there!
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Good thing he’s reestablished Obama’s Iranian appeasement strategy, if it can be called that. But hey, how could nuclear armed Shiites possibly harm the US or its interests?
Biden should know by now why his message to Iran isn't getting through
The Hill News / by Jonathan Sweet and Mark Toth / February 08, 2024 at 07:02AM
A “tiered approach” is how National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby described the U.S. response to the Jan. 28 attack against Tower 22 in Jordan. That attack, carried out by the Iran-backed Islamic Resistance in Iraq, killed three American soldiers and wounded another 40.
President Joe Biden's goal is to “degrade" the group's ability to attack American troops and facilities, while sending a “strong signal to their backers,” namely Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
According to Pentagon Press Secretary Major General Pat Ryder, the initial tier of the air strikes on Feb. 2 included “more than 85 targets that Iran's IRGC and affiliated militias have used to attack U.S. forces. The facilities struck included command-and-control operation centers, intelligence centers, rockets, missiles, unmanned aerial vehicle storage and logistics and munition supply chain facilities.” The general added that 80 of the 85 targets were “destroyed or functionally damaged.”
Casualty account figures vary. According to the Middle East Institute, “of the 34 confirmed fatalities, all were locals, except four Afghan members of Liwa Fatemiyoun (an Afghan Shi’a force founded and supported by Tehran). In a separate report, the head of Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdurrahman, said “23 people were killed in the Syria strikes, all rank-and-file fighters.”
Contrary to Ryder’s announcement, Hussein al-Mosawi, spokesperson for Harakat al-Nujaba, one of the main Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, said the targeted sites in Iraq were mainly “devoid of fighters and military personnel at the time of the attack.”
Of note, not one of the 85 targets was in Iran, and not one member of the IRGC was a casualty. Conversely, in a single airstrike hours before the U.S. response, Israel killed IRGC military advisor Saeid Ali Dadi in south Damascus — their third airstrike against IRGC targets in Syria since Christmas.
Israel has repeatedly made clear it “will not allow Iran to expand its presence.” Tuesday evening, it backed that up by striking “Shuyrat airbase and several locations on the outskirts of Homs, Syria,” killing two Hezbollah fighters. No forewarnings, just steel on target, removing the threat from the battlefield.
Groundhog Day was another day of empty messaging for the Biden administration. And the message, having been received, was promptly ignored as Iranian proxies launched at least three more suicide drone attacks against U.S. bases. The drones were supposedly intercepted.
That does not include the Houthi response to joint U.S.-United Kingdom strikes in Yemen. Houthi rebels continue to fire anti-ship ballistic missiles at commercial shipping and U.S. Navy ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, and recently employed subsurface vessels. Houthi rebels have used subsurface vessels successfully against the Saudi Navy in their war against the Saudis.
A fourth attack occurred on Monday that resulted in six U.S.-backed fighters from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) being killed in a drone strike on the U.S. base at al-Omar oilfield in Syria’s eastern Deir ez-Zor province. Eighteen were wounded in the attack. While no American casualties were taken, it was an American base.
The common denominator in all cases is Iran.
So the only message Iran seems to be getting loud and clear from the airstrikes conducted last Friday is that the White House is reluctant to strike targets inside Iran. Their proxies? Yes, but not Iran directly. Therefore, Iran’s response was to launch still more attacks through its proxies. Although Iran respects the capabilities of the U.S. military, it does not fear Biden, the man who would be responsible for giving the order to escalate.
When Biden and his spokespersons say they “do not want a war with Iran,” or they “do not want to widen the war in the Middle East,” Tehran believes them. That is the only message Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei hears — everything else is noise. For Iran, it is part of the cost of doing business to have the U.S. target its proxies in northern Iraq and southeastern Syria. They are simply tools in Iran's toolbox, to be discarded when their usefulness is complete.
What seemingly is not at risk are the instruments of war that Iran maintains within its own borders — IRGC facilities and leadership, the Shahed-136 UAV production facility in Esfahan, nuclear facilities weaponizing uranium, and oil production facilities funding their proxies. And even some senior leadership of these proxy groups does not make the target list.
Conspicuously missing from the list of targets are Abu Fadak Al-Mohammedawi, chief of staff of Iraq’s Shiite-led Popular Mobilization Forces (Iraq’s equivalent of the IRGC) who likely ordered the attack on Tower 22, and Abdul Malik al-Houthi in Yemen.
It was not until Wednesday night that the U.S. targeted Abu Baqir al-Saadi and Arkan Al-Alawi in a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad. They were leaders within Kataib Hezbollah and were likely involved in the decision to strike Tower 22 on Jan. 28.
Biden and his National Security team need to get out of the messaging business with Iran. They are now 0 for 3 at effective messaging. The next tier of the “multiple actions” described by Kirby must hit closer to home for the message to resonate in Tehran. Washington must quit swatting at flies and start hitting nails on their heads. General Michael E. Kurilla and his team at U.S. Central Command are the hammer. The other instruments of national power can be applied post-strike to reinforce the message.
Iran is already preparing for the next tier. Biden needs to change his calculus. Iran likely believes he lacks the political will to take them on directly during a president election campaign. It is time for the president to prove them wrong before the next U.S. soldier is killed or wounded.
Col. (Ret.) Jonathan Sweet served 30 years as a military intelligence officer. Mark Toth writes on national security and foreign policy.
https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/4454113-biden-should-know-by-now-why-his-message-to-iran-isnt-getting-through/
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The whole reach out to Iran initiative never made any sense. Pay them ransom and they will love and respect us? Listen to them, the leaders, they hate us. What part of "Death to America" all these years does our leadership not understand?
Toward the end of the Bush administration some of us wondered if Cheney would ever talk the President into taking out Iran's nuclear capability. Didn't happen, and then we had the Obama American Apology Tour where we took the blame instead of them, and sent them planeloads of cash. 'We were only sending their money back to them', they said. True only if you think the assets were wrongfully frozen.
What part of "world's number one state sponsor of terror" do they not understand about Iran? How many of the American deaths in Iraq were Iranian-made IEDs?
A proxy in terror is what a shell company is in money laundering. Sure, shut it down but don't think you've addressed the problem.
One interesting part of both Reagan and Trump was that the opposition, including media, made them out to be so trigger happy that adversaries feared them, cf. Kim Jung Un climbed back in his hole, Putin waited for a Democrat administration for his next attack.
I just don't get what Dem leadership or Dem voters are thinking. The regime of Iran is a group you can work with? Israel isn't? Having no border security won't attract terrorists, espionage, worse? We don't need fossil fuels? Taxes and endless regulations don't harm regular people? Chopping off genitalia is affirmation? Men entering women's sports won't harm it? What are you people thinking? (Sorry about topic drift but the missing logic is the common thread.)
We're not waiting for another fly swat of 'retaliation' to appease the critics, that Biden advisers and controllers apparently can't agree on. We're waiting for deterrence, a disproportional response that makes them regret they ever did it and makes them not want to try it again. The kind of response that these people and the UN would criticize if Israel did it, like take down the regime. Whatever the response was going to be, it should have been ready before each of these attacks. These weren't surprises. These weren't black swan events. They were as predictable as the sun coming up, especially after they saw the bungling of Afghan retreat and everything else happening in Washington, Ukraine etc.
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If I hear MSM reiterate one more time "we don't want war with Iran"
:roll:
PS we are at war.
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I would like to pat myself on the back for being quite emphatic at the time here that Obama-Biden pulling our main force out of Iraq as they did was a huge historic error. First ISIS, now this.
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https://amgreatness.com/2024/02/09/could-joe-biden-order-a-u-s-attack-on-iran/D
Off the top of my head I would say:
A) real good idea as a practical matter, (especially with this lurking in the very near future https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20384/global-order-nuclear-iran ) and
B) YES as a C'l matter.
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when I click on top link this is what I see:
D.C. Jury Finds Michael Sussmann Not Guilty of Making a False Statement to the FBI
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I put the title of the desired article in Qwant and nothing came up, weird. Could the piece have been pulled?
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https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/rasmussen-reports-iran-poll/2024/02/19/id/1154157/
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https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/02/isis_renews_calls_for_terror.html
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GPF
Iran and Hungary signed a comprehensive cooperation agreement during Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto’s visit to Tehran. He met with his Iranian counterpart and signed a roadmap for cooperation in the agricultural sector. The ministers also exchanged views on regional and international issues.
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Bombing Iran
Nobody should welcome the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran. But bombing the place is not the answer
Feb 25th 2012 | from the print edition
FOR years Iran has practised denial and deception; it has blustered and played for time. All the while, it has kept an eye on the day when it might be able to build a nuclear weapon. The world has negotiated with Iran; it has balanced the pain of economic sanctions with the promise of reward if Iran unambiguously forsakes the bomb. All the while, outside powers have been able to count on the last resort of a military assault.
Today this stand-off looks as if it is about to fail. Iran has continued enriching uranium. It is acquiring the technology it needs for a weapon. Deep underground, at Fordow, near the holy city of Qom, it is fitting out a uranium-enrichment plant that many say is invulnerable to aerial attack. Iran does not yet seem to have chosen actually to procure a nuclear arsenal, but that moment could come soon. Some analysts, especially in Israel, judge that the scope for using force is running out. When it does, nothing will stand between Iran and a bomb.
The air is thick with the prophecy of war. Leon Panetta, America’s defence secretary, has spoken of Israel attacking as early as April. Others foresee an Israeli strike designed to drag in Barack Obama in the run-up to America’s presidential vote, when he will have most to lose from seeming weak.
A decision to go to war should be based not on one man’s electoral prospects, but on the argument that war is warranted and likely to succeed. Iran’s intentions are malign and the consequences of its having a weapon would be grave. Faced by such a regime you should never permanently forswear war. However, the case for war’s success is hard to make. If Iran is intent on getting a bomb, an attack would delay but not stop it. Indeed, using Western bombs as a tool to prevent nuclear proliferation risks making Iran only more determined to build a weapon—and more dangerous when it gets one.
A shadow over the Middle East
Make no mistake, an Iran armed with the bomb would pose a deep threat. The country is insecure, ideological and meddles in its neighbours’ affairs. Both Iran and its proxies—including Hizbullah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza—might act even more brazenly than they do now. The danger is keenly felt by Israel, surrounded by threats and especially vulnerable to a nuclear bomb because it is such a small land. Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, recently called the “Zionist regime” a “cancerous tumour that must be cut out”. Jews, of all people, cannot just dismiss that as so much rhetoric.
Even if Iran were to gain a weapon only for its own protection, others in the region might then feel they need weapons too. Saudi Arabia has said it will arm—and Pakistan is thought ready to supply a bomb in exchange for earlier Saudi backing of its own programme. Turkey and Egypt, the other regional powers, might conclude they have to join the nuclear club. Elsewhere, countries such as Brazil might see nuclear arms as vital to regional dominance, or fear that their neighbours will.
Some experts argue that nuclear-armed states tend to behave responsibly. But imagine a Middle East with five nuclear powers riven by rivalry and sectarian feuds. Each would have its fingers permanently twitching over the button, in the belief that the one that pressed first would be left standing. Iran’s regime gains legitimacy by demonising foreign powers. The cold war seems stable by comparison with a nuclear Middle East—and yet America and the Soviet Union were sometimes scarily close to Armageddon.
No wonder some people want a pre-emptive strike. But military action is not the solution to a nuclear Iran. It could retaliate, including with rocket attacks on Israel from its client groups in Lebanon and Gaza. Terror cells around the world might strike Jewish and American targets. It might threaten Arab oil infrastructure, in an attempt to use oil prices to wreck the world economy. Although some Arab leaders back a strike, most Muslims are unlikely to feel that way, further alienating the West from the Arab spring. Such costs of an attack are easy to overstate, but even supposing they were high they might be worth paying if a strike looked like working. It does not.
Striking Iran would be much harder than Israel’s successful solo missions against the weapons programmes of Iraq, in 1981, and Syria, in 2007. If an attack were easy, Israel would have gone in alone long ago, when the Iranian programme was more vulnerable. But Iran’s sites are spread out and some of them, hardened against strikes, demand repeated hits. America has more military options than Israel, so it would prefer to wait. That is one reason why it is seeking to hold Israel back. The other is that, for either air force, predictions of the damage from an attack span a huge range. At worst an Israeli mission might fail altogether, at best an American one could, it is said, set back the programme a decade (see article).
But uncertainty would reign. Iran is a vast, populous and sophisticated country with a nuclear programme that began under the shah. It may have secret sites that escape unscathed. Even if all its sites are hit, Iran’s nuclear know-how cannot be bombed out of existence. Nor can its network of suppliers at home and abroad. It has stocks of uranium in various stages of enrichment; an unknown amount would survive an attack, while the rest contaminated an unforeseeable area. Iran would probably withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, under which its uranium is watched by the International Atomic Energy Agency. At that point its entire programme would go underground—literally and figuratively. If Iran decided it needed a bomb, it would then be able to pursue one with utmost haste and in greater secrecy. Saudi Arabia and the others might conclude that they, too, needed to act pre-emptively to gain their own deterrents.
Perhaps America could bomb Iran every few years. But how would it know when and where to strike? And how would it justify a failing policy to the world? Perhaps, if limited bombing is not enough, America should be aiming for an all-out aerial war, or even regime change. Yet a decade in Iraq and Afghanistan has demonstrated where that leads. An aerial war could dramatically raise the threat of retaliation. Regime change might produce a government that the West could do business with. But the nuclear programme has broad support in Iran. The idea that a bomb is the only defence against an implacable American enemy might become stronger than ever.
Get real
That does not mean the world should just let Iran get the bomb. The government will soon be starved of revenues, because of an oil embargo. Sanctions are biting, the financial system is increasingly isolated and the currency has plunged in value. Proponents of an attack argue that military humiliation would finish the regime off. But it is as likely to rally Iranians around their leaders. Meanwhile, political change is sweeping across the Middle East. The regime in Tehran is divided and it has lost the faith of its people. Eventually, popular resistance will spring up as it did in 2009. A new regime brought about by the Iranians themselves is more likely to renounce the bomb than one that has just witnessed an American assault.
Is there a danger that Iran will get a nuclear weapon before that happens? Yes, but bombing might only increase the risk. Can you stop Iran from getting a bomb if it is determined to have one? Not indefinitely, and bombing it might make it all the more desperate. Short of occupation, the world cannot eliminate Iran’s capacity to gain the bomb. It can only change its will to possess one. Just now that is more likely to come about through sanctions and diplomacy than war.****
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https://spectator.org/dea-halts-weapons-grade-plutonium-en-route-to-iran/
:-o
I thought Robert Mitchum kicked their ass back in '74 :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yakuza
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Iranian satellite. Relatedly, Russia launched an Iranian-made satellite into orbit on Thursday. According to Iranian media, the satellite will be used for imaging, collecting domestic remote sensing data and testing of satellite technology.
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https://www.timesofisrael.com/obama-deal-to-give-iran-zero-breakout-time-in-13-years/?fbclid=IwAR2Qz1B1nYxrc9Opc-MmMq6f51psIk1wqd7xS1V1vG2yybH0yPLOlT4vpms
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https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2024/03/14/biden-rewards-irans-murder-of-3-us-troops-with-a-cool-10-billion-n4927293
Unless I am missing something (a good reason to do this not reported in the story) the idiocy of this speaks for itself.
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https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2024/03/14/biden-rewards-irans-murder-of-3-us-troops-with-a-cool-10-billion-n4927293
Unless I am missing something (a good reason to do this not reported in the story) the idiocy of this speaks for itself.
The idiocy of this speaks for itself.
For some reason (most) voters of the Left don't see the problem. Being tough on Iran should be a 90-10 issue or 100-0.
Hard to generalize with voter groups but my moderate Dem Jewish friends seem fed up with Biden, though (it appears) they will never come to Trump or to being Republican. And then he is losing Muslim support as well for not going far enough in that direction.
I've been puzzled for years how Jewish Americans and Muslim Americans find a home in the same party. It seems the massacre of Oct 7 has brought this to a head. (Also strange that gay Americans and Muslim Americans find home in the same political party. Am I missing something - or are they?)
No one seems to dispute Iran is the world's number one state sponsor of terror, even when Obama was sending them planeloads of cash. More money means more sponsoring of terror, and we send them more money. Even if it is 'their' money, assets were frozen for a reason.
Now we know they are sponsors of Oct 7 massacre and sponsors of the war Yemen is launching against commerce. And we send them more money?
It is pure, self destructive idiocy. I'm shocked our leaders come up with these policies. I'm even more shocked and offended that their followers will follow them, apparently anywhere no matter how idiotic or destructive.
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https://www.newsweek.com/why-jimmy-carter-owes-iranian-people-apology-opinion-1813190
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https://www.newsweek.com/why-jimmy-carter-owes-iranian-people-apology-opinion-1813190
Historians will always debate one question about Jimmy Carter, was his domestic or foreign policy dumber?
https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/07/jimmy-carter-gets-it-wrong-on-venezuela-again/
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" Historians will always debate one question about Jimmy Carter, was his domestic or foreign policy dumber?"
if only they would do the same for Brock/and his puppet
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April 10, 2024
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Iran’s Strategic Patience Dilemma
Israel’s recent strike on an Iranian consulate put Tehran in a difficult spot.
By: Hilal Khashan
Iran faces a dilemma in the wake of the Israeli attack last week on its consulate in Damascus, which killed seven senior officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. It’s under pressure at home to respond to the strike but is concerned about the possibility of igniting a broader conflict. The escalation comes amid repeated direct attacks on Iranian targets that could weaken its regional power. Over the past few months, Israel has been stepping up attacks on Iranian assets, specifically in Syria. Since October, the rules of engagement between Israel and Iran’s so-called axis of resistance have tilted in Israel’s favor. Israel’s military does not believe that Iran will launch a direct military strike in retaliation for the Damascus attack, but it has taken exceptional precautions by calling up air force reservists and canceling military leaves. The assumption is that Iran will bide its time and pursue a policy of “strategic patience.”
Patience as Policy
In 2015, the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama was the first to articulate a policy of strategic patience. Obama stressed that the United States’ unique set of challenges required perseverance and used this policy to pursue goals related to democracy, human rights, energy security, climate and nuclear security.
The U.S. applied this strategy in dealing with North Korea by maintaining political dialogue with Pyongyang while keeping open the option of military action. China has also used it with Taiwan, as Beijing awaits the right time to reunite the island with the mainland. In both cases, the United States and China can impose their conditions on their opponents, even though they prefer not to antagonize them. By definition, this concept can be used only by countries that enjoy a surplus of military power over their opponents and have other options but prefer to exhaust diplomatic means before resorting to decisive military force.
Iran, however, cannot prevail over the United States and Israel. It instead uses its regional agents to distract its opponents, pushing them to recognize it as a legitimate partner in managing the region’s affairs while falsely asserting that they are independent in making their decisions.
Iran does not see either country as an eternal enemy, even though Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s revolution in 1979 designated the United States as the Great Satan and Israel as the absolute evil. These labels are not necessarily historical inevitabilities but rather convenient slogans that can be waived under opportune situations. After the nuclear agreement in 2015, Iranian authorities removed many of the revolutionary slogans that described the U.S. as the Great Satan from the walls of Iranian cities.
Iran began to use the concept of strategic patience after the U.S. assassinated Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad in 2020. Since then, Tehran has opted for a subtle conflict with the United States rather than direct confrontation. It has not taken actions that could seriously harm U.S. interests; it even warned the Trump administration before striking American targets in Iraq to avenge Soleimani’s killing. Over the past four years, it has also tried to strike back at the United States using Iraqi militias.
Resisting Pressure to Retaliate
However, recent developments in the Middle East indicate that Tehran actually suffers from strategic deadlock. Iran once again faces the problem of wanting to respond to deter Israel from launching more attacks while also being careful to avoid an all-out war. Tehran believes it must respond to show its readiness for confrontation but in a calculated manner without causing an escalation or inflicting casualties. Its hesitation to retaliate is an indication that the Islamic Revolution is nothing but a paper tiger.
Tehran has repeatedly promised a response. The IRGC issued a statement reassuring the Iranian people that it will make Israel regret its actions in Damascus. Iran’s joint chief of staff, Mohammad Bagheri, said in a speech during the funeral of senior Quds Force commander Gen. Mohammad Reza Zahedi, who was killed in the strike, that Israel’s demise is near. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said recently that an Iranian response is inevitable – though he did not specify whether it would come from inside Iran or from its Shiite militias in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. And Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei threatened Israel with defeat.
These statements, however, are mere chest-thumping. Iran does not want its proxies in the Middle East to perceive it as weak because it would erode the impression it’s trying to build of itself as a strong and feared country. Still, Iranian media and some officials have called for restraint, arguing that the bombing of the consulate might be a trap meant to stir up anger within Iran and threaten its internal stability. The Iranian press is preparing citizens to accept that retaliatory military strikes are futile.
Despite Tehran’s repeated threats of revenge, its long-term strategy is based on preserving its achievements over the past decades and avoiding any knee-jerk reactions. It aspires to reach a deal with the United States in which the latter acknowledges it as a leading regional power. This objective lies at the center of its dispute not only with the United States but also with Israel, which refuses to recognize Iran as a country with equal regional influence.
Pro-Iranian analysts have sought to justify the delay in responding to the Israeli strike by arguing that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should not be able to remain in power under the pretext that his country is at war. They believe Iran must maintain its patience to defeat its enemies’ plans. Iranian leaders will thus adopt a strategic patience policy in dealing with this incident as they have done on many occasions since the Iranian Revolution. They will refrain from escalating regional tensions that might lead to direct conflict with Israel or the United States. However, they face the challenge of continuing Iran’s regional meddling, especially with the increasing strategic costs and risks.
Avoidance of War
For 30 years, Iran has tried to create a deterrent aura around itself. Missile parades, drills and animated videos are meant to publicly display Iran’s strength and permanent combat readiness, but the reality on the ground is entirely different. Avoidance of confrontation and eschewal of confidence-building measures with Israel are constants in Iranian foreign policy.
Given the norms that govern relations between countries, Iran must respond to the Israeli strike, but it is careful to avoid inviting Israel’s military wrath. Tehran even informed its Shiite proxies, just as it did with Hamas, that it would not participate directly in the fighting against Israel. It will arm and finance them but not to the extent of triggering a regional war requiring Iran’s involvement.
For Israel, Iran’s subversive agenda is too apparent to hide, let alone tolerate. The building that Israel bombed in Damascus was not a consulate in the internationally recognized sense but rather a center for military planning. Why, after all, would senior IRGC officers be working out of a diplomatic facility? Iran often uses its diplomatic missions to spread its influence worldwide, especially in the Middle East and North Africa. For example, it used its cultural centers to spread the Shiite doctrine, which led to the closure of some of them in several countries. But Israel’s destruction of the Iranian consulate in Damascus is a pivotal event because it puts Tehran in a difficult position, indicating that the rules of engagement between the two countries have changed in Israel’s favor.
Deep in their collective consciousness, Iranians believe that no one can defeat them. The reason has nothing to do with military balance. The Iranian people are patient and persevering. However, the past two centuries did not go well for Iranians as they suffered frequent defeats by Russia and Britain. Modern warfare is about technological innovation, not just patience. The Israelis highlighted their technological superiority at the beginning of the recent confrontations, which differ radically from previous Arab-Israeli wars. Israeli operations have depended more on high-tech equipment and weapons than on conventional warfare. Intensive shelling and bombardments of border villages have given way to targeted attacks.
The Israelis say they can target warehouses, drone operating rooms and missile launching pads with absolute ease. Nasrallah even had to ask his fighters to refrain from using cell phones and to block and turn off surveillance cameras from the internet. However, these actions didn’t stop Israeli drones from successfully targeting Hezbollah commanders. It’s no wonder that Iran is adhering to a policy of strategic patience.
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just wondering if Iran will give us the excuse to bomb and hopefully destroy their nucs sites once and for all.
if possible.
I certainly am not one to understand all the risks and rewards but it seems like the prudent thing to do.
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https://nypost.com/2024/04/15/opinion/how-biden-helps-iran-pay-for-its-terror-by-refusing-to-enforce-current-sanctions/?fbclid=IwAR3kmRe1swcOPFQmb9DiBpooW7opF494RnSB9B331h6MUKc8ReHhTUjti7c