QueEx said:
<font size="5"><center>Aide Says Rice Lied to Congress
About Iran Proposal</font size></center>
Capitol Hill Blue
Wednesday, February 14th, 2007 | 6:48 pm |
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice misled the U.S. Congress when she said last week that she had not seen a 2003 Iranian proposal for talks with the United States, a former senior government official said on Wednesday.
Flynt Leverett, who worked on the National Security Council when it was headed by Rice, likened the proposal to the 1972 U.S. opening to China. He said he was confident it was seen by Rice and then-Secretary of State Colin Powell but “the administration rejected the overture.”
Speaking at a conference on Capitol Hill, Leverett said “this was a serious proposal, a serious effort” by Iran to lay out a comprehensive agenda for U.S.-Iranian rapprochement.
“The Bush administration up to and including Secretary Rice is misleading Congress and the American public about the Iran proposal,” he said.
Testifying before the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee last week, Rice told lawmakers who asked about Leverett’s previous public comments and writings on the Iranian proposal: “I don’t know what Flynt Leverett’s talking about.”
She faulted him for not telling her, “We have a proposal from Iran and we really ought to take it.”
At the State Department, spokesman Sean McCormack said: “What she said is she has no recollection of having seen it. She has said that repeatedly.” he said the accusation that she had misled Congress was “just absolutely 100 percent false.”
Leverett and others have represented the proposal as a missed opportunity that could have defused tensions with Iran which have grown to the point that the U.S. administration has been forced to deny it plans military action against Tehran.
Leverett said he deserved an apology from Rice for calling his competence into question.
He said he had left the National Security Council, which advises the president on security issues, in March 2003 before the Iranian proposal was received. He returned to the CIA where he previously worked and soon after that left government.
Hence, he wasn’t in a position to made this case directly to Rice, nor was it his responsibility, he said.
But among other things, Leverett said that then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, in a discussion about the Iranian proposal, told him he “couldn’t sell it at the White House.” This was evidence it had been discussed there, he said.
The proposal was transmitted to the White House in May 2003 by the Swiss ambassador in Tehran, who represented U.S. interests there. Washington has not had diplomatic relations with Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
According to a copy of the proposal posted on the Washington Post Web site and cited by Leverett, it contains considerable detail about approaching issues of central interest to the United States and Iran.
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/wp/2007/02/14/2099
Iran vs the United States - again
by Fred Halliday
14 - 2 - 2006
Washington's confrontational rhetoric and wishful thinking about "regime change" is fuelling the power of Tehran's own hardline rulers, says Fred Halliday.
The events of the past few weeks, culminating in the decision on 4 February 2006 of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to report Iran to the United Nations Security Council over Tehran's nuclear-research programmes, can leave few people in doubt that a major crisis is brewing between the United States and Iran.
In one sense, this confrontation has been growing since the Iranian revolution of 1978-79 – along with the Cuban (1959) and Vietnamese (1975) revolutions, the US's greatest defeat during the cold war – and the source of still undiluted mutual resentment.
The Iranian-US confrontation has already been through several dramatic chapters, notably:
the oil-fuelled overthrow of Mohammad Mossadeq in 1953
Iranians' seizure of fifty-four American diplomatic staff in 1979 (leading to a hostage crisis that lasted 444 days
the Iranian-Lebanese Shi'a campaign that drove the American forces out of Lebanon in 1983-84
the US intervention on the side of Iraq in the late, 1987-88 phase, of the Iran-Iraq war
the rise of Hizbollah in Lebanon, leading to the departure (almost an expulsion) of Israeli forces in July 2000.
Baghdad fallout
All of this is now accentuated by the situation in Iraq after the United States-led regime change in 2003 and subsequent insurgency. To a degree that US politicians, journalists and generals seem unable to see, Washington is, in effect, unwittingly preparing the ground for an Iranian takeover of Iraq. Indeed, the very focus on a Sunni insurgent-US confrontation – a real enough war – tends to overlay something that is much more important and long-term: the rivalry across "west Asia" (the entire region from Afghanistan to Lebanon) between Iran and the United States.
Here, too-obvious analogies with Vietnam and other US interventions break down. The key thing in Iraq is that the very measures the US is taking to make it possible to "redeploy" (a euphemism for inglorious departure) serve to reinforce Tehran's power: elections, which confirm the pro-Iranian Shi'a parties in power, and "institution-building" whereby Iran's influence in the armed forces, policy, intelligence and administration is strengthened.
These events constitute the necessary background to what may otherwise appear quite separate issues: the confrontation over nuclear technology and weapons between Iran and the west, and the new radicalisation of the Iranian regime.
Nuclear weapons, and issues of testing, enrichment and proliferation have their own independent development, but – as in the cold war – they cannot be separated from broader issues of political rivalry, prestige and crisis management. The reason Iran wants a nuclear capability, or at least to be in the position of "nuclear ambiguity" that Israel and (before 1994) South Africa had, is not to launch the missiles against its foes the day after it acquires them, but to strengthen its political and diplomatic hand across west Asia. Iran wants, in a phrase, to be the "indispensable regional power" – in Iraq, but also in Afghanistan, the Persian Gulf, the Caucasus and much of central Asia, as well as in relation to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
More specifically, there is a direct link between western alarm about Iran's nuclear programmes and the situation in Iraq: with Iran gaining ground in Iraq, the west (especially the United States) has resorted to exerting pressure over Iran's nuclear programmes. Equally, the complete collapse of any meaningful Arab-Israeli peace process, evident long before the victory of Hamas in the Palestinian elections, gives Iran greater leverage in this crisis. So the more Iran advances politically in the Arab world to the west, and, not to be forgotten, the more US and Nato policy runs into deeper trouble in Afghanistan, as it most certainly is, the more pressure on Iran over nuclear weapons is essential for political and strategic reasons.
Also in openDemocracy on the internal politics and external relationships of Iran, and the prospects for democracy in the country:
Tehran spring
The strategic consequences for Iran of the events in Iraq and their impact across west Asia are compounded by the tenor of the new regime in Iran that came to power with the election in June 2005 of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Far from tempering their rhetoric, or international aspirations, revolutions tend after a couple of decades to enter a phase, a radicalising paroxysm, whereby elements in the revolutionary elite seek to return to first principles, including confrontation with the outside world.
This Ahmadinejad has most certainly done, replete with appeals to Iranian nationalism, populist (when not vulgar) abuse of Iran's enemies, and a facile resort to themes that are latent in Iranian history but which do little to resolve Iran's problems, such as economic self-sufficiency.
The casual denial of the shoah is part of this resort to demagogy, an example of what Iranians contemptuously refer to as hizb-i bad (the "party of the wind"), the use of any nationalist or populist theme that may serve to win short-term support. In Ahmadinejad's case it is not possible to suppress the fact that – as someone who was himself, as a member of the security forces of the Islamic Republic in the 1980s, responsible for mass killings by the state – he has a direct, complicit interest in the denial of the even more large-scale state killings of Iran's historic ally, Germany.
The indications are not good: for Iran, for Iraq or for the broader situation in west Asia. US policy towards the broader region is a shambles – a failure in Iraq, despised by most of the Arab and Muslim world, and marked by increased incoherence and challenge at home. No one in Washington is prepared to take two necessary, and possible, political initiatives: opening a serious dialogue with Iran, and going all out for the establishment of a viable, contiguous, Palestinian state.
The former was rejected by the Bush administration in spring 2003, when the Iranians made a serious attempt to reach a comprehensive deal with Washington; the latter has been once again sidetracked, this time by the vacuous and misleading promises of Ariel Sharon and (now) his stand-in successor Ehud Olmert.
Much is made of the supposed instability or vulnerability of the Iranian regime. Iranian exiles, from monarchists to Islamo-Stalinists, are trading their wares in Washington. The reality is that this regime is as strong as it ever has been, not least with oil prices above $60 a barrel. For all the chicanery of the Ahmadinejad election, masses of people, including many veterans of the Iranian left, voted for him. He strikes a note of Iranian nationalism and defiance that has a strong popular resonance, even as he works to suppress the gains by liberals, human-rights workers and reformers in Iran over the past decade.
One of his great allies in this project is George W Bush's confrontational rhetoric and wishful thinking about regime change. More drama seems sure to follow.
by Fred Halliday
14 - 2 - 2006
Washington's confrontational rhetoric and wishful thinking about "regime change" is fuelling the power of Tehran's own hardline rulers, says Fred Halliday.
The events of the past few weeks, culminating in the decision on 4 February 2006 of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to report Iran to the United Nations Security Council over Tehran's nuclear-research programmes, can leave few people in doubt that a major crisis is brewing between the United States and Iran.
In one sense, this confrontation has been growing since the Iranian revolution of 1978-79 – along with the Cuban (1959) and Vietnamese (1975) revolutions, the US's greatest defeat during the cold war – and the source of still undiluted mutual resentment.
The Iranian-US confrontation has already been through several dramatic chapters, notably:
the oil-fuelled overthrow of Mohammad Mossadeq in 1953
Iranians' seizure of fifty-four American diplomatic staff in 1979 (leading to a hostage crisis that lasted 444 days
the Iranian-Lebanese Shi'a campaign that drove the American forces out of Lebanon in 1983-84
the US intervention on the side of Iraq in the late, 1987-88 phase, of the Iran-Iraq war
the rise of Hizbollah in Lebanon, leading to the departure (almost an expulsion) of Israeli forces in July 2000.
Baghdad fallout
All of this is now accentuated by the situation in Iraq after the United States-led regime change in 2003 and subsequent insurgency. To a degree that US politicians, journalists and generals seem unable to see, Washington is, in effect, unwittingly preparing the ground for an Iranian takeover of Iraq. Indeed, the very focus on a Sunni insurgent-US confrontation – a real enough war – tends to overlay something that is much more important and long-term: the rivalry across "west Asia" (the entire region from Afghanistan to Lebanon) between Iran and the United States.
Here, too-obvious analogies with Vietnam and other US interventions break down. The key thing in Iraq is that the very measures the US is taking to make it possible to "redeploy" (a euphemism for inglorious departure) serve to reinforce Tehran's power: elections, which confirm the pro-Iranian Shi'a parties in power, and "institution-building" whereby Iran's influence in the armed forces, policy, intelligence and administration is strengthened.
These events constitute the necessary background to what may otherwise appear quite separate issues: the confrontation over nuclear technology and weapons between Iran and the west, and the new radicalisation of the Iranian regime.
Nuclear weapons, and issues of testing, enrichment and proliferation have their own independent development, but – as in the cold war – they cannot be separated from broader issues of political rivalry, prestige and crisis management. The reason Iran wants a nuclear capability, or at least to be in the position of "nuclear ambiguity" that Israel and (before 1994) South Africa had, is not to launch the missiles against its foes the day after it acquires them, but to strengthen its political and diplomatic hand across west Asia. Iran wants, in a phrase, to be the "indispensable regional power" – in Iraq, but also in Afghanistan, the Persian Gulf, the Caucasus and much of central Asia, as well as in relation to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
More specifically, there is a direct link between western alarm about Iran's nuclear programmes and the situation in Iraq: with Iran gaining ground in Iraq, the west (especially the United States) has resorted to exerting pressure over Iran's nuclear programmes. Equally, the complete collapse of any meaningful Arab-Israeli peace process, evident long before the victory of Hamas in the Palestinian elections, gives Iran greater leverage in this crisis. So the more Iran advances politically in the Arab world to the west, and, not to be forgotten, the more US and Nato policy runs into deeper trouble in Afghanistan, as it most certainly is, the more pressure on Iran over nuclear weapons is essential for political and strategic reasons.
Also in openDemocracy on the internal politics and external relationships of Iran, and the prospects for democracy in the country:
Tehran spring
The strategic consequences for Iran of the events in Iraq and their impact across west Asia are compounded by the tenor of the new regime in Iran that came to power with the election in June 2005 of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Far from tempering their rhetoric, or international aspirations, revolutions tend after a couple of decades to enter a phase, a radicalising paroxysm, whereby elements in the revolutionary elite seek to return to first principles, including confrontation with the outside world.
This Ahmadinejad has most certainly done, replete with appeals to Iranian nationalism, populist (when not vulgar) abuse of Iran's enemies, and a facile resort to themes that are latent in Iranian history but which do little to resolve Iran's problems, such as economic self-sufficiency.
The casual denial of the shoah is part of this resort to demagogy, an example of what Iranians contemptuously refer to as hizb-i bad (the "party of the wind"), the use of any nationalist or populist theme that may serve to win short-term support. In Ahmadinejad's case it is not possible to suppress the fact that – as someone who was himself, as a member of the security forces of the Islamic Republic in the 1980s, responsible for mass killings by the state – he has a direct, complicit interest in the denial of the even more large-scale state killings of Iran's historic ally, Germany.
The indications are not good: for Iran, for Iraq or for the broader situation in west Asia. US policy towards the broader region is a shambles – a failure in Iraq, despised by most of the Arab and Muslim world, and marked by increased incoherence and challenge at home. No one in Washington is prepared to take two necessary, and possible, political initiatives: opening a serious dialogue with Iran, and going all out for the establishment of a viable, contiguous, Palestinian state.
The former was rejected by the Bush administration in spring 2003, when the Iranians made a serious attempt to reach a comprehensive deal with Washington; the latter has been once again sidetracked, this time by the vacuous and misleading promises of Ariel Sharon and (now) his stand-in successor Ehud Olmert.
Much is made of the supposed instability or vulnerability of the Iranian regime. Iranian exiles, from monarchists to Islamo-Stalinists, are trading their wares in Washington. The reality is that this regime is as strong as it ever has been, not least with oil prices above $60 a barrel. For all the chicanery of the Ahmadinejad election, masses of people, including many veterans of the Iranian left, voted for him. He strikes a note of Iranian nationalism and defiance that has a strong popular resonance, even as he works to suppress the gains by liberals, human-rights workers and reformers in Iran over the past decade.
One of his great allies in this project is George W Bush's confrontational rhetoric and wishful thinking about regime change. More drama seems sure to follow.
tehuti said:
They are far more democratic than a country like Saudi Arabia (which is ridiculously undemocratic) is - its never ever been about democracy its been about having pro-US regimes all over the globe, they can be tyrants whatever as long as they are pro-U.S. (of course that can sometimes lead to supporting monsters like Saddam and Bin Laden)
The agression is because they have the bare faced cheek to want to be on par with Israel and the USA and have a leverage and bargaining chip - how cheeky of them!
hoodedgoon said:Not trying to put words in your word Q, but based on how you phrase the sentence you saying you believe those crazy mullahs will give Osama and the like, nukes?
I can't say for sure, but I’m as sure that Iran will probably give nukes to terrorist as I’m sure GW will invade before he leaves office if Iraq calms down. But based on the current law the Iranians have the right to enrich.
If you look at the "geo-political - my big word for the day" landscape of the Middle East in the last 25 years, you'll probably see why Iran is so nervous. They are surrounded by US soldiers in Afghanistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, etc china is on top of them hungry and looking to expand, Israel has nuclear weapons, they were branded as one of the axis of evil of which one has already been invaded and now occupied, the US has tried to overthrow their government before, Pakistan and India are nuclear powers, as a matter of fact India did not sign the NPT yet the US is selling them nuclear technology, Pakistan illegally developed nuclear technology and is now GW's best bud in the war on terror. Iran is a signatory to the NPT which gives them the right to enrich uranium and they are being told they can't. I'd be nervous too. See you have to enrich to get electricity in the nuclear process. Everybody is saying Iran does not even have the right to nuclear technology and therefore nuclear electricity. They do indeed have an abundance of oil, yet all the talking heads are quoting published reports saying the planet will run out of oil in 50 years. This is another reason to pursue nuclear technology.
The only thing the Iranians hate more than their own government is our government messing in their business.
Excellent post that hits the nail on its head
*only slight criticism is I think its too soft to say they are persuing nuclear technology that is certainly the case but if you're gonna be fair you've got to say they are persuing nuclear weaponary (you conveniently decided not to talk about that) - which is sad and a shame but your post explains why they feel they have to go that route.
QueEx said:
Some general points - the biggest jewish population outside of Israel is where? Yep Iran they seem to be more than tolerated so its obviously not as much of a religious thing as you are making it out to be and also its well known that Iran help out Lebanon a country full of Christians so again stop trying to present it as a religious issue.
Finally they don't neccessarily want Israel annihilated, but they certainly want an end of zionism (and there are plenty of Jewish people [like Noam Chomsky], some even Israeli who want to see that to), because the zionist philosophy has been one of apartheid, ethnic cleansing and racism.
<font size="5"><center>High-Stakes Poker in the Persian Gulf</font size>
<font size="4">There may be more to Iran’s seizure of 15
British sailors than meets the eye</font size></center>
By Mario Loyola
National Review
March 23, 2007
Earlier this week, Iran’s spiritual leader Ali Khamenei began preparing public opinion for Iran’s withdrawal from the nuclear-nonproliferation regime. Today we have reports that the Iranians detained 15 British seamen. These and other incidents appear to be unconnected — but they may not be. The moment of truth in the Iranian nuclear standoff is drawing near. And the Security Council route nearly exhausted, so a big part of the standoff is about to go largely off-camera. Already, things are not what they seem.
First of all: Don’t necessarily believe what the British say about what those sailors were up to when they were detained. There’s probably a 90-percent chance they will tell the truth, but there is often a lot more to these international “incidents” than meets the eye. The British will say that their sailors were in Iraqi waters and the Iranians had no business being where they were. But the Iranians are unlikely to have provoked an international incident under circumstances as clear-cut as that. And in fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if the Iranians were actually responding, in this case, to a carefully planned provocation of our own. As Churchill said, sometimes the truth is so precious that she must be attended by a bodyguard of lies.
Recall the context: The Security Council route for dealing with Iran’s nuclear program has clearly failed. The U.S. and its partners now have few options for responding to Iran’s continued belligerence besides the current, fairly massive, naval and airpower buildup in the Gulf. Iran now has a Western armada cruising just miles from its coasts, in waters well within its Economic Exploitation Zone — which means that U.S. Navy destroyers are probably waltzing around within Frisbee range of Iranian offshore-drilling platforms. The gloves are coming off. And the risk-calculation here is: If someone gets nervous and starts shooting, the timing would be more auspicious now for us than for the Iranians. Therefore, it only makes sense that American and British naval units operating in the Gulf would be in a more forward-leaning and aggressive posture than the Iranians.
In this climate, it is important to understand the threat delivered this week by Ali Khamenei. The regime’s basic position is that Iran has kept its nuclear program entirely legal, but now the “illegitimate” Security Council is taking actions against Iran that are “illegal” and therefore Iran would be justified in taking illegal actions of its own.
This is what is really going on. Under the U.N. Charter, Iran is treaty-bound to obey the commandments of the Security Council. The Security Council has commanded it to halt enrichment of uranium pending the verification of the peaceful nature of its program. Iran has rejected this decision, and indeed has arguably abrogated the U.N. Charter entirely. So it is simply untrue that Iran’s program has been legal to date. Up until 2002, the main elements of the program were secret — a fact that in and of itself was a violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. And now, by refusing to obey the Security Council, Iran is once again in breach of the Treaty — and the U.N. Charter.
Now here’s the rub: Iran has permitted inspections of its known nuclear facilities during the “development” phase of the full nuclear-fuel cycle. It is enriching uranium at pilot plants in miniscule quantities that are insignificant from a bomb-making point of view. Until now it hasn’t been able to enrich large quantities of uranium to any level, so it has no reason to hide anything. But in a matter of months Iran will be ready to launch its commercial-scale enrichment facility at Natantz. It will then be in a position to enrich enough uranium all the way to weapons-grade to start manufacturing warheads. The one thing it will need to do at that point is expel the inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who will otherwise know immediately if Iran starts enriching to weapons-grade. Therefore, if the program is to continue proceeding along the most rapid route to weapons production — as it has done for years — Iran will need to pull a veil over its big enrichment facilities as soon as they are ready to launch. Khamenei’s statements earlier this week where a thinly-veiled threat to do precisely that.
The threat has military significance, and it would be both prudent and appropriate for the Americans and their allies to have responded militarily — if only by “leaning forward” a bit more. The Persian Gulf is now one big game of chicken. When the Iranians get belligerent, we have to respond in kind. Iran is getting ready to expel the IAEA inspectors. The United States needs to make it clear that the expulsion of the inspectors will be considered an act of aggression, and that we will respond appropriately.
So, long story short: It wouldn’t surprise me if the British sailors were detained because the British did something to make the Iranians really angry. Khamanei dramatically upped the ante this week. We probably raised. And they probably raised back. The stakes in this nuclear-poker game just got a little higher.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NTc2M2FjYmIzMzAyODNhOTkwMDhkMGY5ZmQ2NzlmMjg=
<font size="4">There may be more to Iran’s seizure of 15
British sailors than meets the eye</font size></center>
By Mario Loyola
National Review
March 23, 2007
Earlier this week, Iran’s spiritual leader Ali Khamenei began preparing public opinion for Iran’s withdrawal from the nuclear-nonproliferation regime. Today we have reports that the Iranians detained 15 British seamen. These and other incidents appear to be unconnected — but they may not be. The moment of truth in the Iranian nuclear standoff is drawing near. And the Security Council route nearly exhausted, so a big part of the standoff is about to go largely off-camera. Already, things are not what they seem.
First of all: Don’t necessarily believe what the British say about what those sailors were up to when they were detained. There’s probably a 90-percent chance they will tell the truth, but there is often a lot more to these international “incidents” than meets the eye. The British will say that their sailors were in Iraqi waters and the Iranians had no business being where they were. But the Iranians are unlikely to have provoked an international incident under circumstances as clear-cut as that. And in fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if the Iranians were actually responding, in this case, to a carefully planned provocation of our own. As Churchill said, sometimes the truth is so precious that she must be attended by a bodyguard of lies.
Recall the context: The Security Council route for dealing with Iran’s nuclear program has clearly failed. The U.S. and its partners now have few options for responding to Iran’s continued belligerence besides the current, fairly massive, naval and airpower buildup in the Gulf. Iran now has a Western armada cruising just miles from its coasts, in waters well within its Economic Exploitation Zone — which means that U.S. Navy destroyers are probably waltzing around within Frisbee range of Iranian offshore-drilling platforms. The gloves are coming off. And the risk-calculation here is: If someone gets nervous and starts shooting, the timing would be more auspicious now for us than for the Iranians. Therefore, it only makes sense that American and British naval units operating in the Gulf would be in a more forward-leaning and aggressive posture than the Iranians.
In this climate, it is important to understand the threat delivered this week by Ali Khamenei. The regime’s basic position is that Iran has kept its nuclear program entirely legal, but now the “illegitimate” Security Council is taking actions against Iran that are “illegal” and therefore Iran would be justified in taking illegal actions of its own.
This is what is really going on. Under the U.N. Charter, Iran is treaty-bound to obey the commandments of the Security Council. The Security Council has commanded it to halt enrichment of uranium pending the verification of the peaceful nature of its program. Iran has rejected this decision, and indeed has arguably abrogated the U.N. Charter entirely. So it is simply untrue that Iran’s program has been legal to date. Up until 2002, the main elements of the program were secret — a fact that in and of itself was a violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. And now, by refusing to obey the Security Council, Iran is once again in breach of the Treaty — and the U.N. Charter.
Now here’s the rub: Iran has permitted inspections of its known nuclear facilities during the “development” phase of the full nuclear-fuel cycle. It is enriching uranium at pilot plants in miniscule quantities that are insignificant from a bomb-making point of view. Until now it hasn’t been able to enrich large quantities of uranium to any level, so it has no reason to hide anything. But in a matter of months Iran will be ready to launch its commercial-scale enrichment facility at Natantz. It will then be in a position to enrich enough uranium all the way to weapons-grade to start manufacturing warheads. The one thing it will need to do at that point is expel the inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who will otherwise know immediately if Iran starts enriching to weapons-grade. Therefore, if the program is to continue proceeding along the most rapid route to weapons production — as it has done for years — Iran will need to pull a veil over its big enrichment facilities as soon as they are ready to launch. Khamenei’s statements earlier this week where a thinly-veiled threat to do precisely that.
The threat has military significance, and it would be both prudent and appropriate for the Americans and their allies to have responded militarily — if only by “leaning forward” a bit more. The Persian Gulf is now one big game of chicken. When the Iranians get belligerent, we have to respond in kind. Iran is getting ready to expel the IAEA inspectors. The United States needs to make it clear that the expulsion of the inspectors will be considered an act of aggression, and that we will respond appropriately.
So, long story short: It wouldn’t surprise me if the British sailors were detained because the British did something to make the Iranians really angry. Khamanei dramatically upped the ante this week. We probably raised. And they probably raised back. The stakes in this nuclear-poker game just got a little higher.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NTc2M2FjYmIzMzAyODNhOTkwMDhkMGY5ZmQ2NzlmMjg=
U.S. Officials Stopped Pakistan’s Musharraf From Imposing State Of Emergency
Sunday, August 12, 2007 1:28 AM MDT
A Washington Post op-ed piece reports that Pakistan almost went into a state of emergency last week — until U.S. officials intervened:
President Pervez Musharraf was on the verge of imposing a state of emergency in Pakistan last week before being stopped by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and civilian advisers. It is clear to all in this extremely tense country that power is rapidly flowing away from Musharraf, even as he desperately tries to find a way out of an impossible political impasse.
Declaring a state of emergency would have suspended fundamental rights, placed restrictions on the Supreme Court and delayed this year’s elections. It is unlikely that an already angry and mobilized public would have accepted new restrictions, even those imposed by the army, which Musharraf heads. Massive street protests and further mayhem might have ensued.
But it’s clear as you read the Washington Post that part of what is happening is that the Bush administration miscalculated in its dealings with Pakistan (particularly on how stable it was and would be). Musharraf increasingly seems at worst on borrowed political (if not physical) time and at best isolated:
After eight years as president, Musharraf is battling for survival, refusing to yield power to civilians yet unable to exert the authority he needs to keep the peace at home and still be a useful ally to the West in rooting out Islamic extremists along the border with Afghanistan.
In recent weeks, Musharraf has considered imposing martial law, has tried to cut a power-sharing deal with exiled former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and has enlisted support from President Bush to dampen the crisis that the country has been in since spring, but nothing has worked.
Bhutto is backing away from any deal, and her aides describe Musharraf as a drowning man.
According to this op-ed piece writer Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani journalist, who wrote “Taliban” and “Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia,” the U.S. bungled is dealings with Pakistan:
Since 2001 the Bush administration has refused to understand that political stability in Pakistan requires a modicum of democracy, a political consensus among the country’s various liberal forces and a working relationship among the four provinces before any battle against extremism can succeed.
Washington presumed that because Musharraf wielded the army’s power there was no need to push for democracy or bother with civilian politicians. As a result, the Bush administration has lost the hearts and minds of the Pakistani people. (They have become further alienated while watching Pakistan become a whipping boy in debates between U.S. presidential candidates.)
The Bush administration looked away when the army rigged presidential and parliamentary elections in 2002 and ignored the exiling or sidelining of mainstream politicians and political parties by Musharraf.
For the past few months tens of thousands of the country’s liberal and secular elite — lawyers, female activists and political workers — have protested Musharraf’s wrongful suspension of the Supreme Court’s chief justice, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, in March.
Yet even as our civil society filled the streets, the U.S. State Department and the White House maintained a studied silence — betraying not only the Pakistani people and democracy but also America’s abiding interest in having a stable government in Islamabad that would be a meaningful partner in the war against extremism.
His analysis is probably correct. On the other hand, this is not the first time that an American administration felt U.S. interests were best served by firmly backing a friendly government, no matter what internal opposition the government faced. In some instances, the U.S. stuck by the government no matter what. In other instances, it eventually allied itself with those opposed to it.
One of the worst such U.S. policy failures of the entire 20th century was Iran, where the U.S. backed the Shah, until Jimmy Carter’s administration when, in the end, Washington essentially abandoned him — and what came after was a zillion time worse in terms of U.S. interests.
But if the U.S. had blasted Musharraf for internal controversies, all it would do would be to weaken him even more and empower his critics. So usually diplomats in this case do what diplomats presumably do best — apply pressure behind the scenes. Which, if this op-ed piece is correct, is what happened in the case of Musharraf deciding to impose a state of emergency.
Sunday, August 12, 2007 1:28 AM MDT
A Washington Post op-ed piece reports that Pakistan almost went into a state of emergency last week — until U.S. officials intervened:
President Pervez Musharraf was on the verge of imposing a state of emergency in Pakistan last week before being stopped by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and civilian advisers. It is clear to all in this extremely tense country that power is rapidly flowing away from Musharraf, even as he desperately tries to find a way out of an impossible political impasse.
Declaring a state of emergency would have suspended fundamental rights, placed restrictions on the Supreme Court and delayed this year’s elections. It is unlikely that an already angry and mobilized public would have accepted new restrictions, even those imposed by the army, which Musharraf heads. Massive street protests and further mayhem might have ensued.
But it’s clear as you read the Washington Post that part of what is happening is that the Bush administration miscalculated in its dealings with Pakistan (particularly on how stable it was and would be). Musharraf increasingly seems at worst on borrowed political (if not physical) time and at best isolated:
After eight years as president, Musharraf is battling for survival, refusing to yield power to civilians yet unable to exert the authority he needs to keep the peace at home and still be a useful ally to the West in rooting out Islamic extremists along the border with Afghanistan.
In recent weeks, Musharraf has considered imposing martial law, has tried to cut a power-sharing deal with exiled former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and has enlisted support from President Bush to dampen the crisis that the country has been in since spring, but nothing has worked.
Bhutto is backing away from any deal, and her aides describe Musharraf as a drowning man.
According to this op-ed piece writer Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani journalist, who wrote “Taliban” and “Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia,” the U.S. bungled is dealings with Pakistan:
Since 2001 the Bush administration has refused to understand that political stability in Pakistan requires a modicum of democracy, a political consensus among the country’s various liberal forces and a working relationship among the four provinces before any battle against extremism can succeed.
Washington presumed that because Musharraf wielded the army’s power there was no need to push for democracy or bother with civilian politicians. As a result, the Bush administration has lost the hearts and minds of the Pakistani people. (They have become further alienated while watching Pakistan become a whipping boy in debates between U.S. presidential candidates.)
The Bush administration looked away when the army rigged presidential and parliamentary elections in 2002 and ignored the exiling or sidelining of mainstream politicians and political parties by Musharraf.
For the past few months tens of thousands of the country’s liberal and secular elite — lawyers, female activists and political workers — have protested Musharraf’s wrongful suspension of the Supreme Court’s chief justice, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, in March.
Yet even as our civil society filled the streets, the U.S. State Department and the White House maintained a studied silence — betraying not only the Pakistani people and democracy but also America’s abiding interest in having a stable government in Islamabad that would be a meaningful partner in the war against extremism.
His analysis is probably correct. On the other hand, this is not the first time that an American administration felt U.S. interests were best served by firmly backing a friendly government, no matter what internal opposition the government faced. In some instances, the U.S. stuck by the government no matter what. In other instances, it eventually allied itself with those opposed to it.
One of the worst such U.S. policy failures of the entire 20th century was Iran, where the U.S. backed the Shah, until Jimmy Carter’s administration when, in the end, Washington essentially abandoned him — and what came after was a zillion time worse in terms of U.S. interests.
But if the U.S. had blasted Musharraf for internal controversies, all it would do would be to weaken him even more and empower his critics. So usually diplomats in this case do what diplomats presumably do best — apply pressure behind the scenes. Which, if this op-ed piece is correct, is what happened in the case of Musharraf deciding to impose a state of emergency.
I was wondering how the U.S. Administration was going to justify an attack on Iran, particularly how they would get around Congress. Well this article from the Washington Post lays it out for me. By labeling a part of Iran's military as a terrorist organization gives Bush and Co. the green light under the Authorization to Use Military Force bill passed by Congress after 9/11 to go after Iran.
Unit to Be Labeled 'Terrorist'
U.S. Moving Against Revolutionary Guard
By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 15, 2007; Page 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.
Unit to Be Labeled 'Terrorist'
U.S. Moving Against Revolutionary Guard
By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 15, 2007; Page 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.
<font size="5"><center>Iran’s Revolutionary Guards chief hits back
at US plan to list his force as terrorists</font size></center>
DEBKAFile
August 15, 2007, 9:31 AM
The RG commander Yahya Rahim Safavi said Wednesday that Iran’s 2,000km range missiles (capable of reaching Israel) could now be remote controlled. DEBKAfile’s military sources interpret this as a reference to Shahab-3 missiles kept in hiding places, even possibly outside Iran, which can be operated at a distance from Tehran.
Safavi also said his RG ground forces had missiles that could penetrate the armor plating fitted to Israel's Merkava and US Abrams tanks.
He spoke the day after Iran’s Lebanese pawn, Hizballah’s Hassan Nasrallah, bragged about new weapons that would surprise Israel and change the course of a war and the face of the Middle East.
The Iranian general went on to declare: “Our coast-to-coast missiles can now reach the breadth and length of the Persian Gulf and Oman Sea and no warships can pass in the Persian Gulf without being in range of our coast-to-sea missiles.” According to DEBKAfile’s sources, he was referring to the new generation shore-to-ship C-802, recently acquired by Iran and supplied to Syria and Hizballah.
The RG commander did not say so, but his threatening boasts were undoubtedly Tehran’s response to Washington’s plan to list his force a specially designated global terrorist.
This would be the first time the United States had designated the military force of a sovereign nation terrorists and declared war on its business and financial operations.
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=4504
at US plan to list his force as terrorists</font size></center>
DEBKAFile
August 15, 2007, 9:31 AM
The RG commander Yahya Rahim Safavi said Wednesday that Iran’s 2,000km range missiles (capable of reaching Israel) could now be remote controlled. DEBKAfile’s military sources interpret this as a reference to Shahab-3 missiles kept in hiding places, even possibly outside Iran, which can be operated at a distance from Tehran.
Safavi also said his RG ground forces had missiles that could penetrate the armor plating fitted to Israel's Merkava and US Abrams tanks.
He spoke the day after Iran’s Lebanese pawn, Hizballah’s Hassan Nasrallah, bragged about new weapons that would surprise Israel and change the course of a war and the face of the Middle East.
The Iranian general went on to declare: “Our coast-to-coast missiles can now reach the breadth and length of the Persian Gulf and Oman Sea and no warships can pass in the Persian Gulf without being in range of our coast-to-sea missiles.” According to DEBKAfile’s sources, he was referring to the new generation shore-to-ship C-802, recently acquired by Iran and supplied to Syria and Hizballah.
The RG commander did not say so, but his threatening boasts were undoubtedly Tehran’s response to Washington’s plan to list his force a specially designated global terrorist.
This would be the first time the United States had designated the military force of a sovereign nation terrorists and declared war on its business and financial operations.
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=4504
You raise an interesting scenario BigUnc, but I don't know. Even with the terrorist label, I don't see overt military action against the RG, which is an official arm of a sovereign, without some overt physical provocation by the RG or Iran itself. I think Bush is just sabre rattling and adding pieces to the Ugly Iran puzzle. If you're going to maintain the portrait of Iran as the Axis of Evil, you have to add some brush strokes every now and then, lest the picture fades in the minds of the viewers.BigUnc said:
To hit Iran at this time, IMHO, would be large because of the likely fallout (repercussions): oil shortages in the U.S. that would kill off any politician who supports an attack - - unless there is clear justification warranting an attack; and the possibility of a wider war in the Middle East between Syria, Lebanon/Hezbollah, any other Muslim group anxious to get at Israel - and Israel. Or course, there is talk that we could weather the oil-shortage storm and possibly attacks within the U.S. by Iranian/Hezbollah elements, but to make a precipitous attack to bring all of that on in the face of the present thinking of the American public, IMO, is not likely. Hence, its just an attempt to put more pressure/stress on Iran. But, with enough heat water boils, with enough stress metal fatigues, and rubbing two sticks together long enough produces fire.
QueEx
QueEx said:
I can't disagree with your analysis, this is a puzzling move giving Bush only has 17 months left in office. I envision this move would take at least a year of exposing the Republican Gaurds worldwide finances then confiscating them and putting pressure on their trading partners to sever ties in an effort to weaken them financially before an attack.
Right now I can envision 2 somewhat credible scenarios and 1 that is off the wall:
1). Positioning so the next president can have a range of options to deal with the Iranians from attacking to a change in diplomacy.
2). Seems as though everything he's doing is timed to come to a head next year in the middle of the Presidential election. Could this be a effort to influence the election with some patriotic rally 'round the flag bullshit.
The off the wall scenario is:
The much talked about big domestic terrorist attack happens next year with Bush blaming the Republican Guards resulting in further curtailment or suspension of civil liberties at home, attacking Iran triggering a regional war in the Middle East, and a suspension of the Presidential election until this dire threat to the 'merican way of life
is defeated.or maybe it's something else??
BigUnc said:
I can buy this scenario. Even though I have little, if any, confidence in GW; I don't buy it that he or his minions are intentionally out to destroy OUR country. Hence, in order to preserve a nation its necessary to develop and keep viable its options; and I believe that a lot of the posturing with Iran is designed - over a period of time - to do that.
This is a tough one. Considering what I just said above (Bush not intentionally out to damage the country); I have to be mindful of some of the games orchestrated by Rove and possibly others that have been played to do nothing other than "influence the elections." When Nixon was in deepening trouble with Watergate, some believe he tried to refocus the national attention away from his domestic problems to the Middle East during the Arab-Israeli 1973 War. In fact, U.S. troops were placed in Defense Condition 3 (DefCon3) mobilization. Hence, your scenario is not totally off the chain.bigUnc said:
Maybe I'm naive, however, I think one guard against this scenario is the heightened scrutiny that the American public is giving to military action, in the aftermath of the decision-making over Iraq. It wouldn't be impossible for a "Diversion" . . . but it would have to be a good one.
BigUnc said:The off the wall scenario is:
The much talked about big domestic terrorist attack happens next year with Bush blaming the Republican Guards resulting in further curtailment or suspension of civil liberties at home, attacking Iran triggering a regional war in the Middle East, and a suspension of the Presidential election until this dire threat to the 'merican way of life
or maybe it's something else??
One can never say never; but the massive curtailment or suspension of civil liberties, I think, is not in the cards. One, even if there was such a scenario, its long been out of the bag and its evident, I believe, that there is enough evidence for any half-assed reasonable politician to discern that curtailment/suspension might or would trigger civil disobedience in this country on a level never before seen. You can rally Americans against an enemy; but I don't think you can rally Americans, against Americans without the possibility of American Civil War II; and then who would there be to fight an external enemy?
I do believe, however, that there is more than a fifty-fifty chance of some type of major or near-major terrorist attack that will occur or be attempted on our soil within the next year or so. When you look at AQ's planning time, we're right about right for an event or at least a major attempt. If it happens though, I don't think any of the possible players would be excluded from blame, at least right away.
Would the RG pull off such an attack? I have to doubt it - though anything is possible, I just don't think it probable. A U.S. counter-attack with near annihillating results against the RG/Iran would be a given. Ahmadenijad (sp) talks as much shit as Bush; but I haven't seen where he has a death wish. Yet.
Again, perhaps its my naivete, but I believe that the American people and the political opposition will scrutinize closely who gets blamed for an attack. Iraq has been costly in more ways that one. And, one of the expensive lessons that I believe the people and politicians have learned is to question who and why we go on the attack.
QueEx
QueEx said:
Agreed, there is so much media censorship, trail away stories and spin, its difficult to not get caught up with sensationalism.
Americans who watch the local/national news and read nationally publicized papers are being disinformed, brainwashed and distracted, on a daily basis. Go outside the box and search for answers. The answers are in plain sight...!
<font size="5"><center>U.S. actions against Iran
raise war risk, many fear</font size></center>
By Warren P. Strobel and
Nancy A. Youssef
McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Fri, August 17, 2007
WASHINGTON — As President Bush escalates the United States' confrontation with Iran across a broad front, U.S. allies in Europe and the Middle East are growing worried that the steps will achieve little, but will undercut diplomacy and increase the chances of war.
In the latest step, Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are considering designating Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the elite military force that serves as the guardian of Iran's Islamic state, as a foreign terrorist organization.
News of the decision was leaked to newspapers in what a senior State Department official and Washington-based diplomats said was a sign of an intensifying internal struggle within the U.S. government between proponents of military action and opponents, led by Rice.
State Department officials and foreign diplomats see Rice's push for the declaration against the Revolutionary Guards as an effort to blunt arguments by Vice President Dick Cheney and his allies for air strikes on Iran. By making the declaration, they feel, Rice can strike out at a key Iranian institution without resorting to military action while still pushing for sanctions in the United Nations.
Partisans of military force argue that Rice's strategy has failed to change Tehran's behavior.
"It really does seem this is more tied to the internal debate that is going on in the administration on Iran, rather than a serious attempt to influence Iranian behavior," said an Arab diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity.
"How that debate will play out is what's concerning" Arab and European countries, he said.
Designating the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group "is the State Department trying to do something short of war," said former U.S. diplomat Charles Dunbar, a professor of international relations at Boston University.
"What else can we do?" said Dunbar, who worked for the State Department in Tehran from 1963 to 1967.
The Revolutionary Guard would be the first military unit of a sovereign government ever placed on the department's list of terrorist organizations. The move would allow the Treasury Department to go after the group's finances and those of its reputed business network inside and outside Iran.
The Bush administration has been engaging Iran in a increasingly strident war of words since the spring, when the Bush administration demanded tougher U.N. sanctions over Iran's nuclear energy program. The White House says that Bush remains committed to diplomatic and financial actions to persuade Iran to stop enriching nuclear fuel, which the U.S. says can be made into a bomb but that Iran insists is intended only for electricity generation.
Recently, the administration has stepped up the rhetoric, accusing Iran of providing Shiite Muslim militias in Iraq with particularly deadly roadside bombs that have killed dozens of U.S. service members.
"We are confronting Iranian behavior across a variety of different fronts on a number of different, quote- unquote, battlefields, if you will," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Wednesday.
Earlier this year, the Pentagon temporarily moved an additional aircraft carrier into the Persian Gulf as a warning to Iran. U.S. commanders in Iraq have also highlighted intelligence they say shows that the Revolutionary Guard's Qods force is shipping sophisticated road-side bombs, known as explosively formed penetrators, into Iraq.
Bush and his aides also have accused Iran of playing an unhelpful role in Afghanistan — although some State Department officials say the reality is much more complicated.
Finally, Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates traveled to the Middle East in late July and early August, bearing promises of billions in weapons sales to friendly Arab states and a $30 billlion, 10-year military aid package to Israel. The rationale: Iran.
What remains unclear is what the administration will do if none of those steps has an impact on Iran, whose leaders seem confident as they see Bush unpopular at home and bogged down in Iraq.
"The coercion ... undermines diplomacy. And once diplomacy is undermined, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy," said Ray Takeyh, an Iran expert at the Council on Foreign Relations.
By early 2008, "You're in a position where you have a series of escalatory measures ... And then the military option becomes something you can consider," Takeyh said.
On the nuclear front, since taking office in 2005, Rice has backed a European-led effort to persuade Iran to stop enriching uranium in exchange for economic, political and security benefits.
The U.N. Security Council has passed two resolutions imposing sanctions on Iran for its nuclear work. But negotiations on a third have stalled and a September deadline for enacting new sanctions will likely be missed, say State Department officials and diplomats.
Critics say that designating the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group could further undermine the effort, and also scuttle U.S.-Iranian talks in Baghdad on Iraq's security. Those talks have achieved little.
On Iran's role in Iraq, U.S. ground commanders in Iraq oppose proposals from Cheney and his allies to counter-attack inside Iran itself, saying they believe they can contain Iran's growing influence without acting outside Iraq.
Privately, some are hostile to suggestions that the military strike another country, saying they are mired in Iraq.
"Let them put on the uniform and go there then," said one military official in Baghdad who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the topic.
Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the No. 2 commander in Iraq, said Friday that Shi'ite factions, backed by Iranian groups, are now responsible for nearly half the attacks in Iraq, compared to 30 percent in January.
Odierno said he could deal with the problem inside Iraq, without going over the border into Iran. But he conceded that the military still is learning about how Iranian networks run through Iraq.
"We're just in the beginning stages" of denting Iranian influence, he said. Iran's abilities are "still significant. So we still have an awful lot of work to do."
McClatchy Newspapers 2007
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/19039.html
raise war risk, many fear</font size></center>
By Warren P. Strobel and
Nancy A. Youssef
McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Fri, August 17, 2007
WASHINGTON — As President Bush escalates the United States' confrontation with Iran across a broad front, U.S. allies in Europe and the Middle East are growing worried that the steps will achieve little, but will undercut diplomacy and increase the chances of war.
In the latest step, Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are considering designating Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the elite military force that serves as the guardian of Iran's Islamic state, as a foreign terrorist organization.
News of the decision was leaked to newspapers in what a senior State Department official and Washington-based diplomats said was a sign of an intensifying internal struggle within the U.S. government between proponents of military action and opponents, led by Rice.
State Department officials and foreign diplomats see Rice's push for the declaration against the Revolutionary Guards as an effort to blunt arguments by Vice President Dick Cheney and his allies for air strikes on Iran. By making the declaration, they feel, Rice can strike out at a key Iranian institution without resorting to military action while still pushing for sanctions in the United Nations.
Partisans of military force argue that Rice's strategy has failed to change Tehran's behavior.
"It really does seem this is more tied to the internal debate that is going on in the administration on Iran, rather than a serious attempt to influence Iranian behavior," said an Arab diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity.
"How that debate will play out is what's concerning" Arab and European countries, he said.
Designating the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group "is the State Department trying to do something short of war," said former U.S. diplomat Charles Dunbar, a professor of international relations at Boston University.
"What else can we do?" said Dunbar, who worked for the State Department in Tehran from 1963 to 1967.
The Revolutionary Guard would be the first military unit of a sovereign government ever placed on the department's list of terrorist organizations. The move would allow the Treasury Department to go after the group's finances and those of its reputed business network inside and outside Iran.
The Bush administration has been engaging Iran in a increasingly strident war of words since the spring, when the Bush administration demanded tougher U.N. sanctions over Iran's nuclear energy program. The White House says that Bush remains committed to diplomatic and financial actions to persuade Iran to stop enriching nuclear fuel, which the U.S. says can be made into a bomb but that Iran insists is intended only for electricity generation.
Recently, the administration has stepped up the rhetoric, accusing Iran of providing Shiite Muslim militias in Iraq with particularly deadly roadside bombs that have killed dozens of U.S. service members.
"We are confronting Iranian behavior across a variety of different fronts on a number of different, quote- unquote, battlefields, if you will," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Wednesday.
Earlier this year, the Pentagon temporarily moved an additional aircraft carrier into the Persian Gulf as a warning to Iran. U.S. commanders in Iraq have also highlighted intelligence they say shows that the Revolutionary Guard's Qods force is shipping sophisticated road-side bombs, known as explosively formed penetrators, into Iraq.
Bush and his aides also have accused Iran of playing an unhelpful role in Afghanistan — although some State Department officials say the reality is much more complicated.
Finally, Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates traveled to the Middle East in late July and early August, bearing promises of billions in weapons sales to friendly Arab states and a $30 billlion, 10-year military aid package to Israel. The rationale: Iran.
What remains unclear is what the administration will do if none of those steps has an impact on Iran, whose leaders seem confident as they see Bush unpopular at home and bogged down in Iraq.
"The coercion ... undermines diplomacy. And once diplomacy is undermined, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy," said Ray Takeyh, an Iran expert at the Council on Foreign Relations.
By early 2008, "You're in a position where you have a series of escalatory measures ... And then the military option becomes something you can consider," Takeyh said.
On the nuclear front, since taking office in 2005, Rice has backed a European-led effort to persuade Iran to stop enriching uranium in exchange for economic, political and security benefits.
The U.N. Security Council has passed two resolutions imposing sanctions on Iran for its nuclear work. But negotiations on a third have stalled and a September deadline for enacting new sanctions will likely be missed, say State Department officials and diplomats.
Critics say that designating the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group could further undermine the effort, and also scuttle U.S.-Iranian talks in Baghdad on Iraq's security. Those talks have achieved little.
On Iran's role in Iraq, U.S. ground commanders in Iraq oppose proposals from Cheney and his allies to counter-attack inside Iran itself, saying they believe they can contain Iran's growing influence without acting outside Iraq.
Privately, some are hostile to suggestions that the military strike another country, saying they are mired in Iraq.
"Let them put on the uniform and go there then," said one military official in Baghdad who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the topic.
Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the No. 2 commander in Iraq, said Friday that Shi'ite factions, backed by Iranian groups, are now responsible for nearly half the attacks in Iraq, compared to 30 percent in January.
Odierno said he could deal with the problem inside Iraq, without going over the border into Iran. But he conceded that the military still is learning about how Iranian networks run through Iraq.
"We're just in the beginning stages" of denting Iranian influence, he said. Iran's abilities are "still significant. So we still have an awful lot of work to do."
McClatchy Newspapers 2007
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/19039.html
The mother of all wars, is yet to come...
<font size="5"><center>French President:
Iran risks attack over atomic program</font size></center>
International Herald Tribune
By Elaine Sciolino
August 27, 2007
PARIS: In his first major foreign policy speech as president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy said Monday that Iran could be attacked militarily if it did not live up to its international obligations to curb its nuclear program.
Addressing France's ambassadorial corps, Sarkozy stressed that such an outcome would be a disaster. He did not say that France would ever participate in military action against Iran or even tacitly support such an approach.
But the mere fact that he raised the specter of the use of force is likely to be perceived by Iran as a warning of the consequences of its continuing course of action and by the Bush administration as acceptance of its line that no option, including the use of force, can be excluded.
Sarkozy praised the current diplomatic initiative by the world's powers that threatens even tougher sanctions mandated by the United Nations if Iran does not stop enriching uranium for possible use in a nuclear weapon, but holds out the possibility of incentives if Iran complies.
This two-pronged approach, he said, "is the only one that can enable us to avoid being faced with an alternative that I call catastrophic: an Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran."
Calling the Iranian nuclear crisis "the most serious that weighs on the international order today," Sarkozy also reiterated his position that a nuclear-armed Iran was "unacceptable" for France.
Although Sarkozy's aides said that French policy had not changed, some foreign policy experts were stunned by the blunt, if brief remark.
"This came out of the blue," said François Heisbourg, special adviser to the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris and author of a forthcoming book on Iran's nuclear program. "To actually say that if diplomacy fails the choice will be to accept a nuclear Iran or bomb Iran, this is a diplomatic blockbuster."
Sarkozy's speech, an annual ritual outlining France's foreign policy goals, came amid extraordinarily high approval ratings more than three months into his presidency. According to a TNS-Sofres telephone poll of 1,000 people published on Monday in the daily Le Figaro, 71 percent said they were satisfied with Sarkozy's performance. A number of other polls put his approval rating higher than 60 percent.
But his debut before his ambassadors was marred by a diplomatic imbroglio involving his foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, who was forced to apologize to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq for calling for his resignation.
Maliki had demanded an apology from Kouchner, who was quoted on Newsweek magazine's Web site as saying that the government was "not functioning" and that he had told Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice by phone, "He's got to be replaced."
Sarkozy made no mention of the diplomatic gaffe. Instead, he went out of his way to repeatedly praise Kouchner, an outspoken humanitarian activist and former UN administrator of Kosovo who left the Socialist party to join Sarkozy's conservative government.
In a subsequent speech to the 180 visiting ambassadors, Kouchner veered from his prepared remarks to say that he had apologized to Maliki on Monday morning. But Kouchner has a reputation for being unable to hide his true feelings. He also suggested in the same sentence that the beleaguered prime minister was already on his way out, saying that he "may be leaving us soon."
Most of Sarkozy's speech was devoted to plotting a new, activist course for France's role in the world, particularly in preventing what he called a confrontation between Islam and the West by working to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and crises in Lebanon, Iran and Iraq.
Praising his predecessor, he reiterated that "France was - thanks to Jacques Chirac - is and remains hostile" to the American-led war in Iraq, adding, "History proved France right."
Calling for a concrete deadline for the withdrawal of troops, he described Iraq as "a nation that is falling apart in a merciless civil war," where the Sunni-Shiite divide can ignite conflict throughout the Middle East and where terrorists are setting up permanent bases to attack targets around the world.
During a headline-grabbing three-day visit to Iraq last week, Kouchner offered France's help in stabilizing the country, including mediating among warring communities, and working with the United Nations to play a bigger role.
Although Sarkozy praised Kouchner's mission and stated in his speech that France was prepared to engage with Iraq, he failed to make any specific proposal.
In a move that is certain to be welcomed in Washington, he announced that France would send more troops to Afghanistan to train the Afghan Army, despite his statement during the campaign that France would not remain in Afghanistan forever. The Defense Ministry confirmed that France would send 150 more troops.
But Sarkozy harshly criticized the Bush administration for going to war against Iraq on its own and failing adequately to address global warming.
"It is clear now, and I mean it, that the unilateral use of force leads to failure," he said of the Iraq crisis. As for the environment, he said, the United States "unfortunately is not demonstrating the 'leadership' capacity that it claims in other areas."
He warned against what he called a drift toward "the clash of power politics," criticizing not only the United States but also Russia and China.
"Russia is imposing its return to the world scene by making somewhat brutal use of its assets, especially oil and gas," Sarkozy said. China, meanwhile, "is transforming its insatiable quest for raw materials into a strategy of control, especially in Africa."
He urged the United States not to fear European efforts to forge its own defense identity outside of the NATO structure, while he urged European Union nations to accept a larger share of defense spending to deal with new and bigger global threats.
Among the Europeans, France's defense budget is second only to Britain's, with both countries spending more than 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense. The two countries, together with Germany and Italy, which spend less, accounted for 75 percent of Europe's defense spending in 2005.
"We can't continue with four countries paying for the security of all the rest," Sarkozy said.
Sarkozy said that France would push for a European security strategy to be adopted when it assumes the EU presidency for the second half of 2008.
Among his other proposals are the eventual expansion of members in the G-8 group of the world's largest industrial powers from 8 to 13, to include China and other developing powers: Mexico, South Africa, Brazil and India.
Breaking with the position of Chirac, he also left open the door to renewing high-level dialogue with Syria, if it backed French efforts to end the political crisis in Lebanon.
Katrin Bennhold contributed reporting.
Iran pledges to help IAEA
Iran on Monday offered some cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency in its investigation of an alleged secret uranium processing project linked by U.S. intelligence to a nuclear arms program, even while dismissing such claims as "baseless allegations," The Associated Press reported.
The pledge was contained in a memorandum dated Monday from the Iranian mission to the IAEA, the UN nuclear watchdog. In it, Tehran also outlined its timetable for providing other sensitive information sought by the IAEA in its examination of more than two decades of nuclear activity by the Islamic republic, most of it clandestine until disclosed more than four years ago.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/27/europe/france.php
Iran risks attack over atomic program</font size></center>
International Herald Tribune
By Elaine Sciolino
August 27, 2007
PARIS: In his first major foreign policy speech as president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy said Monday that Iran could be attacked militarily if it did not live up to its international obligations to curb its nuclear program.
Addressing France's ambassadorial corps, Sarkozy stressed that such an outcome would be a disaster. He did not say that France would ever participate in military action against Iran or even tacitly support such an approach.
But the mere fact that he raised the specter of the use of force is likely to be perceived by Iran as a warning of the consequences of its continuing course of action and by the Bush administration as acceptance of its line that no option, including the use of force, can be excluded.
Sarkozy praised the current diplomatic initiative by the world's powers that threatens even tougher sanctions mandated by the United Nations if Iran does not stop enriching uranium for possible use in a nuclear weapon, but holds out the possibility of incentives if Iran complies.
This two-pronged approach, he said, "is the only one that can enable us to avoid being faced with an alternative that I call catastrophic: an Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran."
Calling the Iranian nuclear crisis "the most serious that weighs on the international order today," Sarkozy also reiterated his position that a nuclear-armed Iran was "unacceptable" for France.
Although Sarkozy's aides said that French policy had not changed, some foreign policy experts were stunned by the blunt, if brief remark.
"This came out of the blue," said François Heisbourg, special adviser to the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris and author of a forthcoming book on Iran's nuclear program. "To actually say that if diplomacy fails the choice will be to accept a nuclear Iran or bomb Iran, this is a diplomatic blockbuster."
Sarkozy's speech, an annual ritual outlining France's foreign policy goals, came amid extraordinarily high approval ratings more than three months into his presidency. According to a TNS-Sofres telephone poll of 1,000 people published on Monday in the daily Le Figaro, 71 percent said they were satisfied with Sarkozy's performance. A number of other polls put his approval rating higher than 60 percent.
But his debut before his ambassadors was marred by a diplomatic imbroglio involving his foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, who was forced to apologize to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq for calling for his resignation.
Maliki had demanded an apology from Kouchner, who was quoted on Newsweek magazine's Web site as saying that the government was "not functioning" and that he had told Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice by phone, "He's got to be replaced."
Sarkozy made no mention of the diplomatic gaffe. Instead, he went out of his way to repeatedly praise Kouchner, an outspoken humanitarian activist and former UN administrator of Kosovo who left the Socialist party to join Sarkozy's conservative government.
In a subsequent speech to the 180 visiting ambassadors, Kouchner veered from his prepared remarks to say that he had apologized to Maliki on Monday morning. But Kouchner has a reputation for being unable to hide his true feelings. He also suggested in the same sentence that the beleaguered prime minister was already on his way out, saying that he "may be leaving us soon."
Most of Sarkozy's speech was devoted to plotting a new, activist course for France's role in the world, particularly in preventing what he called a confrontation between Islam and the West by working to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and crises in Lebanon, Iran and Iraq.
Praising his predecessor, he reiterated that "France was - thanks to Jacques Chirac - is and remains hostile" to the American-led war in Iraq, adding, "History proved France right."
Calling for a concrete deadline for the withdrawal of troops, he described Iraq as "a nation that is falling apart in a merciless civil war," where the Sunni-Shiite divide can ignite conflict throughout the Middle East and where terrorists are setting up permanent bases to attack targets around the world.
During a headline-grabbing three-day visit to Iraq last week, Kouchner offered France's help in stabilizing the country, including mediating among warring communities, and working with the United Nations to play a bigger role.
Although Sarkozy praised Kouchner's mission and stated in his speech that France was prepared to engage with Iraq, he failed to make any specific proposal.
In a move that is certain to be welcomed in Washington, he announced that France would send more troops to Afghanistan to train the Afghan Army, despite his statement during the campaign that France would not remain in Afghanistan forever. The Defense Ministry confirmed that France would send 150 more troops.
But Sarkozy harshly criticized the Bush administration for going to war against Iraq on its own and failing adequately to address global warming.
"It is clear now, and I mean it, that the unilateral use of force leads to failure," he said of the Iraq crisis. As for the environment, he said, the United States "unfortunately is not demonstrating the 'leadership' capacity that it claims in other areas."
He warned against what he called a drift toward "the clash of power politics," criticizing not only the United States but also Russia and China.
"Russia is imposing its return to the world scene by making somewhat brutal use of its assets, especially oil and gas," Sarkozy said. China, meanwhile, "is transforming its insatiable quest for raw materials into a strategy of control, especially in Africa."
He urged the United States not to fear European efforts to forge its own defense identity outside of the NATO structure, while he urged European Union nations to accept a larger share of defense spending to deal with new and bigger global threats.
Among the Europeans, France's defense budget is second only to Britain's, with both countries spending more than 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense. The two countries, together with Germany and Italy, which spend less, accounted for 75 percent of Europe's defense spending in 2005.
"We can't continue with four countries paying for the security of all the rest," Sarkozy said.
Sarkozy said that France would push for a European security strategy to be adopted when it assumes the EU presidency for the second half of 2008.
Among his other proposals are the eventual expansion of members in the G-8 group of the world's largest industrial powers from 8 to 13, to include China and other developing powers: Mexico, South Africa, Brazil and India.
Breaking with the position of Chirac, he also left open the door to renewing high-level dialogue with Syria, if it backed French efforts to end the political crisis in Lebanon.
Katrin Bennhold contributed reporting.
Iran pledges to help IAEA
Iran on Monday offered some cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency in its investigation of an alleged secret uranium processing project linked by U.S. intelligence to a nuclear arms program, even while dismissing such claims as "baseless allegations," The Associated Press reported.
The pledge was contained in a memorandum dated Monday from the Iranian mission to the IAEA, the UN nuclear watchdog. In it, Tehran also outlined its timetable for providing other sensitive information sought by the IAEA in its examination of more than two decades of nuclear activity by the Islamic republic, most of it clandestine until disclosed more than four years ago.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/27/europe/france.php
U.S. ramps up pressure on Iran
Bush administration is counting its successes —
and calling for still more pressure
By Warren P. Strobel | McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Wednesday, September 19, 2007
WASHINGTON — One year after the United States launched an intensified global economic campaign against Iran with the stated aim of halting Tehran’s nuclear work, the Bush administration is counting its successes — and calling for still more pressure.
In recent months, once-reluctant European countries have joined the effort, which some are calling a financial war, with more vigor.
Germany’s largest bank, Deutsche Bank AG, said recently that it would stop doing business in Iran. France has trimmed export credits that encourage business in Iran and advised French firms, including the oil and gas giant Total S.A., not to start new investments there. Even Japan, heavily dependent on Persian Gulf oil, has pulled back from energy projects in Iran.
While hard to quantify, the multi-pronged effort appears to be causing significant pain in Iran, raising the cost of doing business and delaying Tehran’s plans to modernize its inefficient oil and gas industry, according to a dozen U.S. officials, Western diplomats and analysts.
In Washington, the drive for financial sanctions has proved a boon to Bush administration aides seeking to head off military operations against Iran, which Vice President Dick Cheney favors.
Whether it will succeed in thwarting Iran’s nuclear ambitions remains to be seen.
"The Treasury has had some success in jaw-boning financial institutions. That has contributed to decisions by several big banks to stop or reduce business in Iran," said former Treasury official Jeffrey Schott, of the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
But, Schott said, “I don’t think the level of (international) cooperation or intervention will produce noticeable results — and will not dissuade Iran from its policy objectives.”
The U.S. and several European governments see concerted economic pressure as the best hope for a peaceful end to the long-running showdown over Iran’s nuclear programs. But Russia and China worry that sanctions are a slippery slope that will lead to war.
Increased sanctions, coupled with an offer of negotiations if Iran suspends uranium enrichment, is the only approach “that can keep us from facing a disastrous alternative: an Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran,” French President Nicolas Sarkozy said last month.
The financial campaign, led by the Treasury Department and based on executive orders and United Nations sanctions, has taken on new significance even as a U.S.-led drive to impose more draconian U.N. sanctions on Iran has faltered.
Envoys from six nations will meet in Washington on Friday to discuss an already-delayed third U.N. Security Council sanctions resolution. But of the six, China and Russia oppose more punishment for Iran, and Germany is unenthusiastic. The eventual resolution, if any, is expected to be watered-down, Western diplomats say.
The administration expects to impose new unilateral sanctions against the Quds Force, a paramilitary unit that's part of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to a senior U.S. official. The official and others spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak on the record.
Iran, which is permitted under international law to have a civilian nuclear energy program, says its nuclear work is for peaceful purposes. But it has long hidden major aspects of its nuclear program that only recently have come to light.
The six nations meeting in Washington offered in June 2006 to negotiate with Iran over a package of economic, political and security incentives if it would first suspend uranium enrichment.
Neither Iran’s spiritual leaders nor President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad seems ready to negotiate under those terms.
A draft new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran concludes that hard-liners increasingly have the upper hand in Tehran, leaving a bleak outlook for deal-making, according to a former U.S. official who has been briefed on the document.
More broadly, nations from Cuba to Myanmar have managed to survive under economic assault, manipulating sanctions to blame outside forces and rally support from their people.
Another obstacle is here at home, where Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice faces stiff opposition from hard-liners led by Cheney. The Cheney camp argues that diplomacy and pressure are doomed to fail to stop Iran from going nuclear.
Despite the hurdles, the effort to squeeze Iran economically has scored significant gains recently.
Under Sarkozy, France has taken a much harder line with Iran than under his predecessor, Jacques Chirac.
"We have already asked a certain number of our large companies to not respond to (business) tenders, and it is a way of signaling that we are serious," French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Sunday. "We are not banning French companies from submitting. We have advised them not to.”
“Have the Europeans done everything they need to? No they haven’t. … Have they done more in the last year than they have in the last two decades put together? Yes,” said Danielle Pletka, a vice president of the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
Said a senior Treasury official: “The trend line is quite good.”
Countries of the European Union, Iran’s main trading partner, have significantly cooled economic ties since the U.N. Security Council first imposed financial sanctions in December 2006. Germany and France have both trimmed export credit guarantees.
Iran’s state-owned Bank Sepah, which was named in a second Security Council resolution in March, is close to collapse, according to Pletka and Washington-based diplomats.
Yet in some cases, when Western companies and banks move out of Iran, Chinese or other Asian firms simply move in and take the business.
Pletka, however, said Chinese firms can't always provide the same technology, such as sophisticated equipment for Iran’s struggling oil fields. “There are areas that the Chinese just cannot backstop,” she said.
The financial war began in earnest a year ago, when Treasury Department teams began briefing foreign governments and banks on intelligence the U.S. government had gathered on Iran. Among the findings was that the Central Bank of Iran was trying to conceal its role in financial transactions in which it was involved, a practice on which banks look askance, said the senior Treasury official.
“That’s just as suspicious as it sounds,” he said.
Treasury blocked another state bank, Bank Saderat, one of Iran’s largest, from even indirect access to the U.S. financial system through non-Iranian banks. It alleged that the bank had played a role in financing terrorism.
The Bush administration also pushed European banks to go beyond halting just dollar transactions with Iran. Many major European financial institutions now “don’t want to deal with them in any currency,” the Treasury official said.
Rice and other officials say the entire effort is aimed at hurting Iran’s decision-makers, without punishing the country’s population, which is largely pro-Western in outlook and suffers under decades of economic mismanagement. The big question is whether such targeted sanctions will work.
Said Schott: “Is it having an impact? Yeah. But compared to the damage they (the Western countries) are doing to themselves? I don’t know.”
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/19818.html
Sorry, this IS NOT a "CP" friendly article.
Therefore I have bolded points of emphasis.
Just keeping the fam informed about our "real" relations with 1/3of "the Axis".
The Bushes and the Truth About Iran
By Robert Parry
Consortium News
Thursday 21 September 2006
Having gone through the diplomatic motions with Iran, George W. Bush is shifting toward a military option that carries severe risks for American soldiers in Iraq as well as for long-term U.S. interests around the world. Yet, despite this looming crisis, the Bush Family continues to withhold key historical facts about U.S.-Iranian relations.
Those historical facts - relating to Republican contacts with Iran's Islamic regime more than a quarter century ago - are relevant today because an underlying theme in Bush's rationale for war is that direct negotiations with Iran are pointless. But Bush's own father may know otherwise.
The evidence is now persuasive that George H.W. Bush participated in negotiations with Iran's radical regime in 1980, behind President Jimmy Carter's back, with the goal of arranging for 52 American hostages to be released after Bush and Ronald Reagan were sworn in as Vice President and President, respectively.
In exchange, the Republicans agreed to let Iran obtain U.S.-manufactured military supplies through Israel. The Iranians kept their word, releasing the hostages immediately upon Reagan's swearing-in on Jan. 20, 1981.
Over the next few years, the Republican-Israel-Iran weapons pipeline operated mostly in secret, only exploding into public view with the Iran-Contra scandal in late 1986. Even then, the Reagan-Bush team was able to limit congressional and other investigations, keeping the full history - and the 1980 chapter - hidden from the American people.
Upon taking office on Jan. 20, 2001, George W. Bush walled up the history even more by issuing an executive order blocking the scheduled declassification of records from the Reagan-Bush years. After 9/11, the younger George Bush added more bricks to the wall by giving Presidents, Vice Presidents and their heirs power over releasing documents.
Impending War
But that history is vital today.
First, the American people should know the real history of U.S.-Iran relations before the Bush administration launches another preemptive war in the Middle East. Second, the degree to which Iranian officials are willing to negotiate with their U.S. counterparts - and fulfill their side of the bargain - bears on the feasibility of talks now.
Indeed, the only rationale for hiding the historical record is that it would embarrass the Bush Family and possibly complicate George W. Bush's decision to attack Iran regardless of what the American people might want.
The Time magazine cover story, released on Sept. 17, and a new report by retired Air Force Col. Sam Gardiner - entitled "The End of the 'Summer Diplomacy'" - make clear that the military option against Iran is moving rapidly toward implementation.
Gardiner, who taught at the National War College and has war-gamed U.S. attacks on Iran for American policymakers over the past five years, noted that one of the "seven key truths" guiding Bush to war is that "you cannot negotiate with these people."
That "truth," combined with suspicions about Iran's nuclear ambitions and Tehran's relationship with Hezbelloh and other militant Islamic groups, has led the Bush administration into the box-canyon logic that war is the only answer, despite the fact that Gardiner's war games have found that war would have disastrous consequences.
In his report, Gardiner also noted that Bush's personality and his sense of his presidential destiny are adding to the pressures for war.
"The President is said to see himself as being like Winston Churchill, and to believe that the world will only appreciate him after he leaves office; he talks about the Middle East in messianic terms; he is said to have told those close to him that he has got to attack Iran because even if a Republican succeeds him in the White House, he will not have the same freedom of action that Bush enjoys.
"Most recently, someone high in the administration told a reporter that the President believes that he is the only one who can 'do the right thing' with respect to Iran. One thing is clear: a major source of the pressure for a military strike emanates from the very man who will ultimately make the decision over whether to authorize such a strike - the President."
A Made-Up Mind
Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, who reflects the thinking of influential neoconservatives, reached a similar conclusion - that Bush had essentially made up his mind about attacking Iran.
Krauthammer noted that on the day after the fifth anniversary of 9/11, Bush responded to a question about Iran by saying: "It's very important for the American people to see the President try to solve problems diplomatically before resorting to military force."
"'Before' implies that one follows the other," Krauthammer wrote. "The signal is unmistakable. An aerial attack on Iran's nuclear facilities lies just beyond the horizon of diplomacy. With the crisis advancing and the moment of truth approaching, it is important to begin looking now with unflinching honesty at the military option." [Washington Post, Sept. 15, 2006]
Yet, before making such a fateful decision, shouldn't Bush at least ask his father to finally level with him and with the American people about what happened in 1980 when the country was transfixed by Iranian militants holding 52 American hostages for 444 days?
At Consortiumnews.com, we have a special interest in that history because it was my discovery of a trove of classified documents pointing to the secret Republican negotiations with Iran that led to the founding of this Web site in 1995 and the publication of our first investigative series.
In the mid-1990s, the U.S. news media was obsessed with issues such as the O.J. Simpson trial and the so-called "Clinton scandals," so there was little interest in reexamining some historical mystery about Republicans going behind Jimmy Carter's back to strike a deal with Iran's mullahs.
[The fullest account of this history can be found in Robert Parry's Secrecy & Privilege, which was published in 2004.]
But that history now could be a matter of life or death for thousands of people in the Middle East, including Iranians, Israelis and American soldiers in Iraq.
False History
The false history surrounding the Iranian hostage crisis also has led to the mistaken conclusion that it was only the specter of Ronald Reagan's tough-guy image that made Iran buckle in January 1981 and that, therefore, the Iranians respect only force.
The hostage release on Reagan's Inauguration Day bathed the new President in an aura of heroism as a leader so feared by America's enemies that they scrambled to avoid angering him. It was viewed as a case study of how U.S. toughness could restore the proper international order.
That night, as fireworks lit the skies of Washington, the celebration was not only for a new President and for the freed hostages, but for a new era in which American power would no longer be mocked. That momentum continues to this day in George W. Bush's "preemptive" wars and the imperial boasts about a "New American Century."
However, the reality of that day 25 years ago now appears to have been quite different than was understood at the time. What's now known about the Iranian hostage crisis suggests that the "coincidence" of the Reagan Inauguration and the Hostage Release was not a case of frightened Iranians cowering before a U.S. President who might just nuke Tehran.
The evidence indicates that it was a prearranged deal between the Republicans and the Iranians. The Republicans got the hostages and the political bounce; Iran's Islamic fundamentalists got a secret supply of weapons and various other payoffs.
State Secret
Though the full history remains a state secret, it now appears Republicans did contact Iran's mullahs during the 1980 campaign; a hostage agreement was reached; and a clandestine flow of U.S. weapons soon followed.
In effect, while Americans thought they were witnessing one reality - the cinematic heroism of Ronald Reagan backing down Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini - another truth existed beneath the surface, one so troubling that the Reagan-Bush political apparatus has made keeping the secret a top priority for a quarter century.
The American people must never be allowed to think that the Reagan-Bush era began with collusion between Republican operatives and Islamic terrorists, an act that many might view as treason.:hmm:
A part of those secret dealings between Iran and the Republicans surfaced in the Iran-Contra Affair in 1986, when the public learned that the Reagan-Bush administration had sold arms to Iran for its help in freeing U.S. hostages then held in Lebanon.
After first denying these facts, the White House acknowledged the existence of the arms deals in 1985 and 1986 but managed to block investigators from looking back before 1984, when the official histories assert that the Iran initiative began.[/B]
During the 1987 congressional hearings on Iran-Contra, Republicans - behind the hardnosed leadership of Rep. Dick Cheney - fought to protect the White House, while Democrats, led by the accommodating Rep. Lee Hamilton, had no stomach for a constitutional crisis.
The result was a truncated investigation that laid much of the blame on supposedly rogue operatives, such as Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North.
Many American editors quickly grew bored with the complex Iran-Contra tale, but a few reporters kept searching for its origins. The trail kept receding in time, back to the Republican-Iranian relationship forged in the heat of the 1980 presidential campaign.
"Germs" of Scandal
Besides the few journalists, some U.S. government officials reached the same conclusion. For instance, Nicholas Veliotes, Reagan's assistant secretary of state for the Middle East, traced the "germs" of the Iran-Contra scandal to the 1980 campaign.
In a PBS interview, Veliotes said he first discovered the secret arms pipeline to Iran when an Israeli weapons flight was shot down over the Soviet Union on July 18, 1981, after straying off course on its third mission to deliver U.S. military supplies from Israel to Iran via Larnaca, Cyprus.
"We received a press report from Tass [the official Soviet news agency] that an Argentinian plane had crashed," Veliotes said. "According to the documents … this was chartered by Israel and it was carrying American military equipment to Iran. …And it was clear to me after my conversations with people on high that indeed we had agreed that the Israelis could transship to Iran some American-origin military equipment.
"Now this was not a covert operation in the classic sense, for which probably you could get a legal justification for it. As it stood, I believe it was the initiative of a few people [who] gave the Israelis the go-ahead. The net result was a violation of American law."
The reason that the Israeli flights violated U.S. law was that no formal notification had been given to Congress about the transshipment of U.S. military equipment as required by the Arms Export Control Act - a foreshadowing of George W. Bush's decision two decades later to bypass the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
In checking out the Israeli flight, Veliotes came to believe that the Reagan-Bush camp's dealings with Iran dated back to before the 1980 election.
"It seems to have started in earnest in the period probably prior to the election of 1980, as the Israelis had identified who would become the new players in the national security area in the Reagan administration," Veliotes said. "And I understand some contacts were made at that time."
Q: "Between?"
Veliotes: "Between Israelis and these new players."
Israeli Interests
In my work on the Iran-Contra scandal, I had obtained a classified summary of testimony from a mid-level State Department official, David Satterfield, who saw the early arms shipments as a continuation of Israeli policy toward Iran.
"Satterfield believed that Israel maintained a persistent military relationship with Iran, based on the Israeli assumption that Iran was a non-Arab state which always constituted a potential ally in the Middle East," the summary read. "There was evidence that Israel resumed providing arms to Iran in 1980."
Over the years, senior Israeli officials claimed that those early shipments had the discreet blessing of top Reagan-Bush officials.
In May 1982, Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon told the Washington Post that U.S. officials had approved the Iranian arms transfers. "We said that notwithstanding the tyranny of Khomeini, which we all hate, we have to leave a small window open to this country, a tiny small bridge to this country," Sharon said.
A decade later, in 1993, I took part in an interview with former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir in Tel Aviv during which he said he had read Gary Sick's 1991 book, October Surprise, which made the case for believing that the Republicans had intervened in the 1980 hostage negotiations to disrupt Jimmy Carter's reelection.
With the topic raised, one interviewer asked, "What do you think? Was there an October Surprise?"
"Of course, it was," Shamir responded without hesitation. "It was." Later in the interview when pressed for details, Shamir seemed to regret his candor and tried to backpedal somewhat on his answer.
Lie Detector
Iran-Contra special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh also came to suspect that the arms-for-hostage trail led back to 1980, since it was the only way to make sense of why the Reagan-Bush team continued selling arms to Iran in 1985-86 when there was so little progress in reducing the number of American hostages in Lebanon.
When Walsh's investigators conducted a polygraph of George H.W. Bush's national security adviser Donald Gregg, they added a question about Gregg's possible participation in the secret 1980 negotiations.
"Were you ever involved in a plan to delay the release of the hostages in Iran until after the 1980 Presidential election?" the examiner asked. Gregg's denial was judged to be deceptive. [See Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters, Vol. I, p. 501]
While investigating the so-called "October Surprise" issue for PBS "Frontline" in 1991-92, I also discovered a former State Department official who claimed contemporaneous knowledge of an October 1980 trip by then vice presidential candidate George H.W. Bush to Paris to meet with Iranians about the hostages.
David Henderson, who was then a State Department Foreign Service officer, recalled the date as October 18, 1980. He said he heard about the Paris trip when Chicago Tribune correspondent John Maclean met him for an interview on another topic.
Maclean, son of author Norman Maclean who wrote A River Runs Through It, had just been told by a well-placed Republican source that Bush was flying to Paris for a clandestine meeting with a delegation of Iranians about the American hostages.
Henderson wasn't sure whether Maclean was looking for some confirmation or whether he was simply sharing an interesting tidbit of news. For his part, Maclean never wrote about the leak because, he told me later, a GOP campaign spokesman had denied it.
Faded Memory
As the years passed, the memory of that Bush-to-Paris leak faded for both Henderson and Maclean, until October Surprise allegations bubbled to the surface in the early 1990s.
Several intelligence operatives were claiming that Bush had undertaken a secret mission to Paris in mid-October 1980 to give the Iranian government an assurance from one of the two Republicans on the presidential ticket that the GOP promises of future military and other assistance would be kept.
Henderson mentioned his recollection of the Bush-to-Paris leak in a 1991 letter to a U.S. senator, which someone sent to me. Though Henderson didn't remember the name of the Chicago Tribune reporter, we were able to track it back to Maclean through a story that he had written about Henderson.
Though not eager to become part of the October Surprise story in 1991, Maclean confirmed that he had received the Republican leak. He also agreed with Henderson's recollection that their conversation occurred on or about Oct.18, 1980. But Maclean still declined to identify his source.
The significance of the Maclean-Henderson conversation was that it was a piece of information locked in a kind of historical amber, untainted by subsequent claims from intelligence operatives whose credibility had been challenged.
One couldn't accuse Maclean of concocting the Bush-to-Paris allegation for some ulterior motive, since he hadn't used it in 1980, nor had he volunteered it a decade later. He only confirmed it when asked and even then wasn't eager to talk about it.
Bush Meeting
The Maclean-Henderson conversation provided important corroboration for the claims by the intelligence operatives, including Israeli intelligence officer Ari Ben-Menashe who said he saw Bush attend a final round of meetings with Iranians in Paris.
Ben-Menashe said he was in Paris as part of a six-member Israeli delegation that was coordinating the arms deliveries to Iran. He said the key meeting had occurred at the Ritz Hotel in Paris.
In his memoirs, Profits of War, Ben-Menashe said he recognized several Americans, including Republican congressional aide Robert McFarlane and CIA officers Robert Gates, Donald Gregg and George Cave. Then, Ben-Menashe said, Iranian cleric Mehdi Karrubi arrived and walked into a conference room.
"A few minutes later George Bush, with the wispy-haired William Casey in front of him, stepped out of the elevator. He smiled, said hello to everyone, and, like Karrubi, hurried into the conference room," Ben-Menashe wrote.
Ben-Menashe said the Paris meetings served to finalize a previously outlined agreement calling for release of the 52 hostages in exchange for $52 million, guarantees of arms sales for Iran, and unfreezing of Iranian monies in U.S. banks. The timing, however, was changed, he said, to coincide with Reagan's expected Inauguration on Jan. 20, 1981.
Ben-Menashe, who repeated his allegations under oath in a congressional deposition, received support from several sources, including pilot Heinrich Rupp, who said he flew Casey - then Reagan's campaign director - from Washington's National Airport to Paris on a flight that left very late on a rainy night in mid-October.
Rupp said that after arriving at LeBourget airport outside Paris, he saw a man resembling Bush on the tarmac. The night of Oct. 18 indeed was rainy in the Washington area. Also, sign-in sheets at the Reagan-Bush headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, placed Casey within a five-minute drive of National Airport late that evening.
Other Witnesses
There were other bits and pieces of corroboration about the Paris meetings. As early as 1987, Iran's ex-President Bani-Sadr had made similar claims about a Paris meeting between Republicans and Iranians. A French arms dealer, Nicholas Ignatiew, told me in 1990 that he had checked with his government contacts and was told that Republicans did meet with Iranians in Paris in mid-October 1980.
A well-connected French investigative reporter Claude Angeli said his sources inside the French secret service confirmed that the service provided "cover" for a meeting between Republicans and Iranians in France on the weekend of Oct. 18-19, 1980. German journalist Martin Kilian had received a similar account from a top aide to the fiercely anti-communist chief of French intelligence, Alexandre deMarenches.
Later, deMarenches's biographer, David Andelman, told congressional investigators under oath that deMarenches admitted that he had helped the Reagan-Bush campaign arrange meetings with Iranians about the hostage issue in the summer and fall of 1980, with one meeting held in Paris in October.
Andelman said deMarenches ordered that the secret meetings be kept out of his biography because the story could otherwise damage the reputation of his friends, Casey and Bush. "I don't want to hurt my friend, George Bush," Andelman recalled deMarenches saying as Bush was seeking re-election in 1992.
Gates, McFarlane, Gregg and Cave all denied participating in the meeting, though some alibis proved shaky and others were never examined at all.
Lashing Out
For his part, George H.W. Bush lashed out at the October Surprise allegations. At a news conference on June 4, 1992, Bush was asked if he thought an independent counsel was needed to investigate allegations of secret arms shipments to Iraq during the 1980s.
"I wonder whether they're going to use the same prosecutors that are trying out there to see whether I was in Paris in 1980," Bush snapped.
As a surprised hush fell over the press corps, Bush continued, "I mean, where are we going with the taxpayers' money in this political year?" Bush then asserted, "I was not in Paris, and we did nothing illegal or wrong here" on Iraq.
Though Bush was a former CIA director and had been caught lying about Iran-Contra with his claims of being "out of the loop," he was still given the benefit of the doubt in 1992. Plus, he had what appeared to be a solid alibi for Oct. 18-19, 1980, Secret Service records which placed him at his home in Washington on that weekend.
However, the Bush administration released the records only in redacted form, making it difficult for congressional investigators to verify exactly what Bush had done that day and whom he had met.
The records for the key day of Sunday, Oct. 19, purported to show Bush going to the Chevy Chase Country Club in the morning and to someone's private residence in the afternoon. If Bush indeed had been on those side trips, it would close the window on any possible flight to Paris and back.
Investigators of the October Surprise mystery - including those of us at "Frontline" - put great weight on the Secret Service records. But little is really known about the Secret Service's standards for recording the movements of protectees.
Since the cooperation of the protectees is essential to the Secret Service staying in position to thwart any attacker, the agents presumably must show flexibility in what details they report.
Few politicians are going to want bodyguards around if they write down the details of sensitive meetings or assignations with illicit lovers. Reasonably, the agents might have to fudge or leave out some of the facts.
Bush's Alibi
As it turned out, only one Secret Service agent on the Bush detail - supervisor Leonard Tanis - claimed a clear recollection of the trip to the Chevy Chase Country Club that Sunday. Tanis told congressional investigators that Mr. and Mrs. Bush went to the Chevy Chase club for brunch with Justice and Mrs. Potter Stewart.
But at "Frontline," we had already gone down that path and found it to be a dead end. We had obtained Mrs. Bush's protective records and they showed her going to the C&O Canal jogging path in Washington, not to the Chevy Chase club.
We also had reached Justice Stewart's widow, who had no recollection of any Chevy Chase brunch. So it appeared that Tanis was wrong - and he later backed off his claims.
The inaccurate Tanis account raised the suspicions of House International Affairs Committee counsel Spencer Oliver. In a six-page memo urging a closer look at the Bush question, Oliver argued that the Secret Service had withheld the uncensored daily report for no justifiable reason from Congress.
"Why did the Secret Service refuse to cooperate on a matter which could have conclusively cleared George Bush of these serious allegations?" Oliver asked. "Was the White House involved in this refusal? Did they order it?"
Oliver also noted Bush's strange behavior in raising the October Surprise issue on his own at two news conferences.
"It can be fairly said that President Bush's recent outbursts about the October Surprise inquiries and [about] his whereabouts in mid-October of 1980 are disingenuous at best," wrote Oliver, "since the administration has refused to make available the documents and the witnesses that could finally and conclusively clear Mr. Bush."
Secret Flight
Unintentionally, Bush's eldest son poked another hole in the assumption that the government would never doctor official records to help cover up international travel by a protected public figure.
For Thanksgiving 2003, George W. Bush wanted to make a surprise flight to Iraq. To give Bush's flight additional security - and extra drama - phony flight plans were filed, a false call sign was employed, and Air Force One was identified as a "Gulfstream 5" in response to a question from a British Airways pilot.
"A senior administration official told reporters that even some members of Bush's Secret Service detail believed he was still in Crawford, Texas, getting ready to have his parents over for Thanksgiving," Washington Post reporter Mike Allen wrote. [Washington Post, Nov. 28, 2003]
Besides falsely telling reporters that George W. Bush planned to spend Thanksgiving at his Texas ranch, Bush's handlers spirited Bush to Air Force One in an unmarked vehicle, with only a tiny Secret Service contingent, the Post reported.
Bush later relished describing the scene to reporters. "They pulled up in a plain-looking vehicle with tinted windows. I slipped on a baseball cap, pulled 'er down - as did Condi. We looked like a normal couple," he said, referring to national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.
Though the melodramatic deception surrounding Bush's flight to Baghdad soon became public - since it was in essence a publicity stunt - it did prove the ability of high-ranking officials to conduct their movements in secrecy and the readiness of security personnel to file false reports as part of these operations.
Collapsing Alibis
By the late 1990s, other elements of the Republicans' October Surprise alibis were collapsing, including pro-Reagan-Bush claims cited prominently by some news organizations, such as the New Republic and Newsweek. [For more details, see Parry's Secrecy & Privilege or Consortiumnews.com's "The Bushes & the Death of Reason."]
With the Republican defenses falling apart and with many documents from the Reagan-Bush years scheduled for release in 2001, the opportunity to finally learn the truth about the pivotal election of 1980 loomed.
But George W. Bush got into the White House via a ruling by five Republicans on the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the counting of votes in Florida. Then, on his first day in office, his counsel Alberto Gonzales drafted an executive order for Bush that postponed release of the Reagan-Bush records.
After the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, Bush approved another secrecy order that put the records beyond the public's reach indefinitely, passing down control of many documents to a President's or a Vice President's descendants.
Thus, the truth about how the Reagan-Bush era began in the 1980s - and what was done to contain the Iran-Contra investigations in the late 1980s and early 1990s - might eventually become the property of the noted scholars, the Bush twins, Jenna and Barbara.
The American people will be kept in the dark about their own history, like the subjects of some hereditary dynasty. Without the facts, they also face the possibility of being more easily manipulated by emotional appeals devoid of informed debate
That moment has come sooner than many expected. The United States appears to be on the brink of a war with Iran, while many government officials and the citizenry are operating on historical assumptions derived more from fiction than fact.
http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/64/22650
War Plans: United States and Iran
Strategic Forecasting, Inc.
GEOPOLITICAL INTELLIGENCE REPORT
By George Friedman
October 30, 2007
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.
The Goals of an Attack
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.
Goals Unattainable?
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.com
Strategic Forecasting, Inc.
GEOPOLITICAL INTELLIGENCE REPORT
By George Friedman
October 30, 2007
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.
The Goals of an Attack
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.
Goals Unattainable?
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.com
“Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter.
The Statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.”
- Sir Winston Churchill, 1941
unfortunately this pre-emptive strike shit is making countries extremely defensive.
and it may sound crazy, but i think iran is actually safer with a nuclear weapon. if theyre allowed to have nuclear weaponds they wouldnt actually use them, plus they wont have the technology anytime soon to actually strike the united states.
when everyone has nukes, no one can use them.
and it may sound crazy, but i think iran is actually safer with a nuclear weapon. if theyre allowed to have nuclear weaponds they wouldnt actually use them, plus they wont have the technology anytime soon to actually strike the united states.
when everyone has nukes, no one can use them.
Based on that statfor article the U.S. govt. has only one option. Leave them the fuck alone.
Experts:
Danger of nuclear-armed Iran may be hyped
By Warren P. Strobel | McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Sunday, November 11, 2007
WASHINGTON — A hostile country led by anti-American ideologues appears close to developing its first nuclear weapon and, as a U.S. election approaches, the president and his advisers debate a pre-emptive military strike. Newspaper columnists demand action to stop the nuclear peril.
The country was China, the year was 1963 and the president was Lyndon Baines Johnson.
Now it is Iran that is said to may be bent on acquiring nuclear arms, and President Bush who has declared that "unacceptable." Some U.S. officials and outside commentators are again pushing for a pre-emptive attack.
But the White House and its partisans may be inflating the dangers of a nuclear-armed Iran, say experts on the Persian Gulf and nuclear deterrence. While there are dangers, they acknowledge, Iran appears to want a nuclear weapon for the same reason other countries do: to protect itself.
Bush, by contrast, has suggested that a nuclear-armed Iran could bring about World War III. The president and his top aides, along with hawkish commentators, have suggested that Iran might launch a first strike on Israel or the United States, or hand nuclear weapon to terrorist groups Tehran supports.
There is "only one terrible choice, which is either to bomb those (Iranian nuclear) facilities and retard their program or even cut it off altogether, or allow them to go nuclear," Norman Podhoretz, a foreign policy adviser to GOP presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, said last month.
"Would I like Iran to have a nuclear bomb? No," said Robert Jervis, a Columbia University professor of international politics who has written widely on nuclear deterrence. But, "the fears (voiced) by the administration and a fair number of sensible people as well, just are exaggerated. The idea that this will really make a big difference, I think is foolish."
Even some commentators in Israel, whose leaders see themselves in Iran's crosshairs, present a more nuanced view of the potential threat than the White House does.
An Iranian nuclear bomb could present Israel "with the real potential for an existential threat," Ephraim Kam of the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv wrote in February.
But Kam noted that Israel has its own unacknowledged nuclear deterrent-estimated at 100 to 200 warheads — larger than anything Iran could marshal for years to come.
Despite Iran's "messianic religious motivations," he wrote, "it is highly doubtful that Tehran would want to risk an Israeli nuclear response" by attempting a first strike.
Moreover, Iran, which says its nuclear research is aimed at generating electric power, is not thought to be close to having a nuclear weapon. In the worst-case scenario, it could have enough highly enriched uranium, a basic weapon ingredient in weapons, in two to three years.
The International Atomic Energy Agency is due to report next week on whether Iran has cleared up questions about its past nuclear work. The IAEA's judgment will influence whether the U.N. Security Council imposes new sanctions on Iran for failing to suspend uranium enrichment.
Bush administration officials insist that Iran is different from other countries that have sought and acquired nuclear weapons.
The world's known nuclear club is comprised of the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea.
"Iran has been willing to share technology and arms with terrorists and inappropriate regimes, in the way these others haven't," said a senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"The underlying facts of Iran and of nuclear weapons are different than these other cases," the official said. "I think they would behave differently."
In fact, U.S. ally Pakistan provided nuclear weapons technology to Iran and Libya, and North Korea has sold ballistic missiles in several Middle Eastern countries.
Iran's government is "a regime that is very aggressive in pursuit of its goals," added former undersecretary of state Robert Joseph, a conservative. "Having nuclear weapons would make it even more aggressive."
It is difficult to judge whether Iran would be deterred from using nuclear weapons because the West has limited understanding of the government in Tehran and the United States has mainly indirect communications, analysts say.
"We haven't talked to the Iranians well enough. We talked to the Soviets all the time," said former CIA analyst Judith Yaphe, now at the National Defense University. She added: "But I don't trust someone like (Iranian President Mahmoud) Ahmadenijad to understand where the red lines are."
Others, including Columbia's Jervis, say the U.S. government has not examined in depth how a nuclear armed Iran might behave for a simple reason: Bush's policy is that Iran will not be allowed to have the bomb.
U.S., Israeli and European concerns about a nuclear Iran generally fall into three categories:
The first is that it would hand over a nuclear weapon to terrorists, hoping to elude responsibility for an attack on Israel or America.
But Kam, the Israeli analyst, wrote that the chance of this "appears low." A more serious worry, he wrote, is that Iran could deter Israel from acting against Hezbollah, Iran's terrorist proxy that opposes Israel's existence.
Mohsen Sazegara, who helped found Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and is now a U.S.-based dissident, also predicted Iran would not engage in nuclear terrorism. "If I found out somebody was thinking of this, I'd have to say I don't know my country," he said.
The second concern is that a nuclear-armed Iran would prompt Arab powers such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt to seek their own bombs, sparking an arms race in the perpetually unstable Middle East.
"They're all talking about it now," Yaphe said. "That's a bad thing."
The third is that Iran, because of its radical religious government, will not be deterred from using nuclear weapons. Podhoretz said during a PBS debate that with Iran under the control of clerics and the "religious fanatic" Ahamadinejad "there's no assurance that self-preservation or the protection, preservation of the nation, will deter them."
But Jervis noted that in the early 1960s, Chinese leader Mao Tse-tung "was foaming at the mouth" with anti-Americanism.
President Johnson took no military steps to stop China from going nuclear, and it tested a weapon in 1964.
Iran's leaders suspect the United States wants to overthrow them. "Nuclear weapons mainly protect the homeland," Jervis said.
McClatchy Newspapers 2007
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/story/21341.html
Danger of nuclear-armed Iran may be hyped
By Warren P. Strobel | McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Sunday, November 11, 2007
WASHINGTON — A hostile country led by anti-American ideologues appears close to developing its first nuclear weapon and, as a U.S. election approaches, the president and his advisers debate a pre-emptive military strike. Newspaper columnists demand action to stop the nuclear peril.
The country was China, the year was 1963 and the president was Lyndon Baines Johnson.
Now it is Iran that is said to may be bent on acquiring nuclear arms, and President Bush who has declared that "unacceptable." Some U.S. officials and outside commentators are again pushing for a pre-emptive attack.
But the White House and its partisans may be inflating the dangers of a nuclear-armed Iran, say experts on the Persian Gulf and nuclear deterrence. While there are dangers, they acknowledge, Iran appears to want a nuclear weapon for the same reason other countries do: to protect itself.
Bush, by contrast, has suggested that a nuclear-armed Iran could bring about World War III. The president and his top aides, along with hawkish commentators, have suggested that Iran might launch a first strike on Israel or the United States, or hand nuclear weapon to terrorist groups Tehran supports.
There is "only one terrible choice, which is either to bomb those (Iranian nuclear) facilities and retard their program or even cut it off altogether, or allow them to go nuclear," Norman Podhoretz, a foreign policy adviser to GOP presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, said last month.
"Would I like Iran to have a nuclear bomb? No," said Robert Jervis, a Columbia University professor of international politics who has written widely on nuclear deterrence. But, "the fears (voiced) by the administration and a fair number of sensible people as well, just are exaggerated. The idea that this will really make a big difference, I think is foolish."
Even some commentators in Israel, whose leaders see themselves in Iran's crosshairs, present a more nuanced view of the potential threat than the White House does.
An Iranian nuclear bomb could present Israel "with the real potential for an existential threat," Ephraim Kam of the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv wrote in February.
But Kam noted that Israel has its own unacknowledged nuclear deterrent-estimated at 100 to 200 warheads — larger than anything Iran could marshal for years to come.
Despite Iran's "messianic religious motivations," he wrote, "it is highly doubtful that Tehran would want to risk an Israeli nuclear response" by attempting a first strike.
Moreover, Iran, which says its nuclear research is aimed at generating electric power, is not thought to be close to having a nuclear weapon. In the worst-case scenario, it could have enough highly enriched uranium, a basic weapon ingredient in weapons, in two to three years.
The International Atomic Energy Agency is due to report next week on whether Iran has cleared up questions about its past nuclear work. The IAEA's judgment will influence whether the U.N. Security Council imposes new sanctions on Iran for failing to suspend uranium enrichment.
Bush administration officials insist that Iran is different from other countries that have sought and acquired nuclear weapons.
The world's known nuclear club is comprised of the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea.
"Iran has been willing to share technology and arms with terrorists and inappropriate regimes, in the way these others haven't," said a senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"The underlying facts of Iran and of nuclear weapons are different than these other cases," the official said. "I think they would behave differently."
In fact, U.S. ally Pakistan provided nuclear weapons technology to Iran and Libya, and North Korea has sold ballistic missiles in several Middle Eastern countries.
Iran's government is "a regime that is very aggressive in pursuit of its goals," added former undersecretary of state Robert Joseph, a conservative. "Having nuclear weapons would make it even more aggressive."
It is difficult to judge whether Iran would be deterred from using nuclear weapons because the West has limited understanding of the government in Tehran and the United States has mainly indirect communications, analysts say.
"We haven't talked to the Iranians well enough. We talked to the Soviets all the time," said former CIA analyst Judith Yaphe, now at the National Defense University. She added: "But I don't trust someone like (Iranian President Mahmoud) Ahmadenijad to understand where the red lines are."
Others, including Columbia's Jervis, say the U.S. government has not examined in depth how a nuclear armed Iran might behave for a simple reason: Bush's policy is that Iran will not be allowed to have the bomb.
U.S., Israeli and European concerns about a nuclear Iran generally fall into three categories:
The first is that it would hand over a nuclear weapon to terrorists, hoping to elude responsibility for an attack on Israel or America.
But Kam, the Israeli analyst, wrote that the chance of this "appears low." A more serious worry, he wrote, is that Iran could deter Israel from acting against Hezbollah, Iran's terrorist proxy that opposes Israel's existence.
Mohsen Sazegara, who helped found Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and is now a U.S.-based dissident, also predicted Iran would not engage in nuclear terrorism. "If I found out somebody was thinking of this, I'd have to say I don't know my country," he said.
The second concern is that a nuclear-armed Iran would prompt Arab powers such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt to seek their own bombs, sparking an arms race in the perpetually unstable Middle East.
"They're all talking about it now," Yaphe said. "That's a bad thing."
The third is that Iran, because of its radical religious government, will not be deterred from using nuclear weapons. Podhoretz said during a PBS debate that with Iran under the control of clerics and the "religious fanatic" Ahamadinejad "there's no assurance that self-preservation or the protection, preservation of the nation, will deter them."
But Jervis noted that in the early 1960s, Chinese leader Mao Tse-tung "was foaming at the mouth" with anti-Americanism.
President Johnson took no military steps to stop China from going nuclear, and it tested a weapon in 1964.
Iran's leaders suspect the United States wants to overthrow them. "Nuclear weapons mainly protect the homeland," Jervis said.
McClatchy Newspapers 2007
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/story/21341.html
Iran answers some, but not all,
questions about its nuclear program
By Matthew Schofield | McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Thursday, November 15, 2007
BERLIN — Iran has answered more questions about the history of its nuclear program, but is still restricting access to its current nuclear work and expanding its enrichment of uranium in defiance of the U.N. Security Council, a U.N. watchdog agency reported Thursday.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said that Iran hasn't provided "full transparency" about its current activities and now has nearly 3,000 operating centrifuges — the number required to produce in one year enough enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon.
FULL ARTICLE: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/21567.html
`
questions about its nuclear program
By Matthew Schofield | McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Thursday, November 15, 2007
BERLIN — Iran has answered more questions about the history of its nuclear program, but is still restricting access to its current nuclear work and expanding its enrichment of uranium in defiance of the U.N. Security Council, a U.N. watchdog agency reported Thursday.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said that Iran hasn't provided "full transparency" about its current activities and now has nearly 3,000 operating centrifuges — the number required to produce in one year enough enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon.
FULL ARTICLE: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/21567.html
`
<font size="5"><center>The Presidential Race and the Iranian Wild Card</font size></center>
Washington Post Writers Group
By David Ignatius
May 8, 2008
WASHINGTON -- The game-changing events in the 2008 campaign are issues of war and peace. Both may be in play between now and November, in ways that add extra volatility to the presidential race.
Let's start with war: The United States is already fighting two of them, in Iraq and Afghanistan. But judging from recent statements by administration officials, there is also a small, but growing, chance of conflict with Iran.
The administration is signaling the Iranians that they need to stop supplying and training Shiite militias in Iraq -- or run the risk of U.S. retaliation. The Maliki government in Baghdad, worried about the danger of escalation, is passing this message to Tehran, but so far the only consequence is that the Iranians have broken off talks in Baghdad that were aimed at stabilizing the situation.
Saber-rattling from the Bush White House may seem almost routine, but pay attention to the comment last week by Adm. Michael G. Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "Iran is not going away. We need to be strong and really in the deterrent mode, to not be very predictable."
The risk of a U.S.-Iranian confrontation is growing in part because Saudi Arabia and other U.S. allies in the Middle East are so eager for it. "Behind closed doors, we are praying that the Iranians will make a mistake so that you will have a reason to attack," one Saudi told me this week. Another prominent Arab official said he hopes the U.S. will strike Iranian training camps just over the border from Iraq.
How would a U.S.-Iran confrontation play out in the campaign? Obviously, that depends on how you read the American political mood. Usually, we assume that the nation rallies around the party of war, but that's less certain in this case. America is war-weary, and it mistrusts President Bush. So a military skirmish with Iran might backfire, adding to public dissent -- much as happened with the Nixon administration's attack on Viet Cong sanctuaries in Cambodia in 1970.
Adding to the combustible mix is Hillary Clinton's hawkish position on Iran. Her rhetorical threat to "totally obliterate" Iran if it attacks Israel is more strident than anything that has come out of the Bush White House. Her anti-Iran stance blunts John McCain's appeal as the tough-guy candidate. But it complicates her argument for withdrawing U.S. troops rapidly from Iraq, since the main beneficiary of such a move would be Tehran.
The other wild card in the campaign is, happy to say, the possibility of Middle East peace negotiations. Bush administration officials continue to insist they have a chance of reaching an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement while Bush is in office. By this, they mean an agreement on paper -- one that would codify the outlines of the two-state solution that was negotiated but never finally concluded during the last days of the Clinton administration. This "shelf agreement" could be endorsed by the U.N. Security Council and provide a baseline for continuing talks next year about implementation.
A peace agreement -- even one that has no practical effect on the ground -- would be a feather in the cap for President Bush. But its political benefits for the GOP would be limited. Even a full-fledged peace treaty between Egypt and Israel failed to save Jimmy Carter from defeat at the polls in 1980. In that election, as perhaps this year, the Iranians played the role of spoilers.
Finally, there are noises offstage from Israel and Syria about a possible peace treaty. This would be the ultimate pragmatic bargain -- Israel likes the stability that Bashar al-Assad's military regime provides in Damascus, and it regards Syrian hegemony in Lebanon as an acceptable and perhaps desirable price. An important feature of the Syrian-Israeli dickering is that they have used Turkey as the key intermediary. If Turkey can broker peace between these two, it would reattach Ankara firmly to the Arab world for the first time since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918.
The 2008 campaign has been so mesmerizing that it's easy to forget what's going on out in the real world that could disrupt, once again, the certitudes of the pollsters and strategists. The campaign in recent weeks has focused on pocketbook issues because of worries about a deep recession. But as these economic anxieties fade a bit, we are likely to return to the ground zero of the Middle East, and to the themes of war and peace that will be interwoven through the remainder of this campaign
davidignatius@washpost.com
Copyright 2008, Washington Post Writers Group
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/05/middle_east_eager_for_usiran_s.html
Washington Post Writers Group
By David Ignatius
May 8, 2008
WASHINGTON -- The game-changing events in the 2008 campaign are issues of war and peace. Both may be in play between now and November, in ways that add extra volatility to the presidential race.
Let's start with war: The United States is already fighting two of them, in Iraq and Afghanistan. But judging from recent statements by administration officials, there is also a small, but growing, chance of conflict with Iran.
The administration is signaling the Iranians that they need to stop supplying and training Shiite militias in Iraq -- or run the risk of U.S. retaliation. The Maliki government in Baghdad, worried about the danger of escalation, is passing this message to Tehran, but so far the only consequence is that the Iranians have broken off talks in Baghdad that were aimed at stabilizing the situation.
Saber-rattling from the Bush White House may seem almost routine, but pay attention to the comment last week by Adm. Michael G. Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "Iran is not going away. We need to be strong and really in the deterrent mode, to not be very predictable."
The risk of a U.S.-Iranian confrontation is growing in part because Saudi Arabia and other U.S. allies in the Middle East are so eager for it. "Behind closed doors, we are praying that the Iranians will make a mistake so that you will have a reason to attack," one Saudi told me this week. Another prominent Arab official said he hopes the U.S. will strike Iranian training camps just over the border from Iraq.
How would a U.S.-Iran confrontation play out in the campaign? Obviously, that depends on how you read the American political mood. Usually, we assume that the nation rallies around the party of war, but that's less certain in this case. America is war-weary, and it mistrusts President Bush. So a military skirmish with Iran might backfire, adding to public dissent -- much as happened with the Nixon administration's attack on Viet Cong sanctuaries in Cambodia in 1970.
Adding to the combustible mix is Hillary Clinton's hawkish position on Iran. Her rhetorical threat to "totally obliterate" Iran if it attacks Israel is more strident than anything that has come out of the Bush White House. Her anti-Iran stance blunts John McCain's appeal as the tough-guy candidate. But it complicates her argument for withdrawing U.S. troops rapidly from Iraq, since the main beneficiary of such a move would be Tehran.
The other wild card in the campaign is, happy to say, the possibility of Middle East peace negotiations. Bush administration officials continue to insist they have a chance of reaching an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement while Bush is in office. By this, they mean an agreement on paper -- one that would codify the outlines of the two-state solution that was negotiated but never finally concluded during the last days of the Clinton administration. This "shelf agreement" could be endorsed by the U.N. Security Council and provide a baseline for continuing talks next year about implementation.
A peace agreement -- even one that has no practical effect on the ground -- would be a feather in the cap for President Bush. But its political benefits for the GOP would be limited. Even a full-fledged peace treaty between Egypt and Israel failed to save Jimmy Carter from defeat at the polls in 1980. In that election, as perhaps this year, the Iranians played the role of spoilers.
Finally, there are noises offstage from Israel and Syria about a possible peace treaty. This would be the ultimate pragmatic bargain -- Israel likes the stability that Bashar al-Assad's military regime provides in Damascus, and it regards Syrian hegemony in Lebanon as an acceptable and perhaps desirable price. An important feature of the Syrian-Israeli dickering is that they have used Turkey as the key intermediary. If Turkey can broker peace between these two, it would reattach Ankara firmly to the Arab world for the first time since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918.
The 2008 campaign has been so mesmerizing that it's easy to forget what's going on out in the real world that could disrupt, once again, the certitudes of the pollsters and strategists. The campaign in recent weeks has focused on pocketbook issues because of worries about a deep recession. But as these economic anxieties fade a bit, we are likely to return to the ground zero of the Middle East, and to the themes of war and peace that will be interwoven through the remainder of this campaign
davidignatius@washpost.com
Copyright 2008, Washington Post Writers Group
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/05/middle_east_eager_for_usiran_s.html
G. W. Douche administration was funding Iranian NPPs
Funding an Islamic dictatorship and then declaring war on that same dictatorship was part of Bush's understanding of democracy.
Re: G. W. Douche administration was funding Iranian NPPs
<font size="5"><center>
Iran: We can make our own
'yellowcake' uranium now</font size><font size="4">
One day before starting a new round of talks with world powers
in Geneva, Iran announced Sunday that it had mined its
own uranium to be used to make
nuclear energy – or nuclear weapons.</font size></center>
Chief of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization Ali-Akbar Salehi
cuts a ribbon during a ceremony to take delivery of locally
produced yellowcake, a uranium concentrate powder, at
the UCF plant in Isfahan 414 kilometres (257 miles) south
of Tehran December 5, 2010. HO/Fars News/Reuters
Christian Science Monitor
By Taylor Barnes, Correspondent
December 5, 2010
Iran announced on Sunday that its entire nuclear fuel cycle is now self-sufficient.
With two-day talks beginning in Geneva tomorrow between six world powers and Iran, Iranian leaders say they want to deliver the message that the nuclear program will progress even with international sanctions.
Iran’s top atomic chief and vice president Ali Akbar Salehi said on Sunday that for the first time the Islamic Republic had delivered uranium mined domestically to an Iranian processing unit.
Iran had bought “yellowcake,” uranium concentrate powder, from South Africa in the 1970s. But Reuters notes that analysts in the West say Iran may be close to depleting this supply.
"The West had counted on the possibility of us being in trouble over raw material but today we had the first batch of yellowcake from Gachin mine sent to Isfahan [conversion] facility," Salehi said on state TV, Agence France-Press reports.
"No matter how much effort they put into their sanctions ... our nuclear activities will proceed and
they will witness greater achievements in the future," he said, according to the Associated Press.
The US and many Western powers accuse Iran of seeking a nuclear weapon.
Iran, for its part, maintains that it wants nuclear fuel for civilian energy and medical purposes. Uranium enriched to low grades is used in nuclear reactors for fuel, while uranium enriched further can be used for an atomic bomb. According to Salehi, the whole delivery of the yellowcake was done under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
<font size="3">Iran: Attacks on nuclear scientists no deterrent</font size>
Salehi also addressed last week’s attacks on Iranian scientists in the televised news conference, saying these also will not deter nuclear development. One was assassinated in Tehran and another was injured in a bombing. Iran’s intelligence minister Heidar Moslehi called the attacks terrorism and said that they were carried out with the support of the CIA, Israel’s Mossad, and Britain’s MI6.
"Assassination of Iranian scientists will not hamper our progress,” Salehi said, according to Iran’s Press TV.
Despite the timing and pointedness of Salehi’s announcement, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said that Iran’s uranium enrichment will not be discussed in the six-power talks in Geneva, Reuters adds.
<font size="3">Iran seeks a 'protracted diplomatic process'</font size>
The US, Russia, China, France, Britain, and Germany haggled with Iran for months over the location and size of the talks. But Ray Takeyh, a senior fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations, argues in a commentary in the Los Angeles Times that Iran is seeking a “protracted diplomatic process” with at best modest concessions.
He adds that Iran is taking advantage of pointed international anxiety over its nuclear program to increase repression at home, arresting “scores” of lawyers and activists in recent weeks:
Indeed, Tehran’s principal motivation for participating in the talks has little to do with its nuclear file and much to do with its desire to fracture international unity, relieve financial distress and, most important, gain a free hand in suppressing its opposition "green movement." …
At ease with the notion that the global community's preoccupation with gradations of enrichment and spinning centrifuges will divert it from pressing Iran on its human rights record, the mullahs typically escalate their repression at home before dispatching their diplomats abroad.
Takeyh adds that sanctions have had a “dramatic impact” on Iran’s economy and that the Islamic Republic’s mullahs are putting their hope in China and Russia to defend them against further sanctions as the negotiations draw on.
<font size="5"><center>
Iran: We can make our own
'yellowcake' uranium now</font size><font size="4">
One day before starting a new round of talks with world powers
in Geneva, Iran announced Sunday that it had mined its
own uranium to be used to make
nuclear energy – or nuclear weapons.</font size></center>
Chief of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization Ali-Akbar Salehi
cuts a ribbon during a ceremony to take delivery of locally
produced yellowcake, a uranium concentrate powder, at
the UCF plant in Isfahan 414 kilometres (257 miles) south
of Tehran December 5, 2010. HO/Fars News/Reuters
Christian Science Monitor
By Taylor Barnes, Correspondent
December 5, 2010
Iran announced on Sunday that its entire nuclear fuel cycle is now self-sufficient.
With two-day talks beginning in Geneva tomorrow between six world powers and Iran, Iranian leaders say they want to deliver the message that the nuclear program will progress even with international sanctions.
Iran’s top atomic chief and vice president Ali Akbar Salehi said on Sunday that for the first time the Islamic Republic had delivered uranium mined domestically to an Iranian processing unit.
Iran had bought “yellowcake,” uranium concentrate powder, from South Africa in the 1970s. But Reuters notes that analysts in the West say Iran may be close to depleting this supply.
"The West had counted on the possibility of us being in trouble over raw material but today we had the first batch of yellowcake from Gachin mine sent to Isfahan [conversion] facility," Salehi said on state TV, Agence France-Press reports.
"No matter how much effort they put into their sanctions ... our nuclear activities will proceed and
they will witness greater achievements in the future," he said, according to the Associated Press.
The US and many Western powers accuse Iran of seeking a nuclear weapon.
Iran, for its part, maintains that it wants nuclear fuel for civilian energy and medical purposes. Uranium enriched to low grades is used in nuclear reactors for fuel, while uranium enriched further can be used for an atomic bomb. According to Salehi, the whole delivery of the yellowcake was done under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
<font size="3">Iran: Attacks on nuclear scientists no deterrent</font size>
Salehi also addressed last week’s attacks on Iranian scientists in the televised news conference, saying these also will not deter nuclear development. One was assassinated in Tehran and another was injured in a bombing. Iran’s intelligence minister Heidar Moslehi called the attacks terrorism and said that they were carried out with the support of the CIA, Israel’s Mossad, and Britain’s MI6.
"Assassination of Iranian scientists will not hamper our progress,” Salehi said, according to Iran’s Press TV.
Despite the timing and pointedness of Salehi’s announcement, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said that Iran’s uranium enrichment will not be discussed in the six-power talks in Geneva, Reuters adds.
<font size="3">Iran seeks a 'protracted diplomatic process'</font size>
The US, Russia, China, France, Britain, and Germany haggled with Iran for months over the location and size of the talks. But Ray Takeyh, a senior fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations, argues in a commentary in the Los Angeles Times that Iran is seeking a “protracted diplomatic process” with at best modest concessions.
He adds that Iran is taking advantage of pointed international anxiety over its nuclear program to increase repression at home, arresting “scores” of lawyers and activists in recent weeks:
Indeed, Tehran’s principal motivation for participating in the talks has little to do with its nuclear file and much to do with its desire to fracture international unity, relieve financial distress and, most important, gain a free hand in suppressing its opposition "green movement." …
At ease with the notion that the global community's preoccupation with gradations of enrichment and spinning centrifuges will divert it from pressing Iran on its human rights record, the mullahs typically escalate their repression at home before dispatching their diplomats abroad.
Takeyh adds that sanctions have had a “dramatic impact” on Iran’s economy and that the Islamic Republic’s mullahs are putting their hope in China and Russia to defend them against further sanctions as the negotiations draw on.
Re: G. W. Douche administration was funding Iranian NPPs
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