Balochistan People’s Party

hinking of the dominant views among Courtesy Agence France Presse/NewsCom

American policymakers on Iran, I am reminded of the great Persian poet Jalaledin Rumi's story about a group of people trying to describe an elephant exhibited in a dark room. One felt the elephant's back and claimed that it resembled a great throne. Another, touching its ear, declared it was in fact a huge fan. A third felt its leg and concluded it must be a large pillar.

The Islamic Republic has been with us for almost three decades, yet still it manages to amaze and confuse the experts. In the 1990s, Mohammed Khatami inspired the majority of Western commentators to believe that Iran was on the verge of upheaval. But, while Khatami may have distinguished himself from his predecessors by ushering in a milder version of the Islamic Republic, he was, and remains, very much a part of that system. Today, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has persuaded us that the same system is an imminent menace and must, therefore, be overthrown. Yet, while Ahmadinejad may be more repressive and violent than previous presidents, his reactionary tendencies are fundamentally a sign of the Iranian system's weakness--not its strength.

The problem is that Western pundits are only feeling part of the elephant--the political one--and ignoring the most important part: the Iranian people themselves. If you take the long view of Iranian history and focus on the country's people rather than its rulers, a very different picture emerges: that of an Iranian order in crisis.

Evidence for this proposition is everywhere. A cursory look at Iran's publications and blogs shows that, although some Iranians--for a variety of reasons--support their regime's nuclear ambitions, most are far more interested in trying to redress day-to-day problems like corruption, the struggling economy, rising unemployment, political and social repression, and a general lack of freedom. Few are well-informed about the nuclear program, and most are embarrassed and disturbed by the image of their country in the world. Indeed, Iran's new international isolation and pariah status is deeply unpopular at home, and the fact that the government is emptying its coffers to foment revolution abroad rather than to support the welfare of the Iranian people has turned many of Ahmadinejad's supporters against him. Workers' protests have lately escalated in at least ten cities. Angry union leaders have held the president responsible for the weakening of the economy. In the recent city council elections in Tehran, only two of 13 winners were supporters of Ahmadinejad.

This discontent has seeped upward to high levels of Iranian politics--for instance, members of parliament, who, during Ahmadinejad's presentation of the annual budget last December, noisily protested the worsening economic conditions. There has even been serious talk about impeaching him. Since his election, Iranian hard-liners have openly divided into two opposing factions, creating a great deal of anxiety among conservative leaders who have been trying to mend the breach. Prominent reformist dissenters, such as Ayatollah Montazeri, have accused the government of using the country's considerable resources to meddle in other people's affairs. Even Ahmadinejad has occasionally sounded dispirited. He recently conceded that 28 years of Islamic rule has failed to eliminate liberal elements from Iranian society. Almost 30 years ago, in his prophetic essay "The Power of the Powerless," Václav Havel wrote that "a specter is haunting eastern Europe: the specter of what in the West is called dissent.'" That specter has now moved to Iran.

The fact that neither Khatami nor Ahmadinejad has been able to foster unity--even within the ruling elite--is a good indication of the crisis within the system. For over two decades, the main resistance to that system has come from within Iranian civil society. And it is Iranian civil society that will ultimately prove to be the Achilles heel of the Islamic Regime.

Knowing this, our target must be the Iranian people more than the Iranian government. Openness and freedom are far more likely to come from a change of mindset than from regime change. We must realize that our best weapons against autocracy and terrorism are not military or even diplomatic but ideological and cultural. The fight for Iranian democracy is not simply a political one; in this respect, Iran is very much like communist Eastern Europe and apartheid South Africa. The story of how those countries were liberated reminds us that human rights extend beyond the realm of government. In places where the state has politicized not just the cultural and social arenas but also the most private aspects of citizens' lives, resistance to a repressive system takes on an existential dimension: It is not just a struggle for political rights but also for the right of individual citizens to live the way they choose.

Who in the West will champion these existential rights on behalf of Iranians? No government--no matter how liberal--can devote itself only, or even primarily, to the defense of human rights and personal freedoms abroad, so we must rely on other actors to push the cause of liberty. I am speaking, of course, of nongovernmental organizations. What is needed is for human rights groups, activists, and journalists to take up the cause of the Iranian people. The secular journalist Faraj Sarkuhi, the former revolutionary and dissident Akbar Ganji, and the reformists Emadeddin Baghi and Ramin Jahanbegloo owe their freedom to a great degree to the efforts of organizations like PEN, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Reporters Without Borders, as well as to the attention of journalists throughout the world. In the case of a recent transportation strike--a strike that received little coverage in the U.S. press despite being brutally repressed by the Iranian government--Western labor unions played an important role in the release of the protest's organizers. The progressive women who have staged two demonstrations since the start of Ahmadinejad's presidency are in the midst of a campaign to garner one million signatures demanding equality and justice for women in Iran. U.S. feminist groups should be doing far more to support them in their struggle.

Of course, this is not to say that governments have no part to play. A firm and united stand by the international community on Iranian human rights will send a message to the regime that it cannot bend other countries to its will, while encouraging more moderate and dissatisfied elements within the ruling elite to voice their displeasure.

In taking such a stand, Western governments must carve a path between the extremes of appeasement and belligerence. On the one hand, displays of weakness from the international community--such as the U.N. Human Rights Council's recent decision to stop monitoring Iranian and Uzbek human rights violations, even though executions in Iran are currently on the rise--suggest to Tehran that the West does not care about the fate of Iranian activists. "The council's action amounts to an endorsement of crackdowns on human rights in Iran and Uzbekistan," explained Peggy Hicks, the global advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. "It shows utter disregard for the human rights activists who are struggling in these countries."

At the same time, the notion that Iran will be subdued into compliance with a handful of precision-guided missiles is as dangerous and fanciful as the belief that an invaded Iraq would serve as a model of enlightened democracy. Indeed, to attack Iran at this point would be to send a lifeline to the regime's most militaristic elements, which would use an attack as an excuse to quash all domestic dissent.

Meanwhile, military action would damage the credibility of Iranian liberals. From studying the example of Eastern Europe, they have learned that the ends of democratic revolution must be the sum total of the means employed--that an open and democratic society can be reached only through open and demo- cratic methods. Fortunately, we can help them. The most important weapon in the U.S. arsenal is not its military might but its culture. Vigorously defending and promoting those values the United States was long thought to represent--freedom of expression, freedom of movement, freedom of conscience--will do a great deal more than any missile to neutralize Iranian radicals. And, though this wide-ranging task is probably beyond the capability of American politicians, it is not beyond the capability of America.

Azar Nafisi is the director of the Dialogue Project at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced and International Studies and is the author of Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books.

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In Iran, Feeling the Heat

By Jim Hoagland, Washington Post
Sunday, April 15, 2007;

Dying from cancer a quarter-century ago, the deposed shah of Iran pressed on me a fundamental point about his nation that has become even more vivid over the past two weeks. What the shah said, and almost said, then sheds light on the current confrontation between Iran and the world's great powers.

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi died weeks after our 1980 conversation in Cairo. It has taken the ayatollahs and other Islamic radicals who followed him to reveal how far backward, and forward, stretched the deeper meanings of the words he spoke, which had to be condensed into a conventional news story on that May day.

Iran is after all a place where reality usually comes not in words but in meaningful details that underlie -- and often belie -- the words. Fooling foreigners and adversaries is an ancient Persian art form. Saying exactly what you mean is a crude and dangerous way to talk, or to negotiate.

Such a telling detail lay beneath the shah's descriptions to me of how, in his opinion, the British and American governments deliberately helped Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini bring down his regime in 1979. His bitter Anglophobia came to mind again the other day as I watched film of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blustering his way through the histrionic release of 15 British military captives and then, in the days that followed, defying the world anew over Iran's nuclear ambitions.

The detail was that the shah blamed London much more than he blamed Washington for his fate. The Americans had been children playing at complicated games of power and espionage, while imperial Britain purposely mounted the plot to win favor with the ayatollahs. Or so the shah asserted.

The 15 captives grabbed by Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Iraqi waters on March 23 simply may have been targets of opportunity. But I doubt it. They were almost certainly seized as bargaining chips. In any event, Ahmadinejad played up their nationality in ways that suggest the imprint of the colonial era has not faded much from the Iranian political subconscious since the days of the shah. It still pays to twist the British lion's tail, even in nations where imperial control was largely indirect and economic.

Cultural history also plays an important role in the confrontation over Iran's determination to control uranium enrichment on its own soil despite international fears that Iran's secret goal is to develop nuclear weapons.

Every discussion I have had with Iranian officials on the nuclear program has included a pointed reminder that it was the shah -- with American and French encouragement -- who started the nuclear energy program that Ahmadinejad and the ayatollahs are carrying forward. These officials leave hanging unspoken this political fact of Iranian life: Their giving up control of the enrichment of uranium would open them to charges of being less nationalistic than was the shah.

The historical force of past intervention in Iran's affairs is obviously no justification for kidnapping British sailors and marines; for pursuing nuclear weapons; or for supporting terrorism in Iraq, Israel and elsewhere. But it is important for Americans to recognize how deep is the imprint of the past and how demagogues exploit it when they are in trouble. It will take broad and sustained campaigns of political and economic pressures to force change in the behavior of any Iranian regime.

Consider the bombast of Ahmadinejad and his aides in grabbing hostages again, in threatening to pull out of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and in saying they will cut off negotiations if the United Nations continues to condemn Iran's nuclear program. The meaningful detail in Iranian threats not to talk to the West is that the Iranians are still talking to the West, however theatrically and unconvincingly. They stall, but they remain engaged, trying to fend off impending isolation.

This demonstrates that the financial and diplomatic pressures orchestrated by the Treasury and State departments are taking their toll on Ahmadinejad's regime. They should be continued and intensified where possible. Among those voting against Tehran on the latest Security Council censure were South Africa, which often breaks with the West on political issues to bolster its nonaligned credentials, and Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation.

Those votes were body blows to Tehran's pretense that the nuclear dispute reflects a continuing victimization of Third World peoples and resources by the rapacious British and other Westerners. So is the visible irritation of Russia's Vladimir Putin with Iran's refusal to consider his offers to guarantee Iran access to peaceful nuclear energy.

The diplomatic effort to assemble a united international front against Iran is paying off. One sign: President Bush displays no sense of urgency about having to decide on military action, recent visitors to the White House report. History, ancient and recent, shows that his best option is to continue on the high road of multilateral, peaceful pressures.

jimhoagland@washpost.com

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Iran now claims that it is enriching uranium on an “industrial scale”, but there is not much reason to believe that this is yet true, unless it has in mind a cottage industry.

Of course, that is no reassurance about Iran’s intentions. We should assume that it wants to put itself within easy reach of nuclear weapons, for all its assertions to the contrary — and President Ahmadinejad all but said that on Monday. But the eruption of propaganda from Tehran — including the showy release of the captured British sailors and Marines — does not conceal either the weaknesses of the regime or the signs that sanctions are working. For all the excoriation in Britain of the decision to allow the crew to talk to the media, their accounts will add to the pressure on Iran.

The new phase of Iranian belligerence began three weeks ago when the United Nations Security Council passed a new resolution to ratchet up sanctions. Like the first resolution in December, the solid support for this move (after noisy misgivings by South Africa) appeared to take Iran by surprise. It responded with the seizure of the British boat, withdrawing cooperation from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN watchdog, and, this week, saying that it was ready to start uranium enrichment, the most controversial part of its nuclear work.

It may be ready in the sense of wanting to start, but that does not mean that it can. This is a country, after all, that has been prevented by sanctions and lack of expertise from building refineries to turn its own oil into petrol. It has been forced to spend the bounty from high oil prices on subsidising imported petrol to fend off protests that might threaten the regime. Nor, come to that, has Iran been able to make spare parts for its national airline, which has a safety record so poor that buying a ticket carries a significant risk of death.

Mark Fitzpatrick, a nuclear proliferation analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, has argued steadily that Iran is struggling to master uranium enrichment, the trickiest step in making fuel for power stations or fissile material for bombs. Ali Larijani, the chief Iranian negotiator, said this week that Iran had begun feeding uranium gas into 3,000 centrifuges. But although this is about ten times the number of centrifuges that Iran was previously thought to have, it does not mean that they are working properly; even its pilot plant has been severely delayed.

True, it is unfortunate that Iran has shut the doors to IAEA inspectors. Dissidents originally tipped off the world about Iran’s covert work but since then details, if incomplete, have come from the IAEA. Yet even if that intelligence will soon be out of date, at the moment it confirms the picture of Iran’s shaky mastery of the technology.

Threats by Iran this week will only increase the willingness of countries to close ranks against it. So, too, will its behaviour over the British captives, and so may their personal accounts, for all the dismay they have triggered in Britain. The Royal Navy and the Army should be perturbed that Faye Turney and 14 young servicemen were so ill-prepared for handling themselves in captivity that they lent themselves so quickly to supporting Iranian claims about the location of their boat. But the national storm about their accounts has accused them of giving Iran a propaganda triumph — and in the search for pessimism with which to berate them, that is too neat.

It springs from a fantasy that image can be precisely controlled, untrue even in the historic military encounters that have been recited this week with such nostalgia. The accounts of the detention will have left many people — not just in Britain — with a lasting impression of Iran’s malign behaviour, regardless of what they suggest about the Armed Forces. When the Security Council next comes to judge Iran’s compliance, in five weeks’ time, that malevolence is bound to dominate the impression.

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Advocates of engagement with Tehran often claim that the Islamic Republic long ago shed its revolutionary pretensions in favor of becoming a "status quo" power. They might want to share that soothing wisdom with the families of the 15 British sailors and marines kidnapped Friday in Iraqi territorial waters by the naval forces of the elite, and aptly named, Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

In an earlier day, what Iran has done would have been universally regarded as an act of war. It was a premeditated act, carried out only hours before Britain voted to stiffen sanctions against Iran for its nuclear program in a unanimous U.N. Security Council resolution. Iran captured a smaller detachment of British forces in the same waters in 2004, claiming they had strayed across the Iranian border. It beggars belief--as well as an eyewitness account of the incident reported by Reuters--that the British would make that mistake twice, assuming they made it the first time.

In 2004, the Iranians were quick to release the captured soldiers after extracting "apologies" and marching them, blindfolded, before the TV cameras. There is reason to believe that this time the Ayatollahs might be planning a longer stay for their guests.

Earlier this month, the Sunday Times of London reported that the Revolutionary Guards newspaper Subhi Sadek suggested seizing "a nice bunch of blue-eyed blond-haired officers and feed them to our fighting cocks." One possible motive: The apparent defection by Revolutionary Guards commander Ali Reza Asgari, who disappeared in Istanbul last month and is said to know a great deal about Iran's nuclear program. The Iranians may now be using their hostages as payback for General Asgari's defection--or as ransom for his return.

Given the Iranian regime's past success with hostage-taking--whether with U.S. diplomats in Tehran in 1979 or Westerners in Beirut in the 1980s--they may also figure that Prime Minister Tony Blair is willing to pay a steep price to secure release of the sailors before he leaves office later this year. Or perhaps the Iranians want to bargain with Mr. Blair's successor, presumably Chancellor Gordon Brown, whom they might suspect would take a softer line at the U.N. They may also be trying to create a rift between the U.S. and U.K. by offering to trade the British troops for Iranians the U.S. has recently detained inside Iraq.

It's also possible, as Walid Phares of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies points out, that the Iranian leadership may be seeking to draw Britain (and the U.S.) into limited military skirmishes that they think could shore up domestic support against widening popular discontent.

Another possibility: sufficiently bloodying Coalition forces in Iraq to hasten their withdrawal. The mullahs might even hope any fighting would embolden Democrats to do Tehran's bidding by passing legislation that forbids the Administration from attacking Iran without prior Congressional permission. Such a plank was contained in the supplemental war spending bill that passed the House last week until cooler heads removed it.

As with the 1979 hostage crisis, how Britain and the rest of the civilized world respond in the early days of the crisis will determine how long it lasts. Britain has already demanded the safe and immediate return of its personnel; they will have to make clear that its foreign policy will not be held hostage to the mullahs.

That does not require a resort to military options while diplomacy still has a chance to gain the sailors's release. Saturday's unanimous vote by the U.N. Security Council was also welcome, even if the new sanctions continue to be far too weak. Serious sanctions would target the country's supply of refined gasoline, much of which is imported.

It is worth recalling, however, that Iran was at its most diplomatically pliant after the United States sank much of Tehran's navy after Iran tried to disrupt oil traffic in the Persian Gulf in the late 1980s. Regimes that resort to force the way Iran does tend to be respecters of it. It is also far from certain that Western military strikes against Revolutionary Guards would move the Iranian people to rally to their side: Iranians know only too well what their self-anointed leaders are capable of.

Most important, the world should keep in mind that Iran has undertaken this latest military aggression while it is still a conventional military power. That means that Britain and the U.S. can still respond today with the confidence that they maintain military superiority. That confidence will vanish the minute Iran achieves its goal of becoming a nuclear power. Who knows what the revolutionaries in Tehran will then be capable of.

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Inside the struggle for Iran

Simon Tisdall in Tehran
Monday April 30, 2007
The Guardian

A grand coalition of anti-government forces is planning a second Iranian revolution via the ballot box to deny President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad another term in office and break the grip of what they call the "militia state" on public life and personal freedom.

Encouraged by recent successes in local elections, opposition factions, democracy activists, and pro-reform clerics say they will bring together progressive parties loyal to former president Mohammad Khatami with so-called pragmatic conservatives led by Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani.

The alliance aims to exploit the president's deepening unpopularity, borne of high unemployment, rising inflation and a looming crisis over petrol prices and possible rationing to win control of the Majlis in general elections which are due within 10 months.

Parliament last week voted to curtail Mr Ahmadinejad's term by holding presidential and parliamentary elections simultaneously next year.

Though the move is likely to be vetoed by the hardline Guardian Council, it served notice of mounting disaffection in parliament.

But opposition spokesmen say their broader objective is to bring down the fundamentalist regime by democratic means, transform Iran into a "normal country", and obviate the need for any military or other US and western intervention. Rightwing political and religious forces, divided and dismayed by Mr Ahmadinejad's much-criticised performance, are already mobilising to meet the threat.

The movement amounts to the clearest sign yet within Iran that the country is by no means unified behind a president who has led it into confrontation with the west over the nuclear issue, while presiding over economic decline at home.

"The past two years have been a very bitter time for Iran," said Mohammad Atrianfar, a leading opposition figure with ties to Mr Rafsanjani, the former president now emerging as a likely future kingmaker in Iran.

"Ahmadinejad has done everything upside down - politics, economy, foreign policy - putting all our achievements at risk. He has done a lot of damage at home and abroad."

Mr Atrianfar said that a majority in the Majlis was now critical of the president and would certainly impeach him but for the support he enjoyed from the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

According to Ali Alavi of Siyasat-e Ruz newspaper, some 150 political activists, governors-general, former administration officials and dissident MPs drew up a coalition "victory strategy" at a secretive conference last month presided over by Mr Khatami.

The strategy envisaged "aggravation of the differences among the fundamentalists" and "constant criticism of Ahmadinejad" by "presenting a dark image of the country's affairs," Mr Alavi said.

Opposition sources said that a future reformist-pragmatist government would continue to maintain Iran's claim to nuclear energy and other "national rights" but would seek to settle disputes through talks.

Iran wanted a "normal" relationship with the rest of the world based on mutual respect, the opposition sources said.

In an oblique swipe at Mr Ahmadinejad, Mr Rafsanjani told the weekly Friday prayer meeting in Tehran that the nuclear issue should be settled by negotiations "conducted in a rational atmosphere".

Mr Atrianfar said the economy was the battleground on which Iran's political future would be decided.

The president has faced mounting criticism in recent weeks over high unemployment, especially among younger people, rising inflation and escalating housing costs.

Significantly, for a major oil producer, heavily subsidised petrol prices are due to rise next month, hitting poorer people hardest in a country with poor or non-existent public transport.

"They are playing with fire. Nobody wants to take responsibility for this. It's going to blow up in their faces," said Hussein Dirbaz, a resident of Narmak, the Tehran suburb where Mr Ahmadinejad was brought up.

In an unusual intervention, Grand Ayatollah Yusef Sa'anei, one of Iran's most respected Islamic scholars, has attacked Mr Ahmadinejad's government for failing to tackle social ills such as youth unemployment, drug addiction, and gender inequality.

In a rare interview with a western newspaper at his office in the holy city of Qom, Mr Sa'anei said: "The government should be at the service of the people. But it is putting too much pressure on the people.

"It bans newspapers, sends people to jail, segregates boys and the girls at the universities, makes noise about hijab."

A senior government official said the rising tide of criticism directed at Mr Ahmadinejad was unwarranted. "People say we don't care but that's not true. We've created more credit, more jobs.

"It's too soon to say [Ahmadinejad] has failed. It's too soon to say the reformists will win."

Observers claim that a power struggle is inevitable.

"A very big battle is coming. It's unavoidable," a western diplomat said. "There's a widening gulf between the two sides. There are profound divisions about which way Iran should go. It's going to get very rough."

The looming power struggle could decide whether Iran continues on a path of confrontation with the west or comes in from the cold, the diplomat said.

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How We Can Fight Tehran

By David Frum

31, 03, 2007 ARTICLES National Post (Canada)


Resident Fellow David Frum

The Iranian seizure of 15 British naval personnel is an outrage--and an opportunity. Iran invaded Iraqi territorial waters, attacked British naval personnel enforcing resolutions of the UN Security Council and committed an act of piracy and kidnapping.

Iran then displayed its captives on national television and compelled them to read coerced political statements. It forced the captured female sailor to wear the Islamic hijab, a violation of her Geneva Convention right to practice her own religion.

These violent and lawless actions have shocked British and European public opinion. But they should not have surprised anyone.

Today, Iran is racing to build a nuclear bomb, violating its commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. And too many in Europe shrug their shoulders.

Iran has routinely used kidnapping as a tool of state. It kidnapped eight British sailors in 2004, and 52 American diplomats in 1979-81. Iran's Hezbollah surrogates kidnapped Americans, Britons and others in Lebanon in the 1980s. They kidnapped Israeli soldiers in 2000 and again this past summer, triggering a war.

Iran has committed graver crimes too. Iranian agents have committed murder on the soil of the United States, France and Germany--and carried out mass-casualty terror attacks in Saudi Arabia and Argentina.

Today, Iran is racing to build a nuclear bomb, violating its commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. And too many in Europe shrug their shoulders.

This latest crisis, however, opens a chance to mobilize European opinion to action.

One of their own has been attacked and threatened with the prolonged abuse of its military personnel. The story will appear on television night after night after night. The longer it continues, the more British people and other Europeans will wonder: Is there anything we can do? And the good news is: Yes, there is.

The bullying, blustering bravado of the Iranians should not conceal the truth that Iran is massively vulnerable to international pressure. For example:

Iran's decrepit refineries cannot produce enough gasoline for Iranian drivers. So, although Iran is a major oil exporter, it must import 40 percent of its gasoline. An international embargo on gasoline sales to Iran would inflict severe distress. Earlier this month, Iran raised the (deeply subsidized) price of gasoline from 34 cents a gallon to 50 cents. Some in the regime are considering imposing rationing--a move that would badly damage what remains of the mullahs' popularity.
Iran's rusting industries, many of them state owned, depend heavily on parts and equipment imported from Germany. Two-thirds of these sales benefit from export credit guarantees from the German government. As of 2005, Germany had extended some US$6.2-billion worth of credit to Iran. That number has been cut in recent months. But if Germany were to follow Japan's lead and cut its credits to zero, Iranian companies would have to pay more for parts--and some would be forced out of business altogether. The Central Bank of Iran estimates unemployment at more than 12 percent. Many private economists think the real figure closer to 20 percent--and higher still for young Iranians.
The United States has maintained sanctions against Iranian oil and natural gas since 1979. The European Union, however, has continued to invest in Iran. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that foreign companies, mostly European, have invested US$30-billion in Iran since 1996. Without this investment, Iran's oil and gas output would have faltered long ago. It's time now for Europeans to join the American ban on investment in Iran's energy sector. Such a ban would deal a painful blow to Iran's economy, which has little to sell beside oil and gas. Iran suffers an inflation rate over 20 percent, suggesting that the Iranian government is already overspending its oil and gas revenues. Squeeze those revenues, and you squeeze the regime.
Not all firms investing in Iran are European. Malaysia's Petronas and Russia's Gazprom both play major roles. Till now, firms doing business in Iran have been allowed to do business not only in the EU but also in the United States. It's time now to impose a secondary boycott, and to force firms like Petronas to decide: Either you do business with Iran or you do business with the rest of the planet. You choose.

Since 9/11, Europeans have pleaded with the U.S. to rely on sanctions and diplomacy rather than force. Fine. Let's see some sanctions then--real sanctions, not the wrist-slaps imposed till now.

Iran has been waging war on the world; it's time the world organized in countervailing self-defense. And if anything is needed to stiffen our collective will, let's broadcast one more time that image of Faye Turney, cloaked against her will in that black headscarf of subordination and humiliation.

David Frum is a resident fellow at AEI.

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The Iranian Threat

Iran Playing Nuclear Poker

The West quickly dismissed Iran’s claim it has begun industrial-scale nuclear fuel production. The announcement was an attempt to buttress Tehran’s diplomatic position and break its isolation by drawing the West into another round of meaningless negotiations.

Ran Porat (10/5/2007); omedia

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s recent announcement (9 April) his country has obtained industrial-level capabilities for nuclear fuel production means Iran has supposedly succeeded in feeding 3,000 uranium enrichment centrifuges in its nuclear facility in Natanz. “Iran is on its path to glory and none can stand in her way,” the Iranian President openly declared. Further claims were made by the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (in an interview with the IRNA news agency on April 10), who said Tehran intends to realize in the future (he gave no specific date) the goal of 50,000 centrifuges – enough, according to various international experts, to create enough fissile material within a year or two.
These statements were immediately countered in contradicting assessments by Western experts, who say it is unlikely Iran has managed to create and stabilize 3,000 centrifuges in a synchronized system, and that at most they have 1,000 such units operating in a limited manner. At peak production Iran has been unable to manufacture more than 100 centrifuges a month, while the International Atomic Energy Agency reported in February that the Iranians only possessed 328 centrifuges.

The Iranian President must have known the West would be quick to dismiss his outrageous claims. Why then did he elect to make them?

The Core Deal of the Nuclear World

Towards the end of the 1960s a long list of countries were at one phase or another of producing nuclear weapons or possessing them, but stopped their military nuclear programs following the core nuclear arms control agreement, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which was signed in 1968 and ratified three years later. The treaty is considered a success, as it has prevented the further spread of nuclear weapons of mass destruction around the globe.

The treaty is based on a deal between countries that did have nuclear weapons at the time – the five nuclear superpowers (USA, the then USSR, Britain, France and China) – whose superior position was preserved by the treaty, and the other countries (including Iran, which was a signatory), that have forfeited their ambition for nuclear weapons in return for guaranteed freedom of action in pursuing nuclear technologies for peaceful purposes, with global supervision and assistance. Both the aid and the supervision are facilitated by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Furthermore, the deal also included a vague promise, with no set date, according to which the nuclear powers would also rid themselves of their nuclear weapons. This promise has not been fulfilled, and in light of new developments in the United States and Europe (new, advanced nuclear weapons are constantly being developed in the US, Britain and France), it is not likely to be fulfilled any time in the near future. This unkept promise is the main claim “have-not” countries – such as Iran – lodge against nuclear countries.

Furthermore, Iran (and other countries) emphasizes the section of the NPT promising peaceful nuclear energy for all. The problem is that the NPT was phrased as a gentlemanly agreement among countries that keep their word. Scant attention was given to the simple fact it is relatively simple to transform a civilian nuclear program for energy production and research, constructed with international assistance, into a military project to build a bomb. The supervisory body, the IAEA, has a mandate – which was later expanded due to this threat – to report the transformation of such a peaceful program into a military one. But the Iranian case, as well as weapons development in India, Pakistan and North Korea, has proven that through concealment, deceit and subterfuge – and sometimes even open violation – international supervision can be easily thwarted on the way to the bomb.

Your Membership Card, Please

The NPT divides the nations of the world into three main groups when it comes to nuclear weapons. The first group includes the countries openly possessing nuclear weapons, the superpowers with permanent seats in the United Nations Security Council – the US, Russia (which inherited the USSR’s seat), China, Britain and France. Joining them are countries that did not sign the NPT and possess nuclear weapons – India, Pakistan and Israel (which has never admitted having nuclear weapons). As for North Korea, opinions differ, but according to assessments it could have at least one plutonium bomb. The second group consists of dozens of countries without any advanced nuclear capabilities, aside from a few small power or research reactors. Between these two groups are countries on the “nuclear threshold,” which have advanced technological capabilities that allow them to mass produce nuclear fuel for reactors, but refrain from transforming their nuclear programs into military ones. Prominent among these are Japan, Canada and a few European countries such as Italy and Norway, as well as Germany and the Netherlands, Britain’s partners in the important nuclear fuel production consortium, URENCO.

What Ahmadinejad claims is that Iran has finally joined the “threshold” group, the prestigious club of countries that can manufacture nuclear fuel for power reactors, even for export, which would make Iran a bona fide nuclear superpower and a technologically advanced country. Furthermore, a threshold country, should its leadership so choose, can swiftly change tack and harness its civilian capabilities for the quick manufacture of a nuclear bomb. Therefore, the Iranian President seeks to provide his country with a stronger hand in the continued diplomatic negotiations with the West, since as a threshold company Iran has now attained a new stage of capabilities. Presumably, the reins holding Iran from going over to the “nuclear dark side” have now slackened, making Tehran much harder to “appease.”

Raising the Stakes

More than just attesting to Iran’s technological ambitions these announcement games, which belong to the world of international diplomacy, also reveal the country’s intents in negotiating with the West. Ahmadinejad is the poker player who tries to bluff and declare his hand is laced with aces and jokers, and backs his claim by upping the ante. In his deliberately insolent statement, Ahamadinejad is trying to reawaken the many advocates of the diplomatic route for resolving the nuclear crisis, while the multi-pronged American pressure (economic, military and political) continues to breathe down his neck. Iran presumably considers itself in a powerful position, and at this point, proponents of negotiations feel Iran would be willing to be bought off.

Meanwhile there are reports Javier Solana, the EU’s foreign policy chief, is expected to meet in the near future (no date has been set) with the head of the Iranian negotiating team, Ali Larijani.

But important as words may be, it is clear even to the Europeans, the chief advocates of diplomatic channels, that these negotiations have so borne meager results. In fact this is an ongoing failure that has not prevented Iran’s technological progress or given Tehran any second thoughts about its chosen path, and the Iranians are insolently taking advantage of the West’s inept poker players by raising the stakes another notch.

AMERICA'S BEST WEAPON IS THE IRANIAN PEOPLE.

Culture War

Inside the struggle for Iran

Simon Tisdall in Tehran
Monday April 30, 2007
The Guardian

AMERICA'S BEST WEAPON IS THE IRANIAN PEOPLE.

Culture War

Inside the struggle for Iran

Simon Tisdall in Tehran Monday April 30, 2007 The Guardian

Simon Tisdall in Tehran
Monday April 30, 2007
The Guardian