Week in Review

DoctorZin provides a review of this past week's [8/14-8/20] major news events regarding Iran. (The reports are listed in chronological order, not by importance)

Iran's Nuclear Program.

• TurkishPress.com reported that Iran warned the United States that any use of force over its nuclear program would be a mistake.
• Yahoo News reported that Germany's conservative opposition said Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's warnings against using military force to make Iran give up its nuclear program risked undermining international solidarity for electoral gain.
• The NY Daily News said that when it comes to chutzpah, Iran's turning into an Olympian champion and there is danger in ignoring Iran's dare.
• YnetNews reported that the Israeli Intelligence Chief said Iran’s nuclear capabilities are at a much more advanced stages than the United States estimates.
• Middle East Online reported that Iran's new nuclear policy chief, the hardliner Ali Larijani, said Tehran will press on with ultra-sensitive fuel cycle work while continuing talks.
• The Moscow Times reported that the Russian Foreign Ministry on Wednesday warned Western countries not to use force in the standoff with Iran over its nuclear program, insisting purely diplomatic means be pursued.
• Alex Morales, Bloomberg reported that Iran made thousands of centrifuges, breaking its pledge to the EU3.
  
• The New York Times reported that Ms. Rice said of the the recent IAEA statement: We had agreed in advance with the Europeans that we would seek a strong statement. This would be a two-step process.
• The Economist reported that theoretically, the Security Council could take a whole range of measures to against Iran: from selective visa bans for those involved in its nuclear program, through embargoes of various kinds, to tough economic sanctions. The UN is not the only recourse.
• UK Presidency of EU 2005, Presse 208 published the EU's Declaration on Iran's Unilateral Resumption of Nuke Activity.
• Deutsche Welle reported that while Germans are worried about US President Bush's unwillingness to rule out military action against Iran, they said the US and Europe should concentrate on supporting Iran's democracy movement.
  
• Eli Lake, the New York Sun reported on the Free World's guess about Iran's future.
  
• Radio Free Europe published a brief series of interviews with experts on Iran's pursuit of the nuclear-fuel cycle and its lack of political transparency.
• Voice of America News reports that while the world community has been focused on Iran's nuclear ambitions, Tehran has also been developing and deploying ballistic missiles that some believe could further destabilize the region and prompt an arms race.
• Daily Times reported that the UN nuclear agency has concluded that highly enriched uranium particles found in Iran were from imported equipment and not from work in making what can be the raw material for atom bombs.
• Khaleej Times said the poker game of European diplomacy with Iran has almost run its course. While no side can claim victory yet.
• The Daily Times reported that the IAEA will meet with Pakistani officials next week as part of its efforts to determine if Iran was using smuggled Pakistani equipment.
  

Akbar Ganji's hunger strike: Has he ended his hunger strike?

• The NY Daily News reported that Iranian dissident Akbar Ganji now has the unanimous support of dozens of political leaders among Iran's domestic political spectrum.
• Rooz Online reported that doctors at Milad hospital warned that Ganji remains only a step away from his death while on the 67th day of his hunger strike.
• Khaleej Times Online reported that the wife of leading Iranian dissident Akbar Ganji accused the hardline judiciary on Tuesday of spurring her husband on to his death.
• Rooz Online reported that following the assassination attempt on the life of the deputy of Tehran Province’s Judiciary, the writings of the conservative media in Iran have one common thread: accusing the supporters of imprisoned journalist Akbar Ganji in the assassination.
• Eli Lake, The NY Sun reported that the Iranian prosecutor responsible for jailing Akbar Ganji hinted that he would pursue prosecution of family members of the dissident journalist.
• IranMania.com reported that Iranian dissident journalist Akbar Ganji has "officially" ended his hunger strike.
• VOA News reported U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan demanded the release of Iranian dissident journalist, Akbar Ganji.
• Dr. Jerome Corsi, World Net Daily laments: Iranian dissident Akbar Ganji continues hunger strike ... Is anyone watching?
• Roya Hakakian, The Washington Post said the nuclear debate in Iran is eclipsing the most important current headline about Iran. That headline is simply the name of a man: Akbar Ganji.
• Reporters Without Borders today hailed a report received from a reliable local source of an improvement in the health of imprisoned journalist Akbar Ganji.
  

The unrest against the regime spreads in Iran.

• SMCCDI: The Islamic republic regime is preparing itself for its last stand against the Iranian People and the world community.
• SMCCDI reported that hundreds of workers and civil servants protested, today, in the strategic City of Abadan.
• SMCCDI reported fresh clashes rocked, yesterday afternoon, several areas of the northwestern City of Mahabad.
  

Increasing violence inside of Iran.

• News24 reported that about 300 Islamist students bombarded the British embassy in Tehran with stones and tomatoes on Sunday in protest at Britain's role in opposing Iran's nuclear activities. SMCCDI responded.
• SMCCDI (Information Service):A brutal militiaman was able to escape from an ambush in the City of Varamin.
• AFP reported that a group of some 30 Islamist protesters Tuesday burnt the French flag outside France's embassy in Tehran.
  

Ahmadinejad becomes President.

• WorldNetDaily reported that the new minister of defense of Iran has direct ties to the suicide bombing in Beirut that killed 241 Marines in 1983.
• The Times UK reported that Iran's ultra-conservative President has announced a hardline Cabinet, signaling a tougher line in negotiations with the West and sounding the death knell for the reform movement in Iran.
• Washington Post reported on the coming confrontation between John Bolton and Ahmadinejad, next month at the opening of the United Nations.
• Rooz Online reported that Ahmadinejad is reportedly the first and only president who chose his cabinet without consulting even the leader of the republic.
• Robert Tait, The Guardian reported that Iran's new leader is already showing ominous signs of realising the worst fears of his liberal-minded opponents.
• Shahram Kholdi, ScanIranic translated Iranian hardline bios of Ahmadinehad's cabinet. Part two is here. He argues it is a wartime cabinet.
• Yahoo News reported Sen. Chuck Hagel called for the United States to open talks with Iran's new president.
• The Australian former US deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage called for a formal US dialogue with Iran.
  

Iran's Troublemaking.

• Agence France-Presse reported that US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said: US forces have found Iranian weapons inside Iraq on more than one occasion over the past couple of months.
• MEMRI reported on the Seekers of Martyrdom Command: Another State-Inspired Organization of Suicide Attackers in Iran (Official Website Based in U.S. and Germany). Video.
  

U.S. Policy on Iran.

• Yahoo News reported that Sen. John McCain said: The president must keep open a military option in dealing with Iran and its nuclear program.
  

The Iranian Military.

• IRIB Newsreported that a Chinese military delegation is expected to arrive in Tehran on Monday.
• Iranian.ws reported that Iran received a military delegation from China in which Brigadier General Nasser Mohammadi-Far, the commander of the Iranian army's ground forces said, Our mutual enemies possess advanced military technology, and undoubtedly they would rely on this technology in any possible future wars. Therefore, it seems necessary that both Iran and China upgrade their defense and military technology.

The Iranian Economy.

• Deutsch Welle asked if the recent crisis with Iran is the end of German business in Iran.
  

Human Rights/Freedom of the press inside of Iran.

• Rooz Online suggested one of the dangers for human rights is to politicize the defense of human rights issues.
• Iranian.ws reported that the government of Iran has banned the use of Blogrolling.com and has ordered all Iranian ISPs to block and filter the blog rolling service.
• Iran Focus reported on a recent scientific study that found 71 percent of teenagers in Iran suffer from depression.
• Bamahang Productions reported that for the first time, underground music from Iran became available for Digital Download over the internet.
• IranMania.com reported that the Guardians Council has approved the Majlis bill on resumption of the press jury's activities.
• Iran Focus reported that Iran’s police forces have been instructed to use all means, including helicopters, to locate and confiscate privately-owned satellite dishes.
• Iran Focus reported Iran’s new Minister of Justice vowed that “improperly-veiled women” will be treated as if they had no Islamic veil at all.
  

Pro-Democracy Efforts for Iran outside of Iran.

• The San Francisco Chronicle reported that hundreds of demonstrators called for the release of student leaders held since 1999 by the Iranian government during a rally Sunday at the Federal Building in West Los Angeles.
• Gooya News reported that there would be a vigil in support of Iranian political prisoners, especially Akbar Ganji, in Paris on Friday.
  

Iran and the International community.

• Daily Times reported US Ambassador to Iraq, Khalilzad, warned Iran's arms are destroying democracy in Iraq.
• The Washington Times reported that two members of an Iranian dissident group living under American protection in Iraq have been kidnapped, and may be turned over to Tehran for execution.

Iranian Propaganda.

• Ireland Online reported that Iran claimed it had arrested anti-government separatists with links to British intelligence services, accusing them of involvement in violent protests and a recent spate of deadly bombings.
• Islamic Republic News Agency said the best way to confront the US and EU3 dictatorship is to "impose an embargo on oil sales to those countries."
• Persian Journal reported that Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said the withdrawal was a victory for legitimate Palestinian resistance.
• The Wall Street Journal reported that officials in Iran have threatened that they might stop the flow of tankers through the crucial Strait of Hormuz.
• Xinhuanet reported that Iran strongly denied a media report that its top nuclear official had threatened to block Hormuz Strait if its nuclear standoff could not be settled.
• Khaleej Times Online reported that Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused the US of being behind the terrorist bombings in Iraq.
• The Vermont Guardian reported Iranian newspapers argue that an embargo on oil sales to the United States and European countries as the most potent economic weapon for settling scores.
• The Guardian UK reported Ayatollah Ali Khamenei claimed that Western allegations his country is secretly trying to make weapons are a propaganda trick to deceive their own public opinion.
  

Must Read reports.

• Michael ware, Time Magazine published the results of their investigation which reveals the Tehran regime's strategy to gain influence in Iraq--and why U.S. troops may now face greater dangers as a result.
• Ardeshir Mehrdad and Mehdi Kia, Znet published an analysis: Regime Crisis and Political Perspectives in Iran.
• Hamid Namvar, Global Politican discussed the need to stop the Iranian President from coming to America.
• The Christian Science Monitor reported on the military strike option against Iran.
• Uriah Kriegel, Tech Central Station reported that genuine revolutions are the result of widespread dissatisfaction so strongly suppressed that it eventually erupts.
• The New York Sun reported that if President Bush permits Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to come to America to address the United Nations it will dishearten the freedom fighters in Iran.
• Arnaud de Borchgrave, The Washington Times reported that if the U.S. and/or Israel decide to launch air strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities some 46 Iranian infantry and missile brigades are poised near the common border to move into Iraq.
• KRSI published English translations of their famous Iranian interrogation videos.
  

The Experts.

• Dr. Jerome Corsi, WorldNetDaily.com reported that his predictions in 'Atomic Iran' are coming true now!
• The Heritage Foundation published an Executive Memorandum: Dealing with Iran's Resurgent Hardliners.
• Victor Davis Hanson, Chicago Tribune ponders: Is it best to let others handle terrorists and rogue states through diplomacy and conciliation, or is American proactive intervention to prompt democracy in the place of tyranny the wiser course of action?
• Michael Ledeen, The National Review reminds us that Iran is waging war on us, we are well aware of it, and we are not responding.
• Amir Taheri, Arab News reported on Iran’s Agenda for the World.
  

Photos and cartoons of the week.

• Rooz Online published another cartoon of Ahmadinejad.
  

And finally, The Quote of the Week.

The chief nuclear affairs negotiator, Hossein Musavian in an interview broadcast on Iranian television August 4th:

"Thanks to the negotiations with Europe," he bragged, "we gained another year, in which we completed...Isfahan."

Saturday's Daily Briefing on Iran

DoctorZin reports, 8.20.2005:

Iran’s Agenda for the World

Amir Taheri, Arab News:

When he launched the invasion of Iraq in 2003 President George W. Bush promised to help the greater Middle East, the Muslim heartland from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, to bury a despotic past and build a democratic future. ...

The country generally regarded as most ripe for democracy was Iran. ...

For the past three years, tens of thousands of students have demonstrated throughout Iran demanding “Democracy, Now!”

Last week Iran’s newly elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gave his reply: Democracy? Never!

The answer is spelled out in a 7000-word document that Ahmadinejad presented as his government’s “short- and long-term programs” to the Islamic Majlis (Parliament) on Tuesday. READ MORE

A must read! It reminds me of what al qaeda wants, another must read.

Here are a few other news items you may have missed.

• Daily Times reported that the UN nuclear agency has concluded that highly enriched uranium particles found in Iran were from imported equipment and not from work in making what can be the raw material for atom bombs.
• IranMania.com reported that the Guardians Council has approved the Majlis bill on resumption of the press jury's activities.
• Khaleej Times said the poker game of European diplomacy with Iran has almost run its course. While no side can claim victory yet.
• The Daily Times reported that the IAEA will meet with Pakistani officials next week as part of its efforts to determine if Iran was using smuggled Pakistani equipment.
• Xinhuanet reported that Iran strongly denied a media report that its top nuclear official had threatened to block Hormuz Strait if its nuclear standoff could not be settled.
• Iran Focus reported that Iran’s police forces have been instructed to use all means, including helicopters, to locate and confiscate privately-owned satellite dishes.
• Iran Focus reported Iran’s new Minister of Justice vowed that “improperly-veiled women” will be treated as if they had no Islamic veil at all.
• The Associated Press reported that the United States is pressuring Kurds to accept demands of majority Shiites and Sunnis on the role of Islam in government in order to reach agreement on a draft constitution.
• Dr. Jerome Corsi, World Net Daily laments: Iranian dissident Akbar Ganji continues hunger strike ... Is anyone watching?
• Roya Hakakian, The Washington Post said the nuclear debate in Iran is eclipsing the most important current headline about Iran. That headline is simply the name of a man: Akbar Ganji.
• The Australian former US deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage called for a formal US dialogue with Iran.
• And finally, Reporters Without Borders today hailed a report received from a reliable local source of an improvement in the health of imprisoned journalist Akbar Ganji.

Enriched uranium in Iran came from outside: IAEA

Daily Times:

The UN nuclear agency has concluded, pending checks by independent experts, that highly enriched uranium particles found in Iran were from imported equipment and not from work in making what can be the raw material for atom bombs, diplomats said on Friday. READ MORE

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has since February 2003 been investigating Iran on US claims that Tehran, which says its nuclear programme is a peaceful effort to generate electricity, is secretly developing atomic weapons. The latest finding “will be seen by those in favour of Iran as another checkmark in their column” to back up Tehran’s rebuttals, a diplomat close to the IAEA said. The atomic agency has for several months been carrying out sampling for uranium traces on centrifuge parts that Pakistan had shipped to the IAEA to compare with particles found on parts Iran acquired from the black market, allegedly also Pakistan.

“The conclusion shows the highly enriched uranium appears to emanate from Pakistan,” a diplomat close to the IAEA said.

But the diplomat said the results on cases of low enriched uranium (LEU) contamination, which is below weapons-grade, were “murky” and that the “LEU issue will probably never be solved.” Enriched uranium, refined by passing a uranium gas through a series, or cascade, of centrifuge machines, can be fuel for civilian nuclear power reactors or, in highly enriched form, the raw material for atom bombs.

Iran’s Agenda for the World

Amir Taheri, Arab News:

When he launched the invasion of Iraq in 2003 President George W. Bush promised to help the greater Middle East, the Muslim heartland from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, to bury a despotic past and build a democratic future.

As if on cue, political elites throughout the region began to use “democracy” as a catchword.

In Egypt President Hosni Mubarak declared the building democracy as the central aim of his next administration. The Lebanese launched their “Cedar Revolution” under the banner of democracy. The Saudi municipal elections were described as a move toward democratization. Military rulers in Libya, Tunisia, the Sudan, and Pakistan put on civilian clothes and talked of democracy. Afghanistan and Iraq held their first democratic elections.

The country generally regarded as most ripe for democracy was Iran. President Bush singled it out for praise as the nation that could lead the region in democratization. President Muhammad Khatami spoke of “religious democracy”, an oxymoron in which vice pays tribute to virtue.

For the past three years, tens of thousands of students have demonstrated throughout Iran demanding “Democracy, Now!”

Last week Iran’s newly elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gave his reply: Democracy? Never!

The answer is spelled out in a 7000-word document that Ahmadinejad presented as his government’s “short- and long-term programs” to the Islamic Majlis (Parliament) on Tuesday. READ MORE

In it he categorically states that Western “ideas and concepts of government” have no place in Islam. Without using the word democracy, the document states that the new administration “bravely rejects all alien political ideas” as incompatible with Islam.

The document says that in a Muslim country power belongs to God. The exercise of that power is the privilege of the Prophet and, after him the 12 imams of duodecimo Shiism. Since the 12th Imam is in “grand occultation”, thus not exercising power on a day-to-day basis, the task devolves to “chosen ones from the family of the Prophet”. In the case of Iran today it means Ayatollah Ali Khamenehi, the “Supreme Guide” who claims to be a descendant of Hussein, the third imam.

Ahmadinejad says that not only will he fight any form of democratization in Iran but would mobilize the nation’s resources to prevent the United States from imposing the Bush plan on the Middle East.

In practical terms it could mean a switch in Iranian policy in Afghanistan and Iraq. Under President Khatami Tehran’s policy was to make sure that the Americans were bled to the maximum while allowing them to establish friendly regimes in Kabul and Baghdad. Now, however, Iran may well want to bleed the Americans more but deny them even the merest crumb.

The document states that the region is heading for a “clash of civilizations” in which the Islamic Republic represents Islam while the United States carries the banner of a West that has forgotten God.

The document calls the US “the hegemon” and asserts that the Bush plan for the Greater Middle East is a device to slow down the decline of the United States as a superpower.

“Despite its pharaonic roars,” the document claims,” the hegemon is in its last throes.”

The US is a “sunset” (ofuli) power while the Islamic Republic is a “sunrise” (tolu’ee) one.

The US is going to crumble because it is based on a system that produces “endless material needs” which lead into “the desert of lust” where men are handed over to Satan.

The Islamic Republic is going to win because it has God on its side.

The Americans may “mock the divine system” in Iran. But Islamic Iran is the model for the future of mankind.

Ahmadinejad envisages a “multipolar” world in which the United States would have a place as long as its process of “fading away” is not completed. Other poles, according the documents, would include “sunrise” powers such as China and India, and “sunset” ones such as the European Union. But the most dynamic of the new poles would be the Islamic one with Iran as a “core power” around which all Muslim nations will coalesce.

The document flatly states: “Leadership is the indisputable right of the Iranian nation.”

The creation of an “Islamic pole” is the key objective of what the document refers to as “the 20-year strategy” of the Islamic Republic. It is not clear who developed that strategy and whether or not Ahmadinejad, who is elected for a four-year term, hopes to remain in power for two decades.

The goal of the “Islamic pole” would be to unite the world under the banner of Islam, as the “final Divine message” and “the only True Faith.” But it is not clear whether this is to be achieved during the 20-year period of the strategy or within a broader timeframe.

It is not only in foreign policy that Ahmadinejad opposes “American ideas”.

His economic, social, and cultural programs, too, are designed in defiance of Western capitalist models.

He wants the state to play a central role in all aspects of a people’s life and emphasizes the importance of central planning. The state would follow the citizens from birth to death, ensuring their health, education, well-being and leisure. It will guide them as to what to read and write and what “cultural products” to consume so as not to be contaminated by Western ideas. In fact, the Islamic Republic intends to compete with the US on the global stage as a producer of culture. Ahmadinejad promises to help Iranian music drive American music out of the world markets, starting with Muslim countries. In hyperbolic tones he claims that Persian music exports could earn Iran more than oil.

The new government will even help arrange marriages for young men who might find it difficulty to do so on their own. (No such assistance is offered to young women.) The Islamic Republic rejects what the West calls “alternative lifestyles” as “abominations” and would not tolerate any form of sexual deviation or immorality.

Ahmadinejad’s economic policy is aimed at self-sufficiency so that the Islamic Republic would not become dependent on the global system dominated by the United States. Iran will develop its nuclear program the way it sees fit, regardless of whatever the outside world might say.

The program does not shy away from big social engineering ideas.

For example, it promises to reduce the number of villages in Iran from 66,000 to just 10,000. This would enable the central government to concentrate on the rural population and provide it with better and cheaper public services.

But it would also mean relocating almost 30 million people.

To carry out his ambitious program Ahmadinejad has created a strong and unusually united Cabinet. He also starts work at a time that, thanks to spiraling oil prices, his government has almost $200 million a day to play with.

At the United Nations General Assembly in New York next month, Ahmadinejad is expected to fire the first shot in what he sees as a duel between the Islamic Republic and the United States over who sets the future agenda of mankind.

It should be fun to watch.

A must read! It reminds me of what al qaeda wants, another must read.

Press jury in Iran revived

IranMania.com:

Guardians Council's spokesman said the council has approved the Majlis bill on resumption of the press jury's activities. READ MORE

Gholamhossein Elham also told reporters that after Majlis ratified a bill in this regard, the GC did not consider it to be against the constitution and Islamic tenets, IRNA reported.

"The council also approved outlines of an agreement signed between Iran and the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization at the ISESCO headquarters," he said.

Commenting on the bill on using foreign financial resources, the spokesman noted that the council did not approve it because Majlis failed to remove the ambiguities pointed out by the council.

"The Majlis bill on foreign financial resources will be referred to State Expediency Council," he added.

Elham noted that Ahmad Jannati, the council's secretary, has retained his post in last week's internal election.

Asked whether the designated justice minister, Jamal Karimi-Rad, can retain his post as judiciary spokesman, Elham said "there is nothing wrong with it".

Europe’s poker game of diplomacy finds Iran a tough nut

M.N. Hebbar, Khaleej Times:

The poker game of European diplomacy has almost run its course. While no side can claim victory yet, there seems just about an end in sight if the resolution agreed by consensus at Vienna by the International Atomic Energy Agency that urges Iran "to re-establish full suspension of all enrichment related activities" is anything to go by. The resolution has bought itself three weeks’ time to effect its implementation. READ MORE

The European troika — Britain, France and Germany — that prided itself in getting into the game two years ago when Iran agreed to negotiate with them on the issue of dismantling what was euphemistically termed Iran’s national nuclear industry, found itself going nowhere because Iran kept repeating its ‘inalienable right’ to develop nuclear fuel-cycle technology under terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

By the same token, Iran may have calculated that it could get a "soft deal" with Europe that would effectively keep out the United States, without itself having to give up its capacity to produce weapons-grade uranium. Iran may have misread that the Europeans had all carrots but few sticks in their cards during their negotiations. But the obvious European trump was that they stuck to their central demand that, having found traces of weapons-grade plutonium at a secret enrichment plant, Iran had violated the obligation that all nuclear activities be solely peaceable and fully open to international inspection.

The Iranians also reckoned without the US backing the EU effort that resulted in stronger transatlantic cooperation than initially envisaged. The exasperated Europeans made a final offer last week of a comprehensive package aimed at reining in Iran’s nuclear programme, proposing that it give up the heavy-water project in return for a light-water reactor, seen by arms control experts as easier to monitor to ensure it’s not being used for weapons. Rejecting the offer, Iran has declared that the heart of the deal, an offer to supply the country with nuclear fuel in return for the dismantling of its own fuel-cycle capability, was an insult to its sovereignty.

The Europeans have got additional support from unexpected quarters. The emergency session of the IAEA board in Vienna saw both Russia and China come out in open support of an EU draft resolution demanding an immediate suspension of fuel conversion. With a nod from Washington, the text has disarmed possible resistance from developing countries by omitting any reference to the UN Security Council.

In reality, we thus have all five permanent members of the UN Security Council working together to evolve a unified response to developments. The implication here is that after the expiry of the mandated three weeks, the IAEA board would be free to refer Iran to the UNSC. With President Bush renewing his threat that if Iran failed to cooperate, UN sanctions were "a potential consequence", German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has balanced it by his moderate stance, saying he saw no option other than negotiations.

For the record, Iran has already rejected the resolution as "absurd" and has even questioned the legitimacy of IAEA’s authority to issue its diktat. While Iran has the right to process uranium for peaceful purposes, what disturbs the West is the fact that Iran kept its facilities hidden for 18 years. While Iran agreed to suspend parts of its uranium programme in negotiations with Europe, it has defied them on its heavy-water project. It is moving full steam ahead.

The jury is still out on whether the Iranian authorities would comply with the September 3 deadline. If Iran’s brinkmanship goes awry, then the country runs the risk of handing its old adversary, the US, a diplomatic coup that could force the UNSC to impose trade sanctions and other punitive measures on Teheran.

Will they play poker again? Will Iran count on the usually inordinate delay that the UN is known for to get its act together and shrug off sanctions even if it bites into its crucial oil exports? And count on "renegade" votes? Iran could, theoretically, move closer to its objective of developing nuclear weapons in the meantime before it cries "halt" if it is forced to! Wait for the next shuffle of cards.

Déjà vu in Germany

Now that Germany’s election campaign has kicked off, Germany’s strategy in tackling Iran’s nuclear ambitions is also among the voters’ criteria in assessing the worthiness of the political parties vying for power at the forthcoming elections in September. A preponderant issue facing the electorate has a déjà vu quality about it. Chancellor Schroeder won his last elections on the main plank of opposition to sending troops to Iraq and the voters are again putting the foreign policy stance of the opposition conservative candidate Angela Merkel, predicted to become chancellor, under the scanner.

In a move aimed at reinforcing Ms. Merkel’s international profile ahead of the elections, the CDU manifesto has already spelt out that a "new start" to US-German relations would be a cornerstone of a Merkel-led administration, following the strain over Germany’s opposition to the Iraq war. Recent polls have shown, however, that more than 70 per cent of Germans are highly sceptical of Ms. Merkel’s pledge not to send troops to Iraq. That said, developments over the last few days have surprised political pundits, who have seen a significant bounce in Schroeder’s popularity as he addresses huge rallies, also taking advantage of some infighting in the opposition camp over Ms. Merkel’s strife with Edmund Stoiber, the head of the sister Christian Social Union, who in recent comments called into question the intelligence of voters in the depressed East.

Chancellor Schroeder is known to be a wily veteran campaigner who has been all but serendipitous in the past, witness the floods in the East and the Iraq war during the last election campaign, to name a few. His personal popularity is also rising and now trails Ms. Merkel only by 10 percentage points. His beleaguered party has also seen a recent rise in opinion polls. With just four weeks to go before the ballots are cast, it seems too early to write off the chances of Germany’s ‘Wunderkind’.

M N Hebbar is a commentator based in Berlin, Germany

IAEA and Pakistani officials to meet next week on Iran uranium

The Daily Times PK:

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will meet with Pakistani officials here next week as part of its efforts to determine if Iran was using smuggled Pakistani equipment to make enriched uranium that could be used for atom bombs, diplomats said Saturday. READ MORE

Pakistan had in May sent centrifuge parts to the UN nuclear watchdog at its headquarters to enable it to compare microscopic traces of uranium on them with those found on equipment in Iran, believed to have been smuggled in from Pakistan. The IAEA concluded that “the highly enriched uranium appears to emanate from Pakistan,” from the imported equipment and not from Iranian enrichment work, a Western diplomat close to the IAEA told AFP. This ruling “will be seen by those in favour of Iran as another checkmark in their column,” to back up Tehran’s rebuttals of US charges that it is secretly developing nuclear weapons, the diplomat said.

The IAEA has since February 2003 been investigating US charges that the Islamic Republic, which says its nuclear program is a peaceful effort to generate electricity, has a covert weapons program. The enriched uranium contamination issue was a main sticking point in the investigation, although others still remain. The diplomat said the talks with the Pakistanis are part of a review of the IAEA findings which will also involve independent experts later on.

Pakistan had in May insisted that the centrifuge parts it sent to the IAEA remained technically under its control and would be brought back home by Pakistani experts, a second diplomat said. He said the Pakistanis did not want anyone outside the IAEA to have access to information that could reveal Pakistani nuclear secrets.

Iran denies reports on threat to block Hormuz Strait

Xinhuanet:

Iran on Saturday strongly denied a recent Western media report that its top nuclear official had threatened to block Hormuz Strait if its nuclear standoff could notbe settled, the official IRNA news agency reported. READ MORE

Some Western media, including the Wall Street Journal, had recently quoted Mohammad Saeedi, deputy chief of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization (IAEO), as saying that Tehran would block Hormuz Strait if Iran were dealt with in an illogical and arrogant way on the nuclear issue.

The IAEO denied Saturday in a statement that "foreign newspapers affiliated to certain lobbies have attributed such a statement to Saeedi to misrepresent the region as a trouble spot."Saeedi himself also said that he had not spoken about Hormuz Strait so far, IRNA said.

Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi also told his weekly news briefing that the report about Saeedi's comments has been "imprecise and misinterpreted".

Hormuz Strait, the waterway from the Gulf to the India Ocean,plays a considerable role in the global transportation of oil. The Iranian nuclear standoff has been escalated since Tehran on Aug. 8 defiantly resumed uranium conversion activities in the central city Isfahan and rejected a comprehensive nuclear proposal made by the European Union (EU).

The EU and the International Atomic Energy Agency have urged Iran to reestablish the suspension on its sensitive nuclear activities, which has been rejected by Tehran.

Iran police hunt banned satellite dishes

Iran Focus: an MEK website

Iran’s police forces have been instructed to use all means, including helicopters, to locate and confiscate privately-owned satellite dishes, which are illegal in Iran.

A senior police commander in the north-eastern province of North Khorassan told local journalists in the provincial capital Mashad on Saturday that his forces have been using choppers to spot the satellite dishes and report them to ground units, which would then search the suspected homes and seize the dishes. Owners are imprisoned and expected to pay a heavy fine.

The local security forces commander said dozens of people had been arrested recently in the province for installing the dishes.

The Islamic Republic banned satellite dishes in 1995. The crackdown on satellite dishes was prompted by broadcasts from Iranian opposition groups whose television programs reportedly have a large audience in Iran.

Iran’s new Justice Minister vows harsher crackdown on women

Iran Focus: an MEK website

The man designated by Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as his Minister of Justice vowed on Saturday that “improperly-veiled women” will be treated as if they had no Islamic veil at all. READ MORE

Jamal Karimi-Rad told the local press, “Being improperly veiled and not wearing a veil are no different. When it is clear from the appearance of a woman that she has violated the law, then the crime is obvious and law enforcement agents can take legal measures against her”.

“Crimes such as mal-veiling or other prohibited acts, which happen before the eyes of a law enforcement agent, are evident crimes and must be dealt with in accordance with the law”, Karimi-Rad said.

Karimi-Rad also made it clear that members of the para-military Bassij and the notorious Ansar-e Hizbollah, government-organised gangs of hooligans, are regarded as law enforcement agents in clergy-ruled Iran.

Women have been facing a harsher crackdown since the June elections that led to Ahmadinejad’s presidency.

In July, Iran deployed squads of women-only vice police to clamp down on “un-Islamic” dress. The semi-official Jomhouri Islami recently reported that women have been arrested in Iran for “disrespecting Islamic virtues and for having repulsive and immoral attire”.

With the arrival of a top commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as the country’s new police chief, a new summer-long crackdown on “social vice” in Tehran was launched targeting young women.

State-run news agencies reported that “mal-veiled or unveiled individuals inside and outside of cars” would be the target of arrests by Iran’s State Security Forces, the paramilitary police force. The police would also embark on a systematic clampdown on “shops and public places where public chastity and Islamic values are ignored”.

Islam May Get Bigger Role in Iraq

Qassim Abdul-Zahra, The Associated Press:

The United States is pressuring Kurds to accept demands of majority Shiites and Sunnis on the role of Islam in government in order to reach agreement on a draft constitution, a Kurdish official taking part in the negotiations said early Saturday.

Those demands would give the Muslim religion a bigger role in Iraqi society at the expense of women's rights and civil liberties, said the official, who refused to allow his name to be used because of the sensitivity of the issue. READ MORE

He told The Associated Press that Kurdish leaders who support more secular policies are bowing to American pressure - dropping among other things their demand for self-determination, or the right to secede.

A U.S. Embassy spokesman said he was not aware of results of the latest round of talks, which started Friday and were continuing into Saturday morning. If the Kurdish claims are true, it would appear the United States wants to please the Shiite majority in order to get a draft charter finished by the Monday night deadline.

In Washington, the Bush administration canceled a planned telephone briefing for reporters because of what a State Department official described as intense and busy negotiations in Baghdad that include U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad.

Kurds make up between 15 and 20 percent of Iraq's population, compared to an estimated 60 percent for Shiites.

Yet many Kurds believe the Americans owe them a debt because the Kurds allowed U.S. military officials to operate in their self-ruled territory before the 2003 invasion of Iraq and Kurdish militia fought alongside U.S. troops during the opening weeks of the conflict.

Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish leaders have been holding lengthy talks for days trying to draft the country's new constitution to meet the deadline. Shiite and Sunni Arabs, who make about 80 percent of Iraq's population, have been demanding a greater role for Islam in the state.

The Kurdish official said the Americans were pressuring the Kurds into accepting Shiite demands calling for all Iraqis to be subject to the religious traditions of their sect in civil affairs.

This would likely disappoint secular women, because according to Islam, men can easily divorce them and women receive only half of what men would inherit.

The official said the Kurds had no objection to declaring Islam as the state religion but wanted it as one source of legislation. He said it now appeared that Islam would be a main source and no law could contradict its rules.

U.S. officials have in the past changed strategy in Iraq at the insistence of the powerful Shiite clergy, including Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

In 2003, the Americans were pressing for a constitutional committee of experts to draft a new national charter but shelved the plan after al-Sistani insisted it be written by elected officials.

The former U.S. governor of Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, had proposed that members of parliament be chosen by a series of regional caucuses. That idea also was scrapped at al-Sistani's insistence, and elections were held instead last January.

Dr. Corsi: Iranian dissident Akbar Ganji continues hunger strike ... Is anyone watching?

Dr. Jerome Corsi, World Net Daily:

Iranian dissident journalist Akbar Ganji is nearing the 70th day of his hunger strike. President Bush spoke out in support, but the world acts as if nobody really cares. Ganji should be achieving the international fame of a Nelson Mandela, a Andrei Sakharov, or a Vaclav Havel. Even President Bush has spoken out to support Ganji, but the story is shut out of the headlines.

The mainstream media has no interest in an Iranian who is dying to tell the world that the mullahs ruling Iran are dangerous terrorists. The story should be headlines in the New York Times and the Washington Post, but it is not. Peter Jennings dying of cancer had special after special run on television making his news anchor career into the stuff of legends. But Akbar Ganji gets no such acclaim.

Yet, the mullahs know how important Ganji is.

READ MORE

Tehran prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi did his best this week to discredit the hunger strike. He called Ganji's hunger strike a lie. "He eats for a couple of days and stops eating for another five," Mortazavi told Iran's official IRNA news agency. "He accepts expensive serums being injected into his veins for a few days and refuses them for another few."

Mortazavi's point is clear – Ganji to him is not only a fraud, he's an expensive fraud. Even worse, Ganji is a nuisance. The undertone in Mortazavi's statement almost screams at us in anger that Ganji doesn't have the good manners to just die quietly so the mullahs can bury yet another human-rights activist. After all, dead dissidents don't give speeches.

The mullahs are enjoying an unusual kind of protection from the world. Everybody knows they are back at work making atomic bombs. The IAEA is going to have to strain even harder to get the world to believe their surveillance cameras at Isfahan will detect anything the Iranians don't want the United Nations and the world to see. Russia and China are about to begin joint military exercises in which they are going to test launch ICBMs. The only interruption here will be if Russia or China feels compelled one more time to tell us they will do nothing if Iran is brought to the Security Council. Russia built a nuclear reactor for Iran and China has done everything possible to compete with India to make sure they and not the Indians get the best oil deals from the mullahs.

In the 1930s, Hitler played the world for a fool. Repeatedly he claimed his only goal was defense, that all he wanted to do was protect Germany. This was while he built a huge army and set his designs on his neighbors. Yet the mainstream media of the day keep "Mein Kampf" off the front pages. Sure, Hitler ranted a bit, but everybody knew he didn't really mean it, right? That is just about how the mullahs are being treated today by the world. We should be very concerned that the mullahs have chanted "Death to Israel, death to America" for a quarter of a century. They mean their hatred every bit as much as Hitler did. Like Hitler, the mullahs will use their weapons once they have them.

When the mullahs have nuclear weapons, we will enter a new, less brave world – one where hunger strikes are ignored while oil deals are inked. The mullahs have the money and they are in power. This is a very hard formula for the world to resist, regardless how criminal the mullahs may be. We should never forget that the mission of the mullahs has never changed. Their goal is to spread their radical Islamic revolution across the globe. They have created Hezbollah and funded terrorism to advance this goal. Right now, they are fueling the terrorists trying to disrupt Iraq. The mullahs take the world's oil money and they buy weapons – weapons which they are all too happy to turn against the very countries who bought their oil.

Will the mullahs be stopped? If Ganji dies, we will have to see if anyone notices. President Bush has said that the mullahs will never be permitted to have nuclear weapons, but the mullahs have a lot of protectors. The Left here in America is willing to come to their aid. Get ready for the arguments that Iran has a sovereign right to have nuclear weapons – that is what the Left in America truly believes. Anyone who hates America is good enough for the American Left and the mullahs hate America almost more than anybody.

Stopping Hitler took a world war and millions of deaths. Every day, I see happening more and more of what I predicted in writing "Atomic Iran" and I pray that the world will not have to pay for the mullahs the type of horrible price we had to pay for tolerating Hitler when in the 1930s he could have been stopped.

Call for legal action against Iran hijab violators

Iran Mania:

Iran's Judiciary's spokesman called on Friday for taking legal action against women who do not observe hijab (the Islamic dress code), stressing that women who reveal part of their hair have breached the law and must be prosecuted. READ MORE

Jamal Karimi-Rad also told ISNA that the judiciary agents have a duty to confront Islamic dress code violators, adding that these agents include the law-enforcement forces, the Basijis (volunteer forces, members of the Islamic Revolution's Guards Corps and some members of the armed forces).

Under Article 15 of the Penal Code, the judiciary agents are tasked with conducting preliminary interrogations, finding evidence, preventing the accused from hiding, etc, he said, adding that if judiciary agents violate the law, they will be sentenced to six months in jail.

He said the prosecutor is in charge of training judiciary agents and training courses must be held for them.

Karimi-Rad said those who are accused of crimes, including violation of Islamic dress code, could be detained for 24 hours before a proper decision is taken by judicial officials.

Hungering for Reform in Iran

Roya Hakakian, The Washington Post: Akbar Ganji Puts His Life on the Line

The debate over Iran's quest for nuclear weapons has produced thousands of headlines over the past couple of years, but anyone who's been following closely should know this much: There is no real news there. The issue has become a mere political symphony in which the same theme gets repeated over and over with only small variations. Yet it still gets significant coverage in the global media.

To those, like me, who lived through the 1979 hostage crisis in Iran, this is eerily reminiscent of what happened then. After 444 days in captivity, the American hostages returned home -- without a single one of Iran's demands being met. Yet the country's revolutionary hard-liners had scored the victory that counted: While the world was fixated on the hostages, they had annihilated all internal opposition and consolidated their grip on power.

Today, the hard-liners are rejoicing once again, for now the nuclear debate is eclipsing the most important current headline about Iran. That headline is simply the name of a man: Akbar Ganji. READ MORE

The threat of a nuclear standoff with Tehran is, by most accounts, at least 10 years away, but the democratic antidote to that possibility is perishing as I write. A prominent investigative journalist, Ganji has been in jail since 2000 for putting out a slew of articles, books and lectures that amount to a comprehensive one-man campaign against Iran's ruling clerics.

From prison, he has sent out a daring manifesto containing the five words no one else in the country has dared to utter: "The supreme leader must go!" -- a declaration all the more powerful for being a dramatic echo of the late Ayatollah Khomeini's revolutionary war cry against the shah in the 1970s.

Now, Ganji is in the end stages of a second hunger strike to protest his imprisonment. Yet even with his blood pressure falling and clots accumulating in his veins, he still stands as the most formidable challenge to Iran's theocracy in 26 years.

That challenge began years ago, capping a remarkable evolution that took Ganji from hard-line Islamist and fervid supporter of the revolution to Iran's most outspoken advocate of secularism, the embodiment of a metamorphosis that the Western world longs to bring about in the Middle East. The son of a laborer, born and raised in the destitute neighborhoods of south Tehran, Ganji answered Khomeini's call as a teenager and joined the ayatollah's movement. He quickly rose through the ranks to become one of the top leaders of the Revolutionary Guards. In 1985, the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance appointed him its cultural attach in Turkey. By then, however, Ganji had begun to question the status quo in Iran. According to his successors, he began a series of conversations with the youth of Turkey's Islamic Rafah Party. By the end of his stay, he had managed to dissuade them from following in the footsteps of hard-line Iranian Islamists, turning the 1979 revolution into a cautionary tale for other aspiring radicals.

After returning to Iran in 1988, Ganji joined the staff of Kian quarterly, Iran's leading journal of modern Islamic theory and philosophy. His work at the magazine, and with the 25 writers and influential religious intellectuals known as the Kian Circle, marked the real turning point of his evolution from revolutionary to reformer. The circle gathered every Wednesday evening to discuss politics and, as most of them held prominent government positions, the country's direction.

It was there, under the mentorship of Abdolkarim Soroush, one of the world's leading Islamic theoreticians, that Ganji reexamined all of his most venerated totems:

Khomeini, the notion of the Islamic republic, and finally Islam itself. He remains to this day a believer in God and in Islam, but -- after years of imprisonment -- he also believes that separating religion and state is an essential prerequisite for democracy.

At first, Ganji had hoped that Iran's transition to democracy could be accomplished through reform and from within. So he threw his support behind the 1997 campaign that brought former president Mohammad Khatami to power.

But by the end of Khatami's first term, he had concluded that reform was impossible within the boundaries of the current constitution. He broke away from many of his comrades, and from the circle, to endorse the idea of a national referendum. Since the Islamic republic had been voted in through a national referendum in April 1979, Ganji and a handful of others put forth the idea of repeating that referendum as a peaceful way out of the current impasse in Iran.

Ganji has his share of critics -- from the puritanical members of the diaspora for whom trusting a former Khomeini sympathizer is anathema (and who wish to put him on the stand before a truth commission someday for his involvement in establishing the regime) to left-leaning intellectuals and scholars who say that his cause would be noble had he not become a pawn in the hands of American neoconservatives. But the neocons are a facade behind which these scholars hide their lack of vision for Iran. In June 1999, they viewed the historic student uprising, the greatest display of protest in Iran since the revolution, with the same degree of suspicion. When it failed and those involved were arrested, and the prospect of reform gradually died, they cited the neocons and the U.S. invasion of Iraq as the reason for the students' failure.

If the words, "The supreme leader must go!" are historic, it is not only for their truth, or their unadorned clarity, or the courage with which they are spoken. Courage has been in ample supply in Iran since 1979. There have been many others just as resilient as Ganji: Abbas Amir-Entezam, deputy prime minister of Iran's post-revolutionary provisional government, refused to sign a recantation letter that would have absolved him of the charge of "espionage for the Great Satan," and remained in prison for 20 years. The journalist Faraj Sarkuhi, kidnapped by intelligence agents in 1996, managed to send a note that told the world about his captivity and brought about his freedom.

But Ganji possesses courage and more. He has produced an intellectual blueprint to contemporary Iranian politics, the regime, its flaws and the way forward. After publishing his seminal books of investigative journalism, in which he traced the murders of leading dissidents inside and outside the country to the country's highest leadership, he tackled the system as a whole. Being locked up in solitary confinement proved to be an opportunity for him to focus and produce his two "Republican Manifestos." These extended essays make two key points: That a "supreme leader" is incompatible with democracy, as is the mixing of Islam with the affairs of the state. A religiously eclectic country like Iran, he asserts, must do away with "official religion."

In the country where just last month two young men were publicly hanged for sodomy, Ganji writes these words from prison: "My voice will not be silenced, for it is the voice of peaceful life, of tolerating the other, loving humanity, sacrificing for others, seeking truth and freedom, demanding democracy, welcoming different lifestyles, separating the private sphere and the public sphere, religion and state, promoting equality of all humans, rationality, federalism within a democratic Iran, and above all, a profound distaste for violence."

In response to a letter from his mentor Soroush, who pleaded with him to break his hunger strike, Ganji displayed his originality as a thinker. He respectfully defied the master who taught him much of what he knows. Recalling the experience of Italy under the fascists, he declared that the supreme leader is Iran's Mussolini. And as the master instructed, a tyrant should not be tolerated. "Freedom and democracy come at a price," the pupil writes in his letter, "and I am here to pay my dues." Ganji is foreshadowing his own death. And if he dies, it will be a grave loss. But the fundamental ideas that he has put forth will be the departure point for any future democratic movement in Iran.

Twenty years ago, when I was a disillusioned teenager in Tehran, the possibility that I would someday write in defense of a former member of the Revolutionary Guards would have seemed unthinkable. The Guards had robbed Iranians of the egalitarian dream the revolution had once instilled, even in minorities -- even in a Jewish girl like me. But for my change of heart, I deserve no credit. It is Ganji, and others like him throughout history, whose quest for justice soothes the wounds of a dictator's assault, and leads the bitter exile to forgiveness.

Armitage Discusses Iran, Iraq, and China

The Australian:

North Korea has nuclear weapons and is almost certainly not going to give them up. That's a strategic reality that we're going to have to live with, according to former US deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage.No state in history has given up nuclear weapons under protest. Armitage, naturally the most ebullient and optimistic of men, offers a sober strategic assessment. "I believe North Korea does have a nuclear weapon," he tells Inquirer in a long discussion. "It's going to be very difficult to separate them from that weapon. But to put it under an international safeguard is a possibility."

Nor does Armitage believe regime change is a realistic short-term policy goal in North Korea. "It's better to try to change the behaviour of the regime and through osmosis of exposure to South Korea gradually try to introduce them to more openness," he says.

Armitage is in Australia to attend the annual Australia America Leadership Dialogue, the most significant exercise in private diplomacy ever undertaken in Australia.
Each year it brings together political and other leaders from the US and Australia for two days of intense private discussion.

One of Armitage's great virtues is he tells you what he thinks, and he admits what he doesn't know. Thus, he says, he does not know what China's ultimate strategic intentions are and why it is pursuing such a formidable military build-up: "I don't know if they [the Chinese] themselves know what their ultimate intentions are.

"They want options. Their energy needs will drive their security policy. They also want political options. I think they're unamused by what's happened in recent years in Georgia and the Ukraine."

By this, Armitage means the revolutions that have brought democracy to those former states of the Soviet Union. "Any political openness seems to be a long way off in China," he says. "What China wants and needs most in the immediate future is stability."

That is not good for promoting democracy and human rights in China but it is likely to be good for regional stability.

Armitage also says China is trying to apply ever tighter restrictions on the international space in which Taiwan can operate.

"The US is intent on trying to increase Taiwan's international space," Armitage says. "I think it's important that Taiwan, as a democracy representing its people, have that space. The US necessarily has to do this publicly and loudly. Not every country has to do it that way."

So has Australia been too accommodating to Beijing over Taiwan? Armitage pauses, weighs his words carefully, and replies: "I think Australia has financial and political equities on both sides of the Taiwan Straits and ought to keep all of those in mind."
However, Armitage remains a great admirer of Australian foreign policy. He believes it is wrong to characterise the Howard Government as simply a loyal ally of the US.

Instead, he says, the Howard Government has made hard-headed decisions about what it believes is in Australia's national interests: "It would be an incorrect characterisation to accuse John Howard of being a loyal ally, as if he had no choices. He has made choices for his nation.

"At the end of the day, this is a security alliance. You can't blur it or fudge it and he hasn't blurred it or fudged it. His electorate will judge him on that. It
already has judged him on it."

Armitage believes US and Australian officials have worked hard to institutionalise the alliance, so that arrangements for close co-operation are as permanent as they can be. But he doesn't like the word institutionalise because it gives a sense of too much power for bureaucrats, whereas ultimately the alliance needs continuing political leadership, and political attention, on both sides.

Although he believes that in some ways China is outplaying the US in the contest for influence in Southeast Asia, he does not foresee any real slippage in the US-Australia relationship. Indeed, he pays an extraordinary tribute to Howard's influence in Washington: "At the end of the day, the relationship between President Bush and Prime Minister Howard is such that any bureaucrat in Washington knows that if push comes to shove all Howard has to do is ring the President, and if it's legal and it's moral, it'll happen."

Armitage believes, as this column argued several weeks ago, that the Bush administration made a mistake in not sending Secretary of State Condi Rice to attend the ASEAN Regional Forum, and other associated ASEAN meetings, in Vientiane recently.

He believes that while the US is focused on Iraq and Afghanistan, China is using every tool at its disposal - money, cultural associations, business communities - to build influence in Southeast Asia, and that the US needs to work harder to underline its friendship with Southeast Asia. However, he is highly optimistic about Indonesia: "We've had a wonderful development which shows the great good sense of the Indonesian people in voting for moderation by electing President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, in electing a government which has the courage to resolve the Aceh issue."

He is reluctant to criticise in detail the sentence reductions for Abu Bakar Bashir and others in jail on terrorism charges, but makes the point that the great thing is that these people were convicted under Indonesian law: "The Government didn't wink at their actions."

In some senses he is surprisingly optimistic about Iran, in that he says recent US intelligence suggests Iran is perhaps 10 years away from making a nuclear weapon.

Controversially, he calls for a formal US dialogue with Iran: "In Afghanistan we share a common view; we need to talk to them as a major energy supplier; and the fact they sponsor terrorism - all argue in favour of us talking to them. An active dialogue is not an act of capitulation." READ MORE

He is perhaps at his most sombre on Iraq, saying that, while the US willprevail eventually, it is "not winning yet".

It is a mixed picture of a mixed world, neither all rosy nor all gloomy. It's what you get when a genuine heavyweight, who knows it all, tells you the plain, unvarnished truth.