Week in Review

DoctorZin provides a review of this past week's [1/08/06 -1/07/15] major news events regarding Iran. (The reports are listed in chronological order, not by importance)

Ahmadinejad & Friends.

• Iran Focus reported that the government of radical Islamist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad plans to segregate Iran’s pedestrian walkways on gender basis.
• Iran Press News reported that 0il revenues to be taken out of foreign banks and transferred back to Iran, in anticipation of possible freezing of Iran's assets in foreign banks.
• Iran Focus reported that Rafsanjani said: “Our enemies are poised to take advantage of the situation inside the country to begin another mischief against Iran, but we don’t know where this mischief will begin.”
• Deutsche Presse-Agentur, Monsters and Critics reported that Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said: 'Those countries which now threaten us with sanctions should know that such threats will have no impact and not intimidate us."
• Deutsche Presse-Agentur, Monsters & Critics reported that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said: 'The Iranian government and nation has no fear of the Western ballyhoo and will continue its nuclear programmes with decisiveness and wisdom.'
• Iran Focus reported that Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said: “In the near future, full nuclear energy for peaceful purposes will be at our disposal.”
• Iranian Republic News Agency reported that former president Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said: "The arrogance and its allies will be regretful if they obstruct the Iranian nation's access to the latest science."
• The Jerusalem Post reported that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was expected to convene a conference in Iran denying the Holocaust within a few days.
• Rooz Online reported on Ahmadinejad's hopeless quest for an auspicious Islamic government.
• News24 reported that Ahmadinejad called for the exit of "evil" foreign forces from the Persian Gulf.
• CNN News reported that Ahmadinejad continued to insist on Iran's right to Nuclear Research.
  

Ahmadinejad's Worldview.

• Daniel Pipes, Frontpagemag.com provided a report on the foreign policy implications of the expectation by the "faithful" in Iran that anticipates the soon return of the 12th Imam. Leading Iranian thinkers to conclude that if "the Mahdi will come in two, three, or four years, why should I be soft? Now is the time to stand strong, to be hard.”
• Iran Press News reported that talk in Iran of a hotel being built in time for the 12th Imam's reemergence.
• Anton La Guardia, Telegraph argues that Ahmadinejad thinks "he is on a mission for God."
• Charles Moore, Telegraph reported that there's method in the Mahdi madness of Iran's president.

Iran's Nuclear Program.

• Parisa Hafezi, Reuters reported that Iran said it was ready to remove U.N. seals at some atomic research and development sites on Monday.
• The Observer reported that British officials have allowed the export to Iran of a cargo of radioactive material that experts believe could be used in a nuclear weapons program.
• Dow Jones Newswires reported that the head of the U.N. nuclear agency warned Iran that world leaders are losing patience with Tehran's lack of transparency on its atomic program.
• Times Online reported that deciding how to deal with Iran’s nuclear programme will be one of the main challenges faced by Ehud Olmert, Israel's acting prime minister.
• CNN News reported that as expected, Iran said it would resume its nuclear research program Monday.
• Arnaud de Borchgrave, The Washington Times reviewed Iran's leaders statements on their nuclear intentions and finds them all in agreement, including the so-called moderate leaders.
• BBC News reported that EU leaders say they are very concerned at Iran's plans to resume sensitive nuclear research in the coming hours.
• Hemscott reported that French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy has urged Iran to instantly reverse its decision to resume highly-sensitive nuclear activities.
• Kuwait News Agency reported that EU chief Wolfgang Shussel has warned Iran on Monday of manipulating nuclear activities for military purposes.
• Voice of America reported that the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council have sent strong messages to Iran to halt plans for nuclear fuel research and resume talks with European powers.
• Reuters reported that the U.N. nuclear watchdog confirmed that Iran had broken U.N. seals at the Natanz uranium enrichment plant.
• The Financial Times reported that European diplomats said an emergency meeting could be held this week.
• The New York Times reported that the White House said if Iran continues on its current nuclear course, it will leave the international community no choice but to refer Tehran to the U.N. Security Council for possible actions.
• The Times reported that Jack Straw, the UK Foreign Secretary, warned the Iranians today that they were "pushing their luck."
• Bloomberg reported that French President Jacques Chirac said Iran and North Korea risk making a ``serious error'' by pursuing its nuclear activities.
• Yahoo News reported that Germany's foreign minister said Tehran had "crossed lines which it knew would not remain without consequences."
• Spiegel Online reported that German newspapers, both right and left, have given up on negotiations with Iran.
• Kuwait News Agency reported that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday expressed concern about Tehran's decision to resume enrichment of uranium.
• Turkish Daily News reported that Turkey's ambassador to the United States said that Iran was "irreversibly" heading for acquisition of nuclear weapons.
• Telegraph reported on the predictably lame response from the International Atomic Energy Agency.
• James S. Robbins, National Review Online reported that there is a buzz at Foggy Bottom - low level, but growing - that maybe it would not be so bad if Iran went nuclear. A very bad idea.
• The Times reported that Iran was likely to be referred to the UN Security Council for punitive sanctions by the end of the month.
• The Financial Times reported that Iran’s defiant decision to resume what it calls “research” into nuclear enrichment spells the end of the negotiation strategy.
• Reuters reported that China has offered to help rein in Iran's nuclear ambitions.
• Tony Blankley, The Washington Times reported that when European diplomats use words like "serious," "grave," "disastrous," "red line for international community," "urge Iran to immediately and unconditionally reverse its decision," the rest of us should take these phrases as unambiguous evidence that an international crisis of the first water is fast building.
• The Wall Street Journal reminds us of the UN's poor record of resolving the Iranian nuclear program.
• Breitbart.com reminded us that Iran has secretly built as many as 5,000 centrifuge machines.
• Reuters reported that Prime Minister Tony Blair called for the U.N. Security Council to consider action against Iran adding: "we obviously don't rule out any measures at all."
• The Financial Times published a report on the head of Iran's nuclear negotiating team, Mr. Larijani.
• Times Online reported that Britain, France and Germany agreed to request an emergency meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board.
• The Financial Times reported that European officials warned that Tehran would have to reinstate the seals at its Natanz research facility and refrain from all the activities it announced this week if it wanted to avoid a UN referral. “A half-step back will not stop us.”
• Times Online then reported that Iran will be referred to the United Nations Security Council within weeks.
• The New York Times reported that among the possible sanctions being discussed, various officials said, were a ban on travel by Iranian diplomats, restrictions on new commercial contracts or sports contests and other small steps.
• Vital Perspective published the full text of Condoleezza Rice Statement on Iran.
• MosNews reported that Russian officials have hardened their criticism of Iran’s decision to resume sensitive nuclear research, but analysts said the comments did not signal a major change despite a Washington Post report that the Bush administration had secured a guarantee from Russia that it will not block U.S. efforts to take Tehran’s nuclear case to the UN Security Council.
• Monsters & Critics reported that U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan Annan offered to mediate in the dispute with Iran and the EU3.
• Timothy Garton Ash, The Guardian said that we face the next big test of the west: Iran. We in Europe and the United States have to respond. But how?
  
• Austin Bay Blog ponders what to do about Iranian nuclear brinkmanship?
• The Jerusalem Post reported on an internal IAF research paper shows that the feasibility of a successful military operation need not be total in order for Israeli leaders to order such a strike.
• DEBKAfile reported that Iranian sources claim that Thousands of P2 and P1 type centrifuges can go into action free of international curbs and within six weeks to two months, and the centrifuges will have produce enough enriched uranium to build a single nuclear weapon.
• CNN News reported that Tehran is threatening to block inspections of its nuclear sites if a dispute over its atomic activity is sent to the U.N. Security Council.
• Telegraph reported that Jack Straw, the UK Foreign Secretary, said that Iran may face UN sanctions over its resumption of nuclear activities, but insisted that military action was not being considered.
• Zaman Online reported that France has reported it is too early to demand sanctions over Iran’s resuming its nuclear energy program.
• The Financial Times reported that Iran still wants more talks and Condi does not support penalizing the Iranian soccer team for the mis-deeds of the regime.
• The Washington Post reported on the meeting of President Bush and visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel and their efforts to pursue diplomatic efforts to get Iran to end a suspected nuclear weapons program.
• Zaman.com provided excerpts of some major European newspapers and their view the Iran crisis.
• EU Business reported that European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said: A military strike against Iran for its refusal to halt nuclear research is ruled out.
• Los Angeles Times published a satellite photo which shows activity at Iran's nuclear plant.
• Sunday Times reported that the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany will hold talks in London on Monday to plan a pivotal meeting on the Iran nuclear crisis.
• RIA Novosti discusses the Russian expections of the Permanent 5 meeting.
  

Another Air Crash in Iran. A roundup.

• Nasser Karimi, The Associated Press reported that a small military jet crashed in northwestern Iran on Monday, killing the commander of the ground forces of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards.
• Dan Darling, WindsOfChange.net argued that as a result of the crash there is going to be a lot more short-term power consolidated into the hands of IRGC's commander-in-chief Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi and his deputy General Mohammed Baqir Zolqadr.
• DEBKAfile reported that its Tehran sources note the high importance of the dead commander who was appointed only three months ago.
• Kenneth R. Timmerman, Foundation for Democracy in Iran reported news of potential sabotage behind the air crash.
• Mehran Riazaty reported that the air crash could be an inside job. Photos suggest a possible internal explosion brought down the aircraft. Before and after photos. More Photos.
• Stratfor published an analysis of the air crash saying it could indicate foul play aimed at undermining Ahmadinejad's power base and influence.
• Eli Lake, The New York Sun reported that the eleven top Iranian Revolutionary Guard commanders died yesterday in a plane crash came as tensions among the ruling mullahs are rising.
• Iranian Student News Agency published photos of the military commanders that died in yesterdays air crash. Plus reports by Ken Timmerman and Dan Darling.
• Shervin Omidvar, Rooz Online reported that Rahim Safavi, the commander of the Passdaran, when asked whether sabotage may have been the cause of the most recent air crash said, “Such a possibility has not been raised at this time."
• The Counterterrorism Blog reported that on Monday, an Iranian military plane crash killed eleven top commanders in Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps and that his sources are convinced that this was an act of sabotage.
  

The Unrest inside of Iran.

• SMCCDIreported that Tehran's Collective Bus drivers organized, yesterday, a symbolic protest action by setting on their head lights during the day time.
  

Human Rights/Religious and Press Freedom inside of Iran.

• Teamsters.org reported that the Teamster's President Hoffa called on Iranian President to release striking bus drivers. The Unions are finally joining the struggle.
• Iran Press News reported that a 17-year-old Nazanin was sentenced to death for protecting her chastity against three rapists.
• Iran Press News reported on more executions in Iran.
• Iran Press News reported that a female member of the Organization for Human Rights in Kurdistan savagely beaten and kidnapped.
• Iran Press News reported that cameras are being installed around Iranian universities in order to tighten control over students.
• Iran Press News reported that the regimes brutal disciplinary forces, in the city of Ahvaz, harassed civilians chanting anti-regime slogans.
• Amnesty International called for an inquiry needed in the death of Baha'i prisoner of conscience.
• Iran Press News reported that the Islamic regimes brutal disciplinary forces attacked a party that was being held in one of Esfahans gardens and arrested 72 people.
• Iran Press News reported that in the Islamic regime, homeless children eat out of garbage bins.
• AlterNet reported on Iran and blogging against the regime.
  

The Iranian Economy.

• Iran Press News reported that Islamic Republic of Iran is next to last on industrial growth index of Mid East countries.
• Iran Press News reported that all of the Islamic regimes government employees live under the poverty line.
  

Iran's troublemaking.

• The Washington Times reported that young Iraqis are receiving training in Iran for political indoctrination and militia training.
  

Iran's Military.

• Iran Press News reported that Iranian Commanders of the army alarmed by political changes in Syria & Lebanon.
• Rooz Online reported Haji Najjar, the acting director of the Political Bureau of the Joint Chief of Staff of the Passdaran Revolutionary Guards revealed that measures were underway to stockpile military preparedness and that there were “300 sensitive nuclear sites” in the country.
  

Iran and the International community.

• Zalmay Khalilzad (the U.S. ambassador to Iraq), The Wall Street Journal wrote about the challenge before us in Iraq.
• Richard Brookhiser, The New York Observer looks at the world after Sharon: what to do about Iran?
• Iran Press News reported on the sudden trip of Bolivian President-elect to Iran.
• Zerkalo.az reported on the problems with the memorandum signed by the Iran and Azerbaijan leaders.
• Kuwait News Agency reported that US Vice-President Dick Cheney is due to have a round of talks with Egyptian leaders starting Monday on the Iranian nuclear problem.
• India Defence reported that Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz will visit with Indian leaders on vital issues concerning Iran's WMD program.
  

Can You Belive This?

• CNN News reported that Iran's interior minister accused the US on Saturday of orchestrating the kidnapping of nine Iranian border guards.
  

Inside Iran.

• BBC Newsspoke to two young Iranians with opposing views on the nuclear issue.
• Farouz Farzami, The Wall Street Journal, an Iranian said: My country will not change without help from the West. I wish the only superpower in the 21st century would realize its full potential in diplomacy, economic leverage and, as a last resort, military action.
  

US Policy on Iran.

• Kathryn Jean Lopez, National Review Online thinks that Congressman Eric Cantor becoming the House majority-whip slot would be a nightmare for Ahmadinejad.
• The New York Times reported that the White House said if Iran continues on its current nuclear course, it will leave the international community no choice but to refer Tehran to the U.N. Security Council for possible actions.
• Vital Perspective published the full text of Condoleezza Rice Statement on Iran.
• Reuters reported that U.S. Senator John Kerry said: "Iran has made a dangerous and silly decision of confronting not just the U.S. government but the entire international community."
• Douglas Jehl, The New York Times reported that the director of national intelligence created a new "mission manager" for Iran and appointed S. Leslie Ireland.
  

Must Read reports.

• The Middle East Media Research Institute published the first in a series of papers that will include translations of statements by members of the Iranian regime and Iranian leaders on various issues. Plus a cartoon.
• The Economist in a special report asked: Now that Iran is crossing a clear red line, what can the world do? What should we do?
• The Economist published a special report on the pschology of the Iranian leaders.
• The Economist published a report warning us that Iran is often portrayed as dangerous, irrational and unpredictable. In truth, it is not irrational.
  

The Experts.

• Michael Ledeen, National Review Online reported that Osama Bin Laden died three weeks ago in Iran.
• Rezapahlavi.org published excerpts of a live primetime televised interview with Fox News' in which Reza Pahlavi called for regime change in Iran.
• Michael Ledeen, National Review Online reminded us that we are already fighting Iran in Iraq.
• Kenneth R. Timmerman, FrontPageMagazine recommended sanctions that should follow Iran's referral to the UN Security Council.
• Victor Davis Hanson, The National Review reviewed our bad and worse choices about Iran.
• Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times reported that recently Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick suggested to the Chinese to become a responsible "stakeholder" in the international system by joining in international efforts to force Iran to end its nuclear weapons program.
• Amir Taheri, Gulf News reviewed reports that the United States has decided to invade Iran and change its regime, on March 19.
• Michael Rubin, FrontPageMagazine.com provided a brief history of the MEK which he describes as a monster of the left.
• Amir Taheri, The New York Post reported that the clock is ticking for a regime change in Syria.
• William Kristol, The Weekly Standard reported that many people-the New York Times editorial board, much of Europe, even some in the Bush administration-don't really believe a nuclear Iran is unacceptable.
  

Photos, cartoons and videos.

• The Middle East Media Research Institute published video excerpts from a rally of Iranian pilgrims in Mecca where the speaker addresses the crowd in front of a backdrop showing the World Trade Center and an American flag in flames.
• Cox & Forkum published a cartoon: Fallout.
• Media Line reported on the Iranian speech at the Hajj which attacked the US and Israel on saudi soil. Video.
• Scott Ott, Scrapple Face published a bit of satire: Iran Years from Nuke, U.N. Decades from Action.
  

And finally, The Quote of the Week.

Mehran Riazaty reported that Ahmadinejad said:

“We don’t shy away from declaring that Islam is ready to rule the world... We must prepare ourselves to rule the world.

Sunday's Daily Briefing on Iran

DoctorZin reports, 1.15.2005:

The Permanent 5 will meet Monday on Iran.

• Sunday Times reported that the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany will hold talks in London on Monday to plan a pivotal meeting on the Iran nuclear crisis.
• RIA Novosti discusses the Russian expectations of the Permanent 5 meeting.

Ahmadinejad Stands Firm.

• CNN News reported that Ahmadinejad continued to insist on Iran's right to Nuclear Research.

Special Reports on Iran.

• EU Business reported that European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said: A military strike against Iran for its refusal to halt nuclear research is ruled out.
• The Economist in a special report asked: Now that Iran is crossing a clear red line, what can the world do? What should we do?
• The Economist published a special report on the psychology of the Iranian leaders.
• The Economist published a report warning us that Iran is often portrayed as dangerous, irrational and unpredictable. In truth, it is not irrational.
• Anton La Guardia, Telegraph argues that Ahmadinejad thinks "he is on a mission for God."
• Charles Moore, Telegraph reported that there's method in the Mahdi madness of Iran's president.

Off the Radar Screen.

• Kuwait News Agency reported that US Vice-President Dick Cheney is due to have a round of talks with Egyptian leaders starting Monday on the Iranian nuclear problem.
• India Defence reported that Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz will visit with Indian leaders on vital issues concerning Iran's WMD program.
• Los Angeles Times published a satellite photo which shows activity at Iran's nuclear plant.
• William Kristol, The Weekly Standard reported that many people-the New York Times editorial board, much of Europe, even some in the Bush administration-don't really believe a nuclear Iran is unacceptable.

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

• BBC News spoke to two young Iranians with opposing views on the nuclear issue.
• James Lewis, The American Thinker argued that Amir Taheri is underestimating the Iranian threat.
• And finally, AlterNet reported on Iran and blogging against the regime.

Underestimating the Iranian Threat

James Lewis, The American Thinker:

Amir Taheri is an intelligent and well-informed commentator on world affairs whose work appears in the Arab News. But today he wrote a dangerously obtuse commentary—- not his usual style at all. This is important, because his subject is Iran’s nuclear ambitions, which are profoundly dangerous. Taheri fails to see the strategic consequences of Tehran’s rush for nukes. If he, of all people, does not understand, no doubt other Middle Eastern commentators are also missing a deadly threat to themselves.

READ MORE

Mr. Taheri claims to see a wave of “Western media hype” indicating that the US will invade Iran on March 19 of this year. This is a pure red herring. However, there is plausible speculation about an attempt to strike Iranian facilities by conventional armed forces. Such an attack might involve Israel, Iranian opposition forces, and perhaps the UK, US, and other NATO countries. The aim would be to slow down Tehran’s nuclear development. Such a strike might happen in March, when uranium enrichment may become irreversible at the Natanz enrichment facilities.

Those are reasonable ideas, not just hype.

Even more seriously,Taheri utterly misses the real danger this poses to the Arab world. He points out that Iran long ago admitted to violating the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Therefore, says Taheri, the Khomeinist rush to enrich uranium is not significant or even real news. No one worries about other nuclear powers – why pick on Iran?

The danger of Iranian nukes is not just the technology. France has had atom bombs since Charles De Gaulle, but nobody is worried about a French attack on Berlin or New York. Such an attack would be suicidal, and France does not have a suicidal government. No, the real fear is that Tehran’s fanatical leaders are quite prepared to use nukes, once they get them. No one has used nuclear weapons in the last fifty years, ever since the “balance of nuclear terror” became a fact of life.

Technology is neutral. How nations use technology is crucial.

Today there are only two regimes in the world that might use nuclear weapons in a mass-suicidal fashion. They are led by people who talk madly, and act as if they mean it. We don’t know if and when they might encounter a personal or political crisis that would make them push that button as a last, desperate act.

For example, the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei, is suffering from liver cancer, and is expected to die in the coming year. That is no doubt triggering an intense struggle for succession to the most powerful position in Tehran. What if someone in the struggle had access to nuclear weapons?

The leaders of Iran and North Korea care little about losing a hundred thousand people, as Iran did in the war with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, and as North Korea has done, simply by criminal mismanagement of its economy. So the biggest problem isn’t their technology but their fanatical inclinations, combined with the means for one man to produce a catastrophe at the push of a button.

Mr. Taheri seems to hint that Iran could launch a nuke at Israel without harming anyone else. But that is utterly misguided. First, Iran has other enemies, including Sunni Arab nations, which could not retaliate against a nuclear attack. Second, Israel might well respond to an Iranian WMD attack with some of its 200 presumed nuclear weapons. That is a vital fact for anyone living in the neighborhood. Any nuclear attack on Israel is likely to trigger massive retaliation.

The effects would not be localized. If Israel were to bomb Tehran, Qom or Natanz, radioactive fallout could spread to the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf States. Some readers of the Arab News would surely suffer. Further, an Iranian attack on Tel Aviv would devastate the Palestinians, who do not have fallout shelters and survival training, as the Israeli population does. The logic of Mutually Assured Destruction is precisely that: mutual.

The psychological results of a nuclear exchange would be just as devastating. Riots would break out everywhere. Arab governments might well be overthrown, with radicals taking over in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia. The economic repercussions would be massive, including trade sanctions against Israel and Iran. The Tehran regime might respond by blocking oil shipping through the Straits of Hormuz, easy enough to do. They might try to infiltrate cheap dirty nukes into other countries, even the Sunni nations of Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Egypt. An Iran bent on national shahada (martyrdom) could smuggle WMDs into Europe, Russia and the US, heedless of the massive strikes they would invite in response.

Even if the world were spared such catastrophic consequences, the oil shock alone would rock the international economy for years to come.

So this is not a simple matter of some neocon conspiracy in the US government, plotting to save Israel from an Iranian nuke. The question that should concern every thinking person in the world is how to stop any nuclear power from triggering a chain reaction in which there would be no victors, and very few safe havens.

That is the real abyss facing the world in 2006. It applies just as much to North Korea as it does to Iran.

Everything else flows from that iron logic. Given the very real danger, it is not unreasonable for targeted countries to try to destroy Iranian facilities by conventional military means, before the stakes become too high. That might save many, many lives. It would give the world a breathing space, a time for the Tehran regime to moderate, or for others to take over.

Whether Iran’s nuclear build-up will be attacked is unknown. But the danger is not imaginary.

The military historian John Keegan wrote in the UK Telegraph that

“We should very worried about Iran. [....]

“Iran is actually turning itself into a nuclear weapons state, a fact disputed by none of the players on the international scene. Iran, moreover, does not seek such weapons for psychological reasons. It wants them for practical purposes, including, according to a statement by its new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a former revolutionary guard, to “wipe Israel from the map.” [....]

“Iran’s record must cause not only the West but all Iran’s neighbours to take the threat seriously. [italics added]

“This is a bad and worrying time in world affairs.”

It is a time for all nations to think very hard.

Head-to-head: Iran nuclear crisis

BBC News:

As international pressure mounts on Iran over its nuclear programme, ordinary Iranians are debating whether the country is right to continue with its plans.

The BBC News website spoke to two young Iranians with opposing views on the issue. READ MORE

While one expressed considerable fears that Iran's bid for nuclear power could damage international relations and hinder the country's progress, the other said that Iran had every right to pursue nuclear power.

ARASH FATHI, 24, GRADUATE, TEHRAN

Iran is a developing country, this programme should not be a priority.

Iran's oil and gas resources could keep going for up to 60 years. I have heard that Iran has 90 years of gas supplies for the country.

This programme will just create tensions between countries in the area.

In Iran, most people have no access to a free media. Only a small group of people have access to the internet or international satellite channels.

This means most people learn about issues such as nuclear power from state television. They are told what to think.

Most ordinary people support Iran's decision - they argue Iran will lose out if it puts the programme back.

When I talk to local taxi drivers in Tehran on the way to work they all ask: "Why should the US have nuclear power and not us?"

Even when it comes to weapons, most people argue: "If the US and Israel can have nuclear weapons, why can't we?"

But those who are more educated do not agree. They fear Iran's economic situation will worsen, especially with sanctions.

We have sanitation issues, many people lack drinking water and unemployment is very high here.

We need to invest our money in agriculture and business development. Nuclear power is very limiting as ordinary people cannot perform the work.

But I think that government officials cannot leave the programme now, because if they postpone it the international community will say we have been defeated.

I am not optimistic that the West can solve this issue. We have been negotiating with the EU for two or three years and it has not helped.

I think America needs to enter the game and offer some reward or incentive to Iran. This may solve the issue.

Iran is not worried about punishment, most people's attitudes here are: "We're not worried, we had sanctions for years."

After all, I do not think the US or the international community could invade us as well as Iraq.

OMID AZMIRAGHI, 22, GRADUATE STUDENT

I do not necessarily think that nuclear technology is important, but it has become a matter of national pride.

For example, I work in a hospital and when we managed to develop stem cells without external help it made us all very proud.

But now nuclear energy in Iran has become a political issue.

I do not believe what some people in the international community say. Iran having nuclear technology would not be a threat to Israel. We would never attack them.

I also do not think it is a question of us needing the power - after all we can export electricity. I think it is just a quest for new technology.

Maybe, if we had a different president, the situation would be better.

The international community does not like President Ahmadinejad and some in Iran do not like him. This causes problems.

I think we probably have spent too much on this technology but we cannot stop now. For the past 20 years we have invested a lot of money on nuclear power.

At the moment, many countries are against us, regardless of what we do. The pressure is too high already, even if the United Nations inspects the plant.

It is strange when I watch the international news and it is all about what is happening in Iran, yet we do not go around in the streets here talking about nuclear plans or the threat of war.

I do not think Ahmadinejad will change his mind. We will carry on with our nuclear plans, I just hope we do not have another war.

EU trio, Russia, China, U.S. to discuss Iran's nuclear issue Jan 16

Alexei Yefimov, RIA Novosti:

The European trio, comprising Britain, Germany, and France), Russia, China and the United States will discuss Iran's nuclear issue in London January 16, the Russian envoy to the UN told China's news agency Xinhua Saturday.

Andrei Denisov said high-ranking officials from the six countries' foreign ministries were to discuss "what should be done after Iran removed the UN seals on its nuclear facilities this week." READ MORE

He did not rule out referring the Iranian issue to the UN Security Council if all the possible procedures within the UN's nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, had been exhausted.

Denisov said referring Iran to the UN Security Council could aggravate the situation, citing Iran's threat to stop voluntary cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

According to him, the situation will become "absolutely unpredictable" if Iran withdraws from the Additional Protocols of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Denisov said Russia did not support imposing sanctions against Iran. "However, we understand that the patience of Iran's European partners is being exhausted," he added.

Tehran announced Tuesday that it was abandoning a two-year moratorium on research into uranium enrichment, which some nations fear will be used to develop nuclear weapons, although the country insists it wants nuclear energy only for peaceful purposes. Iran removed the UN seals at its nuclear facilities this week, thereby ending the moratorium.

Germany, Britain and France, the European trio that helped broker the moratorium two years ago, said that they would call an emergency session of the 35-member board of the UN's nuclear watchdog after talks with Iran had reached a "dead end."

Iran argues that as a party to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

And Now Iran

William Kristol, The Weekly Standard:

An unrepentant rogue state with a history of sponsoring terrorists seeks to develop weapons of mass destruction. The United States tries to work with European allies to deal with the problem peacefully, depending on International Atomic Energy Agency inspections and United Nations sanctions. The Europeans are generally hesitant and wishful. Russia and China are difficult and obstructive. Eventually the reality of the threat, the obduracy of the rogue state regime in power, becomes too obvious to be ignored.

This is not a history lesson about Iraq. These are today's headlines about Iran, where the regime is openly pursuing its ambition to become a nuclear power. "But this time diplomacy has to be given a chance to work," the doves coo. "Maybe this time Israel will take care of the problem," some hawks whisper. Both are being escapist.

Doves profess concern about Iran's nuclear program and endorse various diplomatic responses to it. But they don't want even to contemplate the threat of military action. Perhaps military action won't ultimately be necessary. But the only way diplomatic, political, and economic pressure has a chance to work over the next months is if the military option--or various military options--are kept on the table.

Meanwhile, some hawks, defenders of the Iraq war, would prefer to deal with one challenge at a time. They hope we can kick the can down the road a while longer, or that a deus ex machine--a Jewish one!--will appear to do our job for us.

But great powers don't get to avoid their urgent responsibilities because they'd prefer to deal with only one problem at a time, or to slough those responsibilities off onto others.

To be clear: We support diplomatic, political, and economic efforts to halt the nuclear program of the Iranian regime. We support multilateral efforts through the International Atomic Energy Agency and the United Nations, and the assembling of coalitions of the willing, if necessary, to support sanctions and other forms of pressure. We support serious efforts to help democrats and dissidents in Iran, in the hope that regime change can be achieved without military action from the outside. We support strengthening our covert and intelligence capabilities. And we support holding open the possibility of, and beginning to prepare for, various forms of military action.

Many people-the New York Times editorial board, much of Europe, even some in the Bush administration-don't really believe a nuclear Iran is unacceptable. They're of course all for various multilateral efforts to persuade President Ahmadinejad and Hashemi Rafsanjani, head of Iran's Council of Expediency, as well as Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to change their minds and abandon their nuclear ambitions. But the Times, and much of Europe, and some in the administration, don't really pretend that these attempts at persuasion are likely to work. At the end of the day, they think we can live with a nuclear Iran. After all, containment and deterrence worked with the Soviet Union; they could also work with Iran, one mid-level State Department official said in an unguarded moment in my presence a couple of months ago. READ MORE

We don't agree--and we don't think President Bush does, either. A Cuban missile crisis with Khrushchev's Soviet Union was bad enough. Are we willing to risk it with Ahmadinejad's Iran? What about nuclear proliferation throughout the region? What about the hopes for a liberal, less-extremist-and-terror-friendly Middle East?

Advocates of containment and deterrence should step forward to make their case openly and honestly. We look forward to engaging them in a real debate. Right now, if you read the Times editorial page, or Timothy Garton Ash in the London Guardian, there's lots of talk about the unfortunate behavior of Iran, lots of urging of good-faith multilateral efforts--and lots of finger-wagging warnings against even thinking of military action. This isn't serious.

Others, fortunately, are more serious. The Washington Post editorial page, for one, endorses political and economic steps of real consequence, warns against letting diplomacy degenerate into appeasement, proposes to test the seriousness of our allies and nations like Russia and China--and refuses to rule out the threat of military action.

And President Bush and Condoleezza Rice are serious. They are now speaking with new urgency, since the Iranian government is testing us, and its nuclear program could well be getting close to the point of no return. And they know that they have to speak with confidence and authority. Our adversaries cannot be allowed to believe that, because some of the intelligence on Iraq was bad, or because the insurgency in Iraq has been difficult, we will be at all intimidated from taking the necessary steps against the current regime in Tehran.

--William Kristol

There's method in the Mahdi madness of Iran's president

Charles Moore, Telegraph:

Iran has "broken the seals". The phrase refers to the seals placed by UN nuclear inspectors on equipment that, unsealed, enables uranium enrichment, making possible the development of a nuclear bomb. It has a suitably apocalyptic ring. READ MORE

In the Book of Revelation, the Lamb breaks the seven seals and earth-shattering violence ensues: "…the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together… And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men… hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains".

Our own not-quite-chief captain, Jack Straw, took refuge instead in a BBC studio. It is almost physically impossible to keep one's attention on the Foreign Secretary as he smothers meaning in his blanket of official phrases about IAEA governing bodies and Chapter Seven UN Resolutions and "prior stages" before anything like sanctions actually happens, but I did hear him yesterday venture the opinion that "in Iran things are difficult". You've got to give it to the man: he's right.

It is just a pity that Mr Straw recognises it only now. Ever since he became Foreign Secretary in 2001, Mr Straw - and British policy more generally - has been devoted to the idea that we can make friends with Iran.

Mr Straw went there five times on those expeditions that the Foreign Office loves as much as botanists love the search for rare seeds in the Karakoram - hunting for the "moderates". Our eggs were placed in the fragile basket of former President Khatami's "reformists" and were duly addled. In the presidential election last year, Britain decided that the winner would be another "moderate", Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Mr Rafsanjani is "moderate" only in the sense that Molotov was more moderate than Stalin or Goering than Hitler, but anyway, this man of Straw did not win. The victor was Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the mayor of Teheran.

Since coming to power, Mr Ahmadinejad has organised an international conference designed to prove that the Holocaust never happened and has declared it the aim of Iranian policy to "wipe Israel off the map". Now he is fulfilling his country's long-planned strategy of making the means to do just that: he has broken the seals. Iran can have its own Bomb in four years or so.

Relentless media attention in the West has focused on the errors of the Coalition in Iraq, and plenty of errors there have been. But almost no scrutiny from press or Opposition has been given to the way that the supposedly intransigent George Bush has actually been so accommodating to European sensibilities that he has delegated the policy on Iran to Europe. This has produced the current disaster.

For years now, the "EU Three" - Britain, France and Germany - have been in charge, emboldened since 2005 by the personal support of Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state. They have wanted to believe that they were dealing with a power that was negotiating in good faith. They have spurred that power on to greater excesses by declaring that Western military action was (Mr Straw's word) "inconceivable". They have hoped against hope and against evidence. Only this week did they finally admit defeat. They agreed, which earlier they had refused, to try to take Iran's behaviour to the Security Council.

What is the West facing in the government of Iran?

I read in yesterday's Times that President Ahmadinejad is a "naïve extremist". It is an assumption of Western foreign policy elites that extremists are, by definition, naïve, but is it so?

The point about Iran since 1979 is that it has been governed by revolutionaries; and the history of revolutionaries - successful ones, anyway - is that they are often mad and bad and incredibly skilful all at the same time.

Thus Hitler could genuinely believe in crazed racial theory and outmanoeuvre the chancelleries of Europe. Thus Chairman Mao could promote deranged, famine-inducing economics, while at the same time keeping a grip on power for a quarter of a century.

Westerners tend to see the Iranian revolution as "medieval", but this is a slander on the Middle Ages. "Twentieth century" would be the more accurate description. When Ayatollah Khomeini came to power in Iran, he encouraged his lieutenants to be well versed in the history of revolutions, particularly the communist revolution in Russia.

If you look at Iranian "democracy" today, you will see that the only candidates allowed are those committed to the constitution's idea of the "guardianship of the clergy" (a rule which, at the last parliamentary election, permitted the Council of Guardians to disqualify 6,000 of the 7,000 who wanted to stand).

This is a religious version of the Leninist idea of the "leading role of the party". In 1979, Khomeini said that his revolution was the first step ''in correcting the past of Muslim history''. He meant radicalising Shiism to take over the Muslim world.

That's what Ahmadinejad means, too. Last September, he addressed the United Nations in a speech that called on God to hurry up and send along his "Promised One". This was a reference to the strong Shi'ite belief in a Mahdi, or Hidden Messenger, who will reappear in the world to rule it aright.

Recalling his own speech afterwards, Mr Ahmadinejad said: "One of our group told me that, when I started to say 'In the name of God, the almighty, the merciful', he saw a light around me and I was placed inside this aura. I felt it myself. I felt the atmosphere suddenly change and, for those 27 or 28 minutes, the leaders of the world did not blink."

By putting himself inside this aura, Mr Ahmadinejad may be at once sincere and cynical. He may truly think that God is bringing the Mahdi his way, but he will also know that by identifying with this strand of Shi'ism he can seem to be a Robin Hood for the poor against corruption. He may also be hinting, some experts believe, that, if the Hidden Messenger is coming, the increasingly unpopular clergy and their Supreme Leader (Ayatollah Khamenei) could be superseded by truly holy, non-clerical persons, eg himself and his Revolutionary Guard.

The Bomb, blessed by God, will make Iran proud. It will force the West to let Iran dictate terms in the region, give Mr Ahmadinejad the prestige to crush dissent in his own country and help him grab world Muslim leadership, taking over Iraq. Mad, perhaps, terrifying, certainly, but perfectly sane as a way of staying on top.

What can we do? There may be sanctions and other forms of isolation that would work. For instance, although full of crude oil, Iran is short of petrol and has to import a great deal from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Without that, it would be in trouble.

But the bigger question concerns the West's extraordinary indulgence (Mr Straw calls it "patience") towards the regime. Why don't we distinguish government from people and reach out to the latter? In the contest of the West with revolutionaries, we win in the end when we help their victims rise up against them, when the people themselves, not our tanks, take down the Berlin Wall.

Cheney's Talks Expected to Focus on Syria and Iran

Kuwait News Agency:

US Vice-President Dick Cheney, who is due to have a round of talks with Egyptian leaders starting Monday, is expected to focus on the Syrian-Lebanese issue as well as the Iranian nuclear problem, an Egyptian diplomatic source told KUNA Saturday.

"Cheney is to meet with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in order to discuss issues of bilateral interest, specifically those of Iran and the Mideast, as well as bilateral relations," the source said.

Following his talks in Egypt, Cheney is to proceed to Saudi Arabia, within the framework of a tour of the area, which was to have started on Dec 21 but was postponed because of emergency US Congress meetings, which Cheney was required to attend, the source said. READ MORE

The Cheney talks in Saudi Arabia are due to focus on the crisis between Washington and Tehran as well as the stalemate in relations between the US capital and Damascus, the White House had announced Friday.

Other items on the agenda of the talks include Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's health setback as well as the situation in the Palestinian political situation in view of the expected change in Israel's political leadership.

Saudi King to Discuss Iran, Ties with Israel on Delhi Visit

India Defence:

Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, who will be chief guest during the Republic Day parade, will talk to Indian leaders on vital issues concerning Iran's WMD programme and opening a communications channel with Israel in the changing circumstances. The Saudi king, who will embark on a five-nation trip commencing 21 January, is keen to open a liaison relationship with Israel and seeks Indian assistance in this.

King Abdullah is now sensing the heat of Islamic extremism in his own country to an extent that he has told his close aides to find an immediate solution to it.

The Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organisations are repeatedly issuing warnings to him over religious and political matters concerning the future of the Saudi royal family and their dominant role in defining Islam.

Saudi Arabia is looking ahead to Indian and Israeli cooperation to combat international Islamic terrorism and has suggested that India be given membership of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) having the world's second largest Muslim population.

Though the proposal was withdrawn under pressure from Pakistan and the UAE, the Saudis believe India can not only assist in fighting terrorism, it can also be a bridge to building relations with Israel.

The Saudi king, who will make an official visit to India in five decades, is all set to raise the issue of Iran's WMD programme, and he thinks India can put pressure on Iran to abandon its weapons’ programme which will upset the balance of power in the region. READ MORE

Solana: Military Action Against Iran Out of the Question

EU Business:

A military strike against Iran for its refusal to halt nuclear research is ruled out, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said in an interview to be published Sunday. "Military action against Iran is out of the question," he told the German weekly Bild am Sonntag, adding that the decision by European powers to take the matter to the UN Security Council did not mean the end of negotiations with Tehran. READ MORE

Solana called on Iran to prove that its nuclear programme was purely peaceful, as it asserts, and not designed to develop atomic weaponry as Western powers headed by the United States suspect.

"For the moment we are trying to reach a diplomatic solution, he said, adding, "we should not indulge in speculation on possible sanctions which at the moment are not part of the debate."

Britain, France and Germany took the first step Thursday toward moving the issue before the Security Council, calling for a meeting of the UN's nuclear watchdog as the diplomatic standoff between Tehran and the West escalated.

US President George W. Bush said after talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Washington Friday that the crisis should be referred to the council because letting Iran have a nuclear weapon was "unacceptable" and would pose a threat to the world.

Representatives of the EU countries and the United States are to meet with counterparts from Russia and China on Monday to discuss how to proceed at the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Security Council.

European ministers have said the question of sanctions is premature, while British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said military action was "not conceivable."

Iran's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad remained defiant Saturday, saying his government would not limit its nuclear programme even if ordered to do so by the Security Council.

He said the Islamic republic had every right to possess nuclear technology but insisted it was not interested in acquiring nuclear weapons.

Ahmadinejad Insists on Right to Nuclear Research

CNN News:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Saturday painted the United States and other Western nations as bullies with "a medieval view of the world" and insisted his nation has the right to conduct nuclear research.

"A few Western states ... have nuclear arsenals, they have chemical weapons. They have microbiological weapons. And every year they establish tens of new nuclear power plants. Now they are criticizing the Iranian nation ... because they think that they are powerful," Ahmadinejad said, apparently referring to the United States and the EU3 -- Britain, France and Germany. READ MORE

Talks between the EU3 and Iran stalled last year, and Iran on Tuesday resumed research at its Natanz uranium enrichment plant -- an act viewed with suspicion by the United States and EU3, which fear the country may be planning to produce a nuclear weapon.

"Our nation does not need a nuclear weapon," Ahmadinejad said. "We are a civilized and cultured nation. We have logic, we have civilization ... Nuclear weapons are only needed for people who want to solve everything through use of force." (Watch more of his speech -- 2:23)

Ahmadinejad maintained Iran has done nothing wrong, saying that the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty both allow development of nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

Referring Iran to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions will not end Iran's nuclear plans, Ahmadinejad said.

Ahmadinejad's comments came a day after President Bush and German Chancellor Angela Merkel met in Washington and jointly appealed to nations around the world to condemn Iran's nuclear activities. (Full story)

"We won't be intimidated ... You don't even want us to do some research," said Ahmadinejad. "That's not fair. Even if you bring in the international community, we're still not going to listen to you the way you want. You are just tricking us, and this is not fair. You're not going to stop our research."

He accused the Western nations of using the threat of referral to the U.N. Security Council as a "stick" to threaten Iran. "Every day, they bring in a stick and tell us either we have to listen to them and do what they want or be referred to the Security Council ... You are using it as a stick, you are threatening us with it."

Without naming the United States, Ahmadinejad referred to countries imposing an "artificial peace" on other nations, a peace he said would not last -- an apparent swipe at the U.S.-led war in Iraq. He said Iran had good relations with most countries, except for a few Western nations. "They don't really want good relations with us," he said.

Those nations, he said, also are among the world's most hated. Their leaders "can't even walk around without bodyguards," he said. "The election is always full of cheating. The turnout is very, very low."

He also questioned whether the Holocaust occurred and said Palestinians should be allowed to decide their own fate instead of being subject to Israel.

Misreading Iran - It Wants More Than Reassurance

The Economist: Nuclear Proliferation

Especially since the election last June of its fire-breathing president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, he who denies the Holocaust and calls for the removal of Israel, Iran is often portrayed as dangerous, irrational and unpredictable. In truth, it is not irrational. It has so far played a shrewd and winning hand both in Iraq and in its nuclear game of cat-and-mouse with America, Europe and the International Atomic Energy Agency. Nor is it unpredictable. Although the timing may have surprised, Iran's crossing this week of yet another “red line” by resuming work—research only, you understand—at its uranium-enrichment facility in Natanz was the expected next step in a long-standing plan to put itself within a screwdriver's turn of building an atomic bomb. Iran is, however, dangerous. But how dangerous? And to whom? READ MORE

The grand bargain, and other possible delusions

The country with most to lose from a nuclear Iran is Israel, whose undeclared arsenal has for the past 40 years or so given it a monopoly on Armageddon in the Middle East. In 2001, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of Iran's supposed moderates, mused that a single nuclear weapon could obliterate Israel, whereas Israel could “only damage” the world of Islam. Even so, a nuclear-armed Iran would indeed have to be irrational to strike Israel with such weapons. Barring tragic miscalculation, the main threat a nuclear-armed Iran would pose is not the direct use of those weapons but two second-order dangers. One is that an Iran with a nuclear deterrent might feel emboldened to pursue a more adventurous foreign policy. The other danger, related to the first, is that if Iran were to go nuclear many other countries in this uniquely combustible region—Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria and Turkey, to name just four—will be sorely tempted to follow.

It is often said in defence of Iran's nuclear appetite that this is a country with good reason to want a way to deter its enemies. Israel has never attacked it, and would have no conceivable reason to do so if the Iranians left it in peace. But Iran does have recent experience of invasion. The eight-year war Saddam Hussein forced on it in the 1980s cost perhaps a million Iranian lives. Today the armed forces of a hostile America are encamped in neighbouring Iraq and Afghanistan. Iranians listen to the talk of regime change from Washington, and remember how British and American spies helped to fell a nationalist Iranian government in 1953. Given both its recent history and present predicament, Iran's fears are understandable, says one appealing school of thought in the West. The best way to wean it from its nuclear obsession is therefore to offer it security and reassurance—a “grand bargain”, perhaps, that would end its quarter-century estrangement from the United States.

Maybe. However, there is a less soothing possibility. With Iraq under American occupation, and the occupiers in trouble, Iran no longer faces a threat (except, perhaps, in the realm of ideology) from its historical foe. If Iran wants a “grand bargain”, why did it snub the efforts of Britain, France and Germany to broker one, even after they had won the tacit support of George Bush? Applying Occam's razor, the simplest answer may be that Iran just isn't the status quo power the soothers want to think it is. Its leaders, if not its people, remain loyal to Khomeini's legacy—intent both on mastering their region and fulfilling Iran's destiny as the vanguard of militant Islam.

If that is the case, it is not only Israel that has much to fear if Iran breaks out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to go nuclear. So does America, which in Iran may come to face an even more potent opponent than al-Qaeda to Mr Bush's vision of spreading secular democracy in the Middle East. So do the Arab regimes whose fear of Iran prompted them to bankroll Saddam Hussein's war against Ayatollah Khomeini, and which in some cases will react to a nuclear Iran by making or buying nuclear weapons of their own. A nuclear-armed Middle East on its doorstep can hardly be in Russia's interest either.

Which theory of Iran is right? The regime is opaque. Maybe there are two Irans, oscillating at different times between fear and ambition. Whichever is the case, it is clear by now that relying on talk alone to stop Iran from going nuclear has failed. It is time to go to the UN Security Council and try sanctions.

Sanctions won't work either.