Week in Review

DoctorZin provides a review of this past week's [4/16/06 - 4/22/06] major news events regarding Iran. (The reports are listed in chronological order, not by importance) READ MORE

Iran's Nuclear Program & The UN Security Council.

• Reuters reported that new satellite imagery indicate Iran has expanded its uranium conversion site at Isfahan and reinforced its Natanz underground uranium enrichment plant against possible military strikes.
• YNet reported that while the world is expressing its concern over Iran's progress toward a bomb, the US Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte estimates Tehran will have a bomb within four to nine years.
• The Wall Street Journal reported that Iran now claims it was conducting research and tests on the more sophisticated P-2 nuclear-enrichment centrifuge which could significantly speed the process of making fuel for bombs.
• The Guardian reported on the perm-5 plus one talks on Iran in Moscow and the as of Tuesday, Russia has maintained its opposition to sanctions against Iran.
• New Press reported that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned that Iran would "cut off the hand of any aggressor."
• MSNBC reported that President Bush said “all options are on the table” to prevent Iran from developing atomic weapons, but said he will continue to focus on the international diplomatic option. Plus an interactive look at Iran's nuclear facilities.
• Iran Press News reported that Iran's deputy director of Majles, angry at Russia's invitation of the 5 member countries of the U.N. Security Council to a meeting in Moscow said: "Our people will never forget the cruelty and exploitation of the Russians."
• Rooz Online reported that the Moscow talks with the Perm-5 are making Tehran jittery.
• Radio Free Europe reported that one of Iran's largest pro-reform student groups called for "a temporary suspension of all nuclear activities" and that "there are other rights, like human rights, which have a higher priority."
• Yahoo News reported that envoys from the five permanent Security Council members plus Germany discussed sanctions in Moscow against Iran over its nuclear program, but failed to reach agreement. But Russian demanded "urgent and constructive steps" from Tehran.
• Reuters reported that UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said: "We are working on the basis that Iran will not meet the proposals from the Security Council on the 30-day deadline."
• Reuters reported that Russia said it wanted no action against Iran before an April 28 U.N. deadline set for it to halt uranium enrichment. But Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns added: "we are not going to agree to any pause by Iran."
• Xinhua reported that Russia will still implement the contract to supply 30 Tor-M1 air defense systems to Iran in full. Tor-M1 is an all-weather air defense system to ensure effective protection from cruise missiles, guided bombs, warplanes, helicopters, and pilot less and remotely controlled attack aircraft.
• Forbes.com reported that French President Jacques Chirac said it was 'unacceptable' for Iran to have nuclear weapons, but he left the door open to resumed discussions with Tehran.
• Bloomberg reported that Tony Blair warned "At a point in time when the president of Iran is talking about wiping Israel off the face of the earth and when there are young people signing up to be suicide bombers, I do not think that this is the time to send a message of weakness."
• Yahoo News reported that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the United States would use political, economic and other measures to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
• NewsMax.com reported that Sen. Joseph Lieberman said he would back a U.S. airstrike on Iran's nuclear facilities if diplomatic options fail.
• Euronews reported that senior White House official Nicholas Burns said: "We heard last night, and again today, from individual countries, that all of those who spoke, and it was the great majority, are looking at sanctions."
• Reuters reported that European diplomats dismissed as unacceptable a suggestion that Iran take a brief "technical pause" from its nuclear enrichment activities in an attempt to revive collapsed negotiations with the EU.
• The Washington Post reported that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said: "All participants in the meeting agreed that urgent and constructive steps are demanded of Iran."
• MosNews reported that the chief of the Russian general staff said Russia’s military will not intervene on one side or the other, should the current Iran crisis lead to an armed conflict.
• Reuters reported that Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar called the prospect of the United States using force to halt Iran's nuclear program is empty talk.
• Eli Lake, New York Sun reported that Iranian Students are asking the regime to suspend its A-Bomb effort and focus on the more pressing needs of the Iranian people: human rights, international peace and the economy.
• The Times reported that Russia offered its most outspoken support yet of the controversial nuclear program in Iran. Sergei Kislyak, the Deputy Foreign Minister, said: "Our advice to our Iranian colleagues and friends is to complete work with the International Atomic Energy Authority and to calmly continue its nuclear energy program... and on this path we are ready to provide assistance to Iran."
• The New York Times reported that the Bush administration called for Russia and the countries of Europe to impose their own penalties on Iran.
• The Guardian reported that the United States pressed Russia to halt missile sales to Iran.
• The Washington Times, in an editorial, asked the question: Can Iran Be Deterred?
• Khaleej Times Online reported that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will disclose Iran’s decision on the United Nations Security Council deadline in a press conference on Monday.
• Reuters reported that Iran's ambassador to the U.N. nuclear watchdog said that Iran had a basic deal to enrich uranium in a joint venture in Russia.
• Boston.com reported that a top Kremlin diplomat warned against threatening Iran with sanctions or the use of force, saying that would only aggravate the international standoff.
  

Iranian regime threats.

• Chron.com reported that Iran's president said: "The global oil price has not reached its real value yet."
• World Tribune reported that IRGC Air Force commander Gen. Hosein Salami said: "Iran can block oil export whenever necessary."
• The Guardian reported that a Tehran-based group is trying to recruit Iranians and other Muslims in Britain to carry out suicide bombings against Israel, because of the relative ease with which UK passport-holders can enter Israel.
• MSNBC reported that Ahmadinejad said: “The increase of the oil price and growth of oil income is very good and we hope that the oil prices reach their real levels.”
• Sunday Times reported that Imad Mugniyeh, the Lebanese commander of Hezbollah’s overseas operations, has taken charge of plotting Iran’s retaliation against western targets should President George W Bush order a strike on Iranian nuclear sites.
• The Christian Science Monitor reported that rising tension between the West and Iran is coinciding with the emergence of a loose anti-Western alliance - Israel now dubs it an "axis of terror."
  

Iran's Dissidents.

• Eli Lake, The New York Sun reported that Iran's judiciary has summoned dissident leader Akbar Ganji back to Evin Prison, but so far Mr. Ganji has refused to obey the requests.
• Iran Press News reported that Iranian Dissidents are saying: "No! We do not want nuclear energy."
• Iran Press News reported that prison officials have threatened political prisoner, Valiollah-Fayz Mahdavi with execution should he communicate reports about the prison conditions.
• Iran Press News reported that Mansour Osanlou, director of the bus drivers union of greater Tehran, was transferred from solitary incarceration, after 4 months.
• Iran Press News reported that Iranian journalist Ejlal Ghavami will go on trial on April 22nd for insulting the leadership, taking action against national security, connection with various anti-regime fronts.
  

Iran's reformist movement is angry and worried.

• Rooz Online reported that members of the reformist Association of clergies, met with the Supreme Leader and called on him to take responsibility for the nuclear policies, which according to them sway from day to day.
• Rooz Online reported that Ahmadinejad has stepped into a new phase in its policy of suppressing independent news agencies and journalists.
• Rooz Online reported that while meeting with the Supreme Leader told teachers of Qom that the most important call of the day was to support president Ahmadinejad and the government, and that he expected the same from.
• Rooz Online reported that missing from Ahmadinejad's propaganda campaign about enriching uranium to levels useful for nuclear power generation, was Ali Larijani the highest official responsible for the nuclear issue.
• The Guardian reported that internal political divisions and economic weaknesses may present a bigger threat to the longevity of the Iranian government than an attack on its nuclear facilities.
  

The Unrest inside of Iran.

• SMCCDI reported that a mass execution at the infamous Evin jail located in North Tehran. 9 un-identified victims were executed in the facility in which tens of political activists are being held including several student activists. Several other executions are to take place, in the days ahead, to spread more fear among the population.
• Iran Press News reported that runaway girls and deserted women are being rounded up by the Islamic regime’s forces to unknown locations. Security forces had been warning them "leave the country or stay and die.”
• Iran Press News reported that the regime is organizing its own bogus international workers day ceremony in front of ex-U.S. embassy. Activists responded: "We women and men workers of Iran cannot be used by the Islamic regime for their propaganda."
• Iran Press News reported that the regime's agents stormed a party arresting 37 young women and men.
• The Guardian reported that Iran's Islamic authorities are preparing a crackdown on women flouting the stringent dress code in the clearest sign yet of social and political repression under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
• Korosh, The Price of Freedom, an Iranian blogger, reported on the increasing number of pro-democracy protests in Iran.
• SMCCDI reported that hundreds of Iranians used a soccer match to protest against the Islamic republic regime. Tens were seen injured or arrested.
  

Rumors of War.

• The Washington Times examined the question: "Is Iran Preparing for War?"
• USATODAY reported that the Pentagon is planning a war game in July so officials (including Congressmen) can explore options for a crisis involving Iran.
• The New York Times argued that the use of tactical nuclear weapons against Iran makes little sense.
• Independent reported that Tony Blair and Jack Straw at odds over US action in Iran.
• Asia Times Online reported that Iran's becoming a rallying point for anti-US sentiment in the Muslim world fits well with al-Qaeda and that all of the Muslim countries that side with the United States anticipate a US attack on Iran around October.
• World Tribune reported that Turkish sources said the Defense Department has discussed U.S. military access to several bases in Turkey. But Turkey's government denied the report. The U.S. embassy in Ankara said the story had "no factual basis."
  

Support for Internal Regime Change in Iran.

• The National Review in an editorial argued that the US should massively increase our pro-democracy broadcasts into Iran, and called for a major shift in direction in Voice of America's content.
• Newsweek reported that Bush administration officials are looking for a solution to America's new foreign-policy crisis with Iran by supporting people like "the Larry King of Iran."
• The Financial Times reported that the US and UK are working on a strategy to promote democratic change in Iran.
• The Jerusalem Post reported that Israeli President Moshe Katsav warned the people of Iran that their radical regime is leading them toward the abyss.
  

Are US Pro-Democracy efforts being undermined by the State Department Officials?

• Kenneth R. Timmerman, FrontPageMagazine.com argued that while Congress has budgeted $85 million for pro-democracy efforts in Iran, nearly $50 million has been tentatively ear-marked to expand the Voice of America and the Persian service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, both radios need to improve the quality of their broadcasts and, especially, their political content, before they deserve another dime. The rest of the money is being spent on a variety of programs led by former Tehran regime officials, student leaders, and U.S. academics who believe the Tehran regime can be reformed, but does not need to be changed.
  

Iran's economy in serious trouble.

• Iran Press News reported that Iran's brick making factories are closing rapidly with only 5 of 150 left due to stagnancy in construction in big cities such as Tehran leaving more that ten thousand unemployed.
• Iran Press News reported that for the second time in a week protesting workers from 4 textile factories blocked the transit road between the cities of Kashan and Bandar Abbass.
• Rooz Online reported that fear of war in Iran has lead to a demand for gold and the Central Bank of Iran has been unable to control the demand.
• Iran Press News reported that while Iran is spending million funding Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the latest statistics on poverty in Iran show poverty is increasing.
• The Financial Times reported that with the war of words over Iran’s nuclear programme escalating and the domestic economy stalling, Iranians are scrambling to buy gold coins.
  

Iran's Troublemaking in Iraq.

• Radio Free Europe reported claims that Iranian forces shelled Iranian Kurdish guerrilla positions inside Northern Iraq.
  

Iran's Troublemaking in Israel.

• 620ktar.com reported that Islamic Jihad, backed by Iran and Syria, claimed responsibility for Monday's suicide attack in Tel Aviv. Islamic Jihad is led by Ramadan Shallah considers the 1979 Iranian Revolution to be the beginning of a new era for the Muslim world.
• The Times reported that it is no coincidence that this suicide bombing comes after renewed calls by Iran’s President for the destruction of Israel and after Iran offered to step in to fund the Hamas Government.
• Reuters reported that many Iranians are happy with the regime's gift of $50 million to the Hamas led Palestinian government. They want the regime to focus on their needs.
  

US/Iran talks on hold?

• The Washington Post reported that GOP Sen. Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said that direct talks between the US and Iran "would be useful." Iranian dissidents already fear the US will sell them out. And some wonder why the Iranians haven’t risen up against their oppressive regime?
• Rooz Online reported that a hard-line news agency claimed that Mohammad Javad Larijani has been nominated to lead Iran’s talks with the US. M.J. Larijani is the brother of the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council who has been leading the nuclear talks.
  

Iran and the International community.

• Yahoo News reported that Iran announced that it was giving 50 million dollars in aid to the cash-strapped Hamas-led Palestinian government.
• Xinhua reported that former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said he was certain Gulf Arab states will not support any U.S. strike on Iran.
• Iran Press News reported that Iran plans to guarantee a loan to Cuba for the development of exporting technical services.
• The Washington Post reported that Iran intends to replace some 60 ambassadors this year.
• Times of India reported that India's PM Manmohan Singh unequivocally told a delegation of Muslim leaders that Tehran's nuclear ambitions were not in India's interest.
• Dow Jones Newswires reported that UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged Iran as well as Syria to cooperate in trying to restore Lebanon's political independence and disarm militias.
• The American Foreign Policy Council published a table of Iran's leading trading partners.
• Dow Jones Newswires reported that Russia began delivering advanced antiaircraft missiles to Belarus and he denied a report that the weaponry was destined for Iran.
• The New York Times reported that Iran, India and Pakistan are close to signing a gas pipeline deal, defying U.S. opposition to the project.
  

US Congress.

• Jim Geraghty, The National Reviewexamined Harry Reid's call for diplomatic recognition of Iran.
  

How did Iranian nuclear negotiator get to Washington and who is he meeting with?

• The New York Times reported that the State Department confirmed that Mohammad Nahavandian, an aide to the top Iranian nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, was in Washington. But Sean McCormack, the department spokesman, said, "He's not here for meetings with U.S. government officials, to my knowledge."
• Reuters added that State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said "We have no record of issuing a visa to a person with this name."
• The Guardian reported that the US reaffirmed that it is refusing to discuss Iran's nuclear plans in face-to-face talks on Iraq.
  

Must Read reports.

• Mark Steyn, Chicago Sun-Times argued that our policy on Iran Nukes seems to be off-target.
  
• Richard Clarke, The New York Times argued that bombing Iran will backfire on the US.
• AsiaTimes reported that Iran will become full member of China and Russia's "Shanghai Cooperation Organization." The SCO's enlargement move would frustrate the entire US strategy in the region. The SCO is a security organization which will provide Iran with access to technology, increased investment and trade.
• CBS News reported that Reza Pahlavi, son of the deposed Shah of Iran says "This regime is not trying to avoid confrontation, on the contrary; it needs confrontation in order to survive."
• The Washington Post reported that the Iranian government has intensified efforts to illegally obtain weapons technology from the United States.
• Rooz Online reported that Ayatollah Ali Meshkini, the head of Iran’s Experts Assembly on Leadership which is responsible for choosing a new leader, is in coma. Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi is said to have ambitions to head the Assembly.
• Haaretz reported that Republican Senator Norm Coleman is calling on the United States to withhold funds from the UN Disarmament Commission over Iran's election as vice chairman.
• New York Post reported that last week the U.N. Commission on Disarmament elevated Iran to the vice-chairman post and his first act was to demand that Israel sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and open all of its nuclear sites to international inspection.
• Thomas Joscelyn, The Weekly Standard challenged a recent statement by former National Security Council staffers Richard Clarke and Steven Simon that the U.S. intelligence community scared Iran out of the terrorist game.
• Alan Peters, AntiMullah.com argued that a limited strike on Iran would not bring down the regime and that what is required is to eliminate the most radical elements of the Iranian regime. A must read.
  

The Experts.

• Amir Taheri, The Telegraph revealed the frightening truth of why Iran wants a bomb. Hint: ever heard of a "clash of civilizations?"
• Amir Taheri, The New York Post argued that the European trio and Washington described Iran's announcement that it has now joined "the nuclear club" as "unacceptable." But warned that when you say that something is "unacceptable," you have already accepted it as a reality.
• Center for Strategic & International Studies published a new study analyzing the different options to deal with a nuclear armed Iran.
• Center for Strategic & International Studies also published a report on Iran's nuclear ambitions and how the situation will affect U.S.-Turkish relations.
• Edward N. Luttwak, Commentary published three reasons not to bomb Iran, Yet. An excellent read.
• The Claremont Institute asked seven leading thinkers to reflect on our political and military options in eliminating Iran's nuclear capability.
• Amir Taheri, Asharq Alawsat reported that Ahmadinejad's tactical successes could lead to a strategic disaster for Iran.
  

Photos, cartoons and videos.

• Nazanin, MySpace, born in Tehran, is a former Miss Canada, singer and songwriter and has produced a song: Someday (The Revolution Song). Listen here.
• Cox & Forkum published another of their great cartoons: Crasher.
• A Photo of a defiant Iranian wearing the US flag.
  

The Quote of the Week.

CBS News reported that Reza Pahlavi, son of the deposed Shah of Iran said:

"This regime is not trying to avoid confrontation, on the contrary; it needs confrontation in order to survive."

Tags: iran, news, iraq, nuclear

Sunday's Daily Briefing on Iran

DoctorZin reports, 4.23.2006:

Surgical strikes won't stop Iran.

• Alan Peters, AntiMullah.com argued that a limited strike on Iran would not bring down the regime and that what is required is to eliminate the most radical elements of the Iranian regime. A must read.

Iran assigns its master terrorist to plan attack on the west.

• Sunday Times reported that Imad Mugniyeh, the Lebanese commander of Hezbollah’s overseas operations, has taken charge of plotting Iran’s retaliation against western targets should President George W Bush order a strike on Iranian nuclear sites.

Ahmadinejad to announce Iran's decision on UNSC nuclear deadline, Monday.

• Khaleej Times Online reported that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will disclose Iran’s decision on the United Nations Security Council deadline in a press conference on Monday.

Iran claims to have a "basic" deal with Russia.

• Reuters reported that Iran's ambassador to the U.N. nuclear watchdog said that Iran had a basic deal to enrich uranium in a joint venture in Russia.
• Boston.com reported that a top Kremlin diplomat warned against threatening Iran with sanctions or the use of force, saying that would only aggravate the international standoff.

US seeks military bases in Turkey for an Iranian attack?

• World Tribune reported that Turkish sources said the Defense Department has discussed U.S. military access to several bases in Turkey. But Turkey's government denied the report. The U.S. embassy in Ankara said the story had "no factual basis."

More unrest inside of Iran.

• Korosh, The Price of Freedom, an Iranian blogger, reported on the increasing number of pro-democracy protests in Iran.
• SMCCDI reported that hundreds of Iranians used a soccer match to protest against the Islamic republic regime. Tens were seen injured or arrested.

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

• Dow Jones Newswires reported that Russia began delivering advanced antiaircraft missiles to Belarus and he denied a report that the weaponry was destined for Iran.
• The New York Times reported that Iran, India and Pakistan are close to signing a gas pipeline deal, defying U.S. opposition to the project.
• The Christian Science Monitor reported that rising tension between the West and Iran is coinciding with the emergence of a loose anti-Western alliance - Israel now dubs it an "axis of terror."

Iran - A Justified Final Solution

Alan Peters, AntiMullah.com:

PROLOGUE: Military Tactical, Strategic and Intel analysts fall down the same chute that Politicians seem to slide into. An almost total lack of real life assessment capability of Iranian mentality.

Most scenarios and opinions appear to be formed, even by the supposed "experts", on their contact with Iranians of various kinds, mostly those living abroad and as ex-pats offering a "skin deep" mis-perception of who the Joe Six Pack Iranian really is.

Or use the "skin" layer covering of the Iranian populace presented by those inside Iran, who have the ability to communicate with the outside world. Probably as little as 3% of the nation.

This thin covering layer of intellectuals, students and mostly outdated politicians going back to the Mossadegh era, with some to the monarchy, have no role to play at this point. Other than mind games.

Thrashed, killed, discouraged and rendered impotent over a quarter century of violent suppression, they only have philosophical and academic energy to contribute to a regime change.

They can neither muster forces to fight the neo-Islamic regime of Ahmadi-Nejad, intensely populated by Revolutionary Guards in all executive positions, nor be active in any kind of regime change till their freedom of speech is restored without fear of violent and deadly retribution.

Beneath that skin is a very different flesh, blood and guts that is virtually ignored, thus throwing off analysis and skewing decisions. This distortion becomes aggravated as Arabists, with openly pro-Mullah lobbyists advising them, instead of anti-mullah Iranians, are charged with making policy and Iraq situations are used to provide givens that do not fit the Iranian landscape.

Instead of basing concepts on input from the thin layer with which we come into contact in the West, including a limited profile of those inside Iran, poll the 400,000 street kids who live in cardboard boxes.

The hundreds of thousands of workers who have not been paid in months, sometimes nearly a year.

Those who will be arrested and abused as the crackdown on un-Islamic dress code becomes an excuse to arrest and abuse girls and women.

And those who, come September, will face rationing of gasoline for their vehicles and will often be unable to get to work at all or obtain food and daily necessities.

Again, only some 2% of the population of 70 million inside Iran are among these, who can make themselves heard to the analysts and tacticians. And distort reality the flows beneath that.

An all day, live poll by an Iranian TV station, Channel One, in Los Angeles, where call-ins were accepted from inside Iran, usually from cell phones, provided a response of at least 50% of callers stating openly they would welcome USA bombing raids, even if civilians died in the process. As long as it removed the Mullahs.

What follows may read like a bizarre, politically incorrect, war-mongering treatise. But then you, personally, did not fail to face down Hitler politically; probably did not endure his concentration camps; fight his storm troopers; nor were among the millions, no, tens of millions of dead in World War II. Neither did I but that's not the point. READ MORE

Deaths that occurred exactly for the same reasons we had then, we use again to avoid seriously opposing Ahmadi-Nejad and his Hojatieh neo-Islamic Iran. As a result, not simply risking but blithely inviting a repeat in spades of what went wrong last time we had a global threat, where we tried so hard to avoid confrontation.

Negotiate, appease, and procrastinate with an enemy who needs a Hiroshima, Nagasaki response to blow out his war candle - in concept - rather than by a real nuclear explosion.

We diddle while the world burns - or is about to. Trying to stay within accepted political parameters of the impractical, corrupt United Nations, which appointed Iran to the Vice-Chairmanship of the UN Disarmament Committee, a wishy-washy European Union and trying to achieve common goals with Russia and China – we thus try to do the impossible to escape adopting the real life, only practical solution.

None of the reasons touted to prevent firm and perhaps brutal action against Iran, based on political or humanitarian correctness, are supposed to be a global suicide pact, which increasingly becomes the most likely result from our lack of decisiveness.

And leads to the question of which "innocent" lives are we supposed to save and protect?

Those trapped inside a country of a brutal and heartless Islamic regime, hell-bent on destroying the West and imposing a monolithic, Islamic Caliphate dictate on the world?

Or avoid collateral damage – probably around 20,000 civilians, during attacks on some 400,000 targeted MILLITARY people at 5,000 locations – but allow the tens of millions to perish if we do not "sandblast" Iran to clean it for a saner future administration.

If only our world leaders had shown guts, confronted Hitler, and stopped him a tiny bit earlier before he really got going.

Will we be moaning a similar refrain about Ahmadi-Nejad and his atomic or oil weapons and apocalyptic religious beliefs in a decade or so? After the fall of our civilized world to senseless destruction he promises with every breath?

Or do we resolve to kill nearly half a million Iranian military and paramilitary personnel – not civilians - to save millions of others – both inside Iran and around the world?

Do we need to destroy that many? Do we kow-tow to bleeding hearts who cannot see further than the tip of their noses and to vested interests or do we, like surgeons, take out the scalpel and excise the deadly cancer that has pervaded the global body's health?

This "total" excision requires the destruction of every, I mean every, military site, barrack, piece of equipment, even trucks and small arms in one massive, conventional weapon, bombing campaign. Night and day until every objective and every elite Pasdar, Basiji, Ghods Brigade and similar core unit ceases to exists.

A run at nuclear sites to bury or destroy them, again with deep penetration conventional weapons, would round out the attack yet becomes almost secondary as a prime objective. Without the players in place, the nukes become less consequential.

Within some weeks of intensive, non-nuclear bombing and continued air support to mop up and "keep the peace", we would have wiped out the fanatical core of the Iranian "military" – personnel, weapons and equipment.

But no Mullahs? Without inserting troops into Iran? Pretty much so. At that point, the populace will take care of the Mullahs.

Without their repressive "military and para-military" bodyguards to defend them, the Mullahs will fall prey to the people of Iran they have abused for so long. Revenge will take place on a neighborhood level and on a national scale.

Resentments against those who have enslaved, tormented, tortured and killed will suddenly find free reign to exact retribution for past wrongs. Down to little villages where the clerics have raped, killed, corrupted and executed at will for over a quarter century.

The uprising of the people, something so many people wish to promote, will, for the first time, be pragmatically possible without fear from the Mullahs and their henchmen. For the first time, the populace can then speak freely without being repressed.

No, the populace will not hate America as apologists and pro-Mullah adherents espouse to prevent an attack!

Will they rise up? Give me a university street corner, megaphone and ten minutes to harangue them after their fears abate and see. (Obviously, I speak Farsi).

Clearly radio broadcasts and TV stations (not the insipid Voice of America and similar ones hogging regime change budgets) from outside the country, some which connect to people by cell-phone as they often do now in Los Angeles (Channel One), for example, and conducted the recent poll, would be more effective in mobilizing the masses than my single megaphone. Same easy principle of dry tinder and a spark, though.

This myth of "hating the USA if attacked", falsely based on Western mentality and mindsets, plus pro-regime apologists and some well-wishers with families in Iran, unable to see into the future if we fail to act, totally ignores the Joe Six Pack, Persian thought process.

Unwilling to shed blood themselves, more gentle in nature than commonly perceived, the man in the street of Iran, chafing under the boot of the Mullahs will not openly or publicly support the death of fellow Iranians – as a whole – but will not hate whoever takes out their hated ones – the Mullahs and their Pasdars, Basijis etc.

Families of those grieving for their lost relatives in the military will have to consider their neighbors, too. They will be concerned for their own safety and well-being at the hands of their fellow compatriots so will not rise up as a resistance against anyone. Specially with a prospect of a better life dangling before them.

In any event, do the math. With an average of four to a family, times 400,000 becomes about 1.5 million potential "opponents". Say even two million people angered by the direct pain they have suffered. They are, however, mourners not combatants. They are not fighting for the survival or retrieval of their political beliefs as in Iraq.

On the other side of the scales are the millions whose pain has ceased or diminished and after vengeance against the clerics has been wreaked by them, will be ready and grateful for a new beginning. Chaotic though it may be at first.

Who fills the consequent administrative void? To get into detail here requires a lengthier article than even this one. But conceptually the answer is straightforward enough.

An "Iranian" coalition "government" or NGO of any kind set up in exile in advance, will move in with aid and succor and nominally assume administrative functions. Perhaps with some limited Western coalition troops for initial protection.

There is already work being done to putting into place a nationwide network of volunteers inside Iran (details being withheld on purpose) to allow a neighborhood by neighborhood set of Assistance Committees to take over and provide some formal local nucleus all over the country.

In the Khomeini revolution, after the fall of the Shah's government, the only remaining national network was the thousands of mosques. This factor alone snatched the revolution from the Marxist-Islamists and Communists and dropped it into the outstretched hands of the Mullahs.

The aftermath should definitely not be managed by the United Nations, which recently officially elected Iran to a vice-chair disarmament committee membership.

Again, Iranians respect strength and with the Mullahs "gone" (mostly dead by the hands of Iranians), though demanding the world in aid and food and shelter will not attack as did insurgents in Iraq.

The final nail in the coffin of the late Shah was when he was persuaded by liberals like Ehsan Naraghi to speak to the people and tell them he "got their message" when they thronged in the streets against him at the behest of Khomeini and pro-Soviet agitators.

The social infrastructure in Iran in no way resembles the situation in pre-war or post-war Iraq. An insurgency, after such a massive destruction of the Pasdars etc., will not fall on fertile mental soil. Specially with the insurgents in Iraq killing Iraqis proving a lesson and example for Iranians of what not to support.

Will there be negative considerations? Yes.

Outwardly, while breathing a sigh of relief, privately and secretly also admiring the strength and USA resolution, Arab nations will spew verbal criticism.

Liberal do-gooders and mainstream media will berate the world for saving them from what neo-Iran would have unleashed, never understanding the scope of it.

The Kennedy and John Kerry clan and the Bush haters will all criticize those who end up saving their hides and their continued freedom to spew nonsense without fear of lashings and execution.

Hamas and Hezbollah will send out suicide missions against Israel.

While not so minor to the Israelis, on a global scale their problem is comparatively small, could be controlled, if need be, by sending some 20,000 troops to Israel to help out - instead of trying to send some 500,000 troops needed to invade and control Iran.

As long as Iranian military infrastructure is close to intact or only partially destroyed, the populace will remain fearful of lashing out in deserved revenge and thus negate the desired result of their rising up.

There might be a spate of suicide bombers in Europe or inside the USA but none of this will be more than a drop in the ocean compared to what will happen in the next decade if we do not conduct such a bombing "sandblast".

And might well happen anyway even if we "defuse" Iran. We still have other enemies to face who use these tactics.

Though recently denying any such thought or intention, Russia sending in troops to protect their 40,000 consultants in Iran might be the only serious problem to resolve in advance.

By the time that could effectively happen, the bombing would be "over" and the situation no longer to their advantage for inserting troops. Withdrawing their consultants to the safety of nearby countries would prove easier.

The total destruction of the 400,000 military elite units' personnel – as opposed to the regular Iranian forces, who have much less devotion to the Mullahs – is the essential and key ingredient to success.

There will be chaos within Iran as the pieces have to be picked up. There will be opposing factions fighting for power but it will no longer be crazy religious leaders dictating matters with impunity to an enslaved and cowering nation and a naïve, hapless world.

And the world as a whole will be a safer place for everyone, even for the remaining Jihadists in many countries or timorous French politicians or dithering British Foreign Ministers like Jack Straw.

And oil? Oil will be what oil will be. With or without Ahmadi-Nejad we will face oil problems, only harsher ones if he and his ilk remain in charge with oil as a weapon. This, too is the subject of another long article at another time.

FURTHER COMMENTS AND JUSTIFICATION

Jack Straw has been accused (rightly so) of playing both sides against the middle, yet he is simply treading water till we and the UK can figure out what the heck we are doing, can do or will do in the face of the MSM in both countries, our weak-kneed politicians and the Russian and Chinese attitudes.

Meanwhile the only one with the guts to really do anything - our own USA President - has to deal with the dilemma the Islamic regime finds delightful and flaunts as reasons why the USA will never attack Iran militarily.

Bush's choice is really quite simple.

Does he sacrifice the world's long term best interests for the Republican party's November re-election considerations or does he ignore national politics and do what has to be done while he still can.

Losing either or both houses will hobble him with legislative and budget opposition, so now may be the only clear time he has to do something forceful.

While some may disagree with this article as being too drastic, I have twisted, turned and cogitated to find anything else that will work - both inside Iran and for the world - that has fewer deaths or casualties as a result.

Estimated collateral damage might go as high as 30,000 non-combatant Iranians from the bombing but how many will die around the world and continue to die inside Iran if we do not do something drastic?

The neo-regime of Ahmadi-Nejad has already started to execute prisoners by the dozens in the last couple of weeks. The Ayatollahs killed some 30,000 back in 1988/89 so why think Ahmadi-Nejad and the Revolutionary Guard will have qualms now to not duplicate that number?

They are "cleaning up" the streets by gathering up and exporting homeless street girls and deserted women, selling them to the Gulf sheikhdoms as sex toys or "indentured servants" (slaves) with the Morals Police, in charge of the clean up, pocketing the proceeds.

Selected ones are kept to populate secret brothels owned and run by prominent and second level Mullahs.

Meanwhile, as of this Saturday, - as they did in the early days of Khomeini - they are once again roaming the streets and arresting pretty ones for "un-Islamic dress code".

These victims frequently end up being forced to have sex with their captors to be released. Having sex often takes the form of several nights of gang rape by various shifts of the jailers.

Used and dishonored they are freed, with many committing suicide. Just as they did when the non-Iranian Khomeini first invaded Iran. He never had a drop of Iranian blood in his veins from neither his mother nor father.

To round out their imposition of harsh conditions and increase the number of excuses to cow the populace, Iran has ordered the Morals Police to also accost anyone walking a dog in public or seen with a cat in their arms. Or any pets. Any loud noise (specially music) will be met with arrest. Decorating your vehicle will now also make you liable for arrest by the Morals Police. Virtually anything other than total submission to the desires of the fanatical Amadi-Nejad version of Islam will receive immediate retribution.

To implement the new regulations, he has launched 50 men and 50 women in black uniforms (remember Hilter's SS?) in special Mercedes cars to patrol the streets of Tehran and look for and deal with this kind of sinful behavior.

There are an estimated 400,000 homeless, desperate women and pre-teen children living in cardboard boxes in the capital city of Tehran alone, trying to survive by prostituting themselves and selling drugs for the local Mullahs.

Incidentally, most of the younger boys also suffer the fate of their female counterparts in this slave trade.

Add to this the countless students and young men and women who cannot find a job and desperately enter the same fields of illegal endeavour to stay off the streets and live with their families, where breadwinners have often not been paid at their jobs for nearly a year.

Apart from the obvious nuclear and oil threats, does none of this qualify the Islamic regime for brutal reprisal? Would the liberal MSM not be screaming holy murder if a tiny fraction of this was going on in their own respective countries?

Our only hope might actually be Bush's low poll ratings. He has little or nothing to lose if he steps on the side of the best interests of the world - including all of us - and the American population - if doing so. Other than seats in the two houses.

A one fell swoop success in ridding Iran of the Mullahs as described here, might quite to the contrary, become his redeeming action to restore his ratings and provide him with an honored place in history.

Iran’s president recruits terror master

Sarah Baxter and Uzi Mahnaimi, Sunday Times: Plot for revenge attacks on West

IRAN’S president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, attended a meeting in Syria earlier this year with one of the world’s most wanted terrorists, according to intelligence experts and a former national security official in Washington.

US officials and Israel intelligence sources believe Imad Mugniyeh, the Lebanese commander of Hezbollah’s overseas operations, has taken charge of plotting Iran’s retaliation against western targets should President George W Bush order a strike on Iranian nuclear sites. READ MORE

Mugniyeh is on the FBI’s “Most Wanted Terrorists” list for his role in a series of high-profile attacks against the West, including the 1985 hijacking of a TWA jet and murder of one of its passengers, a US navy diver.

Now in his mid-forties, Mugniyeh is reported to have travelled with Ahmadinejad in January this year from Tehran to Damascus, where the Iranian president met leaders of Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas.

The meeting has been dubbed a “terror summit” because of the presence of so many groups behind attacks on Israel, which Ahmadinejad has threatened to wipe from the map.

Jane’s Intelligence Review cited “reports in recent weeks” of Mugniyeh’s presence alongside the president.

Michael Ledeen, a Middle East expert and former Pentagon and National Security Council official who wrote that Mugniyeh had “probably” been there, said last week senior American officials had confirmed it.

“It’s hard to identify Mugniyeh because he is said to have changed his face and his fingerprints,” Ledeen said. “But senior government officials have told me I was right. He was there.”

Shortly after the Damascus summit Henry Crumpton, head of counter-terrorism at the state department, singled out the elusive Mugniyeh as a threat. The Iranians, Crumpton said, “have complete command and control of Hezbollah. Imad Mugniyeh works for Tehran. And you can’t talk about Hezbollah and not think about Iran. They really are part and parcel of the same problem.”

Mugniyeh lives in Iran and has evaded capture for more than 20 years, despite a $5m American bounty on his head. Western intelligence reports claim he has many connections to terrorist cells in Europe, Africa, Latin America and the US and he is said to have met Osama Bin Laden.

“When and if the Iranians decide to hit the West in its soft belly, Imad will be the one to act,” a western intelligence source said last week.

An Israeli defence source claimed Mugniyeh was in regular touch with the new Iranian intelligence minister, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ezhei. The minister is a long-time confidant of Ahmadinejad and was appointed by him.

“We know that Mohseni Ezhei holds routine meetings with Mugniyeh, who is today Iran’s head of overseas operations,” said the Israeli defence source. “Since we know from previous Iranian terror attacks that it takes about a year to plan a substantial one, we should not be surprised if operations against western targets are already in high gear and Mugniyeh is certainly playing a major role.”

The young Mugniyeh first attracted the attention of the West when he was involved in the kidnapping, torture and mutilation of William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut, in 1984. He kept his victim at the Sheikh Abdullah camp in the Lebanese Bekaa valley and was allegedly the last person Buckley saw before he died.

“Imad had good reason to retaliate,” said a well-informed source. “A car bomb killed his brother Jihad, who had taken Imad’s old job as bodyguard to Hezbollah’s spiritual leader.” Mugniyeh blamed the CIA, and Buckley was chosen to pay the price.

The kidnapping led to the Iran-contra affair, one of the most embarrassing episodes of the Reagan presidency, in which arms were swapped for hostages. But by the time the Americans were negotiating with the Iranians, Buckley was already dead.

Mugniyeh has also been linked to the demolition of the American embassy and marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 and is wanted in Argentina for his role in recruiting the bombers of the Israeli embassy and Jewish centre in Buenos Aires in the early 1990s.

Mugniyeh left Lebanon for Iran in 1994 with his wife and son after an assassination attempt. He is since believed to have played an active role in fomenting trouble in Iraq. Ledeen described him last week as the “spinal column of the terror war against America in Iraq from the beginning”.

According to Robert Baer, a former CIA agent who pursued Mugniyeh in the 1980s, “he is the most dangerous terrorist we have ever faced. Mugniyeh is probably the most intelligent, most capable operative we have ever run across, including the KGB or anybody else.

“He enters by one door, exits by another, changes his cars daily, never makes appointments by telephone — he is never predictable. He is the master terrorist, the grail we have been after since 1983”.

• Elite Iranian army officers who arrived in south Lebanon this month have taken command of thousands of rockets aimed at cities across Israel. They are believed to have been given control of the missiles by Hezbollah to deter possible Israeli attacks against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Soccer game leads to protest in Iranian Capital

SMCCDI (Information Service):

Hundreds of Iranians used the occasion, offered by the match played between Bargh e Shiraz and Esteghlal (former Taj) soccer teams, in order to protest against the Islamic republic regime. The local game took place yesterday at the "Azadi" ('Freedom') stadium of Tehran.

Slogans were shouted and street clashes took place in the Azadi, Karaj and Enghelab areas as security forces attacked the protesters. Dozens of security patrol cars and buses were damaged in retaliation to the brutality of Islamist Militiamen.

Tens were seen injured or arrested at the issue of the unrest. READ MORE

Iranians are seizing the mass presence opportunity offered by soccer games or big events in order to protest and express their rejection of the Islamic regime. In that line, Iran was the scene of consecutive and massive protest actions, during the 2002 World Cup soccer qualification games but the trend was stopped by the believed forced loss of Iran to Bahrain. Since then, important soccer games have been often turned into popular protests, especially when they're played in Tehran.

Most opposition groups, such as SMCCDI and the Iran National Secular Party (INSP), and underground networks have planned massive popular protest actions, both inside and abroad Iran, at the occasion of the upcoming 2006 World Cup games in Germany. Iran's first game is scheduled for June 11th against Mexico and Its other first round games are against Portugal, on June 17th, and against Angola on June 21st.

SMCCDI is known for its importnat role in the promotion of Football (Soccer) Protests and especially in the coordination of last World Cup Soccer qualification games' riots. It constantly mobilized the masses via the intense use of digital technology, such as the Internet and satellite TV, as well as, help from some friendly Persian speaking radio stations abroad who were offering airtime for consecutive interviews and transmitting the Movement's calls:

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Iran Launches Major Operation Against PKK

Cihan, Istanbul, Zaman.com:

Iranian security forces killed 10 members of Pejak, which is affiliated with the PKK (Kurdish Workers’ Party) terror organization, in a major anti-terror operation.

According to the reports, Iranian forces are conducting large scale operations near the Turkish and Iraqi borders after the PKK terrorists wintering in northern Iraq began to infiltrate the border with Turkey and Iran.

Some 10,000 Iranian forces are taking part in the operation. 10 PKK terrorists were killed while six Iranian security forces lost their lives in the clashes. Several PKK terrorists were injured in the clashes.

The Iranian operation coincides with major Turkish anti-terror operations near the Iraqi border. Turkish security forces, backed by helicopters, are carrying out operations against PKK terrorists in the region near Iraqi border. More than 35 PKK terrorists have been killed recently in the region.

Increasing number of pro-democracy protests in Iran

Korosh, The Price of Freedom: an Iranian blogger

For someone in the west to hear some of the reasons that the students in Iran are protesting might sound really unbelievable that the students in Iran are not enjoying the most fundamental right of every human being and in this case students the following are some fo there examples:

The reasons that the Rajae university student first raise up was for segregation in the school by government officials!

Insulting behavior by them!

Lack of free news paper and funding for the students!

Click Here to Read the rest of their Demands

Alama University students raise up because the university officials fired a professor (for his political views) and they were against this discrimination of the university officials against this professors political views (which was pro democratic).

Sharif University rose up because the Islamic supported militia forces also known as Basij were trying to bury a dead body in which they claimed was one of the war heroes back in Iran and Iraq war and this also raise up the complain of the family member of the person as they call it so they are trying to turn the university a place to study and to do research into cemetery! So the students raise up against this plan of the government to abuse those people for their political purposes.

Yes this sound hilarious to people and that is why the students in Sharif university not only were shocked by the news but were insulted by it because this was a plan to turn the university to a place were the Islamic Extremes would rally their support for the regime! READ MORE

Keeping in mind that the vast majority of the Iranian are against this back ward ideological regime which is forcibly trying to impose the Islamic laws and Arab culture on Iranian who by the way despite many people’s knowledge are not Arab and are Persians and there is a great different since Persians have a great and rich history but now its been take hostage by a foreign ideology which has came from Arabs even though Persians were among the first people who believed in God in Zoroastrian religion which was the first monotheistic religion in the world.

And by the way the first declaration of human rights came from Persian
Where the worse case of human right abuse is taking place!

Russia Warns Against Pressuring Iran

Steve Gutterman, Boston.com:

A top Kremlin diplomat warned against threatening Iran with sanctions or the use of force, saying that would only aggravate the international standoff over Tehran's suspect nuclear program, Russian media reports said Saturday. READ MORE

Rather than getting Iran to stop uranium enrichment, a tougher stance could result in Tehran's total refusal to cooperate with the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, said Oleg Ozerov, deputy director of the Foreign Ministry's Middle East and North Africa Department, according to ITAR-Tass.

"We firmly stand today for resolving the problems in and around Tehran diplomatically rather than militarily. Increasing international pressure on Iran has no prospects," Ozerov was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.

The United States and European allies are pushing for sanctions because of Iran's refusal to suspend its enrichment program, as demanded by the U.N. Security Council. They suspect Iran is trying to develop atomic weapons in violation of its treaty commitments.

The Iranian regime insists the program has only the peaceful purpose of generating electricity. Russia, which has close ties with Iran and is building that nation's first nuclear power plant, opposes sanctions.

Despite what U.S. and Russian officials have described as increasingly close positions on the Iranian nuclear program in recent years, they appear far apart heading into the Friday deadline set by the Security Council for Iran to stop enrichment.

The United States and Britain say that if Iran doesn't meet the deadline, they will try to get the council to make the demand compulsory, which would raise the possibility of sanctions.

Seeking to avoid having the sanctions issue come before the council, Russian officials argue that the International Atomic Energy Agency should take the lead for the United Nations in trying to resolve tensions over Iran's nuclear program.

Ozerov stressed Russia's opposition to the use of force against Iran -- an issue that got close attention in state-run Russian media after President Bush said last week that military action could not be ruled out.

"The forceful option is extremely dangerous and not constructive," ITAR-Tass quoted Ozerov as saying during a seminar on global security.

The report added that Ozerov also warned Iran against making belligerent statements.

Moscow has been frustrated by Tehran's uncooperative attitude, and ITAR-Tass said Ozerov expressed regret over the failure to reach a final agreement with Iran on a compromise proposal to have the Iranian uranium enrichment program operate on Russian territory.

The two nations announced a "basic agreement" in February on implementing the plan, which would allow closer international monitoring of Iranian enrichment program -- which can produce both fuel for power-generating nuclear reactors and the core material for atomic bombs.

Iran is prepared for more talks on the Russian proposal, Iran's IAEA envoy said in Moscow on Friday. But Ali Asghar Soltanieh stressed that the details were unresolved and needed much more discussion.

Iranian officials already undercut the intent of Russia's plan by insisting that they would continue some enrichment work at home.

Belarus: Russian Antiaircraft Missiles for Iran?

Dow Jones Newswires:

Russia began delivering advanced antiaircraft missiles to Belarus Friday, the Belarussian defense minister said, and he denied a report that the weaponry was destined for Iran.

Russia and Belarus signed an agreement last year on the delivery of the latest, most advanced version of Russia's S-300SP surface-to-air missile system, capable of shooting down targets some 150 kilometers away.

U.K. defense journal Jane's Intelligence Digest, meanwhile, reported in a recent edition that Belarus had agreed to transfer the S-300SP missiles to Iran in order to help it bolster its defenses against any possible U.S. or Israeli air strikes designed to derail what many in the West allege are its efforts to develop nuclear weapons. READ MORE

The report said the agreement had been reached in January when a high-level military and political delegation from Tehran paid a low-key visit to Minsk. The journal said Moscow had chosen an indirect way of supplying the missiles to allow it to avoid tarnishing its international reputation.

Russia has already agreed to supply sophisticated Tor-M1 air defense missile systems to Iran.

"I have no intention of commenting on this nonsense," Defense Minister Leonid Maltsev told reporters in Minsk. "Under the contract for the delivery of the S-300s from Russia, Belarus does not have the right to transfer these systems anywhere else."

Iranian Commerce Minister Masud Mir-Kazemi, who headed a trade delegation that traveled to Minsk, also denied that Tehran wanted to acquire the Russian S-300 missiles.

"The question of deliveries of S-300 systems wasn't discussed. From the viewpoint of military technology, we are self-sufficient and there is no need for us to consider buying weapons abroad," he told reporters.

The Iranian minister said he had not met Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, who on Friday was also in the Belarussian capital for talks with President Alexander Lukashenko.

The missile shipment is the latest move expanding military ties between Russia and Belarus. In 1996, the two nations signed a union agreement providing for close political, economic and military ties and their armed forces have held frequent joint drills.

In February, Russian air force chief Gen. Vladimir Mikhailov said Russia planned to set up a permanent military air base in Belarus.

Russia has watched warily as former Soviet bloc countries bordering Belarus - Poland, Latvia and Lithuania -have joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Iran - India Gas Link Deal Close Despite US Ire

The New York Times:

Iran, India and Pakistan are close to signing a gas pipeline deal, the Iranian and Pakistani oil ministers told Reuters on Saturday, defying U.S. opposition to the project. The plan to pump Iranian gas to India through Pakistan was first proposed more than a decade ago, but progress has been slow because of hostility between India and Pakistan and, more recently, U.S. opposition to Iran because of its nuclear programme.

Iranian Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri said he had an understanding with India and Pakistan and was unconcerned by U.S. opposition. READ MORE

``We have a very good understanding,'' Iranian Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri told Reuters. ``They are willing and Iran is ready.''

Asked when the deal would be signed, he said only: ``I hope we are going to have a ministerial meeting in Tehran in June,'' adding it would be attended by the same three ministers.

Speaking after talks with his Iranian and Indian counterparts on the sidelines of the International Energy Forum in Doha, Pakistan's oil minister Amanullah Khan Jadoon told Reuters only technical issues had to be resolved.

The $7 billion pipeline through Pakistan would link Iran's abundant gas reserves, the world's second biggest, to India's booming economy.

It would carry 150 million cubic meters per day of gas for 25 years, Vaziri said.

Although Pakistan is a key ally in the U.S.-led war on terror, it has said the pipeline would aid economic growth and foster better ties with India after years of brinkmanship between the nuclear-armed rivals.

Iran had said it would go ahead without India if it did not agree to join the pipeline by May.

The Indian oil minister Murli Deora declined to comment following Saturday's talks.

Mideast 'Axis of Terror' Forms Against West

Nicholas Blanford, The Christian Science Monitor:

Rising tension between the West and Iran is coinciding with the emergence of a loose anti-Western alliance - Israel now dubs it an "axis of terror" - spanning the Middle East, presenting a new challenge to the US's regional ambitions. Centered on Iran, this alignment has hardened in recent months, analysts say, with Tehran shoring up old alliances and strengthening ties with countries (Syria and Iraq) and with groups (Hizbullah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad) that share its hostility toward Israel and the US.

"The alliance that is emerging in this part of the world is a creation of Iran," says Sami Moubayed, a Syrian political analyst. "It wants to bolster its position by allying itself with countries or groups that can temporarily enhance its regional role and influence." READ MORE

On Tuesday, Israel's UN envoy Dan Gillerman dubbed this alliance the "new axis of terror" following a suicide bombing claimed by the Iranian-funded Islamic Jihad in Tel Aviv the previous day that killed nine Israelis.

"A dark cloud is looming above our region, and it is metastasizing as a result of the statements and actions by leaders of Iran, Syria, and the newly elected government of the Palestinian Authority," Mr. Gillerman said.

The alliance, which is ad hoc and tactical rather than a formalized strategic pact, includes Syria and groups such as Lebanon's Hizbullah, the Iran-backed militant Shiite organization, radical Palestinian organizations such as Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command as well as some Iraqi allies.

So far the strategy appears to be working in their favor. Hizbullah has become one of the most influential players in Lebanon and looks set to retain its military wing for the foreseeable future.

Iran has rarely appeared more resolute, boasting of its success in uranium enrichment and expressing near daily defiance toward the US. Damascus is gaining confidence with a slackening of international pressure lately amid concerns that a collapse of Syria's Baathist regime could trigger Iraq-style instability.

"The Syrians are very supportive of Iran and very supportive of Hamas and Hizbullah," says Mr. Moubayed. "Almost everybody in Syria is praising [Syrian President Bashar] al-Assad's alliance with Iran as a very smart move. Many are saying that the alliance with [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad was not political suicide after all."

Iran is the driving force behind the alliance, its strategic position in the region enhanced by the US-led effort to oust Tehran's Taliban enemy in Afghanistan to the east and its Baathist foe in Iraq to the west.

Over the weekend, Iran hosted a three-day conference in support of the Palestinians, pledging $50 million to the newly elected Hamas government and reaffirming its ties to other rejectionist Palestinian groups.

"This is an anti-America alliance," says Joshua Landis, professor of history at the University of Oklahoma and author of Syriacomment.com, who spent 2005 living in Damascus. "My guess is that the US will end up in a weaker position than it started. The war on terror has alienated the Muslim countries who now believe that America is the big bad ogre and specter of imperialism."

A year ago, Syria's strategic position looked grim, having been forced to disengage from neighboring Lebanon, ending 15 years of domination. Hizbullah also was feeling the squeeze amid the departure of its Syrian protector and a growing clamor for its disarmament from the party's Lebanese opponents.

But the election in August of the confrontational Mr. Ahmadinejad as president of Iran reinvigorated the long-standing relationship between Tehran and Damascus. Syria is the geostrategic linchpin connecting Tehran to its Lebanese protégé, Hizbullah, and was also regarded by Iran as the weak link in the chain, one that required buttressing.

A newly emboldened Syria began to display greater defiance against international pressure. In November, Mr. Assad asserted in a speech that "the region [faces] two choices: either resistance and steadfastness or chaos. There is no third choice.

"If they believe that they [the West] can blackmail Syria, we tell them they got the wrong address," he said.

A series of Middle East elections also bolstered the emerging alliance. In late December, Shiite factions close to Tehran dominated the Iraqi elections. The following month, Hamas triumphed in the Palestinian elections, granting Iran greater leverage in the Israeli-Palestinian arena.

In mid-January, Assad hosted a summit in Damascus with Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president's first state visit. Also attending were the leaders of Hizbullah and several anti-Israel Palestinian groups in what analysts regarded as an affirmation of the anti-Western axis.

"The meeting between Ahmadinejad and Assad," commented Sateh Noureddine of Lebanon's As Safir newspaper at the time, "did not come as a sign of defeat, but rather as a joint warning to the world. A warning that the alliance between the two neighbors is on its way to becoming stronger."

The alliance includes the Mahdi Army of Moqtada al-Sadr, who in visits to Tehran and Damascus in January and February vowed to come to the defense "by all possible means" of Iran and Syria if attacked by the US.

There is a commercial dimension, too. In February, Iran and Syria inked sweeping economic and trade agreements including one establishing gas, oil, railroad, and electrical links between Syria and Iran via Iraq. Both countries are looking to the emerging economic powerhouses of Asia to build new trade ties as an alternative to Europe and the West.

"Syria has been signing oil and gas contracts with India, China, and Russia," says Mr. Landis, the Syria expert. "Syria and Iran are thinking they can build Iraq into their northern tier, building gas and oil pipelines across the region."

Turkish Dailies: U.S. Seeks Use of Bases for Duration of Iran Crisis

World Tribune:

Turkish sources said the Defense Department has discussed U.S. military access to several bases in Turkey. They said they included air and naval bases that spanned an area from Central Asia to the Mediterranean. "The request was for temporary access and connected to the crisis with Iran," a Turkish source said.

On April 17, the Turkish daily Cumhuriyet reported that the United States has sought to establish a presence in three naval bases in Turkey. The newspaper said the United States demanded access to bases located along the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts, Middle East Newsline reported.

Turkey's government denied the report. The U.S. embassy in Ankara said the story had "no factual basis." READ MORE

Another Turkish daily, Aksam, said the United States has proposed the construction of an air base near the Iranian border. Aksam said Ankara has already expropriated land near the Iranian-Turkish border for what was said to be an airport.

The sources said the United States has submitted a range of proposals for closer military cooperation with Ankara. They said the Pentagon has sought to increase the U.S. military presence in Turkey to facilitate reconnaissance and logistics for any air strike against nuclear facilities in Iran.

Iran has warned Turkey not to cooperate with the United States.

On April 17, the leader of the Iranian Hizbullah threatened suicide strikes against Turkey.

"You should have no doubt that we will attack you as well if the United States uses bases in Turkey, receives support from Turkey," Iranian Hizbullah chief Mohammed Bager Kharrazi told Turkish NTV television. "We will retaliate against all of those who support our attacker."

On Thursday, the U.S. intelligence community played down Iran's capability to produce nuclear fuel. National Intelligence Director John Negroponte said Teheran still remains years away from producing a sufficient amount of enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon.

"Our assessment at the moment is that even though we believe that Iran is determined to acquire or obtain a nuclear weapon, that we believe that it is still a number of years off before they are likely to have enough fissile material to assemble into, or to put into a nuclear weapon; perhaps into the next decade," Negroponte said. "So I think it's important that this issue be kept in perspective."

Iran Says Has "Basic" Enrichment Deal with Russia

Alireza Ronaghi, Reuters:

Iran's ambassador to the U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Saturday that Iran had a basic deal to enrich uranium in a joint venture in Russia but said details were still being worked out, Iranian state radio reported.

Russia has offered to enrich uranium for Iran to allay concerns that Tehran could use domestically-produced enriched uranium to make nuclear bombs.

But progress on the deal has been hindered by Iran's refusal to bow to international demands that it halt all home-grown enrichment work. A "basic agreement" on enrichment with Russia was previously announced by Iran in February but talks subsequently appeared to stall. READ MORE

Ali-Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said a full agreement was now close in reach.

"He ... announced the basic agreement on a joint uranium enrichment firm on Russian soil and said that there are only some issues regarding technical, legal and financial matters that need more assessment or exchange of ideas," radio quoted Soltanieh as saying from Russia.

Western nations, who are threatening to press for U.N. sanctions, accuse Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons and insist Iran stops enrichment, which has military and civilian uses. Iran says it only wants to produce electricity.

Moscow, while joining Washington and European powers in calling on Iran to end enrichment, has made it clear it would not at this stage back imposing sanctions on the Islamic state.

NEW REACTORS PLANNED

Iran announced earlier this month that it had produced its first batch of enriched uranium and was pressing ahead with plans to produce nuclear fuel on an industrial scale.

Ali Hoseinitash, a deputy secretary on Iran's Supreme National Security Council, rejected any suspension of Iran's nuclear work, which Iran considers a national right, state television reported earlier on Saturday.

"We are seeking to choose the right paths and to solve the problems (in Iran's nuclear case) by some sort of negotiation and understanding. However if reaching those paths comes on the condition of handing over our rights, it will not take place in the current situation," television quoted Hoseinitash as saying.

Soltanieh was also quoted by the radio announcer as saying Iran would issue tenders next month for two nuclear power stations, in addition to one being built with Russian help near the southern port city of Bushehr.

"All countries can take part (in the tender)," he was quoted as saying.

It was not immediately clear if Soltanieh meant the tender would be announced in May or in the next Iranian month which starts on May 22.

Moscow on Thursday rejected a request from the United States for its engineers to halt work on the Bushehr nuclear power station, Iran's first, which is due to be completed later this year.

Ahmadinejad to Disclose Iran's Decision on UN Deadline on Monday

Khaleej Times Online:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will disclose Iran’s decision on the United Nations Security Council deadline in a press conference on Monday, the news agency Fars reported on Saturday. READ MORE

The latest report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Iran’s nuclear activities is due to be presented by IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei on April 28.

The date is also the deadline set by the UN Security Council against Iran to suspend all its uranium enrichment activities.

Iran has so far signalled that it would not follow the UN demand, but it has also affirmed its commitment to the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and continued cooperation with the IAEA.

Ahmadinejad himself has already declared Iran as an atomic state and called on the world to treat the country accordingly.

The five Security Council members plus Germany have so far failed to reach a unanimous decision how to approach Iran following the deadline but the Europeans have ruled out a military option, and Russia and China are against any sanctions against Teheran.

Saturday's Daily Briefing on Iran

DoctorZin reports, 4.22.2006:

Iran elevated to vice chair of UN Commission on Disarmament.

• New York Post reported that last week the U.N. Commission on Disarmament elevated Iran to the vice-chairman post and his first act was to demand that Israel sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and open all of its nuclear sites to international inspection.

The US prepares for an October attack on Iran?

• Asia Times Online reported that Iran's becoming a rallying point for anti-US sentiment in the Muslim world fits well with al-Qaeda and that all of the Muslim countries that side with the United States anticipate a US attack on Iran around October.

Iran's military shelling Iraqi Kurds?

• Radio Free Europe reported claims that Iranian forces shelled Iranian Kurdish guerrilla positions inside Northern Iraq.
  

Ahmadinejad: oil prices increase "very good."

• MSNBC reported that Ahmadinejad said: “The increase of the oil price and growth of oil income is very good and we hope that the oil prices reach their real levels.”

Russia backs Iran's nuclear program.

• The Times reported that Russia offered its most outspoken support yet of the controversial nuclear program in Iran. Sergei Kislyak, the Deputy Foreign Minister, said: "Our advice to our Iranian colleagues and friends is to complete work with the International Atomic Energy Authority and to calmly continue its nuclear energy program... and on this path we are ready to provide assistance to Iran."

US pressures Russia.

• The New York Times reported that the Bush administration called for Russia and the countries of Europe to impose their own penalties on Iran.
• The Guardian reported that the United States pressed Russia to halt missile sales to Iran.

The West seeks to increase efforts to support the people of Iran.

• The Financial Times reported that the US and UK are working on a strategy to promote democratic change in Iran.
• The Jerusalem Post reported that Israeli President Moshe Katsav warned the people of Iran that their radical regime is leading them toward the abyss.

Harry Reid calls for the diplomatic recognition of Iran.

• Jim Geraghty, The National Review examined Harry Reid's call for diplomatic recognition of Iran.
  

Iran scared out of the terrorist game?

• Thomas Joscelyn, The Weekly Standard challenged a recent statement by former National Security Council staffers Richard Clarke and Steven Simon that the U.S. intelligence community scared Iran out of the terrorist game.

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

• The Washington Times, in an editorial, asked the question: Can Iran Be Deterred?
• The American Foreign Policy Council published a table of Iran's leading trading partners.
  
• Amir Taheri, Asharq Alawsat reported that Ahmadinejad's tactical successes could lead to a strategic disaster for Iran.
  

Tags: iran, news, iraq, nuclear

Iran: Tactical Success Could Lead to Strategic Disaster

Amir Taheri, Asharq Alawsat:

In recent days an old slogan of the Khomeinist Revolution has made a spectacular comeback on city walls throughout the Islamic Republic: America Cannot Do A Damn Thing!

The late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini launched the phrase in 1979, as he played Tom and Jerry with the clueless Jimmy Carter who, at the time, acted as President of the United States.

At the time many in the ayatollah’s entourage believed that he was being unnecessarily provocative. Khomeini, however, was dismissive. “America, “he told his secretary, a mullah called Ansari Kermani, “may have a lot of power but lacks the courage to use it.”

According to Kermani, who wrote a hagiographical account of Khomeini’s life in 1983, the ayatollah “always counted on America’s internal divisions” to prevent the formulation and application of any serious policy on any major issue. The ayatollah believed that the American political system was clear proof of the saying attributed to Jaafar al-Sadiq, the Sixth Imam, that “God keeps the enemies of Islam fighting among themselves!” READ MORE

Khomeini’s slogan disappeared from most walls after 1997 when the Islamic Republic decided to soften its image to negotiate a particularly rough patch on it way. It is now back because President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad believes that the Khomeinist revolution needs “a second breath” which can only come if the Islamic Republic takes on the US and defeats it once again.

Contrary to what some people seem to believe Ahmadinejad, far from being “the mad man of Tehran”, is an astute politician. He would not have been where he is today had he been “a juvenile delinquent mouthing political slogans.”

Seen from Ahmadinejad’s angle things are going Iran’s way.

The country is awash with cash from oil, now fetching prices near historical peaks.

In March he was able to offer the nation its first “guns and butter” budget since 1974. He increased defence spending by a whopping 21 per cent while raising generous state subsidies, and offering cash handouts to the poorest families.

On the political front Ahmadinejad has forced his opponents within the establishment into an uncomfortable position. These are people, including the two mullahs Rafsanjani and Khatami who preceded Ahmadinejad as president, who consider the revolution’s messianic message as a mere metaphor but dare not say so in public for fear of losing their positions within the regime.

Ahmadinejad is forcing Khomeinists of all ilk to either practice what they preach, which includes conquering the world in the name of their brand of Islam, or shut up or join the opposition. People like Rafsanjani and Khatami cannot go on telling the West one thing in private, and the Iranians another in public. In Ahmadinejad’s Islamic Republic you cannot be half pregnant; you either are or are not.

There is no doubt that Ahmadinejad has also won much support by turning the flashlights on widespread corruption among the ruling mullahs. Hardly a week passes without another leading mullahs being exposed as a “plunderer.” He contrasts his own austere life-style with the lavish lives of the political mullahs, including is predecessors. Anyone familiar with Middle Eastern cultures would know that nothing enrages the people more than accusations of corruption and ill-gained wealth.

By forcing the world to focus only on the nuclear issue, Ahmadinejad has also succeeded in diverting attention from the regime’s many weaknesses not to mention a rising level of popular discontent caused by economic hardship, violations of human rights, and the generally repressive policies of the system.

He has managed to persuade many Iranians that the “Infidel”, led by the United States, is trying to deny Iran the right to benefit from peaceful nuclear technology- a right that al other nations enjoy. This falsehood enables a regime that denounces nationalism as a form of “ paganism” to don patriotic garb and play the macho role that Third World nations cherish.

As for the anti-Khomeinist opposition, Ahmadinejad also has reason to be happy. For it remains as divided as ever with some of them still fighting the battles of the 1950s rather than focusing on the dangers that Iran faces today.

Ahmadinejad also takes comfort from what he sees abroad. The Islamic Republic’s designated arch foe, the United States, is experiencing what is little short of a political civil war. He sees that more American energy is spent on attacking President George W Bush than on exposing the Islamic Republic’s dangerous ambitions.

As for Europe, Ahmadinejad must have been amused by the reaction of British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw who has called Iran’s entry into the nuclear club as “unhelpful”, the weakest adjective in the diplomatic vocabulary.

Ahmadinejad also takes note of the situation in the region. It may take years before either Iraq or Afghanistan will emerge as new nation-states strong enough to stand on their own feet.

Turkey, the only country capable of rivalling Iran for regional supremacy, is looking to Europe.

The Arab states prefer to remain mum or, worse still, even defend the Islamic Republic’s right to go nuclear.

Egypt, for its part, is in a transition phase and unable to develop a long-term strategy under its present leadership.

As for Israel, Ahmadinejad must have noted the results of the last general election which revealed a fragmented nation with no clear vision for its future. In any case, a Kadima dominated government would be committed to a strategic retreat, an effective burial of the Zionist project, and the replacement of “ The Greater Israel” dream by a “ Little Israel” nightmare.

But what all that might suggest is a moot point. Ahmadinejad may prove to be a good tactician but a poor strategist.

The Middle East has seen many examples of this type of politician: leaders who do not know where and when to stop simply because their machine lacks a clutch and a reverse gear.

There was Jamal Abdul Nasser who appeared to have scored a major tactical victory on 4 June 1967 but was the victim of a strategic disaster two days later.

There was Saddam Hussein who, even on 2 August 1990 could have used a clutch and a reverse gear not to drive Iraq into a ditch but didn’t. Because he seemed to have the tactical advantage he felt he had no need of thinking about the day after tomorrow.

Then there was Khomeini who, by endorsing the seizure of the US Embassy in Tehran solely to burnish his own revolutionary image, provoked an unnecessary crisis from which his regime may never recover.

A one-track policy could lead to disaster, whether at home or abroad. For there is always another train steaming ahead from the opposite direction. President Ahmadinejad would do well to remember that not all genies would, once released, agree to return to the bottle. The genie of war is one of them.

U.S. Wants Europe to Isolate Iran if U.N. Balks

Steven R. Weisman, The New York Times:

The Bush administration called today for Russia and the countries of Europe to impose their own penalties on Iran over its suspected nuclear arms program if no agreement on sanctions can be reached soon at the United Nations Security Council.

"If the Security Council cannot act over a reasonable period of time, then there will be an opportunity for groups of countries to organize themselves together for the purpose of isolating the Iranians diplomatically and economically," said R. Nicholas Burns, under secretary of state for political affairs and the lead envoy on Iran.

He added that "it's not beyond the realm of the possible that at some point in the future a group of countries could get together, if the Security Council is not able to act, to take collective economic action collective action on sanction." READ MORE

It was not clear that Europeans or the Russians were interested in a sanctions approach without the United Nations Security Council authorizing it, and American and European officials said they still hope the council will move in that direction next month. A European official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the matter, said several European countries would resist the approach of letting countries proceed without an international consensus.

"If one or more countries break off and impose international sanctions, the Iranians would be thrilled," he said. "They would just be able to play countries off against each other. Going for sanctions, that would be a wasted exercise."

Mr. Burns's comments at a news conference in Washington came after several weeks of what some European and American officials say has been a frustrating period of diplomacy, with both Russia and China resisting the administration's efforts to get the Security Council to act against Iran.

The under secretary was in Moscow last week to try to get the Russians to go along with quick action at the Security Council. He said that he got agreement on the general need for such action but not on specifics. "We did not agree on the specific tactical way forward," he said.

Indeed, nearly three years of threats and diplomatic maneuverings, coupled with offers of economic incentives for Iran if it abandons its uranium enrichment activities, have resulted in Iran speeding its program up rather than slowing it down.

"In terms of activities on the ground in Iran, it's fair to say, I believe, that the Iranians have put both feet on the accelerator," Robert Joseph, the under secretary of state for arms control and international security, said at the news conference with Mr. Burns.

He cited Iran's claim that it had 110 tons of uranium hexaflouride, a precursor for nuclear fuel in a civilian reactor but also potentially enough for 10 nuclear weapons. Iran's additional claim that it had enriched uranium to a level of 3.5 percent means that it is on its way to higher levels for use in weapons.

The Bush administration has sought to organize a widening circle of countries to put pressure on Iran, including the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and the so-called Group of Eight nations of leading industrial democracies that will be holding a summit meeting in St. Petersburg in July.

But the price of bringing Russia, China, India and other countries into seeking to stop Iran's nuclear enrichment program has been going along with their refusal to consider sanctions.

In the last two weeks, American officials say they are pleased that at least economic sanctions are being more widely discussed.

The week before last, Javier Solana, the European Union's principal foreign affairs envoy, proposed a series of possible economic penalties on Iran that won approval in Washington. They included imposing stricter export controls on high technology shipments to Iran and revocation of visas for any Iranian officials linked to the nuclear program.

In addition, the European list implied a freeze of personal assets for certain Iranian officials and a halt in defense-related contracts for Iran, which some European countries continue to honor.

But another senior European official, also asking not to be identified, said the list did not mean Europe was ready to impose these steps. The official noted that Mr. Solana listed the steps as "options for reflection" without saying they would be implemented. "We haven't called them options for action," the official said.

Iran's economic links with Europe and Russia are enormous, particularly in the energy sector. Iran is one of the world's leading producers of oil and natural gas, but even American officials say they doubt that any sanctions would include a ban on such imports to the West.

Mr. Burns also acknowledged that Russian officials rebuffed an American request that it half the sale of anti-aircraft missile equipment to Iran. He said that "we hope and trust" that this sale, announced last December, would not go forward.

"It just doesn't stand to reason that Russia would continue with arms sales, particularly of the type envisioned," Mr. Burns said. But he said that the United States still had work to do to persuade the Russian government.

US and UK Develop Democracy Strategy for Iran

Guy Dinmore, The Financial Times:

The US and UK are working on a strategy to promote democratic change in Iran, according to officials who see the joint effort as the start of a new phase in the diplomatic campaign to counter the Islamic republic’s nuclear programme without resorting to military intervention.

A newly created Iran Syria Operations Group inside the State Department is co-ordinating the work and reporting to Elizabeth Cheney, the senior US official leading democracy promotion in the broader Middle East.

“Democracy promotion is a rubric to get the Europeans behind a more robust policy without calling it regime change,” a former Bush administration official commented.

The new direction, the former official said, reflected a growing belief in the US and UK that diplomacy through the United Nations and partial sanctions were unlikely to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability. In the absence of a credible military solution, the argument went that international diplomacy could try to slow down the nuclear programme while more “robust” efforts continued towards the ultimate solution of regime change, he said. READ MORE

US officials said the British input was important because of the Bush administration’s lack of experts on Iran, the legacy of 25 years of frozen diplomatic relations. Some see the UK as having a moderating effect as the US considers whether to fund opposition groups in exile, launch covert activities inside Iran, and/or “independent” satellite television broadcasting in Farsi.

But US officials also detect a hardening of the UK stance in response to the confrontational approach of Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, Iran’s president.

Seeking to fill the US knowledge gap, the State Department last month set up the Iranian Affairs Office in Washington and announced new diplomatic posts for Farsi speakers. Barbara Leaf, an Arabist, is expected to head the office.

At the same time, the separate Iran Syria Operations Group was established to plot a more aggressive democracy promotion strategy for those two “rogue” states. Funding is to come from $75m that Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state, announced in February she was requesting from Congress this year, plus some $10m already in the budget.

Adam Ereli, a State Department spokesman, denied the operations group existed.

But two other US officials and a European diplomat insisted that it did. They said the inter-agency group, which is supposed to co-ordinate with the Pentagon and other departments, is heade`d by David Denehy, a special adviser who served in the coalition government in Iraq, and Alberto Fernandez, a public diplomacy official.

Jack Straw, UK foreign secretary, accused Iran of deciding to “take on the international community” through its development of nuclear weapons and support of terrorism in a tough speech on March 13.

Mr Straw said the UK would “not take sides in Iran’s internal political debates” and noted that Iranians were “understandably sensitive about any hint of outside interference”.

But in language that echoed Ms Rice’s testimony to Congress a month earlier, Mr Straw pledged UK support for the democratic “aspirations” of the Iranian people.

He focused on how to give Iranians access to “independent authoritative information” and said governments could help provide this.

The US is planning to increase satellite television programming by Voice of America and may launch a new “independent” network with a prominent Iranian as front-man.

US officials concede, however, that they are not encouraged by their experience in Arabic broadcasting in the wake of the invasion of Iraq.

Serious Iranian opposition politicians are virtually unanimous in saying that foreign funding of activities designed to promote democracy, especially by the US or UK, would be counter-productive.

Ali Akbar Javanfekr, a press adviser to Mr Ahmadi-Nejad, recently said Iranians were “alert” to the “propaganda of enemies”, and in general Iran’s rulers show little concern over existing US broadcasts.

Additional reporting by Gareth Smyth in Tehran

U.S. Wants Russia to Stop Iran Arms Sales

Anne Gearan, The Guardian:

The United States pressed Russia on Friday to halt missile sales to Iran amid international efforts to defuse a standoff with Tehran over its disputed nuclear program.

The U.S. wants other countries that are concerned about Iran's nuclear intentions to use their influence, be it cutoffs of trade ties or, in Russia's case, cancellation of a planned sale of Tor-M1 air defense missile systems.

``We think it's time for countries to use their leverage individually, and we think it's time for countries to band together collectively to make the same effort,'' said Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns. READ MORE

The United States and its allies claim Tehran is seeking a bomb under cover of a peaceful civilian nuclear energy program; Iran denies it.

Burns' call for individual nations to do what they can to isolate Iran sets up an alternate way to apply pressure to the clerical regime outside the U.N. Security Council's current review of the Iranian nuclear program.

The United States pushed for more than two years to bring Iran's case before the powerful U.N. body for possible economic and political sanctions. U.S. officials have said that is the best way to deter Iran from pursuing nuclear know-how that could be used for a bomb.

The council is now divided, however, over whether to apply sanctions to the rich oil exporter.

Burns left Moscow after two days of meetings this week with an agreement that something must be done to stop Iran, but no public movement from Iran's commercial partners Russia and China toward supporting sanctions.

U.S. officials denied that asking countries to individually apply their own forms of sanctions shows lack of confidence in the Security Council process or undermines it.

``We're dedicating ourselves to the Security Council process, and you'll see the United States be as actively engaged as anybody,'' Burns said.

``But if the Security Council cannot act over a reasonable period of time, then there will be an opportunity for groups of countries to organize themselves together for the purpose of isolating the Iranians diplomatically and economically.''

Russia dug in its heels Friday, saying there is not yet proof that Iran is pursuing a bomb and that the nuclear crisis should be resolved by the less powerful U.N. nuclear watchdog agency instead of the Security Council.

``There is no such issue (of sanctions) for us,'' Nikolai Spassky, deputy head of the Kremlin Security Council was quoted as saying by the RIA-Novosti news agency. ``We are not discussing it.''

Russia holds veto power as one of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.

``Those that might prevent the Security Council from acting effectively need to understand that the international community has to find a way - and will find a way - to express our displeasure with the Iranians,'' Burns said.

There should be no export of so-called dual-use technology to Iran, Burns said, a reference to hardware or computer equipment that Iran might legally buy abroad but that could be used to pursue a nuclear weapon.

Beyond those safeguards, ``We think it's very important that countries like Russia, for instance, freeze any arms sales planned for Iran,'' Burns said.

Russia announced plans last year to sell 29 sophisticated Tor-M1 air defense missile systems to Iran under a contract worth about $700 million.

``We hope and we trust that that deal will not go forward because this is not time for business as usual with the Iranian government,'' Burns said.

Russian officials had said earlier Friday that the deal is still on, despite U.S. pressure.

``We'll continue to work at it,'' Burns said. ``We felt it was important to press the issue.''

Al-Qaeda Finds its Missing Link in Iran

Syed Saleem Shahzad, Asia Times Online:

The US-led "war on terror" is entering a critical phase, with the al-Qaeda leadership being given a chance to revitalize its cause now that Iran is in the US crosshairs over its nuclear program.

"Tehran has taken over the central stage by challenging American hegemony," Hamid Gul told Asia Times Online. "Tehran is today's inspiration force. It charms the Arab youths on the streets. The Arab rulers are terrified of this development, and this is the reason they are coming to Pakistan one after another."

Gul is a former corps commander of the Pakistani army and ex-director general of the Inter-Services Intelligence. Persian-speaking Gul is reckoned as one of the architects of the jihadi movements that finally turned global and made Afghanistan their base in the mid- and late 1990s when the Taliban ruled.

Gul was referring to visits to Pakistan by Saudi Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz and Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Salah. Islamabad is a US outpost in the "war on terror" that the two prominent Arab leaders visited, while at least one more is scheduled in coming weeks.

Contacts close to the echelons of power in Pakistan's military headquarters, Rawalpindi, tell Asia Times Online that judging from the pattern of talks, all of the Muslim countries that side with the United States anticipate a US attack on Iran around October. READ MORE

And, according to these contacts, their strategy is to consolidate opinion in the Organization of Islamic Conferences to be prepared. This does not mean stopping the attack, but being ready for the fallout in the Middle East and beyond.

"Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad's anti-American calls have become the voice of today's Arab youths. They see in him a hero, and it has shaken the foundations of pro-American dictators and monarchs," Gul explained.

"They [Arab rulers] are anxious and restive. They are seeing their doomsday started. Since Pakistan and Arab rulers operate under the US umbrella, they are basically joining their heads together to contain the Iranian threat.

"The way Iran has spun its web in the region, all strategic levers are coming into Tehran's hands. The Hizb-i-Islami Afghanistan led by [Gulbuddin] Hekmatyar is part of the Islamic movement and already close to Iran, but it is only a matter of time when Taliban-related movements will resolve all differences with Iran and join hands with Tehran," Gul said.

Historically, Arabs have viewed Iran with hostility, and there are some who are skeptical whether Iran will continue in its current role as anti-US champion should back-channel diplomacy, especially involving Russia and China, lead to a resolution of the crisis over its nuclear program.

Within two weeks, the International Atomic Energy Agency will give a final report to the United Nations Security Council, the results of which could determine whether or not sanctions are imposed on Iran.

Critics argue that should the crisis be defused, Iran will back down from its present rhetoric and leave all radicals in the lurch. After all, they argue, Tehran has indirectly facilitated US interests in the region, be they in Afghanistan or Iraq.

"I don't agree with this notion," Gul said dismissively. "Iran raised funds for Hamas at a time when the whole Muslim world was sympathetic with Hamas but did not dare to openly support them. Iran [this week] pledged [US]$50 million.

"At the same time, it is untrue that Iran supported US designs in the region. Instead, it cleverly played its cards and now it is evident that it has trapped the Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq," said Gul.

Al-Qaeda's grand design

Iran's becoming a rallying point for anti-US sentiment in the Muslim world fits well with al-Qaeda. Asia Times Online has already outlined a pivotal debate in al-Qaeda on two major issues - the question of a base and that of a unified command structure.

Integral to the first issue was whether al-Qaeda should get rid of its shadowy image and fight in the open. This would involve the establishment of an Islamic state (base) from which calls for jihad could be issued and jihadi forces prepared.

Al-Qaeda has achieved this target in the Pakistani tribal area of North Waziristan on the Afghan border by setting up a virtual independent state, which is being expanded into South Waziristan and many towns in Afghanistan, in Kunar, Paktia, Khost, Helmand and Zabul provinces.

But although the Afghan resistance is linked with the Iraqi resistance and they have started open battles against US-led forces in Afghanistan, the question of a unified command that would control resistance movements whether they be in Iraq, Palestine or Afghanistan is still unanswered.

This is where Iran could now fit in, by evolving from an inspirational anti-US model to taking a lead role in orchestrating resistance movements, in collaboration with al-Qaeda.

For radical Islamists, the situation is a major turnaround for their cause of pan-Islamicism and one that could even resolve 1,400 years of historical, ideological and political differences in the Muslim world.

"The Islamic Revolution of Iran [1979] was in fact a victory of all Islamic movements which were striving to establish one Islamic role model in the world so that it would be an inspirational force and would convince the masses that the Islamic system of life was still workable after 1,400 years," Muslim intellectual Shahnawaz Farooqui explained to Asia Times Online.

Shahnawaz is a young Pakistan-based Muslim intellectual, a teacher, writer and a poet. His main work is in the field of the interpretation of Muslim history and Muslim ideologies. His views are often aired in the Iranian media.

"The Iranian revolution was in fact a complete revolution under the leadership of imam [Ruhollah] Khomeini. It was above any sectarian bounds. After the revolution, Khomeini announced that the base of Shi'ite-Sunni differences was historical rather than theological.

"Shi'ites believe that Ali deserved to be the first Muslim caliph, and they rejected all three before Ali and believe Ali is the first caliph. Sunnis believe that the first three caliphs, Bakr, Omar and Osman, are all [the] righteous [ones] and that Ali was the fourth caliph. Imam Khomeini addressed this issue and called it historical differences which had no connection with basic Islamic theology, and if Shi'ites gave up their historical point of view on the issue of the caliphate, it would make no difference, but on the other hand it would wipe out Shi'ite-Sunni differences once and for all," Shahnawaz maintained.

"Unfortunately, imam Khomeini could not convince anybody - neither his internal circles of clerics nor Al-Howza [the supreme Shi'ite religious council in Iraq] as no one among the Shi'ites was ready to give up their historical position on the question of the caliphate.

"However, the situation turned bad after the demise of Khomeini and it was felt that during the period of [ex-president Hashemi] Rafsanjani and [former president Mohammed] Khatami the Iranian revolution was somewhere lost.

"However, the victory of President Ahmadinejad has once again revived the very spirit of the Iranian revolution, and once again all Islamic movements, whether it is the Muslim Brotherhood, Jamaat-i-Islami, Hamas, Islamic Jihad or any other, are joining hands with Tehran," said Shahnawaz.

"To me, President Ahmadinejad has redeemed the Iranian Islamic revolution with all its ideological legacies," Shahnawaz added.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Bureau Chief, Pakistan, Asia Times Online. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com.

U.N.'s Sad Circus

Thomas P. Kilgannon, New York Post:

The Midtown Circus, other wise known as the United Nations, opened a new at traction last week: The U.N. Commission on Disarmament elevated Iran to a leadership post - despite the terrorist regime's dogged pursuit of nuclear capabilities and defiance of its international obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Iran on the Disarmament Commission; it's rather like naming a member of the Ku Klux Klan to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. And even as the Disarmament Commission was rewarding the Islamic Republic's behavior, the Security Council was delaying action on the International Atomic Energy Agency's referral of Iran for its nuclear violations.

Created in 1952 and re-established by the General Assembly in 1978, the U.N. Disarmament Commission opened its 2006 session on April 10. Delegates immediately pledged to "effectively deal with new emerging threats and challenges" - and then proceeded to promote Iran to a vice-chairmanship.

Speaking from its new perch of authority, Iran demanded that Israel sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and open all of its nuclear sites to international inspection. Such demands are considered statesmanship by a nation whose leader has vowed to "wipe Israel off the map." READ MORE

For those who would rather watch train wrecks than tightrope artists, the United Nations may just be the greatest show on earth. It is a collection of corruption and contradictions that undercuts U.S. foreign policy goals, yet still manages to win the support of Congress and the administration. U.S. taxpayers send upward of $4 billion a year to the world body.

Iran's rise on the Disarmament Commission prompted Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) to call for the suspension of funds as long as Iran is a member. "The election of Iran as a vice-chair of the U.N. Disarmament Commission at the same time as Iran clandestinely pursues its own nuclear ambitions," he said, "provides yet another example of the United Nations' inability to establish credible institutions to deal with global issues."

Coleman, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee who spearheaded the Senate's probe of the U.N.'s Oil-for-Food corruption, called on the Bush administration to withhold U.S. contributions "to send an unmistakable signal that there will be serious consequences to the U.N. failure to implement real reform."

Yet there's little reason to think most member states want U.N. reform. The U.N. Human Rights Commission booted the United States out in 2001, and the next year chose Libya to represent the hopes of oppressed people the world over. Just this month, Jean Ziegler, the infamous founder of the "Moammar Khadafy Human Rights Prize," was nominated as an expert adviser to the new U.N. Human Rights Council.

Last year, after Zimbabwe's dictator Robert Mugabe orchestrated a man-made famine in his country, the United Nations invited him to address its annual conference on hunger. (He accepted.)

Simply put, too many (quite possibly most) U.N. members put a much higher priority on America-bashing and anti-Semism than on such U.N. ideals as disarmament, fighting hunger or advancing human rights.

As one of its first acts, the new Human Rights Council is expected to condemn the U.S. terrorist-detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba - even as it continues to turn a blind eye to the hideous abuses of rights by Cuba's government (and, indeed, by those of countless other U.N. members.) Of course, there's an excellent chance that the council's members will include terror-sponsoring states such as Iran or Syria.

The United Nations is of no use in advancing U.S. foreign-policy goals or in promoting the lofty ideals with which many still associate it. It has discredited itself again and again. The time has come to cage the animals, ship them back home, and bring down the tent on the U.N. circus.

Thomas P. Kilgannon is the president of Freedom Alliance and the author of "Diplomatic Divorce: Why America Should End Its Love Affair With the United Nations."

Kurdish Official Accuses Iran of Shelling Iraq

Radio Free Europe:

An official in the leading Patriotic Union of Kurdistan Party said today that Iranian forces shelled Iranian Kurdish guerrilla positions inside Northern Iraq. Saad Pira said the shells hit Iraqi territory at Sidakan, north of the city of Irbil.

The guerrillas were reportedly members of the militant Kurdistan Independent Life Party (PJAK). There was no word on casualties.

Can Iran Be Deterred?

The Washington Times: Editorial

"Iran under its present rulers cannot be allowed finally to acquire nuclear weapons -- for these would not guarantee stability by mutual deterrence but would instead threaten us with uncontrollable perils...The rulers of Iran are openly financing, arming, training and inciting anti-American terrorist organizations...If this is what Iran's extremist rulers do now even without the shield of nuclear weapons to protect them, what would they do if they had it?" So writes Edward Luttwak of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, an opponent of military strikes, in the May issue of Commentary magazine. READ MORE

Mr. Luttwak argues against military action on grounds that there is still time to prevent Iran from going nuclear. The urgency of the Iran issue continues to grow, however, in the wake of newly released commercial satellite photographs which help to document a pattern of building and concealment activities dating back to 2002 at two major Iranian nuclear facilities: a uranium conversion site at Isfahan and a uranium enrichment site at Natanz.

At Isfahan, satellite photographs taken last month and obtained by the Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington research organization, show construction of a third tunnel entrance to the nuclear facility. Iran's decision in January to resume uranium enrichment bars the International Atomic Energy Agency from conducting more comprehensive inspections of the Natanz nuclear site to keep track of centrifuge components and assembled centrifuges, along with critical centrifuge manufacturing and assembling equipment. Notes the ISIS: "As a result, the IAEA is slowly losing knowledge regarding the use and location of many of these items."

The evidence that Iran is pressing ahead with a nuclear weapons program is strengthening the position of those who believe that Washington must take military action. One proponent is Reuel Gerecht of the American Enterprise Institute. Mr. Gerecht concedes that there are powerful reasons not to bomb Iran, including the possibility of retaliatory terrorist attacks and violent reactions from Muslims in Iraq and elsewhere. But he makes clear that none of these problems will go away if the United States attempts to pursue a policy of Cold War-style "containment" against a nuclear Iran and virtually all of them will worsen if Iran acquires an atomic bomb.

The Bush administration and Pentagon generals have little interest in taking military action, but in the end their hand is likely to be forced, because it would be intolerable to permit a jihadist rogue state to obtain nuclear weapons. Iran is less like the Soviet Union than a more dangerous version of bin Ladenism, Mr. Gerecht writes. While it would be preferable to see Iranians peacefully remove the mullahs and forge a democratic government, this could take decades and it is unlikely to happen before the regime acquires a bomb. If we allow this to occur and hope for the best, Mr. Gerecht writes in the Weekly Standard, an American president would be faced some day with a terrible decision if we were attacked by a terrorist group that the United States believed to be backed by Tehran: "What would we do if we were pretty sure they'd ordered a terrorist attack -- say, 80 percent sure -- but we were 100 percent sure they had nuclear-armed ICBMs?" In a post-September 11 era, Mr. Gerecht argues, it is essential that Washington set non-negotiable red lines to ensure that no rogue regime can use the possibility of a nuclear strike to deter U.S. retaliation for a terrorist atrocity against Americans.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of the current debate is the degree to which an opponent of military action like Mr. Luttwak agrees with Mr. Gerecht. Mr. Luttwak writes that it will be possible to overcome Iran's attempts at camouflage and deception, and also "to target air strikes accurately enough to delay Iran's manufacture of nuclear weapons very considerably"; that "there is no indication that the regime will fall before it acquires nuclear weapons"; and that deterrence cannot work with an Iranian government run by someone who believes that provoking a nuclear catastrophe will bring back the long-deceased "12th imam."

In sum, it is becoming increasingly difficult to argue that containment or deterrence can work against Iran.

Katsav to Iran: Your Regime Hurts You

David Horovitz, The Jerusalem Post:

President Moshe Katsav has warned the people of Iran that their radical regime, with its insistent drive for a nuclear capability, poses a grave danger to global peace and security and is leading them toward the abyss.

In an interview with The Jerusalem Post ahead of Independence Day, the president sent a message to Iranians stressing that "Israel is not against the Iranian people," and that he himself had "great love for Persian culture, Persian history."

Potentially, the Iranian-born president said, Iran enjoyed oil revenues that could ensure a high standard of living and quality of life for its people. But instead of using that money to alleviate poverty, distress, illiteracy and the other economic and social problems facing many of his citizens, Iran's "fanatical, extremist president" Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his regime were investing all of their resources in developing a nuclear capability.

Moreover, Katsav said, there was no existential threat to Iran, and therefore there would be no basis for an Iranian claim to require a nuclear capability for self-defense. READ MORE

Katsav, who came to Israel with his family as a five-year-old in 1951, characterized Ahmadinejad's regime as "the most hostile" since the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and branded it "an enemy and a danger to the internal situation in Iran and a danger to peace and security in the world. The Iranians, to my sorrow, are either too scared or don't recognize the reality and therefore don't see the regime leading them to the abyss."

A nuclear Iran would constitute a threat "to Europe, to Israel, the Persian Gulf countries, Saudi Arabia and the Hashemite Kingdom," he said.

The president noted that, for years, the West had hoped that internal Iranian pressure "would ultimately bring Iran closer to the West... But in the last year it's become clear that the notion of positive change was a Western illusion. The reformists didn't prevail."

In a similar vein, the West had hoped that diplomatic efforts would deter the Iranian nuclear drive. But "Iran simply led Europe astray."

"The Iranians pretended to want trade agreements," he said, "but they didn't slow in the slightest their plans to reach a nuclear capability. In my opinion, they aim to reach the day when the world will say, 'Too bad, they've already got it.'"

Even after Ahmadinejad's recent announcement that Iran was enriching uranium, Katsav noted, there was no international outcry. "I imagine that in the inner rooms of the Iranian regime they are falling over with laughter at how they are moving step by step toward their goal and how the free world is hesitant and weak," he said.

The president stressed that he was not calling for military action against Iran but rather for a "forceful stance" to deter the nuclear program. The West, he said, needed to say "enough" and "acknowledge that the diplomatic effort has failed. Why don't they open their eyes?"

"We can't have Iran cheating the world, behaving with contempt," he said.

"Everyone thinks that we Israelis, when we speak of standing firm against Iran, are talking of military action. That is not the case," said Katsav. "I think that a resolute, unhesitant stance by the free world is precisely what will avoid military action. Those who want to avoid military action must now take a forceful stance stance against Iran."

Iran's War on the West

Thomas Joscelyn, The Weekly Standard:

In a New York Times op-ed this past Sunday, former National Security Council staffers Richard Clarke and Steven Simon lamented the possibility of a military strike on Iran. They warned, "a conflict with Iran could be even more damaging to our interests than the current struggle in Iraq has been."

At the heart of their concern lies a simple cost-benefit analysis. Iran has not supported anti-American terrorism since the mid-1990s. But if provoked, the mullahs may unleash their terrorist network, which is "superior to anything Al Qaeda was ever able to field." In the war on terrorism, therefore, the potential benefits of a military strike on Iran are rather low, while the costs are prohibitively high.

Clarke and Simon tell us that Iran's last act of anti-American terrorism came in 1996 when the "the Qods Force, the covert-action arm of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, arranged" the Khobar Towers bombing. (It is worth noting that there is still some uncertainty surrounding the Khobar Towers bombing. For example, the 9-11 Commission concluded, "While the evidence of Iranian involvement is strong, there are also signs that al Qaeda played some role, as yet unknown." Eight years after the attack, therefore, the government still wasn't sure if this was a joint Iran-al Qaeda operation.)

While the Clinton administration ruled out a military strike against Iran, Clarke and Simon say that the U.S. intelligence community scared Iran out of the terrorist game. After some unspecified covert action, "Iranian terrorism against the United States ceased."

On its face, this claim is dubious. READ MORE

Anti-American terrorism has been a central tenet of Iran's Islamic revolution for decades. That the U.S. intelligence community, with its less than stellar track record in fighting terrorism during the 1990s, managed to convince Iran to stop orchestrating or aiding terrorist attacks against American interests seems highly unlikely. How could the mullahs have a terrorist network "superior" to al Qaeda, poised to strike, and yet not have used it for the past decade? Are we really to believe, as Clarke and Simon would have it, that this network of terrorist operatives has lain dormant all this time?

The questionable nature of this claim becomes apparent when one considers what Richard Clarke himself thought less than two years ago. In Against All Enemies, Clarke makes it clear that Iran was a "priority" country "as important as the others," including the Taliban's Afghanistan, in the post-9/11 war on terrorism.

While dismissing the evidence of Iraq's ties to al Qaeda (a claim that is also inconsistent with Clarke's previous statements and a wealth of evidence), Clarke argued in 2004:

. . . al Qaeda regularly used Iranian territory for transit and sanctuary prior to September 11. Al Qaeda's Egyptian branch, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, operated openly in Tehran. It is no coincidence that many of the al Qaeda management team, or Shura Council, moved across the border into Iran after U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan.

Moreover, Clarke explained that the threat posed by Iran's weapons of mass destruction programs, coupled with its ties to terrorism, posed a threat far greater than Saddam's Iraq. He wrote, "Any objective observer looking at the evidence in 2002 and 2003 would have said that the U.S. should spend more time and attention dealing with the security threats from Tehran than those from Baghdad."

Why did Clark believe that Iran should be a priority and Saddam's Iraq should not? He explained: "There is, of course, evidence that Iran provided al Qaeda safe haven before and after September 11."

Even Clarke's famously unequivocal denial of Iraqi involvement with al Qaeda, which supposedly took place the day after September 11 as he was allegedly countering President Bush's pointed questions, includes an admission of Iran's ties. Clarke claims that he told the President, ". . . we have looked several times for state sponsorship of al Qaeda and not found any real linkages to Iraq. Iran plays a little, as does Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia, Yemen."

Thus, Clarke's previous views seem inconsistent with his current claim that Iran stopped supporting anti-American terrorism in the mid-1990s. Far from ending its support for terrorism, it seems that Iran has continued its decades-long terrorist assault against the West. Clarke's book, Against All Enemies, touches upon some of this evidence.

A few additional examples of Iranian support for al Qaeda make it clear that Iran was not scared out of the anti-American terrorism game. The 9/11 Commission reports that al Qaeda operatives received explosives training from Iran in the early 1990s. Bin Laden "showed particular interest in learning how to use truck bombs such as the one that had killed 241 U.S. Marines in Lebanon in 1983." This early history of collaboration did not come to an end. Even after 1996, Iran continued to open its doors to al Qaeda. The Clinton administration's original unsealed indictment of al Qaeda in November 1998 states that bin Laden's group had allied itself with Iran and its terrorist puppet, Hezbollah. The 9/11 Commission even left open the possibility that Hezbollah had assisted al Qaeda's execution of the September 11 plot.

This is just a small sample of the evidence tying Iran to al Qaeda. None of this means that military action against Iran is necessarily the most prudent next step. In this regard, Clarke and Simon may very well be right. A strike against Iran may not be in America's best interests, or the most effective way to deal with the Iranian threat. A careful weighing of the costs and benefits of military action should guide America's path. But by dismissing Iran's role in the past decade of anti-American terrorism, Clarke and Simon muddy the public debate and fail to accurately assess the Iranian threat.

Thomas Joscelyn is an economist and writer living in New York.

Russia Backs Iran's Nuclear Program

Jenny Booth, The Times:

Russia today offered its most outspoken support yet of the controversial nuclear programme in Iran, its neighbour and trading partner. "Our advice to our Iranian colleagues and friends is to complete work with the International Atomic Energy Authority and to calmly continue its nuclear energy programme... and on this path we are ready to provide assistance to Iran," Sergei Kislyak, the Deputy Foreign Minister, told a security conference in Moscow.

"The search for a solution must follow the route of diplomacy, and our position is that the instrument for resolving this problem, as before, must remain the IAEA, as we don’t have another international agency that has such authority and competence in the non-proliferation area."

Earlier, Iran's envoy to the UN's nuclear watchdog promised that Iran was ready for "full" co-operation with the IAEA over its controversial uranium enrichment programme. READ MORE

Ali Asghar Soltanieh told the same security conference in Moscow that Tehran was prepared to answer all questions about its nuclear programme, RIA Novosti news agency reported.

"Iran plans to continue its full co-operation with the IAEA. We are ready to eliminate all outstanding doubts about our nuclear dossier," Mr Soltanieh, was quoted as saying in a speech.

The US and Europe have been pushing at the UN Security Council for sanctions against Iran, because of its refusal to suspend its enrichment programme.

Last week President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that Iranian scientists had succeeeded for the first time in enriching uranium by 3.5 per cent, qualifying his country for membership of the "nuclear club". Mr Ahmadinejad's claims have yet to be independently verified.

Iran says that it is seeking nuclear power purely for peaceful energy generation, but Washington believes that it is concealing a desire to develop an atomic bomb. But Russia said there was no proof Iran was seeking nuclear weapons.

"One can speak of sanctions only after the appearance of concrete facts proving that Iran is not engaged exclusively in peaceful nuclear activities," Mikhail Kamynin, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, told the ITAR-Tass news agency.

Nikolai Spassky, deputy head of the Kremlin Security Council, put it even more bluntly. "There is no such issue (of sanctions) for us," he was quoted as saying by the RIA-Novosti news agency. "We are not discussing it."

Mr Soltanieh said that he was confident that the IAEA "will resolve this problem with a technical - and not political - point of view through negotiation and discussion in the framework of this international organisation."

The Security Council is waiting to see if Iran adheres to an April 28 deadline for it to halt uranium enrichment and to cooperate fully with inspectors from the Vienna-based IAEA.

America and Britain have said that if Iran does not comply with the April 28 deadline to stop enrichment, they will seek a resolution that would make the demand compulsory.

But Russia and China, both trading partners of Iran, have said that they will use their vetoes as permanent members of the Security Council to block any punitive action against Iran.

Yesterday, Moscow rejected a US call to end co-operation in constructing the US$800 million ($648 million) Bushehr nuclear power plant in southern Iran.

Also yesterday, a senior UN nuclear inspector put off a trip to Iran in what diplomats in Vienna said was a clear sign that Tehran is failing to give the UN atomic agency key concessions it demands.

But Mr Soltanieh reportedly disputed that today, claiming that the Iranian leadership was prepared to place its nuclear facilities under the control of the IAEA, although Russian news agencies provided no direct quotation from him to this effect.

The Iranian envoy said that Tehran had been conducting nuclear energy research for more than 30 years.

"It is our right to continue research under IAEA control," Mr Soltanieh said. "The United States and Europe have no right to demand from us an immediate halt to our research, which is strictly for peaceful ends."

Ahmadinejad Hails Rising Oil Prices as 'Very Good'

MSNBC:

Iran’s president said on Friday the rise in oil price was “very good,” Iran’s Mehr News Agency reported, emphasizing the hawkish position of the world’s fourth largest oil exporter as crude prices have hit record levels.

“The increase of the oil price and growth of oil income is very good and we hope that the oil prices reach their real levels,” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said as he toured an oil exhibition in Tehran, the agency reported.

He did not say what those real levels should be. But these and other earlier remarks suggest he believes crude prices should rise above this week’s record high of over $74 a barrel. On Friday, European Brent crude fell below $73.

Iranian Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh said on Thursday Iran was happy with surging prices. The minister blamed the price rise on a shortage of gasoline in the United States and not a shortage of crude in world markets.

Most members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries worry that the high prices will hurt world economic growth and Iran had previously shared that view.

OPEC member Venezuela has also taken a hawkish position.

In earlier comments to reporters at the exhibition, Ahmadinejad said Iran was looking at ways to help protect poor states from the impact of rising prices but said rich countries should pay what he called the “real price.”

Iranian lawmakers have previously said that a price of $100 or more for a barrel of oil was an appropriate level. READ MORE

“There is a fund in OPEC, and the Oil Ministry and Foreign Ministry are in talks to see whether this OPEC fund has the capacity [to support poor countries],” Ahmadinejad said when asked about his plans to set up an assistance fund.

“But those rich and industrial countries that have billions of dollars in income should pay the real price for their crude oil,” he said.

He did not give details about the financing mechanism, but the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has a fund to promote development.

In March, OPEC production excluding Iraq was 27.81 million barrels per day, of which Iran’s production was 3.85 million bpd.

Iran's Major Trading Partners 2003-2004

The American Foreign Policy Council:

They have published a table of Iran's leading trading partners, here.

Harry Reid calls for diplomatic recognition of Iran

Jim Geraghty, TKS, The National Review:

Well, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid may not have realized he was calling for the U.S. to recognize Iran’s mullahs as their legitimate leaders and for the U.S. to formally reestablish a diplomatic relationship. But it’s hard to see how the administration could follow his advice without doing just that:

The Bush administration is relying too heavily on other countries in the international effort to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons, according to Sen. Harry Reid.

Reid, D-Nev., said the administration should be taking the lead, but instead is relying on Germany, France and Great Britain to convince Iran to end its uranium enrichment program.

"It is hard to comprehend," Reid said Tuesday in Reno. "We should be involved at trying to arrive at a diplomatic solution. ... Not just these three countries."

Reid said the Middle East is a "powder keg" because of U.S. failures in Iraq, the rise of fundamentalism and the recent election of Hamas in Palestine.

"Our not being involved diplomatically in trying to solve the situation in Iran shows the Bush failure in foreign policy there and elsewhere."

And he said the U.S. has no military option in Iran.

"We don't have the resources to do it" because of the ongoing war in Iraq," he said. READ MORE

But as you will recall, there currently are no diplomatic relations between the United States and Iran. We haven't had one since they (including, reportedly, the current President) took over our embassy - invading sovereign American soil - and took 52 of our citizens hostage for 444 days. If we need to send them a message, we do it through the Swiss embassy in Tehran and they talk to us through the Pakistan Embassy in Washington.

I realize that Reid is not alone; there are several in the political and diplomatic community, including a former hostage, who wish to reestablish relations with Iran.

But it has long been held that U.S. policy is to refuse to negotiate with terrorists. And aside from the terrorist action of taking our embassy personnel hostage, the Iranian leadership is not merely the world’s foremost sponsor of terrorists; they’ve struck at U.S. targets before.

As the 9/11 Commission report stated:

In June 1996, an enormous truck bomb detonated in the Khobar Towers residential complex in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, that housed U.S. Air Force personnel. Nineteen Americans were killed, and 372 were wounded. The operation was carried out principally, perhaps exclusively, by Saudi Hezbollah, an organization that had received support from the government of Iran. While the evidence of Iranian involvement is strong, there are also signs that al Qaeda played some role, as yet unknown.

But yes, Mr. Minority Leader, let’s sit down and have a nice long chat with them. Any volunteers to go meet the Mullahs? Careful, U.S. diplomats who go into Tehran sometimes have difficulty leaving.

Friday's Daily Briefing on Iran

DoctorZin reports, 4.21.2006:

Are US Pro-Democracy efforts being undermined by the State Department Officials?

• Kenneth R. Timmerman, FrontPageMagazine.com argued that while Congress has budgeted $85 million for pro-democracy efforts in Iran, nearly $50 million has been tentatively ear-marked to expand the Voice of America and the Persian service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, both radios need to improve the quality of their broadcasts and, especially, their political content, before they deserve another dime. The rest of the money is being spent on a variety of programs led by former Tehran regime officials, student leaders, and U.S. academics who believe the Tehran regime can be reformed, but does not need to be changed.

Did the Moscow talks produce some results?

• Euronews reported that senior White House official Nicholas Burns said: "We heard last night, and again today, from individual countries, that all of those who spoke, and it was the great majority, are looking at sanctions."
• Reuters reported that European diplomats dismissed as unacceptable a suggestion that Iran take a brief "technical pause" from its nuclear enrichment activities in an attempt to revive collapsed negotiations with the EU.
• The Washington Post reported that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said: "All participants in the meeting agreed that urgent and constructive steps are demanded of Iran."
• MosNews reported that the chief of the Russian general staff said Russia’s military will not intervene on one side or the other, should the current Iran crisis lead to an armed conflict.
• Reuters reported that Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar called the prospect of the United States using force to halt Iran's nuclear program is empty talk.

Trouble brewing in Iran.

• The Financial Times reported that with the war of words over Iran’s nuclear programme escalating and the domestic economy stalling, Iranians are scrambling to buy gold coins.
• Eli Lake, New York Sun reported that Iranian Students are asking the regime to suspend its A-Bomb effort and focus on the more pressing needs of the Iranian people: human rights, international peace and the economy.
• The Guardian reported that Iran's Islamic authorities are preparing a crackdown on women flouting the stringent dress code in the clearest sign yet of social and political repression under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
• The Guardian reported that internal political divisions and economic weaknesses may present a bigger threat to the longevity of the Iranian government than an attack on its nuclear facilities.
  

Iran becomes vice chairman of UN Disarmament Commission?

• Haaretz reported that Republican Senator Norm Coleman is calling on the United States to withhold funds from the UN Disarmament Commission over Iran's election as vice chairman.

Kofi Annan warns Iran on Lebanon.

• Dow Jones Newswires reported that UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged Iran as well as Syria to cooperate in trying to restore Lebanon's political independence and disarm militias.

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

• Independent reported that Tony Blair and Jack Straw at odds over US action in Iran.
• The Claremont Institute asked seven leading thinkers to reflect on our political and military options in eliminating Iran's nuclear capability.
• A Photo of a defiant Iranian wearing the US flag.

Tags: iran, news, iraq, nuclear

How to Eliminate Iran's Nuclear Weapons: A Symposium

Claremont Institute:

In August 2002, an exiled Iranian opposition group produced evidence that the Islamic Republic of Iran had managed, for the previous 17 years, to conceal from the world a nuclear weapons project. In June 2003, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) verified the group's claims, declaring Iran in violation of its commitments to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. That September, the U.S. called for Iran's referral to the U.N. Security Council. But in the event, the Bush Administration agreed to defer to a coalition comprising the United Kingdom, France, and Germany (the "E.U.-3"), which sought through a variety of political, economic, and technological concessions to persuade Iran to abandon its nuclear program.

In December 2003, Iran confessed to the IAEA its years of clandestine nuclear experiments, claiming that they were designed for peaceful civilian purposes. That month, Iran signed an agreement with the foreign ministers of the E.U.-3 to suspend the country's uranium enrichment—but in June 2004 was caught by the IAEA in violation. E.U.-Iran talks resumed in November 2004, leading to an agreement in which Iran promised, once more, to suspend its program. But Iran reneged and threatened to withdraw from the negotiations unless various concessions were made—which Iran won.

In June 2005, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a former commander in Iran's Revolutionary Guard, was elected president. "The wave of the Islamic revolution will soon reach the entire world," he declared, and in September 2005, indicated that Iran was willing to transfer nuclear technology to other Islamic nations. The next month, Ahmadinejad declared that Israel must be "wiped off the map," a slogan subsequently seen adorning Iranian missiles during parades.

In January 2006, defying Western warnings, Iran broke the U.N. seals at its Natanz uranium enrichment plant. The E.U.-3 suspended negotiations and recommended that the matter be referred to the Security Council. On February 17, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy declared, "No civilian nuclear program can explain the Iranian nuclear program. It is a clandestine military nuclear program." The same day, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, the head of Iran's ruling Guardian Council, warned: "Nuclear technology is our red line and we will never abandon our legitimate right to this technology. They are trying to terrify us with a scarecrow called the Security Council. We are not scared.... They will be harmed more than Iran if they act unwisely."

On March 7, shortly before this issue went to press, Vice President Dick Cheney told an audience, "The Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on its present course, the international community is prepared to impose meaningful consequences. For our part, the United States is keeping all options on the table in addressing the irresponsible conduct of the regime…. We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon." The next day, in Vienna, the IAEA concluded that after nearly three years of inconclusive inspections, it would finally refer the matter to the Security Council—30 months after America's initial call to do so. In response, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's envoy to the IAEA, said: "The United States has the power to cause harm and pain, but the United States is also susceptible to harm and pain. So if that is the path that the U.S. wishes to choose, let the ball roll out." (Iran also threatened to curtail oil production.) On March 9, before a Senate committee, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said of Iran, "We may face no greater challenge from a single country."

The Claremont Review of Books asked seven leading thinkers to reflect on our political and military options in eliminating Iran's nuclear capability. READ MORE

Ilan Berman

There is an emerging global consensus that Iran's nuclear ambitions represent a grave, growing threat to international peace and security. Yet the degree to which Iran's atomic advances also challenge American objectives in the greater Middle East is less well appreciated. A nuclear Iran can be expected to alter profoundly the United States's strategic calculations in the War on Terror. The U.S. should soon expect to confront six dangerous regional developments.

The first is growing Iranian influence, as countries in the region attempt to establish some sort of modus vivendi with a nuclear (or nearly nuclear) Iran. More likely than not, this trend will include a drift away from cooperation with the West, making the already problematic Persian Gulf increasingly inhospitable for U.S. and coalition forces.

The second is a new arms race, as certain states ramp up their own strategic programs in an effort to counterbalance the Iranian bomb. Already, both Saudi Arabia and Egypt have begun to exhibit telltale signs of such efforts, and other countries, e.g., Iraq and Turkey, could soon follow suit.

The third is expanded proliferation, as Iran's nuclear know-how becomes an export commodity. Iran is already a major "secondary proliferator" of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and worse is still to come because its radical new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has publicly signaled his willingness to provide nuclear assistance to other Muslim states.

The fourth is increased terrorism, as an emboldened Tehran expands its use of radical groups as a strategic tool against Western interests abroad. Just as importantly, a nuclear Iran is bound to enjoy greater freedom to export its Islamist revolutionary principles.

The fifth is strategic blackmail, as Iran exploits its strategic location in the Persian Gulf to threaten the safety of American forces operating in the region, as well as the security of global energy supplies.

The sixth, and arguably the most important, trend will be greater longevity for Tehran's ruling regime. A nuclear capability will provide the Iranian government much greater latitude in suppressing, without fear of international consequences, the widespread dissent now visible on the Iranian "street." The likely outcome? A death knell for Iranian democracy and a new lease on life for the Islamic Republic.

There is no shortage of policy options available to the U.S., but the utility of each depends on an accurate understanding of Tehran's ideology. Twenty-six years after its founding, the Islamic Republic of Iran remains a revolutionary state. In fact, thanks to the rise of a new cadre of regime hard-liners, the Ayatollah Khomeini's vision for Islamic revolution at home and abroad has greater resonance in Tehran today than at any time since his death in 1989. Not surprisingly, the radicals have learned to love the bomb, seeing it as the key to regime stability—and to preempting "preemption" by the U.S.

Diplomacy, therefore, may delay and complicate Iran's quest but cannot alter it. Tehran has made a clear strategic choice in favor of possessing nuclear weapons by any means necessary. Economic sanctions will be problematic. Thanks to its oil and natural gas wealth and its emerging energy alliances with customers such as China, Kazakhstan, and India, Iran is far less vulnerable to fiscal pressure today than it was in the past.

Containment is possible but difficult. At a minimum, a new containment regime will need to reinforce Iran's vulnerable regional neighbors, roll back Tehran's military advances, and curb Iranian access to critical WMD technologies. And if the U.S. contents itself with containment alone, it will send a clear message that it accepts a nuclear Iran--a message that will weaken our regional alliances.

Nor is deterrence alone a viable solution. Iran is not monolithic; some segments of the Iranian government are rational and capable of being deterred. But others, including the country's new president and his coterie, share an apocalyptic religious worldview that demands a crisis with the West.

Finally, preemptive military action against Iran, either by the U.S. or its allies, should be strictly a last resort. For while technically possible, preemption may prove in the long run to be counterproductive. The Iranian people and government have little in common, but they agree (although for vastly different reasons) that nuclear weapons are a top national priority. Any external action to take away that capability is likely to cause ordinary Iranians to rally round the flag, substantially prolonging the current regime's life.

Accordingly, the U.S.'s goal should not be simply to contain and deter a nuclear Iran. It should be to create the necessary conditions for a fundamental political change within that country.

Ilan Berman is Vice President for Policy at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington and the author of Tehran Rising: Iran's Challenge to the United States (Rowman & Littlefield). This article is adapted from Mr. Berman's February 1st testimony before the Committee on Armed Services of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Patrick Clawson

Too much of the discussion over Iran's nuclear program is concentrated on the extreme responses: either attack or appease. There is a wide range of intermediate policy options that hold much more promise.

To influence Iran, the U.S. needs instruments of persuasion and dissuasion. Most of the former proposed by Europe have been economic agreements that smell like disguised bribes. Since Iran is flush with oil income (its foreign exchange reserves total over $30 billion) it has dismissed these offers. A better approach is to concentrate on security measures in order to redress the argument that Iran needs nuclear weapons because it has real security needs. There are many confidence- and security-building measures (CSBMs) and arms-control measures that would be advantageous for both Iran and the West. Examples of CSBMs would be an exchange of observers for military exercises in and near Iran, or an incidents-at-sea agreement to prevent unintended naval confrontations. Besides the impact they might have on Iran, offers of CSBMs could impress Europe and Russia with America's reasonableness.

As for instruments of dissuasion, economic sanctions, if imposed while oil markets are so tight, would be ineffective and inflict too much damage on Western economies. Much more useful would be measures to emphasize Iran's isolation over the nuclear issue. In several cases recently, the United Nations Security Council has imposed targeted sanctions, such as banning travel by key individuals, to drive home the high political price of unacceptable actions. In both Serbia and South Africa, the sanction felt most keenly by the public was the ban on international sporting competition. If young Iranians learn that their country's participation in the June 2006 soccer World Cup is dependent on resolving the nuclear issue, there will be a dramatic increase in their interest in the negotiations.

Deterrence and containment measures, similar to those of the Cold War, would show Iran that its security will be hurt if it continues with its nuclear program. And they would put the West in a better position to use military force if the need arose. One step in this direction would be to sell Arab states in the Persian Gulf more advanced anti-missile and air defense systems. Raising doubts in the minds of Iranian decision-makers about the country's ability to reliably deliver its nuclear weapons could make their use prohibitively risky in all but the direst circumstances. In addition, Iranian leaders regularly threaten to disrupt shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. An exercise to protect the Strait with minesweepers and so on, if conducted in the near future, would signal Iran that the West is willing to use force to protect its vital interests in the Gulf, yet without suggesting that the West is preparing to attack Iran itself.

But all such measures to press Iran and to deter it are stalling tactics. So long as the country is an Islamic Republic, it will have a nuclear weapons program, at least clandestinely. The key issue, therefore, is: how long will the present Iranian regime last? It is clear that the Iranian people detest the present system. America has an important interest, both strategic and moral, in supporting Iran's pro-democratic forces. It would be a grave setback to Washington's democratizing agenda in the region if the U.S. were perceived as selling out Iran's beleaguered reformers by concluding a deal with the autocrats. Besides, the reigning mullahs would almost certainly cheat on any deal, as they did during the Iran-Contra affair when they released some hostages only to take others. The only sure route is the best moral route: supporting Iranian democrats with such modest aid from Washington as more television and radio broadcasts.

Patrick Clawson is the deputy director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. His most recent book (with Michael Rubin) is Eternal Iran: Continuity and Chaos (Palgrave Books).

Angelo M. Codevilla

Soon Iran will have nuclear weapons. You and I wish it were not so. But making those nukes go away will take forceful, costly acts of war that would surely disrupt, and likely endanger, our own lives. But you don't want to disrupt your life, to set in motion lethal events the end of which you cannot foresee? Then make the best plans you can for living with nuclear weapons in the hands of our Iranian enemies—and the other enemies who, with Iran's help, will likely follow its example.

You say it is unacceptable to choose between such alternatives. There must be a moderate, middle way to oppose Iranian nukes. What about diplomacy? sanctions? confidence- and security-building measures? The short answer is no. You are simply postponing the real choices, and effectively choosing something worse than either.

Diplomacy conveys reality: either you are willing to force the other party to act against its will, or you are not. European diplomacy, to which the Bush Administration has conjoined America, conveys the reality that no one is willing to overpower the Iranian government. The ultimate "stick" of this diplomacy, referral to the U.N. Security Council, is really the prospect of more talk. That is because Russia is playing vis-à-vis the Iranian nuclear program roughly the same game that China plays with respect to North Korea's—gaining leverage against America. In Washington as in Paris, there is hardly appetite for anything but kicking the diplomatic can farther down the road. Hence the end of such diplomacy can only be diplomacy without end—an ever more ruinous advertisement of our own fecklessness.

Faith in so called confidence-building measures is based mostly on the dubious proposition that benign procedures can override malign intentions—the same faith that has tranquilized the losing parties in the modern world's "peace processes." The other basis for that faith is that time itself will make the problem go away.

But what about sanctions? Can't the Security Council impose them? Sure. In fact, any sovereign nation can impose any restriction it wants on its dealings with others. The real question is: how serious, how coercive would sanctions be? Between 1990 and 2003, the U.N. sanctions on Iraq taught the age-old lesson that economic strictures are blunt instruments. Because economic goods are fungible, partial sanctions—exempting food and medicine, as with Iraq, or oil, as with Italy in 1935—simply raise the overall price level. They also offer opportunities for manipulation and corruption that strengthen authoritarian governments. Just like endless diplomacy, they convey the un-coercive message: we are doing inconclusive things because we dare not do conclusive ones.

Are there not economic sanctions as coercive as war? Yes, indeed! Total economic sanctions can be deadlier than atom bombs. Were Europe and America to impose a total trade embargo on Iran—and enforce it by including any third party that trades with Iran—the Iranians would quickly be forced to choose between nukes and starvation. But this embargo would be war, not just against Iran but potentially against Russia and any other country forced to choose sides. Such a war is surely as winnable as it would be costly.

Isn't covert action an option between doing nothing and sending the Marines? Beware of the illusion that big results can come on the cheap. Sure, many Iranians are ready, willing, and able to begin a coup against the current regime. But could they finish it, alive? We could encourage them to try. But neither covertly nor overtly is it possible for small numbers of foreigners to tip the political scales in a country of 70 million. To ensure that an internal struggle turned out right, we would have to enter a civil war promptly and massively.

Nor should we doubt that "surgical strikes" on Iran's nuclear sites would constitute war itself. It would be a foolish war, because its premise would be that the nuclear technology is our enemy. Nonsense. Our enemies are not things, but specific people. If we are to shoot, let us not do so as in Iraq, against no one in particular while trying to remake the entire country according to abstract principles. Rather, let us make war against a regime, knowing that this will empower its opponents. Though costly, a real war would yield the desired results.

The alternative of peace with a nuclear armed Iran should not be discounted. Cheerful acceptance of Iran's nuclear armament would obviate war's pains and hazards. It offers possible advantages, too. First, in a relaxed international atmosphere, the ongoing struggles within Iran may change the regime all by themselves. Then we might not have to fear its armaments. Second, absent Western pressures, Iran would be less tempted by a relationship with Russia that benefits only the latter. Since Iran's long-term interests are with the West, the more relationships its people have with us the more constrained the government will be in the use of its weapons. Friendly relations with Iran would reduce its incentives for exhibiting our impotence by threatening us with high oil prices. Of course, these advantages might not be realized, at least not soon.

Third, abandoning the illusion that cheap talk, pro forma procedures, and token sanctions can exorcise Iran's nuclear force would inject seriousness into the rest of American foreign and defense policy. The current make-believe approach to U.S. missile defense, as well as the dysfunctional abstraction called "war on terrorism," would have to be replaced with something like the 1950s' "containment." A serious combination of accommodation and defense is not a strategy for victory. Nonetheless, it beats talking offensively while acting impotently.

The point here is that while war against Iran and cheerful acceptance of its nuclear ambitions each implies mixtures of costs and benefits, the hybrid course we have been following and are likely to pursue (albeit with cosmetic variations) is pregnant with all the disadvantages of war as well as of peace, while lacking the advantages of either. Hectoring Iran and perhaps inconveniencing its people while doing nothing decisive amounts to what Theodore Roosevelt used to call "peace with insult"—the worst of practices—and is reminiscent of U.S. policy toward Japan in the 1930s.

Making sure that means and ends match one another, meaning that the actions we take actually produce the ends we profess, has ever been the essence of prudence. Machiavelli taught that enemies are to be caressed or extinguished. But it seems that our ruling geniuses read lesser textbooks.

Angelo M. Codevilla is professor of international relations at Boston University, a senior fellow of the Claremont Institute, and the author most recently of No Victory, No Peace (Rowman & Littlefield).

Efraim Halevy

For more than a decade and a half, Iran has confronted the free Western world with a combination of challenges: state terror perpetrated on foreign soil, ranging from Buenos Aires to Paris and London; the arming and maintenance of paramilitary forces in foreign countries, e.g., Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, which confronts the Israel Defense Forces along Israel's northern border; the promotion of Muslim activism in parts of former Yugoslavia; and not least, its decades-long determination to obtain or develop a nuclear weapons capability. It has openly championed the destruction of Israel, and has repeatedly defied the United States from the day it stormed the Embassy in Tehran in 1979. Over 50 hostages were held for 444 days before they were liberated in a deal that released $8 billion in frozen Iranian assets and gave Iran immunity from any legal action. In Beirut on October 23, 1983, an Iranian-sponsored terrorist attack claimed the lives of 241 Americans, mostly Marines. Iran paid no price for these acts, and in Tehran's eyes they were both outstanding successes.

Iran's political system is, by Middle Eastern standards, relatively democratic; its extremist President Ahmadinejad was elected to his post by a free popular vote. Thus the Bush Doctrine of introducing democracy into the region is not applicable to the Iranian dilemma.

The free world's policy vis-à-vis Tehran over the past 17 years has been ineffective. Undeterred by President George W. Bush's declaring it a member of his axis of evil, Iran has pursued its policies with determination and impunity. It has assumed that it could get away with all that it has done and has been proved right. It has been consistently devious and unreliable in honoring its international commitments. These must be our points of departure.

In looking to the future, due weight must be given to the limitations that American commitments in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere are placing on its capacities and freedom of action. An Iraq-type solution to the Iranian issue cannot be contemplated at present without the renewal of the draft; this does not appear imminent. Surgical operations might have limited and important effects, but could also go wrong; consider the fate of the 1979 hostage rescue effort.

In these circumstances, the following measures should be contemplated: First, a major effort should be mounted to develop and produce defenses against Iranian offensive missile and air capabilities; anti-ballistic missile and anti-aircraft systems must be given the highest priority in order to protect the air and outer space of nations under threat. Other means of warfare must be researched and developed to counter Iranian capabilities. Much has been and can still be done in this direction.

Second, the Iranian threat must be treated and viewed in its entirety and Iranian vulnerabilities must be sought and found. A possible candidate for such an approach is the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon, which faces a complex situation after Syria's partial withdrawal from Beirut. A blow to Hezbollah through military or diplomatic means could severely damage Iranian prestige in the region and reverberate in Tehran. There are other vulnerabilities that should be exploited to the full.

Third, a concerted campaign, partly overt and partly covert, should be initiated to encourage the silent, moderate majority in Iran to begin rising against the Ayatollahs. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's recent request that Congress approve a $75 million budget to encourage democracy in Iran is a major first step in this direction; an element, one hopes, in an overall strategy designed to promote regime change in Iran. A full-blown propaganda campaign should be mounted and sustained over a long period. The best brainpower available must be recruited for this formidable mission.

Fourth, the present diplomatic efforts at the U.N. Security Council must be pursued to their conclusion. If it proves impossible to sanction Iran, perhaps due to Russian or Chinese objection, unilateral action to damage Iranian economic and business interests should be contemplated. Whether or not sanctions are ultimately imposed, groups of countries led by the U.S. can decide to boycott any international gathering attended by Iran and thus begin a campaign to isolate Tehran and diminish its prestige in the Middle East and throughout the world.

Fifth, the nature of the Iranian threat in all its dimensions is such that only a regime change can provide a genuine solution to the problem. In order to achieve this, "command structures" must be constituted to oversee and conduct the combined effort against present-day Iran. Such structures must enjoy the support of the "political masters" in Washington and elsewhere, and must deal with the entire gamut of issues pertaining to Tehran. The struggle must be waged simultaneously and in a coordinated manner on all fronts.

Finally, thought must be given to the possibility that all measures will fail and Iran will succeed in obtaining nuclear capabilities. Should this happen, the leaders in Tehran must be given to understand, loud and clear, that were they to use their weaponry, the price could well be the complete destruction of their country and nation. Nothing less than such a credible and terrible threat will deter them.

Efraim Halevy directed the Mossad, Israel's foreign intelligence service, from 1998 to 2002 and served as national security advisor to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2002-2003. He now heads the Center for Strategic and Policy Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and is the author of Man in the Shadows: Inside the Middle East Crisis with a Man who Led the Mossad (St. Martin's Press).


Victor Davis Hanson

"Bad and worse" is now the conventional wisdom regarding our choices in dealing with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's efforts to obtain the bomb. We are told that Western air strikes will lead to violent reactions in the Islamic world; increase terrorism; empower the Iraqi Shiite obstructionists; destroy the much ballyhooed but little heard from Iranian opposition; and that even after days of bombing, we will be unable to level all Iran's nuclear facilities. That's the "bad" option we face.

Apparently no one believes that stopping the Iranian bomb would humiliate the mullahs and teach others in the region not to try something similar—even though Libya gave up its WMD arsenal, by its own admission, only because Muammar al-Qadhafi feared the fate of Saddam Hussein.

"Worse" means they get the bomb—which results in a nuclear Iran threatening Israel, U.S. troops in the Middle East, neighboring Arab oil exporters, and European capitals, even as Western liberals bicker over whether Ahmadinejad seeks merely status, high oil prices, greater power over a restless populace—or paradise as his reward for destroying the Jewish state. This is a leader who listens to voices in a well, dreams about the missing 12th imam, claims his audiences can't blink while he talks, and may have been one of the terrorists who stormed the U.S. embassy in 1979—adding messianic nihilism to the tinderbox of petrodollars, nukes, and terrorism.

In response, Zen-like, the United States keeps silent in the background. The Europeans' vaunted multicultural dialogue goes nowhere, earning them Iranian contempt rather than gratitude. The United Nations is, well, the United Nations, and more likely to obsess over Israel's half-century-old arsenal than worry about a new nuclear theocracy. The Arab autocracies, meanwhile, don't seem too worried about a Persian-Israeli conflagration that might cripple both traditional enemies, if it transpired without raining too much fallout on the West Bank.

China and Russia want either Iranian oil or petrodollars, and seem to enjoy the West's anxiety, confident that in the worst-case scenario a nuclear Iran would probably point its missiles and terrorists at someone else. Russia promises oversight of Iranian enrichment, a fox-in-the-henhouse scenario since it sold the mullahs most of the requisite nuclear technology in the first place. The Israelis are stymied, at least temporarily. The fear of a second Holocaust will make them act at the eleventh hour, though they know that most of the world would sigh in relief—and damn them in the morning papers.

Stung over the perception that senior Democrats can't be trusted with national security, Senators John Kerry and Hillary Clinton deplore the "outsourcing" of American responsibility in dealing with Iran—though of course they would be the first to condemn Bush cowboyism, once CNN got going with its live feed of collateral damage on about, oh, day 3 of any air campaign.

Former President Bill Clinton last year apologized to the Iranian mullocracy for American support for the Shah 30 years ago and CIA espionage a half century past, but not to the American people for allowing Pakistan, Iran, and North Korea to begin in earnest their nuclear acquisition programs on his watch. Jimmy Carter should turn up soon, calling for sensitive understanding of Iran's unique security needs; indeed, the closer Iran gets to the bomb, the more the Left will say that we can live with it.

So for now, American policy seems to have established a window of restraint for about a year or so, until intelligence confirms that the Iranians are months away from arming their warheads. Then there will probably be a messy, incomplete air campaign that will set back the Iranian nuclear program for perhaps five years and send gas prices sky-high. We will hope that some fissionable material is not already in the hands of Hezbollah, and trust that anti-American global protests will be no worse than the lunacy toward the Danes. Israel will brace for a more horrific terrorist campaign, and we will pray that the Iraqi Shiites are more Iraqi than Shiite.

All that has changed in the past six months is the growing Western realization that radical Islam thrives on appeasement, and really does mean what it says. Once elected, Hamas, despite Western money and support, did not budge from its charter's promise to destroy Israel. Far from withdrawing his pledge to wipe Israel out, President Ahmadinejad doubled-down on the boast by organizing formal Holocaust-denial conferences, the prerequisite for any Jew-hater who wishes to move from rhetoric to action. Unlike Hitler, however, Ahmadinejad outlined in advance not merely the intent but the method of his intended follow-up to the Holocaust.

The burning and killing over the Danish cartoons—coming on the heels of the French riots, the bombings in Madrid and London, and Theo van Gogh's murder in Holland—have shaken the very foundations of Europe. Perhaps the European Union will realize that its 450 million citizens cannot tolerate living in range of radical Islam's missiles, with Ahmadinejad's finger on the button. Thus Holland increased its troop deployment in Afghanistan. Many European newspapers reprinted the cartoons in a show of solidarity. Germany's Angela Merkel compared the Iranian President to Hitler. And even earlier, Jacques Chirac talked of using his country's nukes against state sponsors of terrorism. We are coming to a showdown where the headshaking over "bad or worse" is no longer an excuse for inaction, but a tragic acceptance that there is still a bad choice, after all.

Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow in military history and classics at the Hoover Institution, and the author most recently of A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War (Random House).

Mark Helprin

Even were one to believe that, despite its low and stagnant per capita GNP and the world's second-largest reserves of petroleum and natural gas, Iran would invest uneconomically in nuclear power generation, one would also have to disbelieve that it wanted nuclear weapons. But with an intermediate-range strategic nuclear capacity it could deter American intervention, reign over the Gulf, further separate Europe from American Middle East policy, correct a nuclear imbalance with Pakistan, lead and perhaps unify the Islamic world, and thus create the chance to end Western dominance of the Middle East and with a single shot destroy Israel.

Iran's claim of innocuous nuclear ambitions comports both with the Islamic doctrine of taqqiya (literal truth need not be conveyed to infidels) and the Western doctrine of state secrecy (the same thing), and is part of a strategy of deception and false compromise deployed to buy time. After almost three years, the administration has maneuvered the International Atomic Energy Agency to refer Iran to the Security Council, where it will fall under the protection of Russia and China, who will make any resolution meaningless or veto it outright. In the event of sanctions, Iran can sell oil to China in exchange for all the manufactures it might need, trade on the black market, and eventually reenter the world economy after the inevitable unveiling of Iranian nuclear weapons stimulates the resignation of the West.

Were Russia not playing a double game, it would not have agreed last December to upgrade the Iranian Air Force and sell Iran 29 SA-15 surface-to-air missiles for the protection of key facilities. Russia and China can operate in contradiction of what many assume to be their self-interest because they have always had a different appreciation of and doctrine relating to nuclear weapons, they are willing to live dangerously, they are the least likely targets, and the agitation they support roils the smooth surface of the Pax Americana to their maximum opportunity and relief. For example, chaos in the Middle East makes Russia in comparison a stable supplier of energy and shifts European resources and dependency to Russia's advantage.

Other than the likely nothing, what will the U.S. have done in the months and years ahead to prepare for the failure of diplomacy and sanctions? The obvious option is an aerial campaign to divest Iran of its nuclear potential, i.e., clear the Gulf of Iranian naval forces, scrub anti-ship missiles from the shore, and lay open anti-aircraft-free corridors to each target. With the furious capacity of its new weapons, the U.S. can accomplish this readily. Were the targets effectively hidden or buried, Iran could be shut down, coerced, and perhaps revolutionized by the assured rapid destruction of its oil production and transport. The Iranians know their obvious vulnerabilities, but are we aware of ours?

In this war with a newly revived militant Islam, we think systematically and they think imaginatively. As we strain to bring the genius of imagination to our systems, they attempt to bring systematic discipline to their imagination, and neither of us is precluded from success. Despite our superior power, its diminution by geography, over-commitment, and politics means that they might confound us. And because they believe absolutely in the miraculous, one must credit their stated aim to defeat us in the short term by hurling our armies from the Middle East and in the long term by collapsing Western civilization.

If like his predecessors Salah-a-Din, the Mahdi, and Nasser, Mr. Ahmadinejad goes for the long shot, he may have in mind to draw out and damage any American onslaught with his thousands of surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft guns, by a concentrated air and naval attack to sink one or more major American warships, and to mobilize the Iraqi Shia in a general uprising, with aid from infiltrated Pasdaran (Revolutionary Guard) and conventional elements, that would threaten U.S. forces in Iraq and sever their lines of supply. This by itself would be a victory for those who see in the colors of martyrdom, but if he could knock us back and put enough of our blood in the water, the real prize might come into reach. That is, to make such a fury in the Islamic world that, as it has done before and not long ago, it would throw over caution in favor of jihad. As simply as it can be said, were Egypt to close the canal, and Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey to lock up their airspace—which with their combined modern air forces they could—the American military in Iraq and the Gulf, bereft of adequate supply, would be beleaguered and imperiled.

In trying to push the Iraqi snake by its tail, we have lost sight of the larger strategic picture, of which such events, though very unlikely, may become a part. But because the Iranian drive for deployable nuclear weapons will likely take years, we have a period of grace. In that time, we would do well to strengthen—in numbers and mass as well as quality—the means with which we fight, to reinforce the fleet train with which to supply the fighting lines, to press forward with ballistic missile defense against sea-launched intermediate range missiles, and to plan for a land route from the Mediterranean across Israel and Jordan to the Tigris and Euphrates. And even if we cannot extricate ourselves from nation-building and counterinsurgency in Iraq, we must have a plan for remounting the army there so that it can fight and maneuver as it was born to do.

To make these provisions will secure our flanks and give us a freer hand in the potentially difficult project of denying to a rogue nation of 68 million people, with a well developed military and a penchant for rash action, the nuclear weapons it is bent on acquiring and rushing to construct. Our problem in Iraq has been delusion and lack of foresight. Iran is bigger and more powerful. What a pity it would be either to do nothing or once again to lurch forward with neither strategy nor thought.

Mark Helprin, whose novels include Winter's Tale and A Soldier of the Great War, is a senior fellow of the Claremont Institute. He served in the Israeli army and Air Force, and was Adviser in Defense and Foreign Relations to Republican presidential nominee Robert Dole.

Josef Joffe

There is a good chance that not so far into the future, historians will look back on the foreign policy of George W. Bush and pronounce him the worst president since James Madison. What, Madison, the Founding Father? He was, of course, a great man, but he also presided over America's most foolish war, the War of 1812, in the course of which the British burned down half of Washington. It was foolish to take on the mightiest sea power on earth—and while Britain was fighting for its survival against Napoleon. And so Jefferson warned: it was not in the U.S. interest "that all of Europe should be reduced to a single monarchy. Surely none of us wish to see Bonaparte conquer Russia and lay thus at his feet the whole continent of Europe. This done, England would be but a breakfast…." And, one might add, America a lunch.

The War of 1812 was the wrong war against the wrong foe at the wrong time—and so is Iraq. Never mind that the WMDs and the terror connection didn't exist, and that democracy is just as lofty a goal in 2003 as the freedom of the seas was in 1812. But unlike the War of 1812, the one in Iraq was a strategic blunder worthy of General Custer.

America's real foe has been revolutionary Iran ever since the Khomeinists took power in 1979. Their terror-sponsoring arm extends from Berlin to Beirut, from Kiryat Shmona in Northern Israel to Gaza-by-the-Sea. Iran's nuclear weapons program goes back to the days of the Shah, but it went into high speed during the 1990s while Washington was indulging its obsession with a weak and isolated Saddam. Today, Tehran is the single most powerful threat to American interests in the Middle East, and a threat to the stability of this tinderbox to boot.

How did this come to pass? The U.S. targeted the wrong enemy in its quest to make the world safe through democracy. Pursuing the lofty goal of regime change, the Bush Administration failed wretchedly to calculate the strategic consequences, the first commandment of statecraft. Imagine how overjoyed the Khomeinists must have been when U.S. forces marched into Baghdad! Here the Great Satan had done them a triple favor: He eliminated their worst rival (Iraq) from the board and so overturned whatever regional balance of power there was. He liberated the oppressed Shia majority and handed Iran's comrades-in-faith preeminence in Iraqi politics. And he entangled himself in a costly, inconclusive insurgency war that Tehran could manipulate at will.

As a result, the strategic position of the Iranians has never been better, and they know it. First, Tehran told the Europeans to go fly a kite; no, Iran would not abandon the road to nuclear weapons. Then they repeated the message to the rest of the world, including the Russians and Chinese. Then they started waving the oil weapon, while threatening Israel with extinction.

And well they might. They know that the U.S. will not launch another war while the one in Iraq is not exactly proceeding on schedule. Should the U.S. do so anyway, Iran will unleash its terror armies throughout the region and hit tanker traffic in the Gulf. One tanker will be enough to double the price of oil. Or put it this way: how much punch can diplomacy deliver when it is disjoined from the credible threat of force?

Are there no options? Our neocon friends who gave us the war in Iraq now mumble about Iranian regime change from within. Yet the days of Mossadeq, when Americans and Britons could mastermind a coup, are over. There is neither an army nor a potent opposition that can be turned against the Khomeinists, for the first thing a totalitarian regime does is to eliminate all competing centers of power.

Or does anybody believe that the denial of visas or landing rights throughout the West can stay the hand that grasps for the bomb? The most effective counter is to stop the passage of oil out of Iran, and the flow of refined products in. But who will join such a double-embargo when oil fetches $65 per barrel?

This is Cold War II, in that it must be fought without recourse to arms. The prescription is the same: deterrence and alliance-building—or in George F. Kennan's immortal words, "long-term, patient, but firm and vigilant containment of [Iranian] expansive tendencies," which will lead to the "break-up" or "mellowing" of Khomeinist power.

Now, imagine an America not entangled in the 2003 Iraq war—its reputation boosted by the quick victory in Afghanistan, its troops free to pounce, its alliances undiminished by the intra-Western family fight over the war. Iran's President Ahmadinejad may be crazy, but he is not stupid. He would know a giant when he saw one—rather than poke at what he thinks are its feet of clay.

Josef Joffe is publisher-editor of Die Zeit (Germany), adjunct professor of political science at Stanford, and Abramowitz Fellow in International Relations at the Hoover Institution. His book, Überpower: The Imperial Temptation of America (W.W. Norton & Co.), will be published in June.

EU rejects idea of Iran enrichment "pause"-diplomats

Louis Charbonneau, Reuters:

European diplomats on Thursday dismissed as unacceptable a suggestion that Iran take a brief "technical pause" from its nuclear enrichment activities in an attempt to revive collapsed negotiations with the EU.

Several diplomats told Reuters that Mohamed ElBaradei, the director-general of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), discussed this idea with Iranian officials during a visit to Tehran last week and hoped it could revive collapsed negotiations with the "EU3" -- France, Britain and Germany. READ MORE

But European Union diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was unacceptable and reiterated that Iran had to reinstate a full and sustained suspension of all uranium enrichment activity in order for talks to resume.

"A full suspension is the only way to resolve this and the Iranians have given no indication they are willing to do that," a senior EU diplomat told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Iran, which the West believes is secretly developing nuclear weapons, announced in January that it was resuming its enrichment programme, prompting the EU3 to break off 2-1/2 years of talks with Tehran. Iran says it only wants atomic energy.

Another EU diplomat said the Iranians raised the idea of a pause in enrichment at a meeting on Wednesday with the EU3 in Moscow. However, this would be followed by an acceleration of enrichment, the diplomat said.

"(Iran) spoke about a technical pause before putting in motion the next two cascades, which is frankly unacceptable," the EU diplomat said "The EU3's bottom line is there must be full suspension for a period of time during which we can resume the negotiations. That was not what we heard from the Iranians."

Iran has already enriched uranium in a cascade of 164 centrifuges -- machines that purify uranium by spinning at supersonic speeds.

While such a small cascade may take as long as two decades to produce enough highly enriched uranium for one weapon, Iran has vowed to start installing 3,000 centrifuges later this year -- theoretically enough to fuel one bomb per year.

Iran last week defied U.N. demands and declared it had enriched uranium to a level used in power stations.

The U.N. Security Council has asked ElBaradei to report by April 28 on Iran's compliance with a council demand that it suspend its entire uranium enrichment programme and answer the agency's questions on its nuclear programme.

U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns told reporters in Moscow that Washington was opposed to allowing Iran any kind of pause, calling some of Iran's negotiating positions "a ruse".

(Additional reporting by Paul Taylor in Brussels and Mark Heinrich in Vienna)

Iran defence minister dismisses talk of US attack

Rufat Abbasov, Reuters:

The prospect of the United States using force to halt Iran's nuclear programme is empty talk, Iranian Defence Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar said on Thursday. READ MORE

U.S. President George W. Bush says he is using diplomacy to curb Iran's atomic ambitions, but has not ruled out military options, even including a nuclear strike, to prevent the Islamic Republic from acquiring nuclear weapons.

"The United States has been threatening Iran for 27 years and this is not new for us. Therefore we are never afraid of U.S. threats," Najjar told reporters during a visit to neighbouring Azerbaijan.

"If you take into account the fact that they are not doing anything, this shows it is just talk," he said.

"We are ready to resolve all issues through negotiations (but) if we are confronted with something, we are ready to deal with it," the minister added.

Iran says its nuclear programme is solely to generate electricity. The United States and other major powers suspect that Tehran's efforts to enrich uranium could allow it to divert material for clandestine bomb-making.

Iranian nuclear negotiators were in Moscow on Thursday but there was no word on who they were meeting or what they were discussing.

Late on Wednesday the delegation met representatives of the so-called EU3 -- Britain, France and Germany -- but a British diplomat said there had been no breakthrough.

The United Nations' nuclear watchdog is to file a report on April 28 that is likely to criticise Iran for failing to comply with a Security Council demand for a halt to enrichment.

Washington, backed by Britain and France, wants the Security Council to approve targeted sanctions on Iran, such as travel bans and asset freezes against its leaders.

But China and Russia, the two other veto-holders on the council, are not convinced sanctions will help. Talks between the big powers in Moscow this week failed to produce any detailed consensus on punitive measures.

Azerbaijan, a Caspian Sea state on Iran's northern border, is an ally of Washington that has run joint exercises with the U.S military.

Azeri and Russian media have speculated that the United States may use Azerbaijan to apply pressure on Iran or even to launch a military strike. Officials in Washington and Baku have flatly denied this.

Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliev is to fly to Washington next week at the invitation of the White House.

Russia to Remain Neutral in Case of U.S-Iran Armed Conflict

MosNews:

Russia’s military will not intervene on one side or the other, should the current Iran crisis lead to an armed conflict, the chief of the Russian general staff said, AFP reported Thursday. READ MORE

“You are asking which side Russia will take. Of course Russia will not, at least I as head of the general staff will not, suggest the use of force on one side or the other. Just as with Afghanistan,” General Yury Baluevsky told reporters, referring to the 2001 U.S.-led intervention to oust the Taliban.

The general, who heads the Russian armed forces, stressed that he did not think a military scenario was likely in relation to Iran and said that diplomacy was “the proper course”.

“In my view a military solution to the Iranian problem would be a political and military mistake,” Baluevsky said.

He also confirmed that Russia planned to go ahead with fulfilling an order by Iran for a consignment of Tor-M1 mobile air defense systems, despite U.S. concerns about the deal.

“I am absolutely sure that it will be delivered, in accordance with international norms on non-proliferation,” he said.

Baluevsky is known for his hawkish position with regard to the United States. In December he accused Washington of “double standards” in its policies towards Iran and North Korea, saying it had closed its eyes to Israel’s nuclear arsenal.

Iran insists its nuclear program is purely for civilian energy generation, but the West, led by the United States, suspects the program is a cover for developing atomic weapons.

U.S. Senator slams election of Iran to UN disarmament panel

Haaretz:

A Republican senator who is a sharp critic of the United Nations is calling on the United States to withhold funds from the UN Disarmament Commission over Iran's election as vice chairman.

"The election of Iran as a vice-chair of the UN Disarmament Commission at the same time as Iran clandestinely pursues its own nuclear ambitions provides yet another example of the UN's inability to establish credible institutions to deal with global issues," Republican Senator Norm Coleman said in a statement Wednesday.

"Having the Iranians serve on this commission is like asking the fox to guard the hens, and will only ensure its ineffectiveness. "Iran says its program is peaceful, but the United States and dozens of other countries fear it wants the technology to make the core of nuclear warheads. READ MORE

Coleman, who represents Minnesota, urged the U.S. to redirect funds for the commission to humanitarian efforts.

The White House did not have an immediate comment Wednesday night. Neither the United Nations nor the Iranian embassy to the United Nations returned messages left Wednesday night. The commission is based in Geneva.

Coleman has been a longtime UN critic. His Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations found abuses in the U.N.'s oil-for-food program, which was aimed at allowing the Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein to sell oil for humanitarian goods.

Coleman has called on UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to resign over the program.

Coleman has also introduced legislation with Republican Senator Richard Lugar, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to require the president to submit an annual report on UN reform to Congress. The bill would allow the president to withhold 50 percent of U.S. contributions to the U.N. if sufficient reforms have not been made.

"Clearly, the effort to implement reforms at the UN has not only stalled but utterly reversed course," Coleman said. "Consequently, I urge the administration to immediately begin withholding U.S. financial support for the U.N. Disarmament Commission to send an unmistakable signal that there will be serious consequences to the UN's failure to implement real reform."

Iran's enemy lies within

Simon Tisdall, The Guardian:

Internal political divisions and economic weaknesses may present a bigger threat to the longevity of the Iranian government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad than the US and Israeli air forces combined, a report published yesterday suggests.

The study, entitled Understanding Iran and produced by the Foreign Policy Centre, warns that military action against Iran's suspect nuclear facilities could have disastrous consequences. "The only chance of modifying Iran's behaviour in the short term will come from a serious effort to engage with the current leadership," it says. READ MORE

Echoing calls for direct US-Iran talks made by Germany, the UN's nuclear agency, and US politicians, the European thinktank's report urges the creation of a Middle East security organisation similar to the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. It proposes mechanisms for facilitating dialogue to end the nuclear impasse and address other friction points. But in suggesting increased "economic, cultural, educational and social exchanges as a way of empowering the Iranian people and ultimately forcing the regime to loosen its restrictive practices" it also highlights the potentially fatal schisms and vulnerabilities of a government often portrayed as united in defiance of the west.

"Behind the scenes a fierce struggle is under way. In one camp is President Ahmadinejad, his supporters in the Revolutionary Guards and the paramilitary force known as the Basijis, and messianic fundamentalists inspired by the teachings of Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi. In the other camp is Iran's embattled democratic movement [and] an array of forces that benefited from the status quo before Ahmadinejad came to power, including former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani."

The outcome of this battle was uncertain, but what was clear was that direct US intervention would play into the hands of the hardliners. "A strategy that gambles on a popular uprising to bring down the current regime runs the risk of undermining those very forces it purports to want to help."

The report looks at other pressures on the government: a population of over 70 million, of whom 65% are younger than 25; a largely state-dominated economy prone to corruption; an energy industry starved of investment that is producing steadily less oil for export, and a youth culture increasingly circumventing controls on foreign media and internet access.

'According to the government's own estimates some 900,000 new jobs are needed annually to accommodate the burgeoning labour force and prevent an increase in unemployment, officially at 16%, unofficially at over 20%," the report says. It also focuses on gender discrimination, human rights abuses (including executions of minors and repression of minorities), and attempts to suppress free speech and independent media.

All these contentious issues, it suggests, carry the seeds of change from within and in the longer term could be catalysts for ending Iran's post-1979 theocracy. But if the west was to understand Iran, it had to understand itself - and recognise that clumsy outside attempts to jump-start reform were likely to be counterproductive.

Police in Tehran Ordered to Arrest Women in 'Un-Islamic' Dress

Robert Tait, The Guardian:

Iran's Islamic authorities are preparing a crackdown on women flouting the stringent dress code in the clearest sign yet of social and political repression under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

From today police in Tehran will be under orders to arrest women failing to conform to the regime's definition of Islamic morals by wearing loose-fitting hijab, or headscarves, tight jackets and shortened trousers exposing skin.

Offenders could be punished with £30 fines or two months in jail. Officers will also be authorised to confront men with outlandish hairstyles and people walking pet dogs, an activity long denounced as un-Islamic by the religious rulers. READ MORE

The clampdown coincides with a bill before Iran's conservative-dominated parliament proposing that fines for people with TV satellite dishes rise from £60 to more than £3,000. Millions of Iranians have illegal dishes, enabling them to watch western films and news channels.

The dress purge is led by a Tehran city councillor, Nader Shariatmaderi, a close ally of Mr Ahmadinejad who helped to plot last year's election victory.

Loosely arranged headscarves - exposing glamourous hairstyles - and shorter, tight-fitting overcoats (manteaus) became a symbol of the social freedoms that flourished under the reformist presidency of Mohammed Khatami.

During his election campaign, Mr Ahmadinejad dismissed fears that his presidency might herald a forced reversal, saying Iran had more urgent problems.

However, Mr Shariatmaderi denounced the trends as "damaging to revolutionary and Islamic principles". "We are looking for a social utopia to live in but in the last couple of months, our attention has wavered," he told fellow councillors. "In the present international situation, people must unite under known principles."

The clampdown recalls the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic revolution, when women wearing lipstick were often confronted by female vigilantes wiping their faces clean with handkerchiefs, which were said to often conceal razor blades.

The new campaign will hold taxi agencies accountable for their passengers' attire, police will be able to impound cabs carrying women dressed "inappropriately". Agencies guilty of repeat offences will be closed. Police have reportedly been stopping women motorists recently whose hijab was judged inadequate. Police have also raided fashion stores and seized brightly coloured manteaus.

Tehran's police chief, Morteza Talai, said the campaign would try to clamp down on people making "the social environment insecure".

Young women shopping in north Tehran's fashionable Tajrish neighbourhood yesterday, however, were uncowed. Matin, 24, a nurse, was wearing a gaudily patterned light-blue head scarf pushed back to reveal sunglasses and bleached blond hair. Her tight, short black manteau with intricate gold patterns seemed designed to provoke the ire of the authorities. But she was unrepentant. "I'm a married woman and it should be my husband who tells me what and what not to wear. He likes the way I dress," she said.

Surprisingly, Narges Asgari, 20, a dressmaker wearing an all-encompassing black chador, was also critical. "I don't think people will listen because they want to take decisions themselves," she said. "Clothes depend on the culture of their families. I wear the chador because, in my family, it's something we accept."

Iran Students Asking Regime To Suspend A-Bomb Effort

Eli Lake, New York Sun:

Iran's largest and oldest student organization is publicly urging the Tehran government to suspend uranium enrichment and cooperate fully with the international community.

A statement released Tuesday by Tahkim Vahdat's central committee called for a "temporary suspension of nuclear activities," Voice of America's Persian Service reported and an Iranian-American activist with close ties to the student organization confirmed.

The statement from Tahkim Vahdat came less than a week after President Ahmadinejad appeared on Iranian national television to announce "the good news" that the regime's scientists had enriched uranium to levels suitable both for use in bombs and nuclear power plants.

The students' public criticism of Iran's nuclear activities could make them vulnerable to crackdowns by the country's national security service, which is commanded by loyal allies of the Holocaust-denying president.

Voicing dissent over the nuclear program carries risk. Last month, a human rights lawyer, Abdolfattah Soltani, was released after spending seven months in prison on charges of nuclear espionage.

A former member of the student organization's central committee, Reza Delberry, said last week in an interview from Tehran that the group did not necessarily refute Iran's right to enrich uranium, but rather was concerned that the regime's prioritization of a nuclear program was detrimental to other, more pressing needs.

"You have to put this in the proper context. Nuclear energy, although it is important for peaceful means, this is not a priority in terms of what we and the Iranian people are looking for," Mr. Delberry said. "We want to be getting to the position where a democratic system is in place and our government respects human rights and enjoy a peaceful coexistence with the world." READ MORE

Tahkim Vahdat, which was a pillar of the 1979 revolution, vocally agitated over the summer for the release from prison of a dissident journalist, Akbar Ganji. The organization's former leaders have also endorsed the idea of a referendum on the Islamic Republic's constitution, which now vests most legislative, judicial, and national security powers in the unelected supreme leader.

Voice of America yesterday quoted a spokesman for Tahkim Vahdat, Saber Sheykhlou, as calling Iran's recent enrichment activities irrational. "The irrational and confrontational behavior of those who are in power has put the country and the nation on the threshold of a war or devastating sanctions," VOA quoted Mr. Sheykhlou as saying.

"The referral of Iran's nuclear case to the U.N. Security Council was the result of Iran's biggest foreign-policy mistake."

Mr. Delberry last week said he and others in Iran's opposition movement opposed the prospect of an American bombing campaign, but added that he believed Mr. Ahmadinejad's behavior was aimed partly at provoking an assault.

"The only solution is a nonviolent process towards democracy that will keep in mind the interests of the Iran ian people in coming to a democratic system," Mr. Delberry said.

"The only way to do this is to go through a nonviolent process. Any violent approach, military approach, or otherwise, is not accepted and not right. It will put a strain on our democracy movement."

Mr. Ganji considered a possible American invasion in his second manifesto, released last summer. He wrote that Iranian opposition members worried about the prospect of invasion, but noted that no one inside Iran knows whether such a plan exists or what its details might be.

"That plan depends more on the behavior of the Iranian regime than it does on the conduct of the opposition forces," Mr. Ganji wrote. He called American military action against Iran unlikely, particularly given America's involvement in Iraq. The surest way to avoid a confrontation, he said, is to succeed in a nonviolent democratic revolution.

"Freedom lovers can't stop their struggle for freedom and democracy because of a possible U.S. invasion. They can't stand behind tyranny to face imperialism, as the motto goes," he wrote.

Mr. Ganji last month was threatened with more jail time after having been released in March just before the Persian New Year. So far, however, no warrant has been issued for his arrest. In recent weeks, he has kept largely to himself, though he has visited a number of Iranian newspapers for informal discussions.

Iranian Gold Rush Highlights Escalating Tensions

Gareth Smyth, The Financial Times:

With the war of words over Iran’s nuclear programme escalating and the domestic economy stalling, Iranians are scrambling to buy gold coins, sending their value soaring by 32 per cent in the past two months.

“It’s unbelievable,” blazed a front page story in Etemad-e Meli, a reformist newspaper, earlier this week. “It seems no investment field is as safe.”

“Gold coins are Iranians’ political hedge fund,” says Heydar Pourian, editor of Iqtisad Iran (Iran Economics), a monthly magazine. “We keep them at home and they make us feel secure.”

Commodity prices have risen worldwide over recent years partly in response to Middle East tensions centred on Iraq, but Iranians are now starting to feel they may be at the centre of a growing storm.

Hence the appeal of gold coins given as presents for weddings and new year; gold coins are a liquid and proven investment. And at 460,000 rials (about $41.50) a quarter, gold coin is within reach for all but the poorest Iranian.

By contrast, Iran’s largely state-owned banking sector offers limited services, while investors face inflation put officially at 14 per cent.

While deposits in state banks lost 1 per cent in real terms in the year to February 2006, gold coins gained 21 per cent.

“Buying gold coins reflects a lack of alternatives,” says Mr Pourian. “Big investors may pull out of real estate and move their capital to Dubai. Smaller investors have fewer opportunities.”

Businessmen say the rush to gold reflects both growing tension over Iran’s atomic activities and the destabilising economic policies of fundamentalist president Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, whose government took office last August.

“The direction reverses the years of [president Mohammad] Khatami and increases the role of the state, especially in allocating resources,” says one. “It’s more like communism than Islam, and makes you think some of them want a siege economy ready for war.” READ MORE

The government buzz-phrase is “directed lending”, through which banks shape lending policies to suit governmental priorities for regional development and agricultural self-sufficiency. State banks, already undercapitalised, face increasing demand after the president has made hundreds of loan promises, especially on high-profile provincial trips.

Lending rates have been cut to 16 per cent, with subsidised exceptions including farm loans at 9 per cent. The banks, already in confusion after the new government replaced seven heads of state banks, are facing calls from ministers and fundamentalist parliamentary deputies for further reductions.

Lower lending rates mean lower returns for small depositors such as pensioners who, already wary of inflation, are among those fuelling rising demand for gold coins.

One of the first acts of the Islamic Republic after the 1979 revolution was to issue Bahar-e Azadi (spring of liberty) gold coins.

Envoys Remain Split On Plan Against Iran

Peter Finn, The Washington Post:

Senior diplomats from the U.N. Security Council's five permanent members ended two days of talks about Iran's nuclear program Wednesday with consensus for action against the Islamic state, but they continued to be divided as to what form it should take, U.S. Undersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns said.

"Nearly every country is considering some form of sanctions, and this is a new development," Burns told reporters after the meeting. "Every country said that some type of action had to be taken . . . to, in effect, erect a barrier to Iran's progress. So the challenge for us will be what can we all agree on."

For weeks, the United States, Britain and France have been pressing for tough steps against Iran, while Russia and China have argued that a hard line might backfire. All have expressed public concern over Iran's program.

"All participants in the meeting agreed that urgent and constructive steps are demanded of Iran," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday. READ MORE

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said last week that Iran was pursuing the enrichment of uranium on an industrial scale, which could allow it to accelerate the development of nuclear weapons.

That and recent statements by other Iranian officials that they would expand their experimental nuclear work has led to "a greater sense of urgency" among the major powers about Iran's ambitions, Burns said. "What I heard in the room last night was not agreement on the specifics but to the general notion that Iran has to feel isolation and that there is a cost to what they are doing," he said.

In late March, the U.N. Security Council gave Iran a month to stop enrichment and answer questions from the U.N. nuclear watchdog group, the International Atomic Energy Agency. Iran says that its program is peaceful and only for the generation of electricity.

The United States has asked the Security Council to invoke Chapter 7 of the U.N. charter, which allows the world body to decide on measures, including the use of force, "to maintain or restore international peace and security."

Russia spoke against the use of Chapter 7 at the meetings, fearing it would almost certainly lead to military action, according to a source familiar with the discussions who spoke on condition of anonymity.

But Russia said it would be willing to discuss other punitive options after the IAEA issues a report on Iran's response to the Security Council statement, the source said. "We are convinced of the need to wait for the IAEA report due at the end of the month," Lavrov told reporters.

The source also said that Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai, who attended the session, was critical of Iran and had delivered a "tough message" privately to the Iranians during a stopover in Tehran before the Moscow meeting.

The diplomats discussed the pros and cons of a number of options in detail, Burns said. The United Nations, for instance, could decide to impose sanctions without invoking Chapter 7, and individual countries could also impose sanctions. The United States has had sanctions against Iran for more than 25 years.

Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy chief, said last week that the E.U. was considering targeted sanctions, but he added that "any military action is absolutely [off] the table for us."

An Iranian delegation arrived in Moscow on Wednesday for talks with Russian officials and, separately, with diplomats from Britain, France and Germany.

At a news conference on Wednesday, Burns also said that Washington wanted to include the former Soviet republics of Belarus, Georgia and Moldova on the agenda when leaders of the Group of Eight industrial countries meet in Russia later this year.

The United States is at odds with Russian policy toward the countries, which Moscow considers to be part of its natural sphere of influence.

Annan Asks Iran To Cooperate In Disarming Lebanon Militias

Dow Jones Newswires:

Secretary-General Kofi Annan has urged Iran as well as Syria to cooperate in trying to restore Lebanon's political independence and disarm militias, the first time the U.N. chief has issued a report linking Tehran to instability in Lebanon.

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said Wednesday that Annan's decision to single out Iran was "significant" and "an important step forward" because it recognizes " that Iran's financing terrorist groups in Lebanon and Syria has a significant impact on what happens in those two countries." READ MORE

Annan mentioned Iran in a report on implementation of a September 2004 Security Council resolution that called for the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Lebanon, the disbanding and disarmament of all militias, and the extension of government authority throughout the country.

The secretary-general made no mention of Iran financing terrorist groups. But he did note the "close ties, with frequent contacts and regular communication," that Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas, who are listed as a terrorist group by the United States, have with Syria and Iran.

Iran's interest in Lebanon and prospects for disarming Hezbollah are certain to come up when Lebanon's Prime Minister Fuad Saniora meets Annan and the Security Council on Friday. The council is expected to discuss the report on April 26 and will likely be briefed by Terje Roed-Larsen, the top U.N. envoy on Lebanon-Syria issues.

Annan said Lebanon's journey into a new era following last year's departure of Syrian troops after 29 years is fragile, though the country has made "further significant progress" in the last six months. But he warned that Lebanon will not regain full sovereignty and independence until Hezbollah and other Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias that operate freely give up their arms and come under government control.

During the past six months, Annan said, "a tense bilateral relationship has prevailed between Syria and Lebanon," marked by mutual accusations in public statements. But he called the National Dialogue in Lebanon, initiated by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, "a truly historic and unprecedented event" that has brought Lebanese to talk about issues that only a few months ago were taboo.

The secretary-general emphasized in the report circulated Tuesday night that Hezbollah's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, was one of the Lebanese leaders promoting the National Dialogue. He said it was also "particularly noteworthy that Hezbollah has embraced the National Dialogue and is, through its participation in the roundtable and its agreement to its agenda, willing to discuss the issue of arms."

But in a footnote, Annan noted that Syrian President Bashar Assad urged continued "resistance" in Lebanon at a press conference on Jan. 19 with Iran's visiting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has become a close ally.

In what appears to be an intensification of Iranian contacts with Hezbollah, U.N. diplomats noted that Nasrallah went to Damascus to meet Ahmadinejad. Since January, the Hezbollah leader has gone to the Syrian capital to meet other senior Iranian officials, most recently former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani whose trip ended Sunday, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the issue publicly.

In the report, Annan noted the positive statements by Hezbollah leaders "that indicate their willingness to disarm" under a broad national defense policy to protect Lebanon.

Alluding to Iran and Syria, he said, "a dialogue with parties other than the Lebanese authorities is indispensable in order ... to disarm and disband all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias,"

"It is my strong belief," Annan concluded, "that with the continued support of the Security Council, the continued National Dialogue, unity of the Lebanese, and far-sighted leadership of the government of Lebanon, as well as the necessary cooperation of all other relevant parties, including Syria and Iran, the difficulties of the past can be overcome and significant further headway be made towards the full implementation" of the September 2004 resolution.

Bolton said Annan's report demonstrated "the importance of Iranian interference in Lebanese internal affairs."

"I think by saying specifically that Syria and Iran have to be involved in ceasing their internal disruption in Lebanon is an important step forward, and I'm sure the council will consider that very carefully," he said.

Blair and Straw at odds over US action in Iran

Colin Brown and Andy McSmith, Independent:

Jack Straw has warned Cabinet colleagues that it would be illegal for Britain to support the United States in military action against Iran. But Tony Blair has backed President George Bush by warning that ruling out military action would send out a "message of weakness" to Iran. READ MORE

Differences opened up yesterday between Mr Blair and the Foreign Secretary over growing alarm in the US at the refusal of Mr Bush to rule out military action. Mr Straw said on BBC Radio 4 that it was "inconceivable" that Britain would support a military strike against Tehran. Four hours later, Mr Blair refused to go that far when challenged to do so at Prime Minister's questions by the former minister, Michael Meacher.

Mr Blair accused Iran of fostering international terrorism, and said young people were signing up to be suicide bombers directed at US and UK targets. " I do not think this is the time to send a message of weakness," he said.

Mr Straw has told ministerial colleagues he does not believe that the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, would approve the legality of British action, because Iran does not pose a direct threat to Britain. Mr Straw also said it would be "nuts" to consider a nuclear strike.

The possibility of action against Iran threatens to resurrect the row over the basis on which Britain went to war in Iraq. The Attorney General became embroiled in the legal advice he gave to the Prime Minister over the war.

Clare Short, the former cabinet minister, said the Cabinet had never been shown the full legal advice and there were claims that Lord Goldsmith may have changed his view under pressure from Mr Blair.

Some Labour MPs say Mr Straw was wrong to rule out military action, and accuse him of bowing to pressure from the strong Muslim population in his Blackburn constituency.

But most Labour MPs support Mr Straw's strategy and would revolt if Mr Blair showed any sign of lending support to a US strike against Iran. Mr Straw was given tacit support at a meeting of European foreign ministers in Luxembourg last week.

France understands Mr Blair's argument that keeping the military option on the table would keep up the pressure on Iran. But it is to urge London to press the Bush administration to soften its approach so it no longer treats Iran as a "rogue state" but engages in a wider dialogue with Tehran on terrorism, the Middle East peace process and oil.

Yesterday there was a rare, informal meeting of US and Iranian embassy diplomats at the Commons organised by the Foreign Policy Centre think-tank to launch its pamphlet Understanding Iran.

Diplomatic contacts between Iran and the US have been infrequent since students occupied the US embassy in Tehran 26 years ago. Pam Telford, who handles proliferation issues for the US embassy, denied Washington had aggravated the problem by having no clear policy towards Iran, or by having double standards about which Asian states are allowed to have nuclear weapons.

The Iranian charge d'affaires, Hamid Reza Arefi, denied Iran intended to develop nuclear weapons.

US Prepared to Go it Alone over Iran

Euronews:

US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice has invoked self-defence as a potential justification for military intervention in Iran. Rice said the US had the authority to act alone or with a coalition if the dispute over Iran's nuclear programme could not be resolved within the context of the United Nations Security Council.

The UN Security Council has given Iran until the 28th of April to comply with its demands to stop enriching uranium. Iran has ignored the ultimatum, while China and Russia have both made clear they will use their power of veto against sanctions. However, a senior US official at the meeting said they are in the minority: "We heard last night, and again today, from individual countries, that all of those who spoke, and it was the great majority, are looking at sanctions", said senior White House official Nicholas Burns. READ MORE

Iran's programme of low-grade uranium enrichment has stoked western fears that the country plans to manufacture nuclear weapons. But the country has always insisted its research is peaceful and aimed at generating domestic energy.

The State Department’s Dead Parrot

Kenneth R. Timmerman, FrontPageMagazine.com:

In the Monty Python skit, a man brings a parrot back to the store where he purchased him half an hour earlier, complaining that the parrot is dead.

The shop owner insists it must be resting, but the man says he discovered that the only reason that parrot was sitting up at all was because it had been nailed to the perch in its cage.

Like the shop owner, the State Department is promoting a long-dead policy of supporting “moderates” in Tehran, under the guise of promoting “reform” and “change.”

Not only is State making a monumental mistake: it has fallen for one of the oldest tricks of Iran’s clerical elite.

Over the past three years, President Bush has accumulated a tremendous capital of goodwill with the Iranian people because of his outspoken support for their struggle for freedom.

The president has made clear in private meetings with Iranian exiles that his public statements were not mere rhetoric. He really meant it when he called Iran part of an “axis of evil” in his 2002 State of the Union speech.

He meant every word he uttered after the regime disqualified some 2,400 candidates for parliamentary elections in February 2004 and he said, “The United States supports the Iranian people’s aspiration to live in freedom, enjoy their God-given rights, and determine their own destiny.”

He meant it when he spoke to the Voice of America’s Persian service on August 17, 2004. “There is a significant diaspora here in the United States of Iranian-Americans who long for their homeland to be liberated and free. We’re working with them to send messages to their loved ones and their relatives…say[ing], ‘Listen, we hear your voice, we know you want to be free, and we stand with you in your desire to be free.’”

And he meant it again when he addressed the Iranian people during his State of the Union speech this year. “Our nation hopes one day to be the closest of friends with a free and democratic Iran.”

Somehow, that message hasn’t made it over to Foggy Bottom.

At the State Department, where Condoleeza Rice has admirably pledged to spend $85 million this year to support the pro-freedom movement in Iran, careerists have taken over the show and are steering her in the wrong direction.

Of that $85 million, nearly $50 million has been tentatively ear-marked to expand the Voice of America and the Persian service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Both radios need to improve the quality of their broadcasts and, especially, their political content, before they deserve another dime in taxpayer funding. But that is a story I will treat in depth in a future column.

The rest of the money is being spent on a variety of programs led by former Tehran regime officials, student leaders, and U.S. academics who believe the Tehran regime can be reformed, but does not need to be changed.

This is sweet music to the ears of Iran’s ruling mullahs and to Iran’s boy president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. READ MORE

They all want “reform.” After all, Ahmadinejad campaigned for president on a platform of “reform.” He was going to drive out corrupt mullahs, such as the “reformist” Rafsanjani, and reform Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

Mohsen Sazegara was one of the founders of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps. He fell out with the regime in the late 1980s, published a series of reformist newspapers, and was jailed for nearly two years.

He came to the United States last year at the invitation of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and with the blessing of the Department of State.

Sazegara’s break with the regime was sincere. But since coming to the United States, he has teamed up with “reformers” such as Akbar Atri, Ali Afshari, and Ramin Ahmadi of Yale University, who have gotten the lion’s share of the “pro-freedom” moneys from the State Department.

Instead of providing seed money to a home-grown pro-democracy movement, State Department has sponsored Atri to go on a tour of U.S. college campuses, and is now talking of providing him with a radio station to broadcast his message of “reform” into Iran. They have also thrown money at Ramin Ahmadi by the million – initially, to sponsor a data base of Iranian human rights abuses (something that a number of other groups had already pulled together privately over the past decades, on shoestring funding).

It was Ahmadi who sponsored the ill-fated “non-violent training workshops” in Dubai that backfired last year, sources familiar with the program told me.

The idea of training Iranian activists in the weapons of non-violent conflict is an excellent one. But as reported by the Washington Post, the problem with the Dubai workshops was the choice of people who were selected to attend.

They were reformers, not activists seeking to grow a pro-democracy movement.

They didn’t want to change the regime in Tehran; they wanted to make it stronger, just as Iran’s reformist clerics have sought to do. When they found out that the State Department – and not Yale University - was financing the workshops, they fled back to Tehran, where they denounced the United States publicly.

Roozbeh Farahanipour was one of the leaders of the student rebellion at Tehran University in July 1999. He remembers Ali Afshari well.

“When we tried to get students to take the demonstrations from the university to the streets of Tehran, Afshari came along behind us in a truck with a sound system, shouting at the crowd to not follow us because we were against the revolution,” Farahanipour recalls.

That is one of the tricks the regime likes to play. It periodically gives leash to “reformers” and allows them to publish newspapers and speak out against regime excesses, for as long as they don’t cross the red line and demand true freedom and a change of regime.

Several authentic, grass roots movements for change in Iran do exist. One is led by Farahanipour and is called Marzeporgohar, or Iranians for a Secular Republic.

Another is the Iran Nation’s Party (sometimes referred to as the Iran People’s Party in the West). It was led by Darioush Forouhar until he and his wife were brutally hacked to death by regime thugs in Tehran in November 1998. The current leader is Khosrow Seif.

Yet another authentic pro-democracy group worthy of U.S. funding is the Iran Referendum Movement. Prompted initially by Sazegara’s campaign that collected 35,000 signatures on the Internet in favor of an internationally-monitored referendum on the regime, the movement now has chapters in 35 cities worldwide who sent 250 delegates to a founding convention in Brussels, Belgium, this past December.

They elected a 15-member Central Committee, who in turn selected a 7-member Executive Board. Although they have extensive networks inside Iran, they can’t seem to get the eyes and ears of the State Department.

But because the Referendum Movement is calling for an end of the Islamic Republic, the groups being funded by the State Department have all refused to have anything to do with it. The State Department’s choices are reformers, not revolutionaries.

Sazegara himself told me last year that the reform movement was “dead.” And yet, the State Department, through lack of imagination or its atavistic tendency toward blind man’s bluff, refuses to recognize it.

Like Monty Python’s dead parrot, the State Department Iran “experts” have nailed the reform movement to the perch, and keep selling it again and again, pretending that it’s alive.

But no matter how they dress it up, it’s still a dead parrot.

Or, as the Monty Python character put it, “This parrot is no more!… 'E's kicked the bucket, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-PARROT!!”

Alas, not in Washington.

Defiant Iranian wears the US flag

Despite the endless propaganda of the Islamic Clerical regime of Iran, many in Iran love the USA.

Thursday's Daily Briefing on Iran

DoctorZin reports, 4.20.2006:

Regime desperate to spread fear with executions and arrests.

• SMCCDI reported that a mass execution at the infamous Evin jail located in North Tehran. 9 un-identified victims were executed in the facility in which tens of political activists are being held including several student activists. Several other executions are to take place, in the days ahead, to spread more fear among the population.
• Iran Press News reported that runaway girls and deserted women are being rounded up by the Islamic regime’s forces to unknown locations. Security forces had been warning them "leave the country or stay and die.”

Regime worried about the upcoming workers day celebration organizes its own.

• Iran Press News reported that the regime is organizing its own bogus international workers day ceremony in front of ex-U.S. embassy. Activists responded: "We women and men workers of Iran cannot be used by the Islamic regime for their propaganda."
  

The Moscow talks: no agreement.

• Iran Press News reported that Iran's deputy director of Majles, angry at Russia's invitation of the 5 member countries of the U.N. Security Council to a meeting in Moscow said: "Our people will never forget the cruelty and exploitation of the Russians."
• Rooz Online reported that the Moscow talks with the Perm-5 are making Tehran jittery.
• Radio Free Europe reported that one of Iran's largest pro-reform student groups called for "a temporary suspension of all nuclear activities" and that "there are other rights, like human rights, which have a higher priority."
• Yahoo News reported that envoys from the five permanent Security Council members plus Germany discussed sanctions in Moscow against Iran over its nuclear program, but failed to reach agreement. But Russian demanded "urgent and constructive steps" from Tehran.
• Reuters reported that UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said: "We are working on the basis that Iran will not meet the proposals from the Security Council on the 30-day deadline."
• Reuters reported that Russia said it wanted no action against Iran before an April 28 U.N. deadline set for it to halt uranium enrichment. But Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns added: "we are not going to agree to any pause by Iran."
• Xinhua reported that Russia will still implement the contract to supply 30 Tor-M1 air defense systems to Iran in full. Tor-M1 is an all-weather air defense system to ensure effective protection from cruise missiles, guided bombs, warplanes, helicopters, and pilot less and remotely controlled attack aircraft.

So Western Leaders talk tough, again.

• Forbes.com reported that French President Jacques Chirac said it was 'unacceptable' for Iran to have nuclear weapons, but he left the door open to resumed discussions with Tehran.
• Bloomberg reported that Tony Blair warned "At a point in time when the president of Iran is talking about wiping Israel off the face of the earth and when there are young people signing up to be suicide bombers, I do not think that this is the time to send a message of weakness."
• Yahoo News reported that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the United States would use political, economic and other measures to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
• NewsMax.com reported that Sen. Joseph Lieberman said he would back a U.S. airstrike on Iran's nuclear facilities if diplomatic options fail.
  

Ahmadinejad wants higher oil prices.

• Chron.com reported that Iran's president said: "The global oil price has not reached its real value yet."

Iran again threatens world oil supplies.

• World Tribune reported that IRGC Air Force commander Gen. Hosein Salami said: "Iran can block oil export whenever necessary."

Larijani's brother to head Iranian team in US/Iran talks?

• Rooz Online reported that a hard-line news agency claimed that Mohammad Javad Larijani has been nominated to lead Iran’s talks with the US. M.J. Larijani is the brother of the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council who has been leading the nuclear talks.

Tehran group seeks UK citizens as suicide bombers.

• The Guardian reported that a Tehran-based group is trying to recruit Iranians and other Muslims in Britain to carry out suicide bombings against Israel, because of the relative ease with which UK passport-holders can enter Israel.

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

• Iran Press News reported that Mansour Osanlou, director of the bus drivers union of greater Tehran, was transferred from solitary incarceration, after 4 months.
• Iran Press News reported that Iranian journalist Ejlal Ghavami will go on trial on April 22nd for insulting the leadership, taking action against national security, connection with various anti-regime fronts.
• Iran Press News reported that while Iran is spending million funding Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the latest statistics on poverty in Iran show poverty is increasing.
• Iran Press News reported that the regime's agents stormed a party arresting 37 young women and men.
  

Tags: iran, news, iraq, nuclear

Mass Execution At Evin Prison

SMCCDI (Information Service):

Reports are stating about a mass execution that took place, today, at the infamous Evin jail located in North Tehran.

9 un-identified victims were hanged in the facility in which tens of political activists are being held including several student activists.

Several other executions are to take place, in the days ahead, according to an intelligence plan to spread more fear among the population and especially among the exasperated Iranian youth. An increasing number of Islamic regime's agents, its supporters and their interests are becoming the nightly targets of underground groups having lost any hope for a peaceful change in Iran. READ MORE

Armed attacks, acts of sabotage and arson have been in sharp raise in most Iranian cities despite the very well known consequences if the authors are caught.

The Islamic regime murdered, in 1987, several thousands of inmates following a quasi defeat in the war against Iraq. Most political activists were liquidated following speedy trials in which the current Ministry of Interior, Poor Mohammadi, played a major role.

Iran: We 'can block oil exports whenever necessary'

World Tribune:

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps announced that the military controls much of the Persian Gulf and Sea of Oman.

"Iran can block oil export whenever necessary," IRGC Air Force commander Gen. Hosein Salami said. "This is a natural ability of our country." READ MORE

In a television interview on April 4, Salami said Iran controls 2,000 kilometers of the coast of the Persian Gulf and Sea of Oman. He said Teheran has developed a long-range missile capability that could be employed to protect Iranian interests in the region.

"Although the weapons we manufacture are long-range, they are not meant for the population or countries of the region, nor for any other country, unless it is a country that poses a threat to us," Salami said in remarks translated by the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute. "We believe that as Iran's deterrence capability in the region increases, the ability to make threats decreases. Since our weapons are for deterrent purposes, they prevent war."

The IRGC has also reported the production of long-range missiles to strike target regional rivals.

Iran has indicated that it would retaliate against any U.S. attack by disrupting oil shipments through the Straits of Hormuz. The straits, 54 kilometers wide, contains 80 percent of the global oil trade.

In an assertion disputed by Western analysts, Salami said Iran could easily block the Straits of Hormuz without advanced missiles. He cited the abilities of the IRGC navy and other military arms.

On April 6, Iran completed the Holy Prophet exercise, meant to test the military's control of the Gulf region. During the week-long exercise, Iran reported the development of several missiles and an amphibious aircraft.

"Iran controls over 2,000 kilometers of the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman," Salami said. "Even without this maneuver Iran has this ability."

Former Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani said Iran was no longer dependent on foreign suppliers for basic weapons. Shamkhani told Iranian television on March 21 that Iran could mass produce the Shihab-3 intermediate-range ballistic missile.

"Today, we have the capability to produce missiles like candy," Shamkhani said. "This capability is 100 times greater than we had even in the early days of the [Iran-Iraq] war ..."

Ahmadinejad: Oil Price Is Lower Than Value

Chron.com:

Wading into oil politics for the first time, Iran's hard-line president said Wednesday that crude oil prices _ now at record levels _ still are below their true value.

In statements likely to rattle world oil markets, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also said developed countries, not producing countries like Iran, are benefiting the most from the current high prices.

"The global oil price has not reached its real value yet. The products derived from crude oil are sold at prices dozens of times higher than those charged by oil-producing countries," state-run Tehran radio quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.

"The developed nations are the biggest beneficiary of the added value of oil products," he said.

The president, who is embroiled with the West and the United Nations over Tehran's nuclear program, stopped short of saying Iran would use oil as a weapon, a tactic much feared by his antagonists on the nuclear issue. Nor did he say what oil prices should be.

Oil prices leapt above $72 a barrel Wednesday, settling at a record high for the third straight day.

"The products derived from crude oil cost over 10 times the price of oil sold by producing states. Developed and powerful countries benefit more from its value-added than any party," Ahmadinejad said.

Oil prices should be determined on the basis of market supply and demand, the Iranian leader said.

"Oil is the major asset of nations possessing it. Its price should not be lowered on the pretext that it will prove harmful to developing states, thus permitting the world powers to benefit the most from it," he said.

George Orwel, an analyst at the New York-based Petroleum Intelligence Weekly said he thought Ahmadinejad was playing the oil card to resist pressure over Iran's nuclear program.

"They are using the oil as a political football. Every time there's an issue with Iran, the oil market freaks out," he said in a telephone interview.

Earlier this week, as oil prices pushed above $70 a barrel, ABN Amro broker Lee Fader said the trigger was heightened fear about U.S. military action against Iran, which has said it would go ahead with plans to enrich uranium in defiance of the United States, Europe and the U.N. nuclear agency.

Iran says its nuclear ambitions are peaceful, but the West fears it is intent on arming itself with nuclear weapons.

If the United States were to attack Iran, Tehran might try to cripple the world economy by putting a stranglehold on the oil that moves through the Strait of Hormuz _ a narrow, strategically important waterway running to Iran's south.

While discounting Ahmadinejad's seriousness in his Wednesday comments about the value of oil, Orwel conceded the oil industry could not do without the 2.5 million barrels that Iran exports daily.

"Ahmadinejad is trying to show his muscle so that the Bush administration can realize the consequences on the oil market of further confrontation with Iran," Orwel said, adding that he fully expected Iran to threaten to cut off oil if the confrontation with the West continued.

While Ahmadinejad did not say he would use oil as a weapon in his dispute with the West, Interior Minister Mostafa Pourmohammadi said last month the oil card was in play.

"If (they) politicize our nuclear case, we will use any means. We are rich in energy resources. We have control over the biggest and the most sensitive energy route of the world," he said, referring to the Straits of Hormuz.

In keeping with Iranian leaders' tendency of late to contradict themselves, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki later denied Iran would adopt such a policy. READ MORE

Iran is the world's fourth-largest oil-producing country and the second in OPEC.

Ahmadinejad urged oil-producing countries _ within and outside the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries _ to establish a fund to help alleviate the pressure resulting from high oil prices on Third World nations.

Oppenheimer & Co. oil analyst Fadel Gheit said he considered it unlikely that Iran had any intention of cutting off its oil, the lifeline of its economy.

Gheit noted, however, that there was some truth in Ahmadinejad's comment on developed countries benefiting most from increased oil prices, though the statement would likely be seen as an attempt at "fanning the flames" of a red-hot oil market.

"What he's saying makes a lot of sense. Unfortunately, the source of the comment is going to send jitters in the market," Gheit said.

"The street value (of oil) is triple what OPEC is making," Gheit added, referring to the value of a barrel of gasoline versus the value of a barrel of oil.

Gheit estimated that in London, where the retail price of gasoline is about $6 a gallon, about $150 worth of gasoline can be made and sold from every $50 barrel of oil.

"That is why Exxon Mobil and all the rest make so much money," he said.

Russia to sell air defense systems to Iran

Xinhua:

Russia will implement the contract to supply Tor-M1 air defense systems to Iran in full, Chief of General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces and First Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Baluyevsky said here on Wednesday.

Baluyevsky made the statement after his talks with James Johns, Supreme Commander of the United States and NATO forces in Europe.

"I'm sure this equipment is not strategic, but it is obvious that it will be delivered in accordance with Russia's international commitments in the nonproliferation sphere and under control by the appropriate bodies. I'm simply sure of it," Baluyevsky was quoted by the Itar-Tass news agency as saying.

Up to 30 Tor-M1 complexes are planned to be supplied to Tehran which will defend the key state and military facilities, foremost nuclear facilities in Isfahan, Bushehr, Tehran and in the east of the country.

The contract, worth 1.4 billion U.S. dollars, is the biggest arms deal Iran and Russia has ever concluded.

Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov officially confirmed the fact of concluding the contract on December 5, 2005.

Ivanov noted that the contract "is implemented in strictest conformity with the Russian legislation and Russia's international commitments."

Tor-M1 is an all-weather air defense system intended for fulfilling air defense tasks at the battalion unit level. It ensures effective protection from cruise missiles, guided bombs, warplanes, helicopters, and pilotless and remotely controlled attack aircraft. READ MORE

Rice: US Will Use Varied Means to Stop Iran

Yahoo News:

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Wednesday the United States would use political, economic and other measures to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. Speaking to the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, Rice said the international community agreed Iran could not have a nuclear weapon and was mobilized to respond.

On Tuesday, President George W. Bush refused to rule out nuclear strikes against Iran if diplomacy failed to curb the Islamic Republic's nuclear ambitions.

"In order to turn the Iranians back from what has been behavior that is contrary to all the wishes of the international community, we are prepared to use measures at our disposal -- political, economic, others, to dissuade Iran," Rice said in reply to a question on Iran.

When asked what the threshold would be for military action against Iran, Rice reiterated that political and economic pressure should run its course. However she stressed the president's view that all options remained on the table.

Officials from Britain, France, Germany, the United States, Russia and China have been meeting in Moscow, so far without agreement, trying to find a united approach on Iran, which announced last week it had begun to enrich uranium.

The United States and its European allies say Tehran could divert highly enriched uranium to make bombs while Iran says the program is for civilian use to meet growing energy needs.

"The issue here is to mobilize the international community, to unify the international community around the view that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. That is agreed," Rice said.

She said the United States had a number of "diplomatic tools at our disposal to persuade the Iranians that they really need to come back to negotiations." She did not elaborate. READ MORE

Oil prices hit a new high above , partly driven by fears the dispute could disrupt shipments from the world's fourth-largest oil exporter.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman: I'd Support Iran Attack

Carl Limbacher, NewsMax.com:

Sen. Joseph Lieberman said Tuesday that he would back a U.S. airstrike on Iran's nuclear facilities if diplomatic options fail, becoming the first Democrat to announce his support for such a move.

"I think the only justifiable use of military power would be an attempt to deter the development of their nuclear program if we felt there was no other way to do it," the former vice presidential candidate tells the Jerusalem Post.

Lieberman said he uses the word "deter" because it's doubtful that even an extensive air assault could eliminate all of Iran's nuclear facilities, many of which are buried underground.

The goal of such an attack, he explained, would be to "delay" Iran's nuclear program, hoping that "by the time they catch up back to where they were, there's been a change in the government. That's the limited objective that I would see."

The use of military force against Iran was "probably the last choice," Lieberman said, before adding: "But it has to be there." READ MORE

The Connecticut Democrat compared the rhetoric coming from Iranian President Mamoud Ahmadinejad, who threatened just last week to "annihilate" Israel, to declarations from both Osama bin Laden and Adolf Hitler, noting:

"Sometimes when people say really extreme things, which at some level a lot of people don't want to even believe . . . they may actually mean it. They may intend to do it. So I do think that the statements of Ahmadinejad are taken very seriously, both with regard to [speaking of a world without] the US and with regard to Israel."

Lieberman told the Post that any U.S. strike against Iran would not involve ground troops, explaining: "I don't think anyone is thinking of this as a massive ground invasion, as in Iraq, to topple the government."

U.S. Says "New urgency" to Curb Iran

Christian Lowe, Reuters:

Russia said on Wednesday it wanted no action against Iran before an April 28 U.N. deadline set for it to halt uranium enrichment, but a top U.S. official said other countries were inching toward sanctions.

Tensions remained high, with oil prices hitting a high above $73, partly driven by fears the dispute could disrupt shipments from the world's fourth-largest oil exporter.

"What I heard in the room last night was not agreement on the specifics but to the general notion that Iran has to feel isolation and that there is a cost to what they are doing," UnderSecretary of State Nicholas Burns told reporters.

"Now we need to go beyond that and agree on the specifics of what measures we need to put that into operation," he said.

He said Iran's shock announcement last week that it had enriched uranium to a low level and planned to produce it on an industrial scale had focused the minds of the international community.

The United States and its European allies say Tehran could divert highly enriched uranium to make bombs.

"What is new is a greater sense of urgency given what the Iranians did last week ... Nearly every country is considering some sort of sanctions and that is a new development. We heard last night and again today that all of those that spoke are looking at sanctions," Burns said.

In a surprise development, an Iranian delegation appeared later in the day in Moscow for talks with officials from the so-called EU3 -- Britain, France and Germany -- although a spokesman for the British Embassy in Moscow said there were no major breakthroughs.

"The Iranians set out their position and we listened carefully but there were no significant breakthroughs," the embassy spokesman said.

The U.N. Security Council on March 29 gave Iran a month to halt enrichment and answer questions from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on its nuclear program.

VETO POWER

Russia and China, which both have veto power in the council, say they are not convinced sanctions would work. U.S. officials had hoped to use the talks to persuade them to take a tougher line on Iran, which it suspects of seeking nuclear weapons.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said some countries, including Russia, wanted to wait until the U.N. nuclear watchdog reports on Iranian compliance on April 28 before acting.

"We are convinced of the need to wait for the IAEA report due at the end of the month," Lavrov told reporters.

An Iranian delegation headed to Moscow for talks on the dispute, Foreign Minister Manoucher Mottaki told state radio.

He said officials from the Foreign Ministry and the Supreme National Security Council would "discuss possible solutions which could pave the way to reach a comprehensive understanding based on a recognition of Iran's right to nuclear technology".

Iran says it only wants nuclear power for civilian use, but Russia said Tehran was not responding to international demands.

One diplomat from a country that opposes Iran's nuclear ambitions, said Iran could suggest a "pause".

"This is to prepare the ground for renewing negotiations with the Europeans," the diplomat, said about the proposal. It was unclear how long the pause would be.

A senior EU3 diplomat said the Iranians were welcome to present such an initiative and halt their enrichment research work. But it would have to be more than a brief technical pause in order for the Europeans to revive negotiations with Tehran.

Burns said Washington was opposed to allowing Iran any kind of pause, calling some of Iran's negotiating positions "a ruse".

"One of the core points that I made, supported by a great number of people in the room is, we are not going to agree to any pause by Iran," Burns said. READ MORE

"All of us made that point, that we are not going to fall for the ruse of a temporary pause, knowing that the Iranians, President Ahmadinejad said, they will not be stopped on their route to enrichment."

Tuesday's meeting of deputy foreign ministers from Russia, China, the United States, Germany, France and Britain underlined international differences over punitive action against Iran.

All the powers have said they are determined to solve the problem through diplomatic means, but the United States is alone among them in not ruling out military action.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said Tuesday's meeting had been "totally fruitless".

President Bush planning to raise the issue with his visiting Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao.

(Additional reporting by Simon Webb and Madeline Chambers in London, Anna Willard in Paris, Louis Charbonneau in Berlin, Meg Clothier in Moscow and Edmund Blair in Tehran)

Blair Cautions Against `Message of Weakness' to Iran

Mark Deen, Bloomberg:

British Prime Minister Tony Blair warned against sending a ``message of weakness'' to Iran and backed President George W. Bush's vow to keep military options open to prevent the country from acquiring nuclear weapons. Blair spoke in Parliament today after Labour Party lawmaker Michael Meacher asked him for an ``absolute assurance'' that the U.K. wouldn't support military action against Iran.

``At a point in time when the president of Iran is talking about wiping Israel off the face of the earth and when there are young people signing up to be suicide bombers, I do not think that this is the time to send a message of weakness,'' Blair said. READ MORE

The United Nations Security Council demanded the suspension of Iran's program by the end of this month as the UN's nuclear agency checks Iranian claims that it produced a supply of enriched uranium sufficient to fuel a reactor. The U.S. considers the program a front for the development of nuclear weapons. Iran, the world's second-largest holder of oil and gas, maintains the program is for electricity generation.

The UN's International Atomic Energy Agency on March 8 referred the case to the Security Council after it conducted three years of inspections and failed to conclude that Iran's atomic work is peaceful. The agency had condemned Iran as early as November 2003 for concealing parts of its nuclear program for almost two decades.

Iranian Delegation

Iran sent a team of deputies from the Foreign Ministry and National Security Council to Moscow today, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told state-run Fars News agency. The delegation will hold talks with the five permanent member countries of the Security Council -- U.S., the U.K., France, Russia and China -- as well as Germany, he said.

While Blair repeated previous British government comments that suggested no attack is imminent, he emphasized the need to be firm against the Iranian government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called for the destruction of Israel.

``Let's be quite clear on what is happening: they're in breach of their international obligations,'' Blair said. ``This is the moment for the world to send a clear and united message to the Iranian regime that they have to desist from that.''

Ahmadinejad, who last week announced Iran's enrichment of uranium, said his country's forces will use ``the latest technology'' against enemies and ``cut off the hand of any aggressor.''

The New Yorker Magazine this month carried a report suggesting the U.S. is preparing to use air strikes and tactical nuclear weapons to destroy Iran's suspected atomic weapons program.

`Wild Speculation'

Bush said on April 10 that such reports amounted to ``wild speculation,'' though he has repeatedly refused to rule out any options.

``The president of the United States is not going to take any option off the table,'' Blair said today. ``We are actively pursuing a diplomatic solution.''

Britain is the second-biggest contributor of troops to coalition forces in Iraq behind the U.S. Blair supported the U.S.- led invasion in 2003 in the face of opposition from some lawmakers and polls showing the British public didn't favor war.

To contact the reporter on this story: Mark Deen in London at markdeen@bloomberg.net.

Straw: Iran Unlikely to Meet UN Demands

Andrew Hammond, Reuters:

Britain does not expect Iran to comply with U.N. demands to halt uranium enrichment by the end of April, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said on Wednesday.

Speaking in the Saudi capital Riyadh, where the government shares Western concerns about a nuclear Iran, he also said that the Middle East could be plunged into a nuclear arms race if Iran develops an atomic bomb.

The U.N. Security Council has asked the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to report by April 28 on Iran's compliance with a council demand that it stop enriching uranium and answer the agency's questions on its nuclear program.

"We are working on the basis that Iran will not meet the proposals from the Security Council on the 30-day deadline," Straw told BBC Radio Four in an interview from Saudi Arabia. READ MORE

He declined to say later to reporters what action he thought the Security Council might then take.

Last week Iran declared it had enriched uranium to a level used in power stations. The Islamic Republic says it only wants nuclear technology to produce electricity, not atom bombs as the West suspects.

REGIONAL ARMS RACE

Straw, who is taking part in a conference on Saudi-British ties, also said a regional arms race was at the heart of his concerns about Iran's nuclear energy program.

"Iran, which has no natural allies in the region ... is likely to provoke a nuclear arms race across the region," he told reporters during the 24-hour visit.

Israel is widely suspected of possessing nuclear weapons, and Iraq suffered over a decade of United Nations sanctions and a U.S.-led invasion in 2003 in part over concerns that it was developing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

Straw said Saudi officials had expressed concerns during his visit about potential U.S. military action against Iran. But he added: "They regard it as pretty hypothetical and so do I."

Saudi Arabia has had uneasy relations with non-Arab Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in the Shi'ite Muslim country. Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia has accused Tehran of massive political interference in Shi'ite-dominated Iraq.

Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said he hoped he would not have to choose one day between a nuclear-empowered Iran and U.S.-instigated war against Iran.

"I hate that choice, I'd choose neither. We are hoping and not without reason that this issue can be solved with discussion," he told the Saudi-British conference.

"Iran is a great and old civilization with huge responsibilities to the stability of the region."

(Additional reporting by Madeleine Chambers in London)

U.S. Envoy: Iran Sanctions Discussed

Henry Meyer, Yahoo News:

A U.S. diplomat said Tuesday that envoys from the five permanent Security Council members plus Germany discussed sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, but failed to reach agreement on how to proceed further.

On Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called on Iran to halt all uranium enrichment activities, saying the international community is demanding "urgent and constructive steps" from Tehran to ease concerns about its nuclear program, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

Meanwhile, U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns told The Associated Press following nearly three hours of talks that diplomats recognized the "need for a stiff response to Iran's flagrant violations of its international responsibilities." READ MORE

President Bush said "all options are on the table" to prevent Iran from developing atomic weapons but that he will continue to focus on diplomacy.

Burns, speaking in Moscow, said sanctions had been discussed during the meeting hosted by Russia but indicated that further talks would be needed.

"Iran's actions last week have deepened concern in the international community and all of us agreed that the actions last week were fundamentally negative and a step backward," he told AP. "So now the task for us is to agree on a way forward."

He was referring to the announcement last week by Iran's hard-line president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, that the country had successfully enriched uranium for the first time.

Burns gave no specifics as to the type or timing of sanctions and he refused to say whether Russia had softened its opposition to sanctions against Iran. But he reiterated that the United States expected action in the Security Council after an April 28 deadline for Iran to stop uranium enrichment.

Ahmadinejad remained defiant, warning Tuesday that Iran will "cut off the hand of any aggressor" that threatens it and insisting that its military has to be equipped with the most modern technology.

"The land of Iran has created a powerful army that can powerfully defend the political borders," he told a parade commemorating Iran's Army Day.

The United States and some of its allies suspect Iran's nuclear program is meant to produce weapons, but Tehran insists the program is for peaceful purposes.

Ahmadinejad further complicated the debate last week by claiming his country is testing an advanced P-2 centrifuge, which could be used to more speedily create fuel for power plants or atomic weapons.

Some analysts familiar with the country's technology said he could be exaggerating Iran's capabilities, either to boost his own political support or to persuade the International Atomic Energy Agency to back off.

In Vienna, Austria, diplomats accredited to or associated with the U.N. nuclear watchdog said the claim about the centrifuges was not a surprise.

The diplomats, who demanded anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the confidential Iran file, said past IAEA reports on Iran documented evidence of purchases of components for the centrifuges. But the diplomats noted that Ahmadinejad's comments appeared at odds with Tehran's assertions that no such work had been conducted for years.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called his Iranian counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki on Monday to urge Tehran to quickly answer questions related to its nuclear bid and halt uranium enrichment, the ministry said Tuesday.

Earlier Tuesday in Washington, Bush also said there should be a unified effort involving countries "who recognize the danger of Iran having a nuclear weapon."

Before the meeting in Moscow, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin reaffirmed Russia's insistence on more diplomatic efforts. "We are convinced that neither sanctions nor the use of force will lead to the solution of the problem," he said in televised comments.

Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Cui Tianka, China's top nonproliferation official, who also attended Tuesday's meeting in Moscow, has appealed to Iranian leaders to reach a negotiated settlement, the Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.

Russia and China, which have strong economic ties to Iran, have opposed punitive measures. Bush said he intends to ask Chinese President Hu Jintao to pressure Iran when the two leaders meet Thursday at the White House.

Britain also urged a peaceful solution to the crisis. "We hope that we'll get behind a diplomatic avenue, a system of increasing but reversible pressure which Iran will listen to," said Julian Reilly of the British Embassy in Moscow.

Associated Press writers Ali Akbar Dareini in Tehran, Iran, Jennifer Loven in Washington and George Jahn in Vienna, Austria, contributed to this story.

Chirac Says Iran with Atomic Weapons is 'Unacceptable'

Forbes.com:

French President Jacques Chirac told Egyptian daily Al-Ahram that it was 'unacceptable' for Iran to have nuclear weapons, but he left the door open to resumed discussions with Tehran.

The Iranian leaders 'must understand that, for the international community, the prospect of a militarily nuclearized Iran is unacceptable,' Chirac said in an interview published as he was due to arrive on a two-day visit set to be dominated by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and rising tensions over Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Student Group Calls For Suspension Of Nuclear Activities

Golnaz Esfandiari, Radio Free Europe:

Iran's largest pro-reform student group, the Office To Foster Unity (Daftare Tahkim Vahdat), has expressed concern over Iran's political behavior in the crisis over its nuclear program and is calling for "a temporary suspension of all nuclear activities." The student group says in its statement that the tough line of Iranian officials in its nuclear dealings has put the country and the Iranian nation in a dangerous position.

Last week's announcement by Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad that Iran has successfully enriched uranium has been met with mixed reactions among Iranian students.

They range from feelings of pride and enthusiasm to skepticism and concern.

Celebrating Yellowcake

Following the announcement on April 11, several conservative and the pro-revolutionary Basiji student groups issued statements describing the move as a breakthrough.

On April 16, students at one of Tehran's prominent science and engineering universities distributed pieces of a big yellow cake -- symbolic of uranium yellowcake -- as a way to celebrate the achievement by Iranian scientists.

Others, however, including members of Iran's largest reformist student group, the Office To Foster Unity (DTV), are questioning the wisdom of Iran's latest nuclear move.

The DTV's central committee says in a statement that the Iranian establishment is insisting on "the honor of having achieved the nuclear fuel cycle and the continuation of nuclear activities" at a time when the country is at one of its most critical periods.

The groups warns that Tehran's latest nuclear step could aggravate the sensitivities of the international community over its nuclear program and threaten Iran's national interests.

Not All Approve

Saber Sheykhlou is the spokesman of the DTV's central committee. He says, "The irrational and confrontational behavior of those who are in power has put the country and the nation on the threshold of a war or devastating sanctions; the referral of Iran's nuclear case to the UN Security Council was the result of Iran's biggest foreign-policy mistake."

Other members of the group who did not endorse the statement also remain critical of Iran's policies regarding the nuclear crisis.

Amir Pakzad, the spokesman of the DTV's Roshangari faction, also believes that Iran's tough line has put the country in a difficult position.

"When it comes to the nuclear issue which is tied to Iran's national interests, then Iran's main reformist student group will continue to have a critical view in order to try to prevent a situation that could become [even more] critical," he said. "We believe that by getting angry and stepping out of the framework of moderation we hand the initiative to the opponent."

Pakzad thinks Iran should cooperate with "international organizations" over its nuclear program and seek a diplomatic solution to the current crisis.

In its statement, the DTV called on Iranian officials to immediately suspend all nuclear activities and to take steps to build trust in the international community.

Mistaken Priorities?

Sheykhlou says Iran should improve its human-rights record. "We believe that the use of nuclear technology for national progress and development is the indisputable right of the Iranian nation but, besides it, there are other rights, like human rights, which have a higher priority," he said.

"While the country is facing serious problems -- including a lack of democracy, human rights violations, the country's economy moving toward a crisis situation, and the society suffering from poverty -- the spending of billions of dollars for nuclear purposes is contrary to Iran's national interests." READ MORE

The DTV wrote in its statement that the nuclear issue, "in the absence of civil society activists, the press, political parties, and groups," and in a situation where heavy censorship prevails, the government makes decisions without consulting the people.

The statement comes at a time when Iranian officials have ruled out any retreat on the nuclear issue and said that Iran is committed to pursue its nuclear activities.

President Ahmadinejad said today that any aggressor would regret attacking the Islamic Republic.

Recent U.S. press reports suggest that Washington is making plans for a strike against some of Iran's nuclear facilities.

The United States has said it wants the nuclear standoff to be solved diplomatically, but U.S. President George W. Bush has not ruled out military action.

The United States accuses Iran of pursuing nuclear weapons, but Tehran has said repeatedly that its nuclear program is peaceful.

(Radio Farda broadcaster Shirin Famili contributed to this report.)

Iranian Group Seeks British Suicide Bombers

Robert Tait and Ewen MacAskill, The Guardian:

Relations between the west and the hardline Iranian regime are set to worsen after a Tehran-based group claimed yesterday it was trying to recruit Iranians and other Muslims in Britain to carry out suicide bombings against Israel.

The Committee for the Commemoration of Martyrs of the Global Islamic Campaign, which claims to be independent but has the backing of the regime, said it is targeting potential recruits in Britain because of the relative ease with which UK passport-holders can enter Israel.

The claim came hours after nine people were killed by a suicide bomber in Tel Aviv, and days after a prediction by the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, that Israel would be blown away in a "storm". President George Bush refused to rule out a limited nuclear strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. READ MORE

Mohammad Samadi, a spokesman for the group, told the Guardian that striking at Israel was the priority of his recruitment drive. "The first target is Israel. For us, that is the battlefield," he said. "All the Jews are targets, whether military or civilian. It's our land and they are in the wrong place. It's their duty to pay attention to safety of their own families and move them away from the battlefield," he said.

Mr Samadi's group was participating in a recruitment fair for "martyrdom seekers" being held in the grounds of the former US embassy in Tehran. Several hundred volunteers have signed up for missions in the past few days.

Volunteers attracted to his group were asked to complete forms specifying whether they prefer to carry out operations against "the Quds occupiers" [Israel], the British author Salman Rushdie - subject of a death sentence passed by Iran's late spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, over The Satanic Verses - or "the occupiers of Islamic lands", the US and Britain.

Mr Samadi was standing at an exhibition stall festooned with portraits of Palestinian suicide bombers, including pictures of the aftermaths of attacks. It also featured a tribute to Rachel Corrie, the American peace activist killed by an Israeli army bulldozer in Gaza three years ago. A banner outside the fair read: "There is no voice higher than intifada." Nearby stood a mock model of the Statue of Liberty, with iron bars cut into the torso to symbolise a prison cell.

The British embassy has called on the Iranian government to renounce support for the group. A Foreign Office spokesman said: "We have longstanding concerns at the support that Iran provides to groups undermining peace in the Middle East through violence, including the activities of this group."

But western diplomats played down the significance of the group's threat, saying it was primarily a campaign to gather signatures of protest against Israel rather than recruiting bombers. But the group's pronouncements add to the list of western indictments against Iran since the election last year of Mr Ahmadinejad, who has called for Israel to be wiped off the face of the Earth.

While the committee claims to be independent it has previously been linked with the Revolutionary Guards. It claims it has gathered 52,000 recruits - of whom 30% are women - since forming two years ago. According to the group, recruits are instructed in target planning and military discipline before progressing to intensive urban guerrilla warfare training, involving the use of bomb belts.

When asked how Iranian volunteers would get into Israel, Mr Samadi cited the precedent of Asif Mohammed Hanif and Omar Sharif, two British Muslims who attacked a bar in Tel Aviv, killing three Israelis, in 2003 after entering Israel as tourists and then posing as peace activists. Hanif blew himself up at the scene while Sharif fled, but was found drowned in the Mediterranean.

"That shows that it has not been difficult getting into Israel," he said. "Do you think getting hold of a British passport for an Iranian citizen is hard? Tens of passports are issued for Iranian asylum seekers in Britain every day. There are hundreds of other ways available to us, such as illegal entry [into Britain], fake passports, etc.

"Britain and other European countries have a lot of disaffected Muslims who are ready. We understand the suspicion with which Britain, America and other western countries regard their Muslim populations. We don't condemn them for this because we believe every Muslim has the potential to turn into a bomb against the west."

Mr Samadi said recruits would not be told to attack British cities. "With the exception of Israel, we do not target civilians," he said. "They would definitely not be sent to carry out an attack on London unless it was to kill Salman Rushdie."

Israeli security analysts said there is no evidence that the group has been directly linked to suicide bombings or other attacks in Israel.

Israel's ambassador to the UN, Dan Gillerman, in a security council debate about Monday's Tel Aviv bombing, called Iranian threats against Israel a "declaration of war".

M.J. Larijani to Lead Talks With US?

Asma Hosseini, Rooz Online:

While the government in Iran beats the war drum and promises the destruction of the United States to the public, a news agency belonging to right-wing politicians in Iran has reported that Mohammad Javad Larijani has been nominated to lead Iran’s talks with the US. According to Farda news agency, M.J.Larijani who is the brother of the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council who has been leading the nuclear talks between Iran and the international community (Europeans and the IAEA) since president Ahmadinejad’s hardline government took office last June, has been tipped as the person to lead Iran’s talks with the US regarding Iraq. In the past other names had been mentioned and they included Vaeedi and Hosseini-Tash. M.J.Larijani was a member of Iran’s recent delegations to China and has remained close to the foreign policy apparatus of the Islamic regime for years. There are signs that president Ahmadinejad favors Larijani for this position and that he was the special presidential envoy on the China trip is support for the president’s choice. READ MORE

Talks between Iran and the US over Iraq were initially scheduled to begin on April 7th but were postponed without being rescheduled. The postponement has been said to contribute to the current tension between the two governments.

The announcement of Larijani’s name at a time when the two countries are engaged in a verbal war against each other, also comes at a time when there is a difference of opinion among Iranian leaders on how to deal with the US and the pressures of the international community over the country’s nuclear programs. Right-wing neocons who ascended to power in Iran last June have increased their attacks on former president Mohammad Khatami who pursued a more moderate foreign policy aimed at diffusing regional and international tensions. With the desire of the hardliners to hold talks with the US, it is now widely believed that the hardliners were never against talks with the US per se, and what they really were against was that moderates reach a rapprochement with the US and thus steal the show from them.

Naming Larijani to be the qualified candidate to head Iran’s team in talks with the US is just another event in the direction of the desire of the hardliners to make a historic deal with the US since the two countries have not had real direct talks over bilateral issues. It should be noted that Larijani has four other brothers all of whom have been among influential insiders in the Islamic regime since its founding in 1979. They have held or continue to hold important powerful posts in different official agencies such as the National Security Council or the Guardians Council. Mohammad Javad Larijani is currently the deputy of the judiciary branch of government for international affairs. Previously during Khatami’s administration he was tipped to have held secret talks with the British, while remaining in the background for most of the years since. He is also considered to be the architect of “looking to the East”, which means Russia, at the time when the Europeans were increasing their demands on Iran over the nuclear enrichment issue. Then, he even talked of ignoring the Europeans altogether and holding direct talks with the US, something that others could not have expressed even in private circles. Nine years during the presidential elections that brought Mohammad Khatami to power, Larijani was announced to be the foreign minister candidate for Nategh Nouri’s presidency. He has repeatedly talked of the necessity of having direct talks with the US to resolve Iran’s international problems. He has said that the US and Iran have many common interests and goals and that even though the US may be an enemy, “we could still have talks with them over our common interests”.

Moscow Talks Make Tehran Jittery

Hamid Ahadi, Rooz Online:

Less than ten days are left for the UN Security Council’s deadline for Iran to stop its enrichment activities. This week there will be a meeting in Moscow with senior diplomats from the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany to discuss the latest developments in the standoff between Iran and the international community over its nuclear programs. And in this atmosphere, the government Tehran too announced its readiness for more talks on the issue. The old guards of the Islamic regime announced their concerns about a possible military confrontation. READ MORE

The head of Iran’s influential State Expediency Council that arbitrates critical differences between the parliament and the government Hashemi Rafsanjani did not rule out a military clash with the US, but warned that such an outcome would not be in the interest of America either, he said while on a trip to Saudi Arabia. He made it clear that Iran too would not benefit from such a development and that many in the region would be engulfed in it. At the same time he welcomed almost unconditional talks with the US or others on the subject.

This is a change even for Mr. Rafsanjani who had earlier said that talks with the US should not include Iran’s nuclear issue and that Iran did not wish to talk to the US about the subject.