Iran, Iraq … tough, tougher: Bush; No exit seen

Arab Times

22nd Mar 2006

http://www.arabtimesonline.com/arabtimes/world/Viewdet.asp?ID=7388&cat=a

Iran's Supreme Leader Favors Talks with USA on Iraq

March 22, 2006
The Associated Press
USA Today

link to original article

TEHRAN -- Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Tuesday that he approves of proposed talks between U.S. and Iranian officials on Iraq, but warned that the United States must not try to "bully" Iran.

It was the first confirmation that Khamenei, who holds final say on all state matters in Iran, supports the talks. His comments appeared aimed at calming criticism by hard-liners over a major shift in policy by the regime, which long shunned high-level contacts with a country Tehran brands "the Great Satan."

President Bush said Tuesday he favors the talks and that American officials would show Iran "what's right or wrong in their activities inside of Iraq."

Khamenei said that "if the Iranian officials can make the U.S. understand some issues about Iraq, there is no problem with the negotiations."

"But if the talks mean opening a venue for bullying and imposition by the deceitful party (the Americans), then it will be forbidden," he said in a nationally televised speech in the holy Shiite city of Mashhad in northeastern Iran.

Both the United States and Iran have said the talks will focus solely on stabilizing Iraq and not deal with the heated issue of Iran's nuclear program. No time or place has yet been set for talks.

Khamenei appeared to be weighing in to end hard-line criticism, while insisting Iran would not bow to the United States in any talks. He said some U.S. officials had depicted the talks as if the United States were "summoning Iranian officials."

"I say here that the U.S. government has no right to summon Iranian officials," Khamenei said.

Khamenei is considered the leader of hard-liners in Iran who largely prevented reformists from opening greater contacts with the United States. Still, under his rule, Iran has held lower-level talks with American officials, particularly in multilateral gatherings for efforts to stabilize Afghanistan and counter narcotics, for instance.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Friday that the talks could help Iraq form a government, while Ali Larijani, the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, said Iran hopes the meetings will help lead to U.S. troop withdrawal.

Iran has considerable influence with Shiite political parties who dominate Iraq's parliament, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said U.S.-Iranian talks on Iraq could be "useful."

In Tuesday's speech, Khamenei also dismissed the threat of U.N. Security Council action over Iran's nuclear program.

"They threatened us with the Security Council as if the council is the end of the world," Khamenei said, adding that Iran will pursue its nuclear program and will achieve it with all its "heart and soul."

Khamenei made the comments as the U.N. Security Council postponed a meeting Tuesday on Iran's suspect nuclear program, searching for new ways to break a deadlock with Russia and China over the best way to pressure Tehran, diplomats said.

The United States accuses Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons; Iran says its program aims only to generate electricity and has insisted it has a right to carry out uranium enrichment, a key process that can develop either fuel for a reactor or material for a nuclear warhead.

The decision to postpone the meeting came after senior diplomats from the five veto-wielding members of the council and Germany made little headway on bridging their differences during a 4{-hour meeting Monday evening. Diplomats said Russia was the main holdout, with China following behind.

That deadlock has forced Britain, France and Germany — the European troika leading negotiations on Iran — to reopen the text of a statement that would be the first Security Council response. Diplomats will focus on bilateral talks to try to find an agreement, they said Tuesday.

"We'll just keep working on it," U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said.

The United States and its European allies want a statement reiterating demands by the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, that Iran suspend uranium enrichment, the process that can be used to generate nuclear power or make nuclear weapons.

Diplomats said the Russians and Chinese have not budged from their opposition to tough language including a demand for a report in 14 days on Iran's compliance with the IAEA demands. Moscow and Beijing have said that is not enough time, with China suggesting 30 to 45 days.

Why We Must Stop the Mullahs

March 21, 2006
The Age
Colin Rubenstein

link to original article

United States senator and former presidential candidate John McCain said recently: "There is only one thing worse than the US exercising a military option (against Iran), and that is a nuclear-armed Iran."

McCain is quite correct. A military attack on Iranian nuclear installations could have some very bad consequences — in terms of international terror, oil prices and hopes to reform the corrupt and undemocratic regimes of the Middle East. But allowing Iran to defy the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which it signed, and build nuclear weapons would be catastrophic.

Some commentators are now trying to argue that a nuclear Iran, if not desirable, is not such a big deal, and we should just learn to accept it. They argue that, like any other state, Iran can be deterred from using any such capability, and anyway, other regional players, such as India and Pakistan, have been allowed to develop nuclear weapons.

There are several reasons to reject these arguments. For starters, it is not at all clear that deterrence will work with Iran. The regime is run by mullahs who are motivated primarily by an extremist religious world view. And Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has shown signs that he believes it is his destiny to bring about a final battle between his version of Islam and the West, which will usher in the messianic era. Moreover, Ahmadinejad has called for Israel to be destroyed and denied the Holocaust, views that Iranian Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has also echoed. Ahmadinejad has suggested that a nuclear exchange with Israel would be worth it, even if millions died, provided it wiped out the Jewish state.

There is good reason to accept the US State Department view that Iran remains the world's number one sponsor of terrorism. The regime is harbouring al-Qaeda elements, it promotes Hezbollah's global terror network, it foments violence in Iraq, and it pulls the strings of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the primary perpetrator of suicide bombings in Israel over the past year. If Iran had nuclear weapons, the regime could conceivably give them to terrorists to use, believing they could not be traced back to Iran. Or rogue elements, such as the increasingly powerful and radical Revolutionary Guards, might see to it that their favourite terror groups had access to nuclear weapons.

Moreover, even if Iran gained nuclear weapons and was deterred from using or proliferating them, the consequences would still be dire. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, abused by first North Korea and then Iran to illegally develop nuclear weapons, would be as dead as a doornail. A chain of proliferation to states such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria and the central Asian republics would probably follow, creating an arc of nuclear weapons states in the world's most unstable region. And an emboldened Iranian regime, safe from any military consequences behind their own nuclear deterrent shield, would probably vastly increase its support for terrorist groups and attempts to destabilise neighbouring regimes.

Fortunately, we are not quite yet at the point where the only possible alternative to Iranian nuclear weapons is military force. Despite the recent boasting of Iranian leaders that the world needs them more than they need the world, there are ways that sanctions can significantly harm the Iranian regime, provided they are genuinely observed.

First, despite being awash in oil and natural gas, Iran imports almost a third of its refined oil products, including petrol, because of its limited refining capabilities. Second, Iran's oil industry is in poor shape, and dependent on maintenance from outside companies.

Sanctions on Iran's refined petroleum imports or oil industry maintenance and equipment could bring about a change in one of two ways. It may prompt the majority of Iranians, who clearly oppose the theocratic regime, to finally find a way to change it. Or, if that does not happen, discontent and declining oil revenues may allow elements in the regime opposed to the populist ultra-radical Ahmadinejad to convince the clerical powerbrokers to withdraw their support for his confrontational policies.

Despite the regime's public bravado, on show again with threats from Ahmadinejad this week, there are signs that some in Iran are starting to realise their vulnerability. Iran has, since 1979, always rejected direct public talks with the US "Great Satan", but last weekend accepted a month-old US offer of talks on Iraq.

The only way to avoid the choice between bad and worse posed by McCain is to mount effective action to pressure Iran in the UN Security Council as quickly as possible. The Australian Government is already expressing the right sentiments in this regard, but should be using whatever diplomatic levers are at its disposal to make sure this happens. Above all, this means using some of the capital that we have carefully built up with China over recent years to persuade Beijing to agree to real and effective sanctions on

Iran if it does not reverse course and start co-operating fully with the International Atomic Energy Agency, and agree to forswear enriching uranium in Iran, which would make producing weapons very easy.

Iran is a major oil supplier for China, which also hopes to sign significant contracts with the Iranian oil industry and, for this reason, has been resisting any talk of sanctions against Iran. But it is not in China's interest either to have a nuclear Iran, with the chain of proliferation it would likely bring among China's neighbours, nor an oil crisis. Australia needs to do everything it can to remind China of this disturbing scenario.

There is no hope that further diplomacy will in itself budge Tehran — that has been made amply clear. There now must be serious UN sanctions on Iran, or within a period of no more than a year or two we are very likely to face the stark choice posed by McCain.

Dr Colin Rubenstein is executive director of the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council. He taught Middle East politics at Monash University.

 

Bush: Talks with Iran to Show US Concerns on Iraq

March 21, 2006
Reuters
today.reuters.com

link to original article

WASHINGTON -- President George W. Bush on Tuesday said the United States wants talks with Iran to make clear that attempts to spread sectarian violence in Iraq were unacceptable. Bush has said he views Iran as a threat, and the United States suspects Iran of using its nuclear program to develop a bomb, which Tehran denies.

But the United States has said it is open to talks with Iran narrowly about Iraq. "This is a way for us to make it clear to them that, about what's right or wrong in their activities inside of Iraq," Bush said at a news conference.

He reiterated that negotiations on Iran's nuclear program would be conducted in an international forum. "Our job is to make sure that this international will remains strong and united so that we can solve this issue diplomatically," Bush said.

 

Some U.S. Officials Fear Iran Is Helping Al Qaeda

March 21, 2006
Los Angeles Times
Josh Meyer

link to original article

WASHINGTON -- U.S. intelligence officials, already focused on Iran's potential for building nuclear weapons, are struggling to solve a more immediate mystery: the murky relationship between the new Tehran leadership and the contingent of Al Qaeda leaders residing in the country.

Some officials, citing evidence from highly classified satellite feeds and electronic eavesdropping, believe the Iranian regime is playing host to much of Al Qaeda's remaining brain trust and allowing the senior operatives freedom to communicate and help plan the terrorist network's operations.

And they suggest that recently elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may be forging an alliance with Al Qaeda operatives as a way to expand Iran's influence or, at a minimum, that he is looking the other way as Al Qaeda leaders in his country collaborate with their counterparts elsewhere.

"Iran is becoming more and more radicalized and more willing to turn a blind eye to the Al Qaeda presence there," a U.S. counter-terrorism official said.

The accusations from U.S. officials about Iranian nuclear ambitions and ties to Al Qaeda echo charges that Bush administration figures made about Iraq in the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion three years ago.

Those charges about Iraq have been discredited. And in the case of Iran, some intelligence officials and analysts are unconvinced that Al Qaeda operatives are being allowed to plot terrorist acts. If anything, they suggest, the escalating tensions between Shiite and Sunni Muslims in Iraq would logically cause Iran's Shiite government to crack down on Al Qaeda, whose Sunni leadership has denounced Shiites as infidels.

A U.S. intelligence official said he did not see any relaxation in Iran's restrictions on Al Qaeda members.

"I'm not getting the sense that these people are free to roam, free to plot," the official said.

Still, the official acknowledged that the relationship between Tehran and Al Qaeda officials within Iran was largely unknown to U.S. and allied intelligence, especially since Ahmadinejad's election last summer.

To some U.S. intelligence officials, what worries them most is what they don't know.

"I don't need to exaggerate the difficulty in determining what these people are up to at any given moment," the intelligence official said.

The U.S. counter-terrorism official was more blunt. "We don't have any intelligence going on in Iran. No people on the ground," he said. "It blows me away the lack of intelligence that's out there."

U.S., European and Arab intelligence officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the issues publicly.

Ties between Iran and Al Qaeda were highlighted by the Sept. 11 commission, which disclosed a wealth of details about such connections in its final report. The commission said Iran and Al Qaeda had worked together sporadically throughout the 1990s, trading secrets, including some related to making explosives.

Iranian representatives to the United Nations did not return repeated phone calls seeking comment.

In November, the State Department's third-ranking official, Undersecretary R. Nicholas Burns, said the U.S. believed "that some Al Qaeda members and those from like-minded extremist groups continue to use Iran as a safe haven and as a hub to facilitate their operations."

A year ago, Iranian delegates to a global counter-terrorism conference circulated a document describing Iran as "a major victim of terrorism." The document blamed links between drug trafficking and terrorism for "thousands of security problems," especially along Iran's eastern border with Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Al Qaeda operatives and family members have lived in Iran for years, many since late 2001, when they fled the U.S.-led bombing of Afghanistan. Many other Al Qaeda figures fled to Pakistan — a U.S. ally — and are believed to be there still.

Four months ago, Iran declared that no Al Qaeda members remained in the country, but U.S. officials reject the claim. At other times, Iranian officials said that Al Qaeda members were kept under house arrest and their activities monitored.

In Tehran, analysts said American officials were misreading Iran's intentions. The fact that the government has not heeded U.S. demands to turn over Al Qaeda suspects should come as no surprise given the state of relations between the two countries, said Nasser Hadian, a political analyst at Tehran University.

"They won't. Why should they" without receiving something in return? he said.

Some of the suspects have been indicted in the United States in connection with terrorist attacks, including the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa, but Iran has refused to extradite them.

Among them is Saif Adel, believed to be one of the highest-ranking members of Al Qaeda, behind Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri. Whatever restrictions might be placed on the network's activities within Iran, Adel — who has a $5-million U.S. bounty on his head — was able last year to post a lengthy dispatch about Al Qaeda activities in Iran and Iraq that was widely circulated on the Internet. U.S. intelligence officials consider the posting authentic.

In the dispatch, Adel said he had used hide-outs in Iran to plot with Abu Musab Zarqawi to make Iraq the new battleground in the group's war against the United States. Iran had detained many of Zarqawi's men, Adel wrote, but they ultimately slipped into Iraq and began attacking U.S. forces.

U.S. officials say intelligence suggests that Al Qaeda operatives have engaged in at least some terrorist planning from Iran, including Adel's alleged orchestration of suicide bombings in Saudi Arabia in May 2003 and the masterminding of several attacks in Europe.

For several years, the U.S. counter-terrorism official said, satellite feeds have helped officials monitor some of the day-to-day activities and movements of Adel and other senior Al Qaeda operatives in Iran. The intelligence suggests that the Al Qaeda leaders have been monitored by Iranian authorities but could move and communicate somewhat, the official said.

U.S. officials also said that other senior Al Qaeda figures — including Zarqawi, now the group's point man in Iraq — had moved in and out of Iran with the possible knowledge or complicity of Iranian officials.

The Al Qaeda members in Iran include three of Bin Laden's sons. Some of his wives and other relatives are suspected of being there as well, as is Al Qaeda spokesman Sulaiman abu Ghaith, U.S. officials say.

Of special concern, they said, is the number of Al Qaeda operatives in Iran who are of Egyptian descent and loyal to Zawahiri, the Cairo-born physician who merged his Egyptian Islamic Jihad with Al Qaeda in the years before the Sept. 11 attacks.

Adel is a former Egyptian police official. In addition, U.S. officials confirmed intelligence showing that three other Al Qaeda operatives with Egyptian roots — Abdallah Mohammed Rajab Masri, also known as Abu Khayer; Abdel Aziz Masri; and Abu Mohamed Masri — are in Iran. Authorities believe them to be, respectively, the head of Al Qaeda's leadership council, a biological weapons expert who heads the network's effort to develop weapons of mass destruction; and its top explosives expert and training camp chief.

The U.S. counter-terrorism official said the Egyptians' presence was troubling because Tehran for more than a decade has supported Egypt's two largest militant groups — Egyptian Islamic Jihad and Gamaa al Islamiya — in their violent campaign to topple the Cairo government.

Though the Sunni-Shiite divide has prompted Tehran in the past to say it had "no affinity" with Al Qaeda, U.S. officials believe there is a history of cooperation between Iran and some Sunni militant groups, including Al Qaeda. Iran nurtures such ties, they say, to enhance its regional influence and punish Arab political foes through intimidation and violence.

Bin Laden sent Adel and others to Iran and Lebanon in the early 1990s to learn bomb making from Iranian intelligence and Hezbollah, the Iran-affiliated militant group, U.S. officials say. They fear he and other Egyptians may still have ties with Iran's military and intelligence services.

The Sept. 11 commission concluded that Iran had harbored Al Qaeda operatives wanted in the U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa and other terrorist attacks.

It quoted one top Al Qaeda official as saying Iran had made a "concerted effort to strengthen relations with Al Qaeda" after the 2000 attack on the U.S. warship Cole in Yemen.

Imprisoned top Al Qaeda operatives also have told U.S. officials that Iran let Islamic militants traveling to and from Afghanistan and Pakistan pass freely across its borders without passport stamps — including at least eight of the 19 future Sept. 11 hijackers, the nowdisbanded commission said.

The panel strongly urged the Bush administration and Congress to investigate the ties between Iran and Al Qaeda. Recently, commission member Timothy Roemer said in an interview that Washington still had not adequately addressed those ties.

U.S. and allied intelligence agencies say that, more recently, they have picked up indications of closer cooperation. The intelligence includes European wiretaps of militants discussing how Iranian officials would help them or look the other way.

U.S. officials fear Ahmadinejad may be strengthening ties with Al Qaeda with the help of Iranian intelligence and military agencies, particularly the Revolutionary Guards.

The intelligence official and others noted that Ahmadinejad himself rose through the ranks of the guards, an elite military unit. U.S. government officials have accused the guards of financing and orchestrating terrorist acts in the region by groups including Hezbollah, which is suspected of blowing up U.S. military facilities and embassies in the 1980s and killing hundreds of Americans.

Rep. Brad Sherman of Sherman Oaks, the ranking Democrat on the House International Relations subcommittee on terrorism and nuclear proliferation, who receives classified briefings on Iran, said U.S. intelligence indicated that Tehran was engaged in some kind of collaboration with Al Qaeda leaders.

"The cooperation is substantial," Sherman said. "Key operatives of the most successful terrorist organization in history are spending their time in the No. 1 state sponsor of terrorism…. That is of massive concern."

U.S. officials fear that an Iranian hard-line faction or even a rogue official could conspire with Al Qaeda or provide access to the country's military arsenal.

Despite the mutual antipathy between Sunnis and Shiites, some U.S. officials argue that the Iranian regime and Al Qaeda share a common enemy — the United States — and that both oppose the establishment of a pro-Western democracy in Iraq.

John D. Negroponte, the director of national intelligence, told Congress on Feb. 2 that Iran was engaged in a broad campaign "to disrupt the operations and reinforcement of United States forces based in the region, potentially intimidating regional allies into withholding support for United States policy toward Iran and raising the costs of our regional presence" for the U.S. and its allies.

Britain Suggests New Incentives For Iran to End Nuclear Activities

March 21, 2006
The Wall Street Journal
Carla Anne Robbins

link to original article

WASHINGTON -- With Russia opposed to any punishment for Iran, Britain has privately suggested that Tehran be offered a new package of incentives to abandon its nuclear ambitions, this time with the "explicit backing" of the U.S., China and Russia.

British Foreign Office political director John Sawers raised the idea of a "revised offer" to Tehran in a letter late last week to his American, French and German counterparts. The letter warned, "We are not going to bring the Russians and Chinese to accept significant sanctions [on Tehran] over the coming months, certainly not without further efforts to bring the Iranians around."

The letter said that before any new incentives were offered to Iran, the Russians and Chinese would have to agree to support "more serious measures" against Tehran should it reject the proposal and continue to enrich uranium, usable for nuclear fuel or potentially a nuclear weapon.

U.S. officials, however, warned yesterday that any discussion of incentives would be read by Tehran as a sign of weakness -- as well as by Moscow and Beijing -- making it even less likely that Iran's leaders would back down.

"The U.S. is not going down the road of being party to any incentive package to Iran or any effort to lessen pressure on Iran," Undersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns, one of the letter's recipients, said in an interview. Mr. Burns said the U.S. is "focusing only" on winning United Nations Security Council approval of a toughly worded statement, followed, if necessary, by a toughly worded resolution, demanding that Iran cease enrichment and improve its cooperation with nuclear inspectors.

Mr. Sawers's letter and Washington's reaction to it are the first hint of a disagreement between the U.S. and its closest ally over how to manage the Iran issue. It also reflects mounting frustration in London and Washington as they struggle to convince the Russians and Chinese of the need for even strong words against Tehran, let alone possible sanctions.

Diplomats who reviewed the letter said it didn't specify what incentives the U.S. and the others might endorse. But in past negotiations with Tehran, the Europeans have discussed possible security guarantees, access to civilian nuclear technology, expanded trade and other cooperation in exchange for Iran ceasing uranium enrichment and opening its nuclear program to full international monitoring.

Mr. Sawers, Mr. Burns and top officials from France, Russia, China and Germany met yesterday in New York to discuss the Iran problem and how to move forward.

The British proposal in part mirrors the deal reached between the U.S. and the so-called European Union-3 -- Britain, France, Germany -- early last year. The U.S. agreed to support Europe's efforts to wean Iran of its nuclear ambitions in exchange for the Europeans' pledge to bring Iran before the Security Council if negotiations failed. The Europeans have kept their part of the bargain. But the Russians and Chinese so far have stymied Security Council action.

Mr. Sawers's letter is artfully worded. But its call for "explicit backing" from the U.S. would suggest that Washington would also be offering incentives to Iran. The Bush administration has so far resisted suggestions that it negotiate directly with Iran or offer rewards for giving up what Washington considers an illicit nuclear-weapons program.

Meanwhile, some U.S. officials have already begun talking in private about rallying a smaller "coalition of the willing" to impose sanctions on Tehran should the Security Council fail to act. But given Iran's oil wealth, U.S. officials say they aren't sure they could even persuade the full European Union to go along.

U.S. suspects Iran is harboring al-Qaida

By UPI
Mar 21, 2006

http://news.monstersandcritics.com/northamerica/article_1149010.php/U.S._suspects_Iran_is_harboring_al-Qaida

WASHINGTON, DC, United States (UPI) -- U.S. intelligence officials are divided as to whether Iran is playing host to al-Qaida leaders, allowing them to live and operate from there.

\'Iran is becoming more and more radicalized and more willing to turn a blind eye to the al-Qaida presence there,\' one U.S. counter-terrorism official told the Los Angeles Times.

Yet another intelligence official told the newspaper he did not see any relaxation in Iran`s restrictions on al-Qaida members.

\'I`m not getting the sense that these people are free to roam, free to plot,\' the official said.

Four months ago, Iran declared no al-Qaida members remained in the country, but U.S. officials rejected the claim. At other times Iranian officials said that al-Qaida members were kept under house arrest and their activities monitored.

Among the people U.S. officials believe are in Iran are three of Osama bin Laden`s sons, as well as some of his wives and other relatives, the newspaper said.

'Iran Aids Islamic Jihad to Attack Israel'

 

21.03.2006
Cihan News Agency
Tel Aviv
http://www.zaman.com/?bl=hotnews&alt=&hn=31186

 

Following the reports of the detention of Palestinians for being Islamic Jihad members, the agenda is busy with the claim of increasing Iranian aid to this armed organization to attack Israel.

Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said Iran provided the organization with $1.8 million in aid last month to conduct attacks on Israel. The minister told the daily, Yediot Ahronot that this was the biggest donation in recent times made by Iran to Islamic Jihad.

 

Iran’s Four Aces
By Joseph Klein
FrontPageMagazine.com | March 21, 2006

Iran will not budge an inch on its nuclear enrichment ambitions, even though the matter is now before the United Nations Security Council.  Iran had precipitated the current crisis with its decision earlier this year to go back on its word and break the seals placed on its nuclear facilities by UN inspectors in order to resume an active nuclear fuel enrichment program. “We do not hinge our nuclear activities on a negotiation that is not dignified and will not attain our rights,” Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, was quoted as saying by Iran’s state news agency IRNA on March 17, 2006. “We are ready for negotiation, but a negotiation which does not intend to dissuade Iran from having nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. If so we will not accept it.”

 

Though with good reason the West challenges Iran’s veracity concerning its peaceful intentions, Iran believes it has nothing to lose and everything to gain from its intransigent stand.  In fact, Iran has four aces in its hand to avoid any meaningful action by the UN Security Council, where lack of consensus is the rule on critical issues and paralysis of action is the result.

 

First, Iran is counting on its Russian and Chinese friends to block a stern rebuke, much less any kind of decision by the Security Council to impose economic sanctions.   China will do just about anything to ensure a steady supply of oil and has signed a multibillion dollar energy deal with Iran to that end.  Russia, while getting impatient with Iran’s off again, on again diplomatic shenanigans, does major business with the Iranian regime which it will not jeopardize.  For example, Russia has supplied expertise and manpower to help Iran build its Bushehr nuclear reactor near the Persian Gulf and is supplying modern air defense systems for use in protecting Iran’s nuclear facilities.

 

These two veto-bearing members of the Security Council will use the veto threat to keep the Security Council in the background, perhaps allowing it to issue a milk toast reminder to Iran of its international obligations while returning primary responsibility for the matter to the toothless International Atomic Energy Agency.  This will allow Iran to continue playing cat-and-mouse with UN nuclear inspectors and buy more time to advance on its path towards nuclear weapons development.  Iran has been following this tactic for years with great success.  Why expect it to suddenly change course now?  According to a March 5, 2006 report in the UK Telegraph, Hassan Rowhani (Iran's lead nuclear negotiator with Britain, France and Germany) boasted that “while talks were taking place in Teheran, Iran was able to complete the installation of equipment for conversion of yellowcake - a key stage in the nuclear fuel process - at its Isfahan plant but at the same time convince European diplomats that nothing was afoot.”

 

China and Russia are feeding right into this delay tactic when they give cover to Iran.  None of this should be any surprise to UN watchers.  China and Russia just recently had a dress rehearsal for their blocking actions at the Security Council in connection with Sudan.  Last month they opposed any action on proposals to punish certain listed individuals, including Sudan’s President and its interior and defense ministers, who were believed to be undermining peace in Sudan's Darfur region where tens of thousands of innocent civilians have been slaughtered and millions displaced from their homes.   All that was being talked about among the United States and Western European countries supporting sanctions were freezes on travel and assets of these targeted individuals.  Yet the deadlock has continued. It is no coincidence that China opposes any sanctions – just like the case with Iran, China relies on Sudan for oil and has major economic investments there.  With much more at stake economically in Iran, China and Russia are simply replaying their Sudan script.

Second, Iran knows that it can count on the powerful bloc of Islamic countries to divert attention of the Security Council to Israel, as they always do.  The Gulf Arab state of Qatar, which commenced a two year term on the UN Security Council on January 1, 2006, is leading this charge.   Qatar helped the United States against Saddam Hussein’s regime but its Emir sees Iran differently, saying last October during a visit by Iran’s Foreign Minister that the two countries' relations are age-old and based on strong bonds.  Now claiming to represent on the Security Council “the Asian, Arab and Islamic groups which have concerns at the core of international events," according to its former minister of information Hamad al-Kawari, Qatar has used its Security Council platform to denounce Israel.   In the last few days Qatar has sought Security Council action to condemn Israel for seizing an Israeli cabinet minister's killers from an insecure Jericho prison where the terrorists were being held and liable to escape unless Israel intervened.  This familiar tactic moved the Security Council’s spotlight off of Iran at least temporarily and targeted the UN’s favorite scapegoat – Israel.

Ironically, Israel decided last year to back Qatar in its bid for an open Security Council seat in response to Qatar’s specific request for support.   Israel should have said no to Qatar’s request, since there were no diplomatic relations between Qatar and Israel and no quid pro quo promise by Qatar to recognize Israel.  But Israel extended its hand and now has been repaid with Qatar’s gratuitous attacks.   Of course, the other Islamic countries are rallying around this tactic.  They have the backing of Venezuela, whom Iran may help to develop nuclear technology for ‘peaceful purposes’, and a host of undeveloped countries hostile to Israel and the United States who are now running the show in the General Assembly and the new Human Rights Council.

 

Third, Kofi Annan continues to give Iran the international respect it clearly does not deserve.  He has remained in the shadows in the current nuclear controversy.  Iran is still interested in "serious and constructive negotiations" with the European Union on its nuclear program, Kofi Annan said last January, and he has urged Iran to continue on that course.  That is basically all that Annan has done, failing to use his bully pulpit to place the blame for the current standoff where it truly belongs.

 

Annan has even rewarded Iran with coveted representation on special UN forums.  This only encourages yet more outrageous behavior and demands from the rogue dictatorship.  Annan, for example, gave Iran a seat on the UN Working Group for Internet Governance, tasked to come up with policy recommendations for international rules on Internet governance.  For years, Iran has censored Internet communications within its borders, using advanced technology to filter out access to any sites suspected of fostering political dissent.  More recently, the regime has cracked down on Iranian citizens whom the government accuses of having “illegal Internet sites” and of “disturbing the public mind and insulting sanctities.”  Laws were enacted in October 2004 covering “cyber crimes” under which “anyone who disseminates information aimed at disturbing the public mind through computer systems or telecommunications…would be punished in accordance with the crime of disseminating lies.”   Annan never should have rewarded the repressive Iranian regime with a seat on the Working Group for Internet Governance in the first place.  Yet Annan kept Iran’s representative on the Working Group even after Iran’s passage of the “cyber crimes’ legislation, allowing Iran to actively participate in the planning of the World Summit on Information Society held in Tunis in November 2005.   Meanwhile, a truly functioning democracy in the Middle East committed to freedom of _expression - Israel - was not represented on the Working Group.

 

Annan also selected a representative from Iran to participate in one of Annan’s pet projects – the Alliance of Civilizations - which is supposed to promote a peaceful dialogue between the Islamic world and the West.   Israel again is not represented on this forum.   It is true that the Iranian representative Annan chose, its former President Mohammad Khatami, is more moderate than Iran’s current megalomaniac President Mah­moud Ahmadinejad.   However, Khatami is only ‘moderate’ by the standards of the extreme Iranian theocratic state.  As President, Khatami had declared that Iran “would not bargain on its right to enrich uranium during talks with Europe on its nuclear activities” and blamed the controversy over Iran's nuclear program on “the moral corruption and hypocrisy that characterizes today's global community and the desire of a few to realize their hegemonic ambitions".  This was much the same rhetoric as we are hearing today from Khatami’s successor Ahmadinejad and from the ruling mullahs.  Iran’s financial support of Hezbollah and other terrorist groups, under Khatami as well as under Ahmadinejad, certainly belies its claims of peaceful intentions. 

 

Even after Ahmadinejad said last October that “Israel must be wiped off the map”, Kofi Annan did little except to express his “dismay.”  He was still willing to go ahead with his planned trip to Tehran.  At minimum, Annan should have insisted on a complete retraction and apology to Israel as a condition for allowing Iran to continue participating in any UN forums for which Annan has the power to select the participants.   Even better, after threatening a fellow member state with elimination, Iran’s right to continue as a member of the United Nations altogether should have been challenged.  Instead, Ahmadinejad has continued his fiery anti-Israel rants and Iran continues its support for terrorist organizations, while the country’s former ‘moderate’ President continues his charade at the Alliance of Civilization meetings to promote understanding of Islam’s peaceful intentions.  In fact, Khatami is in a complete state of denial about the link between his own country and terrorism, actually telling a closed session of more than 20 representatives of the United Nations' High Level Group on the Alliance of Civilizations last November that "terrorism not only has nothing to do with Islam, but is opposed to the fundamental principles of that religion.”  If that is true, why hasn’t Kofi Annan demanded that Khatami denounce President Ahmadinejad’s threat to wipe the Jewish state of Israel off the map as totally contrary to these “fundamental principles” and to the whole purpose of the Alliance of Civilizations?

 

In short, Kofi Annan is pandering to Tehran, much as he did to Baghdad during Saddam Hussein’s reign. 

 

Iran knows that he will do little to rally world opinion against Iran’s aggressive designs.  In order to protect its interests after Annan’s term expires at the end of 2006, Iran indicated as far back as 2004 that it planned to propose Khatami as a candidate to succeed Annan, according to a report by the news agency IRNA.  This suggestion was welcomed by most Asian participants at a political forum in China where it was first raised.

 

While Khatami’s candidacy is not likely to get any traction today, the idea does shed light on how Iran intends to operate behind the scenes to push for someone even more favorable to its position than weak-kneed Annan has proven to be.

 

The fourth ace in Iran’s hand is what appears to be the lack of any good options for the United States to follow if it cannot bring the rest of the world around to its more muscular brand of diplomacy.  Iran has made it clear that it will use its leverage over oil supplies to drive up oil prices and thereby hurt the world’s economy if it has to, hoping to scare off enough countries and isolate the U.S.  It is also counting on the American public’s war fatigue, President Bush’s low political standing compared to the period leading up to the Iraq war and America’s unpopularity around the world – including Europe – to further hamstring any U.S. action outside of the feckless Security Council.  

 

Despite all of its calculations, Iran may well be overplaying its hand.  This is not the 1930’s all over again, no matter how much Ahmadinejad tries to imitate Hitler.  Much of the world may cower as before, but the United States and the United Kingdom are not likely to embrace the appeasement policies that allowed Hitler to begin his bloody conquests.   President Bush and Prime Minister Blair have already proven their mettle once in this regard, and domestic politics will not hold them back from acting together again if they have to.

 

Indeed, the U.S. in particular has its own economic cards to play against Iran, working with its allies to freeze Iranian financial assets outside of Iranian territory and barring any multinational oil, manufacturing or banking companies doing business with Iran from doing business in the United States.  Gulf oil can be shipped via alternative channels in order to bypass Iranian interference in the Straits of Hormuz.  Our military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, and our naval forces in and around the Persian Gulf, give us the wherewithal to potentially squeeze Iran from multiple vantages. 

 

If Iran provokes a fight through missile attacks or suicidal bombings against our forces or shipping in the Straits, for example, it will suffer enormous consequences from a strong counter-attack.  Shiite Iran does not have many friends in its Sunni Arab neighborhood who would come to its side in an outright confrontation with the West.  Nor would the Russians be likely to put all of their eggs in Iran’s basket and risk complete alienation from the West.  Finally, despite all of the Iranian government’s efforts to quell internal dissent, reform-minded Iranian citizens are becoming more vocal as they experience escalating daily repression with no improvement in their economic condition.  If we stay resolute and increase our support for the dissidents, they will become more emboldened and may ultimately begin the kind of massive civil disobedience that brought the Soviet Union’s Eastern European empire down. 

 

Iran is no doubt counting on the UN Security Council to once again succumb to the parochial economic self-interest and cowardice of its members.  It will take years before the Council is able to muster the consensus necessary to impose and enforce meaningful sanctions if indeed it ever can, by which time Iran will be well on its way to producing enough highly enriched uranium to enable the regime to make nuclear weapons.   As envisioned by Winston Churchill and Harry Truman, the United Nations Charter provides not only the legal right, but the moral duty, for the United States and the United Kingdom as UN charter members to take such collective action as necessary to maintain international peace and security.  This may mean assembling another “coalition of the willing” to challenge the current regime in Iran militarily if need be, even without formal Security Council authorization, if Iran persists on its current course.  This may have to happen in order to protect the world from a nuclear conflagration.