Iran Not Going for the Bomb

This story has been floating around the blogosphere quite a bit: it appears that the Iranian government abandoned its nuclear weapons program in 2003. While the American intelligence community has been pretty damaged by the Iraq fiasco, but the pressure was undoubtedly on the CIA et cetera to show that there was a bomb being built.

Here's some speculation: 2003 was the invasion of Iraq, could it be that once the American military did away with Iran's greatest existential threat, Saddam and his alleged weapons programs, there was no good reason to develop a deterrent.

What are we doing at the UN anyway?

Apparently Canada sponsored a resolution condemning human rights violations in Iran - and it passed. While this seems sensible in that most observers would tell you that, yes, there are rights violations in Iran, what is mind boggling though is how you set this in the context of how the Conservatives have treated other UN resolutions or other expressions of concern for human rights.

Canada would not place a simple phone call to support a death penalty resolution recently. This could not be done because our people at the UN were busy on other, unspecified, resolutions. Last year, Canada could not even get behind a resolution to investigate Israel's use of collective punishment in the Gaza Strip.

In the meantime, if you raise questions about Canada's own actions in Afghanistan, it's because you hate our troops. We are no better at home than we are abroad.

When Canada took a stand on an issue at the UN, there used to be some moral weight behind it - or at least the sense that we were an independent-minded agent. Now we appear to be useful idiots for the US and Israel. At home, when there were serious problems with our mistreatment of Somali prisoners we went to the trouble of a public inquiry. Now the government accuses critics of lacking patriotism.

What this does is drain all the credibility out of our efforts at the UN. When we now condemn Iran's government it appears to be less an exercise in legitimately criticizing the immoral actions of its government and more an effort to establish our bona fides with the US and Israel.

Words from Iranian clerics you probably won't see on TV

Juan Cole found this gem:

"...our eminent Leader [Ali Khamenei] -- has made it abundantly clear, as have others, that the destruction of nations, any nation, women and children, large or small -- the massacre of innocents is wrong. The same is true of the atomic bomb and atomic weapons. The very idea of an atom bomb is forbidden, the very deed is a sin."

These are the words of Ayatollah Mohammad Emami-Kashani who, being a member of the Assembly of Experts is probably as well connected to government thinking as Ahmadinejad. Could this be a ruse? Maybe. But so could some of the more bellicose statements that have emanated from Iran.

Yes I know that the neo-cons love to use 1937 as their model for everything, but what if this is 1962? Kennedy had conflicting messages from the Kremlin, he chose to respond to the more conciliatory ones and not the belligerent ones. Perhaps this should be our model now.

Repeat as Necessary

Can you tell what war David Frum is talking about?

"You want realism? It's this: The emerging US-____ confrontation is a confrontation of ___'s choice and ____'s making. It is ____ that has determined to seek nuclear weapons, ____ that has declared it will use those weapons aggressively against its neighbors, and ____ that has made a nonsense of the long negotiations with the UK, France, and Germany. We are rapidly reaching the point - maybe we have reached it already - where ____ has succeeded in reducing our choices to two: acquiesce in a nuclear bomb or stop it by force. As for the idea that the present ____ regime can be a negotiating partner - a constructive force in the region - or anything other than a menace to its neighbors or its own people, well we need another term for that. How about "fantasy"?"

(HT) I pretty much have nothing more to add to that. That said, George Bush thinks an old saying applies here:

Whatever you do, don't talk to them!

Juan Cole has linked to an article that states that the Bush administration is pressuring Iraq leaders not to have the Iranian president visit them. Real leaders never talk to their enemies, right Ronald Reagan? Oh... Never mind.

Fall Fashions: Iran is the new Iraq!

It's funny how fashion comes and goes, and so it is with state enemies. Iran was hot in the 1980s, but since then Iraq has been hot. Now, Iraq is in disarray, so this fall we find Iran being the new must-have inside the beltway.

More Proof That Democracy is Passe

Ayad Allawi is floating the idea of having the US back in him in seizing control of Iraq in a coup. This is totally going to muck up any attempt that Bill Kristol might make to sell a war in Iran. I can see it now, "We need to spread more favourable dictatorships to the whole world."

Invading Iraq to Stop Terror Attacks

Is it okay when Iran does it?

After Turkey had pretty much threatened to do the same thing, one wonders what reason the American military could give for declaring such actions unjust.

I'm sure that everyone involved in the invasion and occupation is eager to protect the Kurdish areas as they represent the one real glimmer of success in Iraq for now. If the Kurdish paramilitaries tolerate the more radical Kurdish separatist groups using Iraq as a base to attack Turkey and Iran, surely they will both respond.

"Terrorist" means whatever they say it means

In labeling a branch of the Iranian military as a "specially designated global terrorist organization," the Bush administration seems to have decided to stretch the word "terrorist" to the point of meaninglessness. George Orwell said in the 1940s:

The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies "something not desirable."

Surely the same could be said for the word "terrorism" today. In this instance it seems to signal those that do not-nice things in other countries. If the Revolutionary Guard gets this definition, then surely it applies to the CIA, Mossad and host of other government and military agencies. Why not stop there, see if you can incorporate the words "terrorist" and "terrorism" into your day-to-day vocabulary. Here are some examples:

• That idiot on his cellphone cut me off! What a terrorist!
• Someone's dog shat on my lawn, this is an act of terrorism!
• Out of pineapple yogurt? This grocery store is a terrorist cell!
• Those guys down the street are playing loud music outdoors again, it's an act of terrorism!

So you see, the possibilities are endless! I'll leave with this, a video for the song Gift Shop, it has the line "and if it's a lie, terrorists made me say it" which seems to capture the amazing vagueness of the word terrorism and the way that vagueness makes for perfect scapegoats and bogeymen every time.

This ain't a scene...

...it IS an arms race. No, really. The US is going to give a ton of military goodies to the gulf states, Israel, and Egypt.

There are several things here that strike me as glaringly wrong. First of all, this does smell like so much corporate welfare for the arms industry. The last I checked the Israelis still had about the most advanced military in the region, I'm not sure what else they need. I mean they even have nukes... oops, am I not supposed to say that? Let's stop pussyfooting around, the Israelis have nukes, it's the worst kept secret in the world.

As for selling arms to the Egyptians and the gulf states, in the case of Egypt I always wonder how far the Islamic Brotherhood is from being able to run the rather dictatorial Mubarak regime out of town. Remember how the Shah got F-14s, fat lot of good that got him when the public became fed up with him. In the case of the gulf states you have the same risk of coup d'etat, and it's not like any of these countries are hard up for cash.

Furthermore, after doling out all these weapons, what is Iran going to think? Forget about whether Ahmadinejad is nuts or not because he doesn't control the military. What would any leader in Iran think? What would any hypothetical leader slightly more militaristic than Gandhi think? I suspect the answer would be something about it being time to buy more weapons. It's the only rational response.

And so it goes...

Psst... Ahmadinejad is a failure at home

It looks like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is, well, a bit of dud with folks in his own country. According to this Star article, he's now getting blamed for stuff that wasn't even his fault. That's usually a sign that the public is really fed up with a given leader. For the all the hyping of this guy as the next really vicious monster on the world stage, he's really fizzled. Notice how no air strikes were needed.

A Nuanced View of Iran

Peter Hitchens has written about a trip he took to Iran a while ago in the American Conservative magazine. It is really worth reading this article before buying into Cheney's showdown fantasy. There's a lot in the article, a lot that I could quote here, but I'll limit myself to this conversation that Hitchens had with a group of high school students,

"The students were not in themselves hostile to the West—like almost all Iranians, they yearned to live there. They were personally friendly and open to me. But they warned that an attack on Iran would drive them closer to their government."

I get this sense even here among the sizable Persian community of my city. Most of them despise the current regime yet I have little doubt that they would be aghast if the US attacked. How much more is this surely the case back in Iran itself.

The US must attack Iran to save Israel's tourism sector!

That is the assertion from Noah Pollack. Or at least that's what it seems to be if you endeavour to unpack his lengthy post on what to do about Iran. Here's the money quote:

"A nuclear Iran allied with Hezbollah to the north and Hamas and Islamic Jihad to the Southwest and East would dramatically embolden Israel's enemies, suppress foreign investment and tourism in Israel, and over time would cause the economic and psychological attrition of the Jewish state -- with no bombing runs over Tel Aviv necessary."

Well, I suppose if you work in the Israeli tourism industry, this is a concern. It is probably not the sort of problem that requires an airstrike. As for Israel's economy, my impression was that it was generally focused on arms production, so, um, wouldn't this help that sector?

Moreover, having a nuclear backer in the form of the Soviet Union really didn't help Israel's enemies in the 1960s or 1970s, did it? Pollack concedes there will be no "bombing run" over Tel Aviv, yet thinks potential damage to Israel's economy or tourism should warrant a mass assault to attempt to cripple Iran's nuclear program.

Pollack goes on about the delicate balance that the US has constructed in the region. It is of course the atomic equivalent of two fat kids sitting on one end of the teeter-totter. Oops, well, I mean one has a paper bag on his head since Israel doesn't "officially" have nukes.

I am not a fan of more states going nuclear but I do not think it any more possible to stop Iran than it was to stop Pakistan and India. The attempt to stop Iran though would unleash hell in one way or another. In Iran you have an extremely ideological regime that is not terribly well supported by the public (though many would be reflexively patriotic in the face of a serious international threat) and an economic policy that is not working out terribly well.

Is it not time to think in terms of a stern, credible but ultimately peaceful engagement in the mold of engaging the Warsaw Pact nations in the 1980s instead of the psychotic, demand-an-immediate-showdown mode of the Iraq debacle?

Who's afraid of Iran?

Juan Cole writes today about the threat (or lack thereof) that Iran poses to the US:

"Polling shows that the percentage of Americans who view Iran as the number one threat to the United States has risen to 27 percent now. I think it was only 20 percent in December 2006. First of all, how in the world can a developing country with about a fourth of the population of the US, about a $2000 per capita income (in real terms, not local purchasing power), with no intercontinental ballistic missiles, with no weapons of mass destruction (and no proof positive it is trying to get them), with a small army and a small military budget-- how is such a country a "threat" to the United States of America? Iranian leaders don't like the US, and they talk dirty about the US, and they do attempt to thwart US interests. The same is true of Venezuela under Chavez. But Tehran is a minor player on the world stage, and trying to build it up to replace the Soviet Union is just the worst sort of fear-mongering, and it is being done on behalf of the US military industrial complex, which wants to do to Iran what it did to Iraq. It is propaganda, and significant numbers of Americans (a 7 percent increase would be like 21 million people!) are buying it."

The only thing that I would add is that the typical response of those that would have Iran as the number one threat is that Iran could also project force through asymmetrical means (i.e.: terror attacks). The original critique holds though as there could be no doubt that the response by the US to an Iranian terror attack on US soil would be overwhelming.

This is the part where Iranophobes will mention Ahmadinejad's eschatological outlook. Aside from pointing out that a fair number of Christians think the same way if you replace "12th Imam" with "Jesus Christ" in the rambling speeches, it is worth remembering though that Ahmadinejad does not hold authority over the armed forces and really does have a limited amount of power under Iran's constitution.

Training Terrorists

Dennis Perrin has this witty line here:

U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker told the Iranians they had to stop arming, funding and training Shiite militants. "We can do that ourselves," said Crocker. "We don't need to farm this out."

And while your musing about just how satirical such a comment might be, Andrew Sullivan indicates that the line is pretty thin.

More Dirty Wars

There's a lot you can say to criticize the current government in Iran. Murdering journalists, arresting academics, executing homosexuals, giving a platform to Holocaust deniers, all of these are legitimate reasons to take a dim view of Iran's leaders.

Just don't call them nuts for wanting a nuke and more influence in Iraq's affairs. Is there any other sane reaction when you read that the CIA is authorizing a series of actions designed to destabilize the country? Someone should force those that run the CIA to read a little of the agency's own history. This is an organization that seems to pretty much feel it has the unilateral right to overthrow any government that it dislikes. In virtually every case, the results are a disaster.

The Iranians must have been anticipating this as the CIA did the same with Mossadeq in 1953. The CIA sucks at playing king maker, they should realize that.

Complete Ignorance of the Middle East

Once again we have a right-winger demonstrating just that quality. Andrew Sullivan linked to Michael Ledeen's suggestion that Iran is harboring bin Laden.

Once again people, why is there a civil war in Iraq?

A: Sunnis and Shi'as are engulfed in sectarian violence - there are centuries-old grievances between the two sects.

Okay, so what sect does the Iranian government belong to?

A: They are Shi'a.

And bin Laden?

A: He's a Sunni.

So why, when both al Qaeda and the Iranian government consider each other heretics, does anyone think they would work together? Let's look at Ledeen's own logic:

"it certainly fits; the Iranians love "disappeared" leaders. Their messianic leader is the 'vanished Imam;' they "disappeared" bin Laden after he was routed from Afghanistan"

Oh, so I guess that the Iranians are also working with Jimmy Hoffa and Amelia Earhart. Ideology doesn't matter, theology doesn't matter, Ledeen's figured it out, the Iranians just love anyone who has "disappeared" by some means. Who listens to this guy? Moreover, who does not understand how crucially, crucially important the Sunni-Shi'a divide is to understanding the Middle East after the past four years?

The Word "Hero" is Now Meaningless

If you didn't already know this, there is further proof on the Sun's website (the UK Sun). There is a caption that reads "Hero sailors free!" This is perilously close to the way in which Stephen Colbert routinely refers to his audience as heroes.

While I'm sure that the last two weeks have not been terribly pleasant for said sailors, I'm not sure if getting your ass caught makes you a "hero" either. Granted, this is not as bad as calling everyone who showed up to work on time on September 11th, 2001 at the trade towers a hero, it's still a misuse of the word.

Am I being callous? I don't think so. One might endure misfortune or tragedy and one might do so very well, but that is more rightly called fortitude or courage even, but not heroism. I don't want to diminish how frightening such an ordeal might be, but being in the wrong place at the wrong time is not heroism.

You Read it Here First

It looks like the Iranians are going to release those British sailors and marines after all. No giant military invasion was required, no commando assault, no airstrikes. On March 24th I said:

"Either way I suspect there will be a week of intense negotiations, followed by
the release of the British soldiers."

I was slightly off on the timing (it was more like two weeks) but that seems to be the gist of what has happened. All you warmongers are going to have to find a better pretext next time.

Drawing Really Stupid Conclusions

Those crazy folks over at Brain Dead Animals have concluded that the Iranian capture of 15 British sailors and marines is causing Argentina to think that this is an opportune time to have another go at the Falkland Islands. (This is all of course reading into a comment from Argentina about pursuing the issue with "more firmness")

Gee, I suppose it could be that, or maybe it's the fact that the British military is now tied up in Bush and Blair's war in Iraq.

What do you think? Would Argentina talk tough because of the 15 Brits in Iran or the 7100 Brits in Iraq?