Iran-U.S.A

[Rasputin]

The danger of an attack on Iran can no longer be ignored

He is visibly a man in search of a theme. Sir Menzies Campbell is such a nice man that one hesitates to put the boot in. He is decent, honourable and highly intelligent, but as one of those who supported him in the Liberal Democrat leadership contest I have to confess he has been lamentable since. His performances in the Commons bearpit of prime minister's questions have been wooden and hesitant; so bad that he has had to apologise to Lib Dem MPs for them.
Behind the scenes, he has been doing good work in reorganising the party, setting up policy reviews and improving the backroom operation. People say he has good managerial skills. But the leadership of a party is a frontline, high-profile job, and Sir Menzies has so far made a bog of it. People hoped he would be a silken, ruthless veteran against the youthful David Cameron. Instead he has looked rather lost, and, as one of his own MPs puts it, seems to have aged visibly in a couple of months.
This is not just Westminster gossip. The local elections were a big disappointment for the party. Had Charlie Kennedy still been leading the Lib Dems and presided over these results, Sir Menzies would have been calling it the last straw and insisting it was time for him to go. Campbell is a new leader, and nobody has been ungracious enough to do that. But Simon Hughes, whom he defeated so recently, has now publicly put him on probation, saying his performance will have to be reviewed at the autumn conference. Given that politics stops during August, that doesn't give him much time.

The "Ming problem" is not, however, just about a man. It is about the party and its purpose. Few leaders look much good if they have nothing distinctive to say. With the new blue-green Tories trying to swipe the environmental agenda, dropping their earlier hardline views on spending, and proclaiming a new localism, the Liberal Democrats have been left high and dry. They can protest selfrighteously that "we were here first".

They can call David Cameron a cynical Johnny-come-lately convert. They can say all that, and it's true. But frankly, in the brutal, low-boredom-threshold world of modern politics, nobody cares. The Conservatives have always had a ruthless streak, and they are determined to gobble up the little yellow bird.

What the Liberal Democrats need most just now is a much stronger sense of purpose. Charles Kennedy impressed many before the last election when he got stuck into the Iraq disaster. One reason Menzies Campbell was chosen to succeed him was that, as an experienced foreign-affairs expert, he had enjoyed moral authority and a high profile as he attacked the bungling and the deceit.

Ah well, say some Lib Dems, there you go, that was our great chance, there will never be another Iraq. Sadly for the world but fortunately, perhaps, for Sir Ming, they could not be more wrong. There is an issue just as big and probably even more dangerous. It was rammed home forcibly to me when interviewing Shirley Williams for Radio 4's The Week in Westminster. It was now clear, she said, that a section of the US administration was committed to a likely military strike against Iran. "I'm truly worried," she said. "I wouldn't give the world very long. These are very high stakes indeed."

If that sounds alarmist, then it should be noted that she was in the studio with a former US state department official who said the military option would not be taken off the table: "The only thing worse than the military option is a [nuclear-weapon] armed Iran. We don't need to take action this year to prevent that." Note, this year.

So far we have had the experienced reporter Seymour Hersh talking about a refusal by the White House to dismiss the option of using nuclear "bunkerbusting" bombs against Iranian nuclear installations. Jack Straw promptly denounced the very idea as "nuts".

Whether or not this was connected to his unexpected demotion from the Foreign Office to leader of the Commons, it certainly did not make him popular with the Bush administration. All this was followed by a nasty diplomatic bust-up between the US and the Russians, who are fiercely against the use of force to halt the Iranian nuclear programme.

Relations with Putin are getting worse almost by the day. Meanwhile, the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, defiant in his ranting denunciations of the state of Israel, is a "baddie" crafted by fate to excite the US Republican right. So yes, this is serious. It is not going to erupt into a war suddenly. There is a long diplomatic path to follow. It's just that, given Tehran's determination to develop its nuclear programme and Washington's equal determination to stop it, an eventual clash looks horribly likely.

We know what this would mean, however "surgical" the US strikes were. Tehran has made it clear that this would be war, and that it would unleash its agents and bombers across the west. We would be facing something like the backlash after the invasion of Iraq, except much, much worse. It would be a further and dramatic spiral downwards in the tragedy of the Middle East. So someone needs to stand up and say: no, the consequences of attacking Iran are even worse than the consequences of leaving Iran alone. Yet there is a complacent silence from our politicians. This, surely, is a job of leadership that the Lib Dems can pick up in the hope of starting the national debate we so badly need on this issue.

New Labour is too deeply tied to Washington, certainly while Tony Blair remains in No 10. The Tories, even in their new cuddly phase, would never quite say boo to the US Republicans. Apart from fringe parties, the Lib Dems, led by Sir Ming, are the obvious people to raise the flag of common sense - no more Middle Eastern wars, no more cowboy raids on Muslim countries, no further provocation for terrorism. It would fit perfectly with their honourable stance on civil liberties - another hot issue where someone needs to stand against the government's assault on human rights.

This would do the Lib Dems and Sir Ming a power of good and give them an early lead on an issue that is only going to grow in importance. It surely is the theme for which the party and its leader are searching. Politics, we keep being told, is out of fashion because nobody addresses the really tough questions that matter. Well, here is a chance to do something different. Ming, you were a runner. The ball's at your feet. Pick it up and run with it.

[Rasputin]

US diplomacy becomes more ... diplomatic

When Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice faced facts last week about international sentiment on Iran - shelving US demands for quick, tough action and signing on to another round of European incentives to curb Tehran's nuclear ambitions - it was a move right out of the Bush playbook.
The first President Bush's diplomatic playbook, that is.

Confronted with less maneuverability in the wake of Iraq and buffeted by newly assertive forces abroad, US diplomacy under Secretary Rice is proving to be more patient and multilateral than in the first Bush term. To the consternation of some conservatives, especially in Congress, American diplomacy is much less supremacist, with Rice stressing the new importance of holding together like-minded partners with similar values.

Besides Iran, evidence of this new reality - and Rice's approach to operating within it - can be found in several events of last week. Among them:

On Hamas, Rice signed on to a test period of resumed aid to Hamas-governed Palestinians, bowing to European pressure and rising concerns of a humanitarian crisis in the territories. And, at least temporarily, the pro-Israel congressional lobby stood down.

On China, the Bush administration declined to label China a "currency manipulator" despite its "extreme dissatisfaction" with Beijing's baby-step efforts to tame a high-flying yuan. The decision drew barbs from congressional Democrats and Republicans alike, who say China's strong currency hurts US manufacturing, but it put off any confrontation with Beijing over the issue.

"The Bush administration in the second term has been much more mindful of the need to engage in diplomacy and cognizant of the fact that it needs to give ground to get others on board," says Charles Kupchan, a US foreign-policy expert at Georgetown University here.

"It's not a strategic or ideological about-face, but a shift born almost exclusively of necessity," he adds. "After the difficulties of Iraq, we see it on Hamas, we see it on Iran, and we've seen a reemphasis on the need for European strength and unity."

A rising challenge for the US is newly assertive players abroad, including Russia and China, but also Iran, Hamas, and oil-rich Venezuela, that like to publicly poke at the US.

Rice's adaptations have led some to worry that the administration is pursuing coalition-building as if it were an end in itself.

"If your goal is to be liked, then you're not going to do very much," says Danielle Pletka, a foreign-policy analyst with the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank that has generally had close ties to the administration.

Zeroing in on the US decision to join European countries in offering Iran incentives to drop uranium enrichment, Ms. Pletka says, "I'm all for improving ties with allies, but one has to ask how going along on this moves the ball forward. Someone has to remember," she adds, "that we're not about getting better cooperation with the French and the Germans - that's not the objective. What we're about is getting the Iranian nuclear program derailed."

Of course, others within the administration take different foreign-policy approaches. Vice President Dick Cheney's recent broadside at Russia for what he called a retreat from democracy and the use of energy supplies to "blackmail" neighboring countries reflects the first Bush term's moral certitude, some observers say. It also suggests that the internal tensions between aggressive neoconservatives and more traditional internationalists, which have marked the Bush administration since at least 9/11, still exist.

Those who know the secretary put her squarely in the second camp.

"Condi Rice has always leaned ideologically closer to father Bush and the traditional internationalism of that presidency, than to the neoconservative internationalism of the first George W. Bush term," says Georgetown's Mr. Kupchan.

What Rice brings to the table is not only the assumption that she has the president's full backing - something predecessor Colin Powell couldn't assert - but also an ability to manage, if not actually resolve, the conflicting foreign-policy visions.

"You need a good cop and a bad cop to deal with" the international powers and bring them together, "and Secretary Rice is playing the good cop," says Raymond Tanter, who worked with Rice on the National Security Council of President George H.W. Bush.

On Iran, Hamas, and other international issues, UN Ambassador John Bolton - a Cheney ally - is "playing the bad cop, the tough guy, and that is buying time in the Congress," says Mr. Tanter. "In the meantime, Rice is working with the P-5 [the Security Council's five permanent members] plus Germany, where the name of the game is incrementalism."

Rice "took a lesson" from UN deliberations on Iraq, says Tanter, now president of the Iran Policy Committee, a group advocating regime change in Iran. But that has not changed American determination on Iran, he insists.

"She's seen that to maintain the unity you have to move slowly, but at the end of the road is the same objective," he says, "and that is for Iran to take an exit ramp from the road to the bomb."

One change with Rice at the helm of US foreign policy is that the State Department no longer takes a back seat to the Pentagon in foreign-policy hierarchy.

"After a time there in the doldrums, we feel like we have the wind back in our sails," says one State Department official, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to comment on administration turf battles.

The renewed primacy of the State Department in US foreign policy does not mean that one side has won or that tensions within the administration have ended. Some experts say the same divisions that mark American domestic politics will continue to roil US foreign policy even after the Bush presidency.

"The general thinking out there is that our foreign policy right now is a direct byproduct of Bush and his advisers, and that once they are gone we will have a return to ... a policy based on a centrist coalition of moderate Democrats and Republicans," says Kupchan.

But "the same factors dividing domestic camps are shaping foreign policy as well," he says. "I don't subscribe to this idea that the battle over foreign-policy visions will die out along with the Bush presidency."

[Rasputin]

[Rasputin]

The Iranian nation will wipe the strain of regret on the foreheads of those who want to bring about injustice", President Ahmadinejad scorned at a recent rally in the province of Zanjan. Iran "will cut off the hands of any aggressor", any attack would be met with a response that is double-fold including suicide attacks across Europe and the United States, he warned. "Israel should be wiped off the map", the predominately Jewish nation "cannot survive" and is headed "towards extinction" quipped the fanatical President.

If one were to listen to his rhetoric alone, even the most astute political intellectuals would think Iran is a nation equipped with the most dangerous military arsenal capable of challenging any nation. But Iran's rhetoric has little to do with their outdated and dismal military, their fledging economy or their detested government. The root of the government's fiery tone may be traced to their Shi'te ideology messianic belief in a mysterious, mystical twelfth imam who ventured into hiding over a thousand years ago.

The Hidden Imam is a central concept in the teachings of Shi'te Islam. Born Muhammad al-Mahdi he ventured into a cave in 941 AD hidden by a gate called the Gate of Occultation. The doctrine of Occultation professes Allah aided the cloaking of the Imam away from the eyes of man so that he could be kept alive until his return. Shi'tes believe that the Twelfth Imam will return to lead the religious battle between good and evil when the world has become consummately nefarious.

According to Shi'te orthodoxy humans may not force or hasten the return of the Imam, but the Hojjateiehs a group of which Ahmadinejad is a member, opine that humans may stir up chaos to encourage his return. With his recent rhetoric vowing for the destruction of Israel, demanding deportation of the Jews to Europe and denying the Holocaust that the President seems to be doing just that. In fact, his messianic axiom of the Twelfth Imam and the subsequent suppression of the forces of evil [modern day US, UK, Israel and many other nations] is central to Ahmadinejad's foreign policy. The Iranian government's official policy has undercut efforts of the international community by rejecting a United Nations deadline to suspend Iran's nuclear program, threatening to quit the Non-Proliferation Treaty and vying that "nothing can stop Iran's path to nuclear technology." In anticipation of a stand off with the West Iran recently clinched agreements with eight different Middle East insurgency groups to carry out suicide attacks against Israeli, British and US interests across the world. Ironically this plan is called 'Judgment Day.'


During a private meeting with an Iranian cleric in November Ahmadinejad claimed that while giving a speech before the United Nations he felt "the atmosphere change and for 27 to 28 minutes the leaders did not blink" "they were astonished.. it had opened their eyes and ears to the Islamic Republic." He further said that he felt the hand of God upon him as he delivered his omniscient speech. In his egocentric fantasy world the Iranian President likely sees himself as a deputy of the Imam with a divine mission to encourage his arrival. His references to the Imam in conjunction with threats to wipe countries off the face of earth should be taken seriously. Foreign policy experts should examine the Islamic Republic from both a political and religious perspective. To the clerical regime the return of the Imam is not a mere possibility, but a surety. Their attitude towards the international community seems to point at their preparation for that day.

International concerns aside, there are domestic reasons for the regimes erratic behavior. After 27 years of executions, floggings, stoning, oppression of political dissent, violation of women's rights, oppression of religious minorities, the largest brain drain in the world, rampant prostitution, crime, drug use and mass unemployment the Islamic Republic is domestically quite loathed. In fact, recent student polls show that close to eighty five percent of the population supports fundamental democratic changes in the regime. Iranian students have consistently poured into the streets in pro-Democracy protests only to be violently suppressed, jailed, tortured and often murdered. But, dictatorships can only oppress for so long and it's only a matter of time before Iran explodes in a pro-Western democratic revolution. The regime knows that the only way they can leave any kind of legacy is by invoking nationalistic pride by pushing the country into another war and unlike the Iran-Iraq war this time they're paving the way for the return of the Twelfth Imam.

From challenging the world to enhancing Iran's nuclear programs every issue is implemented for the arrival of Mahdi. The Islamic Republic is not vying for war because they're too arrogant to understand they will be crushed. They're vying for war because they believe Mahdi will return to help them defeat the United States and others who dare stand up to them. Ahamadinejad and Company's Armageddon may be coming to a theater near you and it's probably the scariest movie we'll ever see unless we aggressively invest in the overthrow of the regime before it's debut appearance.

[Rasputin]

[Rasputin]

White House hints at talks with Iranians

The Bush administration said Wednesday it might talk to Iran about the nuclear issue but only if Iran suspends its uranium enrichment program.

"When that happens ... then there may be some opportunities," White House spokesman Tony Snow said. He declined to give details other than to say the talks would include other countries.


The comment came as officials from the United States, France, Germany, Britain, Russia and China met in London and considered a package of incentives and punishments to convince Iran to suspend its nuclear program.


Three European diplomats - two in Washington and one in London who participated in the talks - said the package included an offer to Iran to hold talks about the security of the Persian Gulf that would include the United States. The talks would be contingent on Iran suspending its enrichment program.


The diplomats asked not to be named because the proposal is still being negotiated. The State Department would not comment on the negotiations except to say there had been progress.


Former secretaries of State Madeleine Albright and Henry Kissinger and foreign officials such as Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal have urged the Bush administration to talk to Iran about the nuclear issue.


Former Defense secretary William Perry, who negotiated with North Korea under the Clinton administration, said Wednesday that "it is essential that we be prepared to conduct direct talks with Iran" to convince Russia and China to support tough sanctions if Iran refuses to suspend uranium enrichment. Both countries have refused to back a United Nations Security Council resolution that would lay the groundwork for sanctions or military action.


Iranian officials, among them national security adviser Ali Larijani, have called for talks with the United States, arguing that the Bush administration is the main force behind international efforts to stop Iran's nuclear progress and to undermine its Islamic government. The administration has refused, saying Iran is a problem for the whole world and wants to use negotiations as a delaying tactic.


If Iran stops enriching uranium, European countries would also offer to sell Iran a sophisticated light-water nuclear power plant, the diplomats said. Such a reactor would be less likely to be misused for weapons.


Iran says its uranium enrichment program is meant to produce fuel for power plants; Western nations suspect Iran wants the ability to make weapons.

[Rasputin]

It's Time to Engage With Iran

"Only connect." That was the trademark line of E.M. Forster's great novel "Howards End." And it's a useful injunction in thinking about U.S. strategy toward Iran and the wider conflicts between the West and the Muslim world.

We are in the early stages of what the Centcom commander, Gen. John Abizaid, calls "the first war of globalization, between openness and closed societies." One key to winning that war, Abizaid told a small group of reporters at the Pentagon yesterday, is to expand openness and connection. He called al-Qaeda "the military arm of the closed order." The same could be said of the extremist mullahs in Tehran who are pushing for nuclear weapons.
America's best strategy is to play to its strengths -- which are the open exchange of ideas, backed up by unmatched military power. The need for connection is especially clear in the case of Iran, which in isolation has remained frozen in revolutionary zealotry like an exotic fruit in aspic. Yet some in the Bush administration cling to the idea that isolation is a good thing and that connectivity will somehow weaken the West's position. That ignores the obvious lesson of the past 40 years, which is that isolation has usually failed (as in the cases of Cuba and North Korea), while connectivity has usually succeeded (as in the cases of the Soviet Union and China).

A telling example was the decision to engage the Soviet Union in 1973 through the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe. At the time, some conservatives argued that it was a dangerous concession that the Soviets might interpret as a symbol of weakness. But the CSCE provided a crucial forum for dissidents in Russia and Eastern Europe, and with astonishing speed the mighty edifice of Soviet power began to crumble. Similar warnings about showing weakness in the face of an aggressive adversary were voiced when President Richard Nixon went to China in February 1972.

I cite this Cold War history because the moment has come for America to attempt to engage revolutionary Iran. The invitation for such a dialogue came this month in a letter to President Bush from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- a man whose rabble-rousing, Israel-baiting career gave him the credentials, if that's the right word, to break a 27-year Iranian taboo on contacts with the Great Satan.

Ahmadinejad's letter clearly had the backing of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In the American context, that's like having the support of Vice President Cheney for a peace feeler. My own Iranian sources say there is broad consensus in Tehran that it is time for talks with the United States. "Iran wants to start discussions the same way the Chinese wanted discussions" with Nixon, an Iranian businessman named Ali Ettefagh told me in an e-mail this week. "Great Satan doesn't sell anymore. More than half the population was not born 27 years ago, and the broken record does not play well." The Iranian offer of dialogue, he says, "ought to be taken as an opportunity, if only to air out grievances and amplify differences."

I suspect Iran wants dialogue now partly because it perceives America's position in Iraq as weak and its own as strong. That may be true, but so what? Washington should still take yes for an answer. The United States and its European allies this week are crafting a package that, one hopes, will include everything the Iranian people could want -- except nuclear weapons. The bundle of goodies should stress connectivity -- more air travel to Iran, more scholarships for students, more exchanges, Iranian membership in the World Trade Organization. The mullahs may well reject these incentives as threatening, but that's the point. Their retrograde theocracy can't last long in an open world. This very week, about 40 police officers were injured in a clash with demonstrators at two Tehran universities. One of the hand-lettered protest signs captured in an Iranian photo said: "This is not a seminary, it is a university."

Karim Sadjadpour, an Iranian analyst with the International Crisis Group, noted in Senate testimony last week that opinion polls show 75 percent of Iranians favor relations with the United States. "Embarking on a comprehensive dialogue with Iran would provide the U.S. with the opportunity to match its rhetorical commitment to Iranian democracy and human rights with action," Sadjadpour said. He's right.

There's no guarantee that a policy of engagement will work. The Iranian regime's desire to acquire nuclear weapons may be so unyielding that Tehran and Washington will remain on a collision course. But America and its allies will be in a stronger position for responding to Iranian calls for dialogue. Openness isn't a concession by America, it's a strategic weapon.

[Rasputin]

Say No to Tehran's Gambit

All of a sudden, revolutionary Iran has offered direct talks with the United States. All of a sudden, the usual suspects -- European commentators, American liberals, dissident CIA analysts, Madeleine Albright -- are urging the administration to take the bait.

It is not rare to see a regime such as Iran's -- despotic, internally weak, feeling the world closing in -- attempt so transparent a ploy to relieve pressure on itself. What is rare is to see the craven alacrity with which such a ploy is taken up by others.

Mark my words. The momentum for U.S.-Iran negotiations has only begun. The focus of the entire Iranian crisis will begin to shift from the question of whether Tehran will stop its nuclear program to whether Washington will sit down alone at the table with Tehran.

To this cynical bait-and-switch, there can be no American response other than No. Absolutely not.

Just yesterday the world was excoriating the Bush administration for its unilateralism -- on Kyoto, the ABM Treaty and, most especially, Iraq -- and demanding that Washington act in concert with the "international community." Just yesterday the Democratic nominee for president attacked President Bush's foreign policy precisely for refusing to consult with, listen to and work with "the allies."

Another day, another principle. Bush is now being pressured to abandon multilateralism and go it alone with Iran. Remember: In September 2003, after Iran was discovered cheating on its nuclear program, the United States wanted immediate U.N. action. The allies argued for a softer approach. Britain, France and Germany wanted to negotiate with Tehran and offer diplomatic and economic carrots in return for Iran's giving up its nuclear weapons program. The United States acquiesced.

After 2 1/2 years of utter futility, the E.U. Three had to admit failure and acknowledge the obvious: Iran had no intention of giving up its nuclear ambitions. Iran made the point irrefutable when it broke International Atomic Energy Agency seals and brazenly resumed uranium enrichment.

The full understanding we had with our allies was that if the E.U. Three process failed, we would go to the Security Council together and get sanctions imposed on Iran. Yes, Russia and China might still stand in the way. But even so, concerted sanctions by America, Europe and other economic powers could have devastating effects on Iran and its shaky clerical dictatorship.

Which is why the mullahs launched this recent initiative. They know, and fear, that if the West persists on its present and agreed course, they face sanctions so serious that their rule, already unpopular, might be in jeopardy. The very fact that Iran is desperately trying to change the subject, change the venue and shift the burden onto the United States shows how close the mullahs believe we are to achieving major international pressure on them.

Pushing Washington to abandon the multilateral process and enter negotiations alone is more than rank hypocrisy. It is a pernicious folly. It would short-circuit the process that, after years of dithering, is about to yield its first fruits: sanctions that Tehran fears. It would undo the allied consensus, produce endless new delays and give Iran more time to reach the point of no return, after which its nuclear status would be a fait accompli .

Entering negotiations carries with it the responsibility to do something if they fail. The E.U. Three understood that when they took on the mullahs a couple of years ago. Bilateral U.S.-Iran talks are the perfect way to get Europe off the hook. They would preempt all the current discussions about sanctions, place all responsibility for success on the negotiations and set America up to take the blame for their inevitable failure.

It is an obvious trap. We should resolutely say no.

Except on one condition. If the allies, rather than shift responsibility for this entire process back to Washington, will reassert their responsibility by pledging support for U.S. and/or coalition military action against Iran in the event that the bilateral talks fail, then we might achieve something.

You want us to talk? Fine. We will go there, but only if you arm us with the largest stick of all: your public support for military action if the talks fail. The mullahs already fear economic sanctions; they will fear European-backed U.S. military action infinitely more. Such negotiations might actually accomplish something.

That's our condition. Otherwise, the entire suggestion of bilateral talks is a ploy that should be rejected with the same contempt with which it was proposed.

[yayara]

By Mariam Karouny and Omar al-Ibadi
17 minutes ago



Iran has ruled out for now proposed talks with the United States over the future of Iraq because of Washington's "negative" attitude, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said on Friday.

"We had decided to have direct talks on the issue of Iraq with Americans," Mottaki, visiting Baghdad, said at a joint news conference with his Iraqi counterpart, Hoshiyar Zebari.

"Unfortunately, the American side tried to use this decision as propaganda and they raised some other issues. They tried to create a negative atmosphere and that's why the decision which was taken for the time being is suspended," he added.

After meeting new Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, Mottaki also warned the United States it would face retaliation if it mounted any attack on the Islamic Republic.

"In the event that Americans attack Iran anywhere, Iran will respond with an attack in that place," he told a separate news conference with Iraqi parliament speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani.

Mottaki, whose visit has spotlighted Shi'ite Iran's role in its U.S.-occupied neighbor, also said Tehran would host a regional meeting on Iraq but did not specify when.

He met Maliki less than a week after the Shi'ite Islamist formed a national unity government pledging to curb persistent bloodshed that has shown no sign of abating.

Violence raged across the country again on Friday. One bombing that killed nine in Baghdad, was followed by another one near a crowded market in the capital that killed at least 10 and wounded 18, police said.

The United States has no diplomatic relations with Iran. President George W. Bush has authorized his ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, to hold talks with Iran on what Washington says is meddling there by Tehran, but none have so far taken place amid reports of divisions in the U.S. administration.

In April, Washington said talks with Iran were on hold as Iraq's government was being formed. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also said last month there was no need for such talks for the time being.

IRAN-IRAQ TIES

Mottaki's trip was the second such visit from Iran since U.S.-led forces overthrew Saddam Hussein in 2003 and oversaw the election of an Iraqi Shi'ite Muslim leadership close to the Islamic Republic.

Saddam's once-dominant Sunni Arab minority is suspicious of non-Arab Iran. Its leaders accuse Tehran of fomenting unrest in Iraq to shackle U.S. military power in the region and of coveting oil reserves in Iraq's Shi'ite south.

U.S. and British officials also accuse Iranian forces of providing bomb-making expertise and equipment to Iraqis.

Mottaki said Tehran would invite Iraq's neighbors and Egypt for a meeting on the country at "the first opportunity."

"The regional countries at this meeting will emphasize the continuation of a joint determination to help restore peace and security in Iraq," he said.

In a sign of how relations between Iraq and Iran have improved since Saddam's downfall, Zebari said Tehran had the right to develop a peaceful nuclear program.

Washington and Tehran are fiercely at odds over Western accusations that Iran's nuclear power program is a cover for making weapons. Iran says it is seeking only nuclear energy.

"We believe in the wisdom of the Islamic Republic leadership in handling this subject and we are against any tension in the situation with the Islamic Republic," said Zebari, a Kurd.

Bush said in Washington on Thursday he would consider providing incentives to Iran if it agreed to a suspension of uranium enrichment activities.

At a White House news conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bush said they spent a lot of time discussing strategy on how to resolve the Iranian nuclear crisis.

Bush also cited the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal as America's "biggest mistake" in Iraq and admitted that aggressive language from him about the Sunni insurgents -- telling them to "bring 'em on" in 2003 -- may have "sent the wrong message."

(Additional reporting by Alastair Macdonald, Aseel Kami, Ahmed Rasheed, Michael Georgy and Fredrik Dahl in Baghdad)

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[Rasputin]

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Also on the table were unspecified security guarantees suggesting that Iran would not have to worry about outside efforts to topple the government.

The Europeans are now working with the United States, Russia and China on a revised package of economic, political and nuclear energy incentives if Iran ended its nuclear enrichment activities. Also being sought, at least by the Europeans and the United States, is an agreement to take Iran to the United Nations Security Council if it continues to defy the demands for compliance on nuclear issues.

European officials say the discussions about possible American-Iranian contacts are not part of these talks, but would be a way to improve the atmosphere with Iran.

Among the European diplomats who have urged Ms. Rice to consider direct contacts with Iran are Germany's foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and the European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana. The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, raised the issue with President Bush when she visited Washington earlier this year.

"What's interesting about Rice is that she listens when you make your case," a European official said.

Another European diplomat said, "It's a European aspiration for talks to happen," but added, "Nothing is likely at the moment." Still another European diplomat said of the Americans that "everyone and their brother has been telling them to do it."

One reason senior administration officials do not like the idea of talking with Iran, many of them say, is that they are not certain Iranian leaders would respond positively. A rebuff from Iran, even to a back-channel query, is to be avoided at all costs, various officials agree.

The administration, for example, has been embarrassed by the on-again, off-again possibility of talks with Iran on Iraq, which were authorized by Ms. Rice late last year.

The concern, some say, is that talking to Iran only about Iraq will anger Sunni dissidents in Iraq, reinforcing the Sunni-led insurgency while enhancing the status of Iraqi Shiites, whose strong ties to Iran make Washington uneasy.

On the other hand, the American ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, was said to be eager to enlist Iran in helping to deal with Iranian-backed Shiite militias, which are accused of carrying out killings and kidnappings of Sunnis in Iraq.

Some Europeans favor American participation in the European-Iranian talks, at least down the road. Others raise the possibility of informal contacts through nongovernmental organizations or policy institutes.

Incentives and possible sanctions against Iran are to be the focus of negotiations between the United States and the European nations in coming days and weeks.

The United States is resisting the Europeans' desire to increase economic incentives for Iran, because that would involve a lifting of American sanctions on European businesses that helped Iran. At the same time, Russia and China are resisting the idea of seeking a new resolution at the United Nations Security Council that could be seen as clearing the way for sanctions or possible military action against Iran.

[Rasputin]

U.S. Urges Financial Sanctions On Iran

The Bush administration is pressing Europe and Japan to impose wide-ranging sanctions designed to stifle the Iranian leadership financially if diplomatic efforts fail to resolve an impasse over the country's nuclear program, according to internal government memos and interviews with three U.S. officials involved.

Developed by a Treasury Department task force that reports directly to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the economic measures go far beyond the diplomatic pressure exerted by the Bush administration to date, both in scope of action and in objective.

The plan is designed to curtail the financial freedom of every Iranian official, individual and entity the Bush administration considers connected not only to nuclear enrichment efforts but to terrorism, government corruption, suppression of religious or democratic freedom, and violence in Iraq, Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian territories. It would restrict the Tehran government's access to foreign currency and global markets, shut its overseas accounts and freeze assets held in Europe and Asia.

The United States, which has imposed unilateral sanctions on Iran for nearly three decades, would shoulder few of the costs of its ambitious new proposal. But internal U.S. assessments suggest that the sanctions could not hurt Tehran without causing significant economic pain for Washington's friends. That calculation has made the plan a difficult sell, especially in capitals such as Rome and Tokyo, which import significant quantities of Iranian oil.

"I have been very open with people about the costs that could fall on them," said Stuart Levey, Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, in a recent interview.

U.S. intelligence agencies have spent months trolling through the personal accounts of Iranian leaders in foreign banks, analyzing Iranian financial systems and transactions and assessing how the government does its banking. They have calculated the amount of foreign investment at stake and even which charities have connections to the Tehran government.

Decades of stand-alone U.S. sanctions on Iran, North Korea and Cuba have failed to bring down those countries' leaders or modify their behavior. But U.S. officials believe that if other Western allies join in a sanctions pact, it could magnify pressure on Iran in much the same way that some Bush administration officials believe U.N. sanctions helped persuade Libya to give up its nuclear weapons program in 2003.

With Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan on board, collective sanctions would "isolate the Iranian regime" and see it "shunned by the international financial community," according to one internal Bush administration memo.

Under the plan, the major allies involved would freeze Iranian government accounts and financial assets in their countries, much as the United States did after Iranian students took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979. Iranian officials who appear on lists being drawn up by U.S. officials would be prevented from opening accounts, trading on foreign markets or obtaining credit.

U.S. officials said in interviews that it is their hope the allies will carry out the punitive measures if Iran refuses a package of incentives the Europeans are preparing to offer in coming weeks.

So far, potential partners have not jumped at the plan, raised again last week in London by senior diplomats from Washington and European capitals. European officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity attributed their reluctance to a reliance on Iranian oil, domestic legal constraints and the fear of being dragged toward another conflict in the Middle East.

In an effort to minimize financial risks, the plan does not include oil or trade embargoes. But, according to a Treasury Department assessment, it could jolt world oil prices nonetheless if Iran responds by limiting exports. The internal assessment also predicts additional economic repercussions for Western allies, such as trade loss, and adverse effects for the Iranian people as their government is squeezed out of global markets and foreign banks stop taking their business.

[Rasputin]

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The potential side effects have led European officials to turn the pressure back on Washington to hold direct talks with Iran.

"The sanctions could make Iran miserable, and Iran can respond by making everyone miserable back," said one senior Western official, who consulted on the issue recently with Rice. "In the end, the whole world is miserable and Iran gets to keep its nuclear program."

Although sanctions would not be directed "at the country or people of Iran," the measures "can be expected to bear second-order consequences for the people of Iran," according to a footnote on a Treasury Department task force memo sent to Rice last month.

The task force, made up of financial investigators, analysts and intelligence officers, is part of a growing government effort -- at the White House, the State Department, the CIA and the Pentagon -- focused on Iran. While some parts of the administration are studying prospects for negotiations with Iran -- an ally turned enemy nearly 30 years ago -- others are preparing for increased isolation and the possibility of a military strike against nuclear installations.

For four years, President Bush has sought to isolate Iran and roll back its nuclear energy program, which could provide the Islamic republic with a pathway to a nuclear bomb. Over that time, Iran's capabilities and nuclear expertise have only advanced, while soaring crude prices have brought the oil-rich nation additional hard currency.

The situation has emboldened the Iranians and left the White House searching for leverage. Bush administration officials believe that one approach may be to prevent Tehran from spending money on the open market.

European governments have spent months considering travel bans and arms embargoes on Iran, both of which would be largely symbolic. U.S. officials now hope the Europeans will impose sharper sanctions on Iran, at some cost to themselves, as diplomacy fails to yield results.

In interviews, U.S. officials described the plan as a new approach to international sanctions and said they believe it could succeed if implemented correctly.

"I would argue that targeted sanctions are designed to have minimal effects on people," Levey said, "and more designed to have effect . . . on the government and the people in the government. We are trying to design things that are not intended to inflict harm on the people." Undersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns and Levey first briefed their Western counterparts on aspects of the proposal at a meeting last month in Moscow.

But the impact on U.S. allies could be steep as well. A Treasury Department memo recently predicted that Britain, which does not import Iranian oil, faces a low level of financial risk if it agrees to implement the sanctions plan. Germany, which imports 1 percent of its oil from Iran, and France, which gets 6 percent, are deemed at medium financial risk, whereas Italy and Japan would be taking the largest risks. The assessment is considered internally "an initial -- first blush -- estimate based on each country's overall volume of exports to Iran, dependence on Iranian oil and degree of investment in Iran oil projects," according to the Treasury memo.

Japan exports nearly $1.3 billion worth of goods to Iran, has nearly $2 billion worth of oil projects there and gets about 12 percent of its oil from the country, which is approximately equivalent to what the United States buys from Saudi Arabia. Italy buys 9 percent of its oil from Iran, and has $3.2 billion in oil investments in the country and $2.7 billion worth of exports to Iran.

Originally, U.S. policymakers discussed plans for sanctions through the U.N. Security Council, but that has proved more difficult than convincing a handful of allies.

The new plan would operate outside the council's authority and would "not depend on recalcitrant countries," identified in one government document as China and Russia, which have resisted the idea of U.N. sanctions. But if they did not participate, Beijing and Moscow would also be spared any financial burden and be free to pick up lost European business with Iran.

In the hopes of encouraging other governments to act, the Treasury Department has pursued a secondary path, approaching private-sector banks in Europe and Japan, one by one, in the hopes that they will reject Iranian business on their own.

A similar strategy was successfully employed with a bank in Macau, off mainland China, that was doing business with North Korea.

So far, four financial institutions have signed on to the U.S. effort. "These institutions are looking at which way this is headed and are asking themselves if they want to get in front of this wave," Levey said.

[Rasputin]

I recently encountered in an editorial the rather melodramatic reading (to say the least) of President Ahmadinejad's open letter to President Bush as 'a declaration of war' - a rather trite and sanctimonious entreaty sure - but don't President Bush and Tony Blair engage in the same sort of self-righteous non-sequiturs almost every day? The political activist and commentator Tariq Ali was surely correct to describe the geopolitical malady in which we currently find ourselves, as a clash of fundamentalisms. The side of 'progress' and 'civilization' is not on one side, and 'barbarity' on the other -- this ideological construction is actually far more complicated and nuanced than many would have us believe.

The world-views of President Ahmadinejad and President Bush, at least from where I'm standing, are virtually indiscernible. The Manichean opposition between good and evil is firmly entrenched on both sides, elevated to the status of all-pervasive metaphysical entities, with each president espousing his unswerving conviction he has divine providence on his side. Just as 'we' are all 'good' and lie on the side of 'purity' and 'justice', 'they' are by definition 'evil' and have only one fate, that of eternal damnation. Neither believes he is accountable to the people he supposedly represents, and with an almost sickly self-assurance asserts he will be judged beyond time and history (this applies to Blair also).

We must break with this inordinately crude sort of dialectical thinking, which can only end in mutual destruction, and resolutely cast aside exhortations of the sort: 'you are either with us or against us!' When presented with such an ultimatum we shouldn't allow ourselves to be co-opted into the spirit of war-mongering and belligerence, and instead make a concerted effort to ensure our representatives pursue the route of engagement and dialogue.

Although it seems that a dialogue without intermediary has for the time being been put aside due to the explicit resistance of both parties, direct talks between the US and Iran could bear significant fruit. Firstly, speaking strictly in terms of US interests, it could provide greater stability for the fledgling Iraqi government, security guarantees for the US's ally Israel, through the solicitation of security guarantees and possible recognition. I'm not pulling this out of thin air.

A copy of a 2003 Iranian proposal for Iranian-Israeli peace was obtained by the Inter Press Service from Trita Parsi, a specialist on Iranian foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies -- the report entailed recognition of Israel which would also necessarily incorporate the cessation of funding for Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah etc... Moreover, pressure would be applied in order to bridge the transition to a total renunciation of violence by these parties.

Of course this isn't a guarantee, Iran simply doesn't have that kind of power, but the proposal states unequivocally that Hezbollah would be pressured to forgo all paramilitary activity and become solely a political party. The official line on Israeli-Palestinian peace would also come into line with that of Egypt and Saudi Arabia (staunch American allies) i.e. the so-called Saudi initiative. This has also been attested to recently in the 'Middle East Journal' by Professor Mustafa Kibaroglu of Bilkent University.

The Iranian proposal also offered to accept tighter controls by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in exchange for 'full access to peaceful nuclear technology.' It also pledges 'full cooperation with IAEA based on Iranian adoption of all relevant instruments (93+2 and all further IAEA protocols).' In return the US would recognize the Islamic state as legitimate and lift all sanctions imposed since the revolution of 1979.

This was of course scuppered by the more extreme elements in the Bush Administration. You can I'm sure speculate for yourself the reasons why such a detente was unpalatable for that cabal of zealots: 'regime change' would have to be conclusively set aside, and therefore so would the dream of untrammelled access to Iran's oil fields, natural gas and other natural resources, not to mention the plethora of lucrative non-competitive building contracts to be handed down after Tehran's been razed to the ground.

One might say in response, 'yes' the Iranian proposal was a missed opportunity but now irrelevant because of the end of the Khatami presidency. Ahmadinejad's virulence on the matter of the Israeli occupation of Palestine incontrovertibly testifies to this. Although this is true in part, we should not be lead down the road of refusal and thereby relegate Iran to a pariah state that shouldn't be negotiated with on principle. This would be an insipid and short-sighted move.

It's illusory to believe that the threat of violence and sanctions is going to erode support for Ahmadinejad and ultimately topple the Islamic regime -- this issue for Iranians is far bigger than its current president -- it is a national goal: the goal of a nation in pursuit of autonomy and self-sufficiency, and lastly regional prestige. Anti-imperialist rhetoric can easily be brought to bear by the Iranian government in order to override and deracinate inter-ideological disputes in the face of the Western powers sabre-rattling.

The overthrow of Mosaddegh by the CIA-MI6 orchestrated coup in 1953 and the US's support for the Shah's dictatorship are almost automatic associations that come to mind for many Iranians with the US refusal to take the nuclear option off the table and the Israeli threat to undertake unilateral action against Iranian nuclear facilities as it did with Iraq in 1981.

The current US policy is achieving nothing other than resolutely destroying the reformists' position in the eyes of much of the Iranian public. It is eliding internal political differences and uniting a vast swathe of the Iranian population in a nationalist furore. It doesn't only allow the Iranian government to clamp down without compunction or outcry upon internal dissent; it also conjures up the spectre of imperial interference that has plagued Iran for the last one hundred years.

And these reactions of the Iranian public can't simply be put down to a proclivity for conspiracy theories as Western commentators so often surmise. Iranians have endured autocracy, revolution, theocracy and war; sanctions will only punish those whom least deserve it and will surely serve to undo the steady albeit not unproblematic opening of civil society, that so many men and women have suffered for in their embattled attempt to narrate their own modernity.

Continued pressure via the EU and direct US engagement instead of clinging to the vestiges of wounded pride, are the only serious options with a genuine chance of moderating the current Iranian government, boosting the reformist movement, and ensuring that Iran's nuclear technology remains solely attuned to peaceful ends. Negotiation and dialogue, in an ebb and flow of carrot and stick is the most feasible alternative for engendering the diverse voices latent within Iranian civil society and their translation into more representative institutions.

This of course is a difficult balance to strike but it is one that is most certainly worth striving for. The fact that over 100,000 Iraqi's have died in the last three years not to mention the thousands upon thousands that perished as a result of UN sanctions which antedated the invasion of Iraq should itself be sufficient for British and US policy makers to once and for all uproot the lunacy of 'regime change' or any other such insidious stratagem. Here, however, I have tried to stay clear of emphasizing the human disaster which that imperial misadventure has inaugurated and in lieu show that US engagement with Iran is the most reasonable option in terms of US interests.

[Rasputin]

Condoleezza Rice Holds News Conference on Iran

RICE: Good morning.

The pursuit by the Iranian regime of nuclear weapons represents a direct threat to the entire international community, including to the United States and to the Persian Gulf region.

In defiance of repeated calls from the IAEA Board of Governors and from the Security Council, the Iranian government has accelerated its nuclear program, while continuing to conceal its activities from international inspectors.

Working with our international partners, the United States is making every effort to achieve a successful diplomatic outcome. But the international community has made clear that Iran must not acquire nuclear weapons.

The vital interests of the United States, of our friends and allies in the region, and of the entire international community are at risk, and the United States will act accordingly to protect those common interests.

Today, the Iranian regime can decide on one of two paths, one of two fundamentally different futures for its people and for its relationship to the international community.

The Iranian government's choices are clear. The negative choice is for the regime to maintain its current course, pursuing nuclear weapons in defiance of the international community and its international obligations.

If the regime does so, it will incur only great costs. We and our European partners agree that path will lead to international isolation and progressively stronger political and economic sanctions.

The positive and constructive choice is for the Iranian regime to alter its present course and cooperate in resolving the nuclear issue, beginning by immediately resuming suspension of all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, as well as full cooperation with the IAEA and returning to implementation of the additional protocol which would provide greater access for the IAEA.

RICE: This path would lead to the real benefit and longer-term security of the Iranian people, the region and the world as a whole.

The Iranian people believe they have a right to civil nuclear energy. We acknowledge that right. Yet the international agreements Iran has signed make clear that Iran's exercise of that right must conform with its commitments.

In view of its previous violations of its commitments and the secret nuclear program it undertook, the Iranian regime must persuasively demonstrate that it has permanently abandoned its quest for nuclear weapons.

The benefits of the second path for the Iranian people would go beyond civil nuclear energy and could include progressively greater economic cooperation. The United States will actively support these benefits, both publicly and privately.

Furthermore, President Bush has consistently emphasized that the United States is committed to a diplomatic solution to the nuclear challenge posed by the Iranian regime.

We are agreed with our European partners on the essential elements of a package containing both benefits, if Iran makes the right choice, and costs, if it does not. We hope that in the coming days the Iranian government will thoroughly consider this proposal.

Our British, French and German partners have rightly required that Iran fully and verifiably suspend its enrichment and reprocessing activities before the sides can return to negotiations. This is the condition that has also been established by the IAEA Board of Governors and by the U.N. Security Council.

RICE: The United States is willing to exert strong leadership to give diplomacy its very best chance to succeed.

Thus, to underscore our commitment to a diplomatic solution and to enhance the prospects for success, as soon as Iran fully and verifiably suspends its enrichment and reprocessing activities, the United States will come to the table with our E.U. colleagues and meet with Iran's representatives.

This morning, United States representatives have conveyed my statement to Iran through the good offices of the Swiss government and through Iran's representative to the United Nations.

Given the benefits of this positive path for the Iranian people, regional security and the nuclear nonproliferation regime, we urge Iran to make this choice for peace, to abandon its ambition for nuclear weapons.

President Bush wants a positive relationship between the American people and the people of Iran, a beneficial relationship of increased contacts in education and cultural exchange, in sports and travel and trade and investment.

The nuclear issue, though, is not the only obstacle standing in the way of improved relations. The Iranian government supports terror. It is involved in violence in Iraq. And it is undercutting the restoration of full sovereignty in Lebanon under U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559.

These policies are out of step with the international community and are barriers to a positive relationship between the Iranian people and the people of the United States, as well as with the rest of the world.

RICE: Iran can and should be a responsible state, not the leading state sponsor of terror.

The United States is ready to join the E.U.-3 to press these and other issues with the Iranian government, in addition to our work to resolve the nuclear danger.