Eye On Iran

[Rasputin]

Let me ask you a question: Why is it that you seldom see an Iranian political scientist being invited by FOX or CNN news or the likes to discuss their viewpoints about Iran despite of all that is going on between the West and Iran and the fact that we have such a large population of Iranians in the US?

Well, before I collect your answers let me jump to a little scenario before I forget:

When she lived in Iran the Revolution was two decades old, and by the time she got out of Iran she was about seventeen. Daddy somehow managed to get her out of Iran thanks to the fact that his green card was still valid and he decided to leave Iran for good. A couple of years later in the US she decides to write books, essays and articles against the Iranian regime staging herself in the center of it all as a political refugee, an expert on Iranian affairs, a poet, a victim of Islamic atrocities, a scholar at large, and 'nokhodeh har aash' a jack of all trades! "Ya aba abdollah khodet beh dadeh ma beres"

Allow me to quote from the Chinese Nationalist Leader Chiang Kai-shek that usually under such circumstances without any hesitation or equivocation would say "Zereshk!" How did a 17-year-old attain so much experience in Iran to single handedly open a chain of assaults on her motherland? Well, the answer is that any Iranian female who is willing to write a book or give a lecture against Islam or Iran is welcome by the western mass media as this is the open season against the Iranians.

First, they'll say it is the Iranian regime that they are after and then all Iranians who stand up for their country become "insurgents" and later on they get divided between the two category of "terrorists" and "insurgents" And if all fails they say it is a sectarian war! "pass baba installation of Democracy chee shod?" Very much like what we saw in Iraq. So be careful when you assault your motherland.

Just because a couple of time back in Iran the lunch that mommy prepared did not have enough 'tah-deeg' or because she had to wear a scarf between her house and the dancing party at friends' house, or perhaps because she had a few bouts of diarrhea during childhood in Iran or just because she had to stand a in long lines to get the groceries does not entitle her or anyone else to act like a political refugee. Baby you are not a refugee, you just don't know what goes on in your country and you are being played by the western media and they buy your articles and put you on the pedestal and invite you to this show and that interview for as long as you write against Iran and describe the injuries inflicted on your emotions from Islam. "ageh muchesh konam khoob meesheh?" Enjoy the fifteen minutes of fame.

The bottom line is the Iranians living abroad are choosing wrong ways to express their feelings towards West's desire to humiliate Iran. Ahamdinejaad and the form of Islam known in the west are the two scapegoats giving them enough excuse to keep Iran from any progress.

When Iranians in the US attend demonstrations against any potential economic sanctions or military attack against Iran they should realize that going to such demonstrations with their Saks Fifth Avenue dresses or their Louis Vuitton purses (most of them copycats made in China) this only makes the Americans to mistakenly think that we are not the same as the fellows who live in Iran. They think we are "Americanized" and the ones back home are wild and fanatics. Case in point, recall back in college days that you used to get the compliments "oh, you don't look Iranians, you look so Italian"? Certainly the American who said that to you meant it as a compliment but in reality that is an insult. You look like an Italian but rest of your country looks so ugly!

If you want to change the public opinions about Iranians (the ones back home) you need to attend these 'stop war demonstrations' and perhaps do the followings:

Wear the same attire that an Iranian woman wears back in Iran. Wear a scarf, wear a Kurdish or Turkmen dress or whatever even a chador, but no Donna Karan por favor. And most importantly no bleach blondes to be allowed to participate. Nose job is OK.

Make lots of 'halva' and bring the whole pot and put it on the sidewalk across from the White House and serve the halva wrapped in noon lavash and carry it on a large tray and offer it to the public around the White House:

"Sir have some Halva, dahanetoono shirin koneen, we are Iranians against any attacks on Iran"

Keep passing Halva and noon to everyone including police officers, secret service look alike et al.

Do the same with several trays of Persian dates and zulbia-bamieh, and just offer them to the public and remind them you are an Iranian who has lived in US for many years and you don't want your country be a target of western greed, let them realize that we are no better than the Iranians back home. This leaves a good impression on the American public. The good taste of halva goes a long way. By the way let's not be shy and if there is any budgetary issues for the cost of preparing the food just pick up the phone and call Prince Reza's office (Shahvat Foundation formerly known as Pahlavi Foundation), he will be delighted to pitch in a few thousand dollars for a good cause, doesn't he? It's tax deductible anyway.

Iranian men please avoid carrying Starbucks coffee in one hand and the placards in the other this makes you look Americanized. Carry a huka and smoke the hell out of it and offer it to the public.

Men also to avoid wearing blue jeans and expensive shirts when going to these "no attack on Iran demonstrations" just wear pajamas and a sandal! You recall back home we used to go to 'noonvaee' with pajamas so why not here, be an Iranian for a day.

Celebrity voices have also been proved as a very effective tool to change public opinions. So let's find out if Oscar winner Sally Field is willing to participate in these demonstrations wearing the same black chador that she wore in her low-budget movie "Not without My Daughter" Perhaps she is not as angry anymore and at least can help with the halva distribution if nothing else.

[Rasputin]

THE BUSH administration is paying a steep price for its lost credibility.

Perhaps in another time, the American people -- and U.S. allies around the world -- might be reluctant to question evidence presented by senior administration officials that suggested Iran was supplying Shiite extremists in Iraq with some of the most sophisticated and lethal weapons in the war.

But skepticism naturally arises from the feeling we've seen this movie before. Americans cannot easily forget the scenes of Secretary of State Colin Powell's impressive audio-visual presentation to the United Nataions of evidence that Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction. The White House alarm about Hussein's growing capability was a major rationale for the March 2003 invasion -- and has since been thoroughly discredited, while more than 3,100 Americans have died in the conflict.

Senior U.S. military officials were similarly detailed and emphatic over the weekend in making public their evidence connecting Iran with the delivery of mortar shells, rocket-propelled grenades and canisters that can shoot molten balls of armor in Iraq. Among the evidence: Serial numbers that link the weapons to factories in Iran.

The experience with the Iraq war -- the deceptions behind its premise, the severe miscalculations of its consequences -- underscores the need for members of Congress to summon vigorous and independent expert examination of any and all administration claims. After all, there are factions within the administration that have been agitating for a harder line -- including military action -- against Iran.

A much wiser course would be clear-eyed, tough diplomacy, with all regional players engaged, as suggested by the Iraq Study Group. In denying any connection with the shipment of weapons to Iraq militants, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insisted that turmoil in Iraq was not in his nation's interest. Ahmadinejad has been softening his rhetoric in recent weeks, but his history of undiplomatic recklessness has shown he is not to be taken at his word.

If Iran is serious about "asking for peace" in Iraq, as Ahmadinejad claims, its government should be helping trace the source of that deadly weaponry. But such cooperation can't occur in a diplomatic freeze.

[Rasputin]

[Rasputin]

Fight Iran with a war of ideas

THOSE WHO SEE a military attack on Iran as inevitable are relying on a specific interpretation and image of that country: Iran supports terrorism and develops weapons of mass destruction. The terms "WMD" and "terror" generate panic and fear, and the images coming out of Iran seem to justify those responses.

However, that is an incomplete picture, one that has been reduced to the Iran espoused by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his supporters: a belligerent president, a violent rhetoric, a denial of the Holocaust. In addition, some analysts and Iran experts say that the Iranian people have given up on change, that they have left the political arena, opting for economic wellbeing, and therefore there is no longer a real resistance against the Islamic regime.

Those who hold this narrow and dire view conclude that such conditions could lead to a military attack on Iran. But were we to include the full range of images and voices in Iran today in the scenario, we would see that Ahmadinejad's violent rhetoric abroad and repressive measures at home stem not from a position of strength but weakness.

Since his election, there have been two demonstrations by Iranian women and a campaign to gather a million signatures against the segregationist laws in Iran. There have been workers' protests in 10 cities since January, and others at universities, which Ahmadinejad has called the bedrock of "secularism and liberalism"; students have greeted him and his projects with slogans of "death to the dictator." He has been the target of severe criticism even within the ruling hierarchy, including the conservative camp. And he has been chastised in parliament for using bluster and violent rhetoric abroad to divert attention from domestic problems, especially dire economic conditions, inflation and unemployment.

Under such conditions, who would benefit from a military attack on Iran? Not the workers, students, minorities, women or the dissenters who have been trying to find nonviolent and democratic ways of resisting and changing the present system.

Such an attack would provide an excuse for the most reactionary and violent elements within the ruling elite to stifle any voice of dissent not just from within the civil society, but from the divided and factional ruling elite. It would help rally factions within that elite behind Ahmadinejad, and it would provide Iran a good excuse to attempt to further isolate the United States within the international community.

In other words, the main beneficiary of an attack on Iran would be the most militaristic and reactionary elements in the Iranian ruling hierarchy.

As someone who has for years advocated that the best policy toward Iran is to support the Iranian people's democratic aspirations and that the only means of establishing pluralism and openness in that country is through democratic and nonviolent means, I emphasize once more that the best weapon democracies have against repressive regimes and against terror is not military but ideological and cultural. The most effective war against the tyrants in Iran is through giving voice to the workers asking for their rights, to women fighting for equality and to students, journalists, writers and intellectuals fighting for freedom of expression.

To miss this opportunity not only would be disastrous for the Iranian people, it would have dire consequences for the United States and the world.

[Rasputin]

Former neoconservative theorist and Director of Johns Hopkins University's International Development Program, Dr. Francis Fukuyama, described Iranian foreign policy as pragmatic and rational, and announced that a comprehensive political agreement between the US and Iran was still possible, in spite of the Bush administration's present confrontational approach to the Middle East. "The Grand Bargain may still be there... Our hand is weaker than it was three or four years ago," he said at a National Iranian American Council's (NIAC) and New America Foundation (NAF) Capitol Hill event on US-Iran relations.

Fukuyama challenged America's unilateral approach to Middle East foreign policy over the past 6 years, criticizing the Bush administration's reliance on: overwhelming military might; preventive war as a nonproliferation strategy; democratization as a method of securing strategic goals, unilateralist approaches to international affairs; and what he called a lack of competence in carrying out policy objectives.

Asserting the importance of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, Fukuyama reasons that stepping up economic pressure on Iran can only work if the US also pursues a "path out that involves a serious political offer."

The theory that Iran would not respond to a deterrence strategy was questioned by Fukuyama, who described Iran as a cautious regional actor in its approach to national interests, "Iran has actually been quite pragmatic," he said. Fukuyama referenced the country's dealings in the past with Israel to support his view.

Cautiousness and skepticism about forging a US-Iran alliance was expressed by the nationally renowned academic; nevertheless, he supported the advancement of more positive incentives or "carrots" coupled with greater sticks to achieve US strategic aims with respect to Iran. For example, he preferred the forswearing of the US's regime change ambitions in Iran and a restoration of diplomatic relations, rather than the Security Council and Germany's (the P5+1) proposal preconditioned on a suspension of enrichment even before the talks begin.

Fukuyama also criticized the Bush administration's $75 million in expenditures in FY 2007 for "democratic regime-change," activities, implying that US government support for so-called democracy groups inside Iran was problematic. "You cannot get a taker inside the country because it's way too dangerous," he asserted.

While Fukuyama harbored hopes for warmer relations between the US and Iran, he conceded that such a possibility under the current regional climate would be difficult, although not impossible. A strategic partnership between the US and Iran, however, could not likely be achieved with the current regime in Tehran, he argued.

[Rasputin]

Clashes between armed militants and police have erupted in the south-eastern Iranian city of Zahedan, state media have reported.
Police sealed off the area and exchanged fire with the attackers after a bomb went off, Irna news agency quoted an unnamed official as saying.

It comes two days after a car bomb in Zahedan killed 11 Revolutionary Guards.

A hardline Sunni group, Jundallah, said it carried out Wednesday's attack.

Iranian officials have accused Britain and the United States of supporting ethnic minority rebels operating in the Islamic republic's sensitive border areas.

'Percussion bomb'

The explosion and clashes took place just hours after the funerals for the 11 Revolutionary Guards.

The governor of Zahedan, Hassan ali Nouri, told Fars news agency that the explosion was caused by a percussion bomb - a device which produces a large bang but causes little damage.


Wednesday's attack destroyed a bus carrying Revolutionary Guards
Provincial police commander Gen Mohammad Ghaffari told Fars that 68 people had been arrested over Wednesday's bombing, including three who are suspected of having carried out the attack.

"The gang has been ordered by some foreign states to plant bombs in specific places and escape the country simultaneously," Gen Ghaffari said.

He added that police had found a number of weapons and explosives in a house "where members of the terrorist group Jundallah were getting prepared for another operation".

Zahedan is the capital of Sistan-Baluchestan province, which borders both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

It has a substantial Sunni Islam Baluch community.

The city has been the focus of low-level unrest, with several security force members being killed in the last two months.

Police have sometimes clashed with gangs transporting opium from Afghanistan.

[Rasputin]

I am very pleased to be part of this movement. Coming from the Middle East, living under the Islamic Republic in Iran, one of the most brutal regimes of the 20th century, I feel very passionate about the aims of this movement. As a first hand victim of political Islam, as a woman who has lived under the rule of Islam, I have experienced first hand the brutalism and suppression of an Islamic regime and political Islam. As a left activist fighting for freedom and equality I experienced this brutal regime and this reactionary political force, loosing many friends and comrades.

I have devoted my life to fight for a better world, a free and egalitarian society, where there exists unconditional freedom of expression and criticism, unconditional freedom for women and equality among all human beings, regardless of their gender, nationality, ethnicity, race, religion or beliefs.

Religion is not only an oppressive institution, suppressing freedom of thought, speech and criticism and oppressing women. It is also the machinery for terrorizing societies. In the history of mankind, more people have died under the name of the God, than any other ideology or cause. In fact religion is a mafia-liken institution.

As it regards women, all religions are very oppressive and Islam particularly is well-known for its oppressive nature towards women.

The main enemy of women‚s liberation movement in Iran and the Middle East is political Islam and we must fight it, push it back and create a secular society as a precondition for materializing women‚s liberation. Religion must be a private matter. We have to push the institution of religion to the margins of society, curtail its role and influence in society. This is a precondition for creating a free society.

Political Islam as a reactionary global force resorts to intimidation and terrorism to gain power. Depriving, degrading and humiliating women are enshrined in its ideology. The veil is its political banner and gender apartheid a pillar of its movement. We have to fight against it.

As the world is increasingly becoming a global entity, we need more than ever to build an international movement. We need to build a movement around humanitarian and egalitarian values and goals. It is not enough to safeguard Europe from religious institutions and political Islam. As a matter of fact it is no longer possible. We need to reach the whole world. Our fight must be on an international scale.

The two greatest evils in today‚s world are the two poles of terrorism: state terrorism, led by the USA, and Islamist terrorism. We must fight against both. They reinforce each other. Look at Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, as well as September 11th, and Madrid, and London. We need to raise the banner against both and come together as the voice of the civilized world.

As president of the Organisation for Women‚s Liberation, I like to call upon you all to support our struggle for achieving women‚s equality and liberation in Iran. To do this we need to fight against the Islamic Republic and political Islam. Realising women‚s liberation in Iran will open the window to freedom for women in the whole Middle East and countries under the rule of Islam. The women‚s liberation movement is one of the main pillars of the movement against political Islam and for a free, egalitarian and secular world. If we topple the Islamic Republic in Iran, political Islam will be marginalized internationally.

I ask for your support and solidarity. Join us in our fight against Islamic Republic, against political Islam and for women‚s equality. We are building an international movement against gender apartheid, like the movement against racial apartheid in South Africa in the 1980s. Join this movement to recognise gender apartheid as an inhuman and reactionary system as racial apartheid was recognized. We should dismantle gender apartheid in the world as we once dismantled racial apartheid in South Africa.

[Rasputin]

What Tehran Is Really Up To

Reports that Iran is arming various factions in Iraq are about as surprising as claims that Mafia members have been seen in Las Vegas casinos. Iran has been meddling in its neighbors' affairs for a long time, and not just in Iraq. Teheran has trained terrorist and guerrilla groups in Bosnia, Lebanon and Palestine, all of which are far from Iran.

So when U.S. military officials displayed explosively formed penetrators (EFPs), rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons that they say Iran provided to Shiite militias in Iraq, we have to recognize that this was no big departure for the Iranians.

As President Bush and Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged last week, finding Iranian arms in Iraq does not prove the more important, and harder to make, argument that Iran is ordering its Iraqi proxies to attack U.S. troops. It may seem absurd to give Iran the benefit of the doubt, in light of its sorry track record on nuclear proliferation and support for radicalism in general, but we can't understand what Iran is up to without an appreciation for its broader Iraq strategy, which goes well beyond Tehran's desire to undermine U.S. policy. Iranian leaders calculate that they will need formidable proxies should the United States leave, and indeed Iran will face many challenges in Iraq if U.S. forces depart.

So why would Iran arm Iraqis and perhaps direct attacks on U.S. forces? For most Iranians, Iraq is an emotional issue. They see the daily suffering of Iraqis, both from the chaos in Iraq in general and at the hands of Sunni suicide bombers. They empathize with their fellow Shiites in Iraq, with whom they have historic ties and shared religious traditions. Though they rejoice over the downfall of Saddam Hussein (Iran suffered hundreds of thousands of casualties in the bitter war of 1980-88, which Hussein launched against it) they blame the United States for the violence that has swept Iraq since Hussein fell.

Iran worries about the United States. When Ayatollah Khomeini took power in the 1979 Islamic revolution, he made anti-Americanism a core of the new regime's foreign policy. The United States has been hostile ever since, even tilting toward Iraq during its war with Iran. The United States and Iran have not had diplomatic relations since 1979, and have periodically confronted each other.

In the decade before 9/11, Iran structured its military forces to fight America, even when the U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf region was confined to the conservative oil states of the Arabian peninsula. Since 9/11, the United States has occupied Iraq with more than 100,000 troops, put significant forces in Afghanistan and Central Asia, and strengthened its security relationship with Pakistan. Iran perceives itself as surrounded. The United States has repeatedly made threats against the Iranian regime, has refused to surrender anti-regime Iranian terrorists found in Iraq, organized international economic pressure on the country, led a diplomatic effort to deny Iran the right to develop nuclear energy and nuclear weapons, and pointedly included military force against Iran as an option after dispatching two aircraft carriers to the Persian Gulf region-- hostile steps, in Iranian eyes, that reinforce paranoia.

Tehran does not want the secular and pro-Western Iraq that America dreams of, and it wants to ensure that the U.S. doctrine of preventive regime change is dead. So far, developments in Iraq have worked out in Iran's favor -- indeed, Iran appears to be the one state that is winning this war. Iraq is too weak to pose a military threat to Iran for years and perhaps decades to come. The democratic procedures that the United States imposed on Iraq put in power Shiite leaders who are far friendlier to Tehran than to Washington.

Iran is less nervous than it was in 2003, but it remains understandably anxious. The long-term role of U.S. forces and the future of the Shiite regime in Iraq are open questions. Instability in Iraq could lead to waves of refugees returning to Iran, as happened during the Iran-Iraq war, and could excite unrest among Iran's Kurdish and Arab populations. Expecting an American withdrawal sooner or later, Iran wants to prepare for a postwar era by maximizing its influence now.

The United States focuses on how Iran's arming of its Iraqi proxies hurts U.S. interests, but this is hardly Iran's only concern. The Iraqi Shiite groups that have received arms may be more loyal to Iran after American forces depart. Even more important, they will be stronger than their Iraqi rivals. In Lebanon, Iran helped build Hezbollah from disparate small Shiite movements, welding it together against rivals in the Shiite community and, over time, making it stronger than non-Shiite groups. The goal is the same in Iraq.

Many Iranian leaders, particularly the president and the emerging conservative political elite, are profoundly anti-American. They want the United States to fail in Iraq and elsewhere, and they share an ideological bond with many radical Iraqi groups. So it is not surprising that Iran works with its closest Shiite proxies in Iraq, providing them with EFPs and other weapons that make them far more capable of fighting U.S. forces. Other Iranian elites have more complex feelings about the United States, though none is favorable, and Iranians want to bury the doctrine of regime change. Even if Iranians do not control the attacks, Iran knows that some of the people it trains and equips may at some point be involved in anti-American operations, thus keeping the heat on U.S. forces.

But Iran could easily be even more aggressive in Iraq. Tehran could provide sophisticated weapons to a wider range of Iraqi groups than it reportedly has so far. Iran's Shiite proxies do at times attack American forces, but their principal targets are Sunni militias. They could kill a lot more Americans than they have. Iran could be encouraging them to convert relatively peaceful parts of Iraq into battlefields similar to the wildest parts of Anbar province.

Iraq's Shiites are not Iran's only interest. Tehran also has a long history of working with (and also against) various Kurdish groups. Iran recognizes theIraqi Kurds as the strongest and most organized military force in the country, and has cultivated good relations with Kurdish leaders. Iran has its own restive Kurdish population, and wants to ensure that its Kurds don't use bases in Iraq or otherwise exploit the conflict to advance their own sectarian interests.

Iran also has a history of cultivating Sunnis when doing so seemed advantageous. It has reached out to a range of revolutionary Sunni groups and has good ties to Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hamas and other organizations whose ideology is closer to Osama Bin Laden's than to Khomeini's. The 9/11 commission found that Iran had engaged in low-level tactical cooperation with Sunni militants linked to al-Qaeda. And Tehran can be intensely practical. During the Iran-Iraq war, Iran worked with Israel and the United States to gain much-needed weapons. Dealing with the Sunnis may follow a similar logic, though mutual suspicion will limit the extent of relations.

Ironically, Iran's long-term position could weaken when the United States draws down its forces. At first, the U.S. withdrawal will expand the power vacuum and Iran will try to fill it, but the limited chaos Iran foments can easily become uncontrolled. Iran's economic and military power is limited, and Iran's theocratic model of governance has little appeal for most Iraqis. Even many Shiite militants have at times been hostile to Iran, and respected moderates such as Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani are careful to maintain their distance from Tehran. Sunnis already rage against perceived Iranian dominance.

In a postwar environment, Tehran will have lost a lever against U.S. pressure and may find itself both overextended and vulnerable in Iraq -- a weakness that the United States might exploit in years to come.

[Rasputin]

Renunciation of reality

WITH CARRIER battle groups crowding the Persian Gulf, and with the Bush administration beating the battle drum to a degree not heard since the buildup to the Iraq war, one can only conclude that either this is a demonstration of coercive diplomacy par excellence, or that the United States is going to attack Iran.

The president and the Pentagon continue to deny "for the umpteenth time" that an attack is being planned. They say that diplomacy is in play. But that is what they said about Iraq long after the decision to go to war had already been made.

The case for coercive diplomacy is that efforts to curtail Iran's nuclear ambitions, and Iran's meddling in Iraq, will have no effect unless the nailed club is in the diplomatic bag. Iran has become too cocky, the reasoning goes, taking advantage of American weakness in Iraq. Let the Europeans propose the carrots. The role of the United States is to enable diplomacy with the stick.

Optimists argue that Bush will not bomb Iran's nuclear facilities because they are so spread out that an air strike would only temporarily delay an Iranian bomb, and that we do not have the troops to contemplate a ground invasion.

Still others point out that although Iran's theocracy is becoming increasingly unpopular -- especially among the young -- military strike would instantly harden public opinion against the United States and delay the day when mullah influence begins to dissipate.

Realists who know the Middle East argue that an attack on Iran would have untold consequences that would damage the United States even more than the occupation of Iraq has done.

I heard one of America's foremost experts on Iran, Columbia's Gary Sick, say on National Public Radio that he didn't think war was on the way because he didn't believe that the White House had completely "renounced reality." And there you have the nub of the question.

Pessimists argue that the hallmark of the Bush presidency is the renunciation of reality. President Bush turned his back on the "realists" that made up his father's national security team. He ignored the Iraq Study Group's recommendations for de-escalation and containing America's failure in Iraq, as well as its recommendations for talks with Iran and Syria. Vice President Dick Cheney is still in denial about Iraq and is still talking about progress being made while the raveling of Iraq unfolds before him.

In Cheney's world the executive branch has all power over foreign and military matters, and he is already on record as saying that election of a Democratic majority in Congress will have no bearing on administration policy.

Bush continues to raise the fear stakes, going on about the demonic plans of Islamic extremists to take over the Muslim world and restore a caliphate -- ignoring that Al Qaeda's radical Sunni goals would not include the apostate Shia. The president has said that Iran will not be allowed even the knowledge to create a nuclear bomb.

Pessimists will also remember that when the Iranians offered the administration an olive branch, saying they would curtail their activities with Hezbollah and Hamas and cooperate in Iraq, the White House was unprepared even to discuss it. Colin Powell told Newsweek that he favored restarting talks with Iran, which had been very helpful to the US in Afghanistan, but that "there was reluctance on the part of the president to do that." Powell thought Bush wasn't prepared to talk to a regime he didn't think should be in power.

The administration's position has been: We don't talk to evil, and to do so would be a betrayal of the Iran's huddled masses longing to be free. Perhaps the Bush administration still thinks regime change is the answer, that a military strike would topple the rotten Tehran regime like the proverbial house of cards.

Pessimists can just hear Cheney arguing that he and Bush have only two years left to do the Lord's work before they are followed by weaklings and cowards, whether they be Republican or Democrat.

As Congress debates and considers what to do about Iraq, the shadow of a far greater foreign policy mistake hovers over Iran. Optimists hope that Bush will stick to Winston Churchill's maxim that jaw, jaw is better than war, war. But pessimists fear that the administration's heart is more with Otto von Bismarck who said that "the great questions of our time are not decided by speeches and majority decisions . . . but by iron and blood. "

[Rasputin]

Iran is a force for peace

The latest salvo of rhetoric against Iran betrays a grand design to demonise the country and trigger a new adventurism in the highly sensitive Persian Gulf region. Again and again the "Iranian threat" is invoked as part of a neocon agenda to deepen US military involvement in the area. But its goal - to downgrade Iran's role in the region - is both implausible and ill founded.
Iran, by contrast, has demonstrated throughout its history a belief in constructive engagement in international relations, at the same time as holding firm to its right to retain its important regional role. Our civilising contribution to the history of the region and the world is beyond doubt - and we are the region's largest democracy, so of course we hold influence. But that influence has never had any imperial aspiration. Iran's national security doctrine is defensive and does not consider military might to be an instrument of foreign policy.

Iran has friendly, neighbourly and constructive relations with all countries in the region. Neither Iranians nor Arabs wish to repeat the bitter experience of the 1980s that followed Saddam Hussein's attack. Iran has appealed to Shia and Sunni alike to refrain from acts of violence. It condemns all atrocities in the either's name. It neither interferes in the domestic affairs of Iraq nor supports violence inside Iraq.
Given that we have been the victims of Saddam's aggression, it's entirely reasonable that we try to establish security across our long common border with Iraq. But it is not Iran that has invaded and occupied Iraq. It is the US and its allies. Iran has supported the elected government of Iraq and will not spare any effort that can contribute to its reconstruction, development and security. After all, a more secure Iraq means a more secure Iran.

As a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran retains the right to benefit from a civil nuclear programme. We demonstrated our sincerity to the world by sitting at the negotiating table for more than two years and suspending all our peaceful nuclear activities to show our goodwill; the result was nothing tangible, but a plan to develop Iran's peaceful enrichment technology.

Last year, however, on spurious legal and technical grounds, the case was further politicised by taking it away from the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency, where it belongs, and to the UN security council. Resolution 1737, passed in December, was based not on facts but on suspicion, and undermined the credibility of the council. Political mischief should not be played out through the security council, and neither bellicose talk nor military adventurism will bring a halt to Iran's peaceful nuclear enrichment programme - a programme that sits within the bounds of the non-proliferation treaty.

Any threat on the part of the United States government to initiate another military conflict in the region can only trigger new crises, wildly jeopardising global security and stability. We believe in a solution through negotiation and dialogue, a dialogue that addresses concerns on both sides, and in the meantime guarantees our inalienable right to pursue peaceful nuclear energy activity.

Short-termism must not overshadow the pursuit of long-term cooperation. If the present mindset can be replaced by a mentality of constructive interaction, a mutually acceptable outcome remains a real prospect. Real impetus would come from a recognition of the rights and the role of Iran in the region and the world. We genuinely hope a new phase of unconditional and sincere negotiations will resume in that direction.

[Rasputin]

Nuclear poker with Iran

THE EFFORT to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapons capability has reached a crisis point. The United Nations Security Council deadline for Iran to cease enriching uranium and return to negotiations passed Wednesday without Iranian compliance. And yesterday the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Iran has been expanding rather than suspending uranium enrichment while refusing to answer crucial questions about its nuclear program.

Despite the missed deadlines and defied ultimatums, there are heartening signs that the crisis over Iran's nuclear program may be resolved through peaceful negotiation. Achieving such a resolution will require a combination of firmness, patience, and supple statecraft.

Those qualities have not been apparent in the ranting of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or the folly of President Bush's rhetorical invention of an "axis of evil." But lately there have been indications that more sober spirits may be prevailing in the constant arguments between pragmatists and hard-liners in Tehran and Washington.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice emerged from a meeting yesterday in Berlin with the foreign ministers of Russia, Germany, and the European Union to say they had agreed to "use available channels and the Security Council" to encourage Iran to return to the bargaining table. And top Iranian officials have professed a willingness to explore diplomatic solutions.

Certain hard realities stand behind these hints of a quest for compromise. Because Iran subsidizes domestic energy use to the tune of $40 billion a year -- or a quarter of that country's entire economic output -- and because its oil infrastructure is desperately in need of capital investment and technology from abroad, the Islamic Republic could have no oil available for export within a decade.

Lacking refinery capacity and needing to import gasoline, Iran has already been hit hard by the mildest of UN sanctions, combined with declining oil prices and US financial restrictions. Notwithstanding Ahmadinejad's bluster, Iran's powerful merchant class abhors the specter of harsher Security Council sanctions being imposed on Iran for its refusal to comply with IAEA requirements.

At the same time, Bush's strategic blunders have left him without any realistic military option against Iran -- even if some hard-liners might want to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities.

This symmetry of vulnerabilities can be a good thing if it leads to adoption of one of the ingenious compromises that have been proposed -- permitting Iran to develop peaceful nuclear energy, as it is entitled to do under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, but without having access to the highly enriched uranium needed for nuclear weapons.

[Rasputin]

Stop bullying Iran

It's the ultimate hypocrisy of the west to punish Iran for a law Iran has not broken.

When no one has found the tiniest evidence of Iran producing nuclear weapons - which is the whole purpose of the non-proliferation treaty that it has signed - what kind of international law justifies the UN security council's sanctions on Iran?

Since when has international law become able to measure the intentions of countries and react to them, if they say Iran intends to produce nuclear weapons? And how come the same UN security council turns a blind eye to Israel, India, and Pakistan - who everyone knew had long the same intention? They have neven signed the non-proliferation treaty, yet their defiance has been and is still rewarded.

Make no mistake, when the powerful UK, which has lived safely among its peaceful neighbours still feels the need for its nuclear arsenal, any sovereign state like Iran, which has constantly been under the US threat for since its popular revolution against an American-aligned, corrupted and incompetent monarchy. Especially when suddenly it finds two of its neighbouring countries invaded.

That's why I would definitely support Iran if one day it decided to start making the weapons. But has it actually started? Everyone says that even if Iran plans to, it will take up to 10 years before it manages to do so. So what is all this bullying really about?

The more the clash between the west and Iran escalates, the more convinced I become that the west's real problem with the Islamic Republic of Iran is not its nuclear activities, its level of democracy, its human rights record, or its support for "terrorist" groups. Pakistan, followed closely by Saudi Arabia, easily beats Iran on all these fronts.

The real problem is that the Islamic Republic has decided to be independent in a region saturated with fossil energy resources, and at the same time run by American puppets. Iran has posed the biggest continuous challenge to the American hegemony in the whole world, and so it has to pay a price.

Increasingly, a lot of secular Iranians, like myself, are figuring that even if Iran is turned into the most democratic, secular, fair and peaceful state on earth, there is no guarantee the US won't find another excuse to try to overtrow its goverment. It will start bullying Iran for its "devastating role" in climate change, or animal rights, or - who knows? - for obesity.

The interests of the Islamic Republic, with all its internal struggles, challenges and flaws, have never overlapped more closely the interests of Persia as a historic nation. And here lies the surprising support of most Iranians, despite their serious dissatisfaction and frustration, for the Islamic Republic and its resistence towards the US, symbolised by its nuclear programme.

I'm not saying this as a fervent religious man with sexy Ahmadinejad's posters on my wall. In fact, I am an athiest and this can easily get me into serious trouble in any Islamic country. I did not vote for Ahmadinejad and I would do anything to democratically bring him down.

I have also risked my life and future in Iran by becoming the first Iranian after the revolution who has publicly visited Israel. Why? To counter both countries' nasty and demonising propaganda against each other and to save my grandmother, postman or university professor from being compared to Nazi soldiers who must be nuked tomorrow.

A a matter of fact, I am even a victim of the paranoid state of Iran that censors criticism and punishes dissent for fear of foreign-backed revolt. (Remember the CIA had commissioned newspaper articles and cartoons to discredit prime minister Mossadeq before bringing his democratically elected government down by a coup in 1953.) My own blog is blocked in Iran and I was detained and forced to sign an apology for my writing before being allowed to leave Iran in 2005.

And of course I do have the dream of an open, free, fair and secular Iran, run by competent and representative officials, and in peace with the whole world, obviously including Israel.

However, I believe the Islamic Republic is a valuable cause, worth defending and, at its worst, is way better than anything that the United States or anyone else can bring to Iran.

If the US waged a war against Iran, I would absolutely go back and defend Iran.

Fortunately, I'm not alone.

[Rasputin]

The recent tentative agreement with North Korea over its nuclear program illustrates how diplomacy can work even with the most unsavory of regimes. Unfortunately, it took the Bush administration more than six years to commit to diplomacy. During that needless delay North Korea developed and tested nuclear weapons -- weapons its leaders still have not agreed to dismantle. Had we engaged the North Koreans earlier, instead of calling them "evil" and talking about "regime change," we might have prevented them from going nuclear. We could have, and should have, negotiated a better agreement, and sooner.

As the International Atomic Energy Agency just confirmed, Iran has once again defied the international community and is moving forward with its nuclear program, yet the Bush administration seems committed to repeating the mistakes it made with North Korea. Rather than directly engaging the Iranians about their nuclear program, President Bush refuses to talk, except to make threats. He has moved ships to the Persian Gulf region and claims, with scant evidence, that Iran is helping Iraqi insurgents kill Americans. This is not a strategy for peace. It is a strategy for war -- a war that Congress has not authorized. Most of our allies, and most Americans, don't believe this president, who has repeatedly cried wolf.

Saber-rattling is not a good way to get the Iranians to cooperate. But it is a good way to start a new war -- a war that would be a disaster for the Middle East, for the United States and for the world. A war that, furthermore, would destroy what little remains of U.S. credibility in the community of nations.

A better approach would be for the United States to engage directly with the Iranians and to lead a global diplomatic offensive to prevent them from building nuclear weapons. We need tough, direct negotiations, not just with Iran but also with our allies, especially Russia, to get them to support us in presenting Iran with credible carrots and sticks.

No nation has ever been forced to renounce nuclear weapons, but many have chosen to do so. The Iranians will not end their nuclear program because we threaten them and call them names. They will renounce nukes because we convince them that they will be safer and more prosperous if they do that than if they don't. This feat will take more than threats and insults. It will take skillful American diplomatic leadership.

Diplomacy is more than just talking to people. It requires speaking credibly from a position of strength. As the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, as energy secretary, as a member of Congress and as a diplomatic envoy, I have always believed in and worked to achieve tough, credible and direct negotiations with adversaries. To be tough, you need strong alliances and a strong military. And to be credible, you need a record of meaning what you say. By alienating our allies, overextending our military, making idle threats and antagonizing just about everyone, the Bush administration has undermined our diplomatic leverage.

We need to change course. Iran's nuclear program is a threat to peace, but it also presents an opportunity to start rebuilding America's credibility and leadership, which have been weakened by six years of incompetence.

This is no time for chest-beating and dangerous brinkmanship. It is time for alliance-building, direct engagement and tough face-to-face negotiations. For the United States to attack Iran without exhausting all diplomatic options would be a terrible mistake.

[Rasputin]

THE UNITED STATES is not at war with Iran, but parts of Beverly Hills are. Many longtime residents are outraged at the city's decision to print its absentee and sample ballots for the March 6 municipal election in both English and Persian, from cover to cover.

Federal law requires a municipality to provide ballot materials in other languages when more than 10,000 (or 5&#37 of its voting-age citizens are from a single language bloc, one that has comparatively poor literacy rates and language skills. Although the second half of the requirement may not apply to Beverly Hills' 20% Persian population, it's a routine and inexpensive ($7,500) courtesy. What's less routine, and more jarring in this case, is sending translated ballots to all registered voters, not just the targeted foreign-language speakers. But even that's standard practice in cities such as Glendale (Armenian), West Hollywood (Russian) and Long Beach (Khmer).

There's nothing new about hostile reaction to foreign languages appearing alongside English on signs, pamphlets and other official reading material. But there's something more comical about it when it happens in Beverly Hills. Maybe that's because unlike much of the immigrant bashing in the rest of the country, the Beverly Hills clash isn't about (comparatively) rich versus poor but rather (comparatively) rich versus rich.

These aren't entitled natives angry because low-income newcomers are gobbling up their tax dollars and overcrowding their schools; it's established homeowners miffed at other established homeowners, at least in part because they're different. Much of the animosity between longtime residents and the newer population of Iranian immigrants is in reaction to what are pejoratively called "Persian palaces" being built around town by refugees from the Iranian Revolution. So we have the spectacle of people living in European-style manses, many based on film-set fantasy designs that represented the ultimate in ostentation for their time, upset by the gaudy ostentation of the Middle Eastern-style mansions arising next door.

Even the ballot snit was at least partly about aesthetics. One Beverly Hills resident who threw away her sample ballot in disgust told The Times that she thought it looked like "a menu from a Farsi restaurant with a translation in English."

Beverly Hills is completely justified in printing its ballots in Persian. Foreign tongues don't taint the ballot, they demonstrate the values it stands for.

[Rasputin]

Its space launch shows Tehran wants to be a global military player – one more reason for UN sanctions.
The Monitor's View
Negotiating isn't always done in words. Sunday, Iran launched a suborbital rocket, a day before the Security Council was to weigh more sanctions on Iran's nuclear enrichment. Was this a shot across the West's bow? Or partly a warm-up for striking a deal?

At the least, the 94-mile-high launch was a wake-up call about Iran's potential as a global military player, much like Russia's 1957 Sputnik launch escalated the cold war and started the space race.

The rocket itself, perhaps built with North Korean help, could be converted within a few years to a type that delivers a warhead 3,000 miles away. That would help lift Iran's military posture from purely defensive to a first-strike capability.

Iran's ambition to project power beyond the Middle East was clear enough after Russia launched two satellites for it in 2005. Iran now hopes to put four more satellites into space by 2010 by itself. They could simply provide Internet access and other telecommunications, or some might be used for military surveillance.

If Iran also then develops intercontinental rockets and nuclear warheads, both Israel and Europe may be in danger. (For the US, the Bush administration declared last year in a strategy paper that the US "may face no greater challenge from a single country than [from] Iran.")

Dealing with Tehran's clerics to climb down from such a scenario will reach another critical peak this week.

Last Wednesday, Iran ignored a Security Council deadline to suspend its nuclear enrichment program. The UN's International Atomic Energy Agency stated that Iran refuses to adequately explain how it obtained small amounts of highly enriched uranium. The IAEA director also said Iran has already learned enough about enriching uranium in its research.

Iran's defiance of even Russia and China at the UN, combined with this "research" launch Sunday, will probably boost moves to impose tougher sanctions on Iran. But how tough?

Russia seems to have lost its ability to moderate Iran. (And with this rocket shot, Moscow also loses arguments against plans to place US-made antimissile technology in Eastern Europe.)

With the US already working independently of the UN to push for tighter European limits on loans and export credits to Iran, Russia would be wise to work with the US. Sanctions on Iran could achieve the same results as with Libya, which stopped its nuclear ambitions to end sanctions.

The current sanctions, imposed two months ago, simply restrict the transfer of nuclear technology to Iran and freeze assets of Iranian companies and individuals involved in nuclear work. What shocked Iran more was that the Council took action at all. Sunday's rocket launch could simply be a move to negotiate a deal.

But keeping unanimity among the five permanent UN members is crucial to ratcheting up the pressure. A next set of sanctions will require sacrifice by European firms doing business with Iran. Any new sanctions should include travel bans on senior Iranian leaders.

A united front in a second round of sanctions will send a powerful message – more power than rockets or nuclear weapons can – that the world wants Iran to change course, focus on its economic problems, and seek influence in other ways.