The Orange County Register newspaper has an interesting article about Ahmadinejad's continued popularity entitled "The People's President?" written by the Associated Press' Ali Akbar Daraeni and Brian Murphy, who visited the small town of Birjand in eastern Iran (hometown of my maternal grandmother.)
The point out that Ahmadenjad came into office as a champion of the poor, and the poor are likely to continue to support him or any candidates that are pro-Ahmadinejad. The conclusion of the article quotes a reformist:
“A pro-Ahmadinejad candidate will have a good number of votes,” said Abolfazl Zahei, a pro-reform activist. “There are 2,000 villages in South Khorasan province, and most people in those villages have benefited from Ahmadinejad’s government. People care about making their ends meet and welfare, not politics.”
Saeed Kamali Dehghan, writing for the Guardian, attempts to explain Iran's presidential elections by promoting some standard nonsense propaganda, for example by claiming that the so called Green Movement was "pro-democracy" movement when in fact they were attempting to violently undo an election whose results have since been vindicated as truly representative of Iranian public opinion by multiple independent polls.
Furthermore, on the topic of Iran's nuclear program, he simply and matter-of-factly asserts that the sanctions are "over suspicions that the programme has military ambitions" and that Iran has "failed to abide by its international obligations" when in fact by now anyone who has followed the nuclear dispute is unquestionably aware that the sanctions have nothing to do with the nuclear program and instead, that the dispute over the nuclear program is merely a pretext pushed by the US as a cover for a policy of imposing regime-change in Iran. Furthermore, Iran has not violated any such non-existent "international obligation" (as Dehghan claims matter-of-factly) to give up her sovereign right to enrich uranium -- if anything it is the US and EU who violated their international obligations under the NPT with respect to not just Iran by forcibly attempting to deprive countries of their rights as recognized by the NPT (and also not disarming their own nuclear weapons as the NPT requires them to do, neverming murdering civilian scientists and making illegal threats of attacking Iran on a daily basis etc etc.)
So here we go again with the Western media and complicit journalists promoting bullshit under the guise of analysis. just watch how this Dehghan character has repeated some of the standard talking points of the US about iran's nuclear program without even a hint of objectivity. You can of course expect more of this. Note that there is no option to post comments regarding this piece by dehghan on the Guardin site; you're just supposed to accept it.
Another US cock-up in the Mideast that will cause generations of problems, due primarily to short sightdness and a lack of accountability, just like supporting Saddam. That's what's actually going on in Syria
Firstly, the FSA [Free Syrian Army] - that you have been hearing so much about - does not exist.
A better title would be MWG, or men with guns, because having guns and firing them in the same direction is the only thing that unites them.
The word "army" suggests a cohesive force with a command structure. Almost two years after the FSA was created, that remains illusive.
The situation has been further complicated by the introduction into the arena of al-Qaeda-linked jihadists and armed criminal gangs.
"It is clear that nobody knows how to end this crisis”
Secondly, the Syrian opposition's political leadership - which wanders around international capitals attending conferences and making grand speeches - is not leading anyone. It barely has control of the delegates in the room with it, let alone the fighters in the field.
These two things can help explain why this crisis has so far shown no sign of being resolved politically.
America is not acting because it does not know what to do or whom to do it with.
Neither do the European countries.
Having spent the last few days in Beirut and Damascus, talking to the international community, Western diplomats, FSA activists and Syrian regime supporters, it is clear that nobody knows how to end this crisis.
That's just about the only thing all sides agree on.
Saudi and Qatari 'meddling'
The vacuum created by Western inaction has been filled by two of the Gulf states - Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
These are both sorely undemocratic states, they are not champions of democracy either at home or abroad.
So, why in Syria did we have a "free world" standing by and watching the democratic uprising being brutally crushed, when suddenly from over the horizon came the cavalry from the very un-free Gulf world to arm and support the aspirations of the people?This bit is simple - they did not.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar are meddling in Syria for thoroughly selfish reasons. Freedom, democracy and human rights have absolutely nothing to do with why they are arming the rebels.
President Assad's Alawite community is a splinter from the Shia faith - its closest allies are in Shia Iran.
Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia hates Shia Iran, so it is using the war in Syria to try and weaken it.
Frederick Dahl writes for Reuters that IAEA inspectors can find incredibly minute traces of nuclear material at Parchin, if Iran had conducted secret nuclear experiments there as alleged. What Frederick Dahl leaves out is that the IAEA already visited Parchin, twice in fact in 2005, and at time such environmental samples were taken. Nothing was found.
Kinda a key fact to be left out, huh? Dahl is speculating about what could be in Parchin and could be discovered if it is inspected by the IAEA, but not mentioning that it was already inspected.
The funny thing is that I remember just about a year ago, there was almost the same sort article published about "what cound be found" at Parchin.
Apparently to "journalists," Parchin has become a sort of unopened Christmas present box, which has a unique charm: You can shake it up and weigh it and toss it around, all the time speculating and imagining all sorts of wonderful and amazing things that may be in there. A pony! A race car! A nuclear bomb! Anything is possible! The limits are only your imagination.
But not content with adding to the bullshit "suspicions" about Parchin, Dahl ends the piece with a speculative quote from Robert Kelley about how, in effect, even if no such radioactive particles are found there, even then the suspicions about Parchin should continue since the Iranians could have used a non-radioactive substitute for uranium: Tungsten! There' could be Tungsten in the Christmas box!
First of all, I just want to point out the greater rhetorical framework of this debate. I have written about the uses and abuses of logic and rhetoric in the Iranian nuclear debate before and this is a subject of endless fascination for me. Plainly said, some people are willing to go to any extremes of irrationality rather than to admit that these claims about Parchin are just bullshit. Similarly, they found ways to dismiss the warnings about the lack of evidence of "WMDs in Iraq" a few years ago.
See, in magical media land, everything is open to further speculation -- and it sells ads too, conveniently enough. The fact that no evidence of a nuclear weapons program has been found in Iran after years of intensive investigation, is of no importance. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, they say, meaning in effect that just because we can't find something doesn't mean it's not there. But three-legged goblins? The love child of Elvis and Bigfoot? Rabid sharks with lasers on their heads? Yes, they all "could" exist too even though we don't have any evidence of their existence. How far do you take this? As far as is politically convenient. After all, how can the non-existence of something ever be proven? It can't, so you can keep up the speculation indefinitely.(*)
And this is where we see the true rhetorical benefit of such reasoning and how it can be used as tool of subtle persuasion: it has the effect of shifting the burden of proof. We come up with the speculation, and then require the other side to prove that our speculation is not true. No matter how much they object that there's no evidence of what we speculate must exist, we dismiss their concerns: the fact that there's no evidence that three-legged goblins exist, is not proof that they don't exist. Similarly, we imagine the scary, nasty nuclear things that may exist in Iran, and then we require Iran prove that our imaginary nuclear things don't exist. The IAEA can say everyday that they don't have proof of any nuclear weapons program in Iran -- it nevertheless could exist. So, the other side is then caught in a jam: they can refuse to try to prove the negative, in which case they seem guilty, or they can try fruitlessly to prove a negative, in which case they also end up looking guilty.
This was precisely the same position that the US put Saddam into: prove that you got rid of your WMDs. Saddam filed a detailed 12,000 page declaration showing how the WMD program had been eliminated, but the US just turned around and accused him of attempting to cheating by filing such a voluminous document. Saddam could not win.
What a great rhetorical scam.
Anyway, another irony in this piece is that it quotes former IAEA inspector Robert Kelley speculating about this mythical use of a uranium substitute by Iran at Parchin, but Dahl failed to mention that Robert Kelley is also a vocal critic of the idea that secret nuclear experiments had been carried out there. Specifically, Kelley pointed out that any use of nuclear material in the so-called "secret nuclear test chamber" as alleged to have existed at Parchin would have contaminated the area, far and wide, and would have been picked up by environmental sampling done by the inspectors. In fact this point was also made by the Iranians themselves when they laughed out loud at the allegations prevalent back then that Iran was busy "sanitizing" the site in question, because it had been a secret nuclear site -- allegations that were complete with satellite photos of running water as proof of this sanitization.
Yes, the Iranians themselves already acknowledged that they're fully aware that nuclear sites could not be sanitized, and in fact they pointed out that that fact by itself was a reason why the allegations about Iran having conducted secret nuclear experiments there should be doubted in the first place. After all had Iran conducted those experiments as alleged, aside from the fact that previous environmental samples turned up nothing, there would be no point in trying to sanitize the site.
I guess Fred Dahl didn't think that was worthy of mentioning, even though in effect he has just vindicated the Iranians' reasoning with this article of his.
* The very nature of inductive reasoning, after all, is incapable of proving things to be true. Inductive reasoning can only suggest that some conclusions are more probable based on the assumptions in their premisses.
This morning, I read what was I guess a response by Mr Vaez regarding my criticisms of the Carnegie Endowment report that he wrote along with Mr Sadjadpur. I wasn't able to make out the full response because it had been highly edited prior to being posted to the Gulf2000 Listserve (I can only access this on the G2K website, I don't receive the emails so perhaps a less edited version that made more sense exists but I haven't seen it.)
Of course due to the rules of G2K I can't reproduce the response by Mr Vaez either, but if anyone is actually interested, below is my reply anyway -- I think you can make out the gist of his points from my reply.
I should say that I won't be following up on this anymore, unless something dramatic happens since the CEIP report is a non-event which no one actually bothered to read as far as I can tell.
====================================
In response to Mr Vaez, to the extent that I could make out the post
On the first point of self-sufficiency: many countries with zero uranium reserves have highly developed nuclear programs -- and no one is telling them that they should give up their sovereign rights or face bombings -- so that's pretty much irrelevant. The "omni-present narrative of self-sufficiency" is not necessarily indicative of self-sufficiency in raw materials but in technological capability. To rely on the statements of some politicians when convenient, and yet to ignore the statements such as that provided by Mr Salehi which I cited, in no way can be deemed to be an "assessment on its merits" of the issue as Mr Vaez claims, and is precisely an example of the one-sided and agenda-driven nature of the CEIP report.
On the so-called concealment issue, I would be very grateful to Mr Vaez if he could explain how an op-ed written by Mr Nafisi in 2006, about a correspondence between Ay. Khomeini and Commander Rezai in 1988, in which the idea of a prospective desirability nuclear armaments is raised as an example of an unrealistic set of conditions to win the war, and which was dismissed by Ay Khomeini, amounts to any sort indication of the "domestic context" or proof for the idea that Iran had a military motive in mind when it supposedly "restarted" the nuclear program 4 years prior to that correspondence. Next, I would be grateful if he could explain why the CEIP report totally ignored the multiple other events I cited, including reports on Iranian national radio, which show that the nuclear program was hardly a secret, and that the uranium exploration and enrichment development program continued from 1979, and was unrelated to and predated the much-cited appearance of AQ Khan by many years.
Germany and the UAE are most certainly cited in the report as models of emulation for Iran, without regard to the actual merits of those models.
On the subject of 'transparency': In paragraph 52 of its November 2003 report on the Implementation of NPT Safeguards in Iran, theIAEA stated that " there is no evidence that the previously undeclared nuclear material and activities ... were related to a nuclear weapons program." A year later, the IAEA again stated that "all the declared nuclear material in Iran has been accounted for, and therefore such material is not diverted to prohibited activities."And since then, all of these previously undeclared activities were deemed resolved by the IAEA pursuant to the Iran-IAEA Modalities Agreement. All of this is entirely missing from the CEIP report. Indeed to accuse Iran of a lack of transparency, when Iran not only implemented the Additional Protocol volunarily but also regularly exceeded the requiremens of even that treaty to which it was not a party, nevermind suspending enrichment entirely for around three years, is simply ridiculous.
The claim that the report does not "equate Bushehr with Chernobyl" simply beggars belief. Chernobyl is repeatedly raised as an example of inherently unsafe Russian nuclear engineering skills and is used to cast doubt on the safety of Bushehr, and there's not a single instance in which the very fundamental differences in the design of the two reactors is acknowledged. I would not argue that there is sufficient safety in nuclear materials anywhere (in fact the greatest danger is in unregulated nuclear medical waste, which can actually kill people as an unfortunate event in Brazil a few years ago showed) however to accuse Iran of having an unsafe nuclear program and yet ignore the existing political context and sanctions is simply inexcusable especially when Iran has been cut off from receiving the technical assistance it has requested from the IAEA on several projects, including those related to improving nuclear safety, due to US pressure on that agency (and in violation of the NPT.)
It is most certainly true that people are entitled to their own opinions but not their own facts -- and the CEIP report engages in quite a bit of cherry-picking of those facts when it isn't resorting to opinions, arguments by innuendo and false parallels. Incidentally, I am not a proponent of the nuclear program in Iran, as I have nothing to gain or lose from it. I am a proponent of objectivity and facts. Indeed the CEIP report could have been a contribution to an informed and civil debate, but that's not what happened.
Peter Osborne writes in the Telegraph about how the EU3 violated the Paris Agreement with Iran under US pressure in 2005, and thus missed a chance to make peace with Tehran:
One witness puts the problem like this: “There was not the faintest chance that President George W Bush’s Republican advisers and Israeli allies would allow him to look benignly on such a deal. On the contrary, if the Europeans were to defy American wishes, they would be letting themselves in for a transatlantic row to end all rows...
So the peace proposal from the Iranian negotiators was killed stone dead even though the European negotiating team realised that it was both very well judged and in full conformity with international law.
Of course when Iran then ended the 3 year voluntary suspension of enrichment that accompanied this talks, the EU3 accused Iran of "violating the Paris Agreement."
Oh and incidentally, earlier in 2003 an Iranian peace offer made to the US was similarly spurned.
So what does Peter Osborn think was really going on?
The answer is that a different agenda is at work, which we believe has little or nothing to do with Iran’s non-existent nuclear weapons. The US and its European clients are driven by a different compulsion: the humiliation and eventual destruction of Iran’s Islamic regime.
And this also corresponds to former IAEA head ElBaradei's conclusions:
They weren’t interested in a compromise with the government in Tehran, but regime change – by any means necessary.
Allow me to take this opportunity to say, I told you so.
So remember that the next time the corporate media matter-of-factly declares "The goal of these sanctions is to support diplomatic efforts to peacefully resolve the disagreements with Iran without having to resort to violent means." Because that's a lie.
The Leveretts have an article at HuffPo entitled "Obama's Choice: Real Diplomacy With Iran -- or War" wherein they say,
Tehran's conditions for a long-term deal remain fundamentally what they have been for years -- above all, U.S. acceptance of Iran's revolution and its independence, including its right to enrich under international safeguards. Just as importantly, the Obama administration is no more prepared than prior administrations to accept the Islamic Republic and put forward a proposal that might actually interest Tehran. And Obama's ability to modify sanctions in the course of negotiations -- or lift them as part of a deal -- is tightly circumscribed by laws that he himself signed, belying the argument that sanctions are somehow a constructive diplomatic tool.
Frankly, I don't see the point. By now it is obvious that Obama does not have the balls to take on AIPAC, and yet the US is in no position to start another war either ... So Obama will most likely make all the right noises to keep the Israelis satisfied and yet will kick the ball down the road.
Like I keep saying, if you're expecting these talks to ever pan out, you're betting on the wrong horse. The Israeli influence over US foreign policy has not disappeared by magic -- it is still there, and any US-Iran rapprochement is anathema for them. With Syria wobbling, the US and Israel are not interested in making any deals because their hand could be stronger later if Assad falls. But this assumes that the US is actually interested in making a deal in the first place, rather than dragging out this standoff until there is an opportunity to impose regime-change in Iran (which is and will always be the "best scenario" goal of the US and Israel.) The history of this standoff has shown that's the case: the US has repeatedly batted away opportunities to resolve this standoff peacefully whilst also addressing any actual proliferation threats, and instead has repeatedly deliberately imposed conditions on the talks that were intended to kill any chance for compromise. And in addition, we all know that Obama is simply not capable of making any sort of deal with Iran even if he wanted to anyway, since the removal of sanctions would be the minimum quid-pro-quo demand by Iran, and US sanctions are mostly imposed by the pro-Israeli Congress not the US President. (That fact could not have been made more apparently by the treatment meted out to Hagel in his disgusting nomination process as Obama's Sec of Def.)
In any case I was reminded of an Dec 2006 interview with Iranian Ambassador Javad Zarif published in the National Interest Online site, when he predicted that the sanctions won't have any effect except to act as an obstacle to reaching one of the many compromise solutions offered by Iran and others which would have addressed any real weapons proliferation threats, but certainly they won't prevent Iran from continuing her perfectly legal nuclear program. Amb Zarif pointed out even back then that in fact the sanctions policy seems more intended to prevent any sort of resolution rather than solving the standoff:
The Security Council sanctions will not be able to stop the Iranian program [and] the sanctions that are requested will not satisfy proliferation concerns. Proliferation concerns—if there are any real, sincere proliferation concerns—can be addressed through mechanisms that would bring about transparency, international monitoring and other possibilities that would provide the assurance that Iran’s program will always remain peaceful. The Security Council can impose sanctions but that does not provide that assurance.
Because Iran has been denied technology over the last 27 years and this resolution only officiates what has been the policy and practice, Iran has had to be discrete in its acquisitions of peaceful nuclear technology to the point that today Iran’s nuclear program has been localized. Every element of that program is produced locally and our own scientists have developed the scientific know-how in order to be able to sustain the program without any external support.
That was not always the case. Our desire was to have international cooperation in order to have access to technology. But the option that was provided to Iran throughout the past 27 years—and now more officially in this resolution—is to either accept being deprived of this technology—which is assuming greater and greater significance—or to try to develop it based on our own. Between these two options, we certainly choose the latter.
If the option were to be provided to Iran to develop this technology through cooperation, that is what we have suggested: an international consortium. Other countries, including Western countries, could own jointly with Iran the facilities, and also jointly operate them. That would give the greatest assurance that these programs are not diverted into any illicit activities.
Prof. Walt has an blog entry at Foreign Policy in which he essentiaaly makes th point that even if Iran had a nuclea weapon, it would be pretty useless, and the US would not attack Iran over it.
He starts out positing so many "suppose that" in order to put a hypothetical nuke in Iran's hands, arguendo, that I got lost. I don't have an argument with his article as such. My real criticism however is that by even hypothetically accepting such a premise, articles like this legitimate the the idea that Iran's nuclear program is really the cause of the current standoff b beteen the US and Iran, when it clearly isn't. The article implicitly buys into the framing that "the problem" is the nuclear program in Iran and not AIPAC-dictated policy of imposing regime change. The nuclear issue is and always has been a pretext, and we should not forget that fact, even for the sake of argument.
But aside from that, I was reminded by Walt's article about a "scandal" in Fance a few ears ago when Jacques Chric decided to ad lib a little instead of mouthing the same tired lines (which have become evev more shabbily worn since) about this alleged "Iranian nuclear threat" What did Chriac say that caused the scandal?
During a presidential press briefing at the
Elysée palace devoted to the Paris conference on
climate change, a New York Times journalist changed
the subject to ask the French President about the
Iranian nuclear threat. Chirac began with the standard
official "International Community" line, namely that
Tehran's refusal to give up its uranium enrichment
program was "very dangerous". But then, Chirac
(thinking, he explained later, that he was speaking
off the record) gave in to the temptation to speak
honestly. For Iran to have a nuclear weapon was not
really so dangerous, he said. To make his point, he
asked rhetorically what good it would do Iran to have
a nuclear bomb, or even two. "Where would it fire that
bomb? At Israel? It wouldn't have traveled 200 meters
through the atmosphere before Tehran would be razed."
Chirac even went so far as to suggest that Iran had a
motive for its nuclear research, including its fear of
being "challenged or threatened by the international
community. And the international community, who is
that? It's the United States."
Of course the media went crazy about this. How dare Chirac say Iran's nuclear program isn't the threat that Israel and the US say it is, even though the Israelis themselves quietly say they don't really feel threatened by it either!
Just listened to a BBC News segment on the March 16, 1988 poison gas attack on the Kurdish village of Halabja by Saddam's forces during the Anfal campaign,which killed 5000 people. Of course, there was no mention of the US/German and othe European backing of Saddam, or the facts that the US tried to shift blame for the attack off of Saddam and onto Iran (even though it was the Iranians who first tried to bring Saddam's gas attacks to public attention through the UN, though the US had instructed its representative at the UN to try to stifle debate over the issue, while at the same time the US was arming Saddam.) Specifically, the first photographs (warning: images of death)of the aftermath of the attack were taken by an Iranian photojournalist Kaveh Golestan who was later killed covering the US invasion of Iraq. Ironically, he was working for the BBC when he was killed.
Ironically, and despite US complicity in the atrocity at Halabja, Bush cited the event as a pretext for invadng Iraq: “On this very day 15 years ago, Saddam Hussein launched a chemical weapons attack on the Iraqi village of Halabja,” George W. Bush proclaimed at the Azores summit on March 16, 2003. “If military force is required, we’ll quickly seek new Security Council resolutions to encourage broad participation in the process of helping the Iraqi people to build a free Iraq.” Failing to get another Security Council resolution to authorize the use of military force, he went ahead anyway, and killed even more Iraqis.
Iran had been trying to bring Saddam's use of WMDs to the world's attention ever since the Nov 13 1983 chemical attack on Panjavin, an Iraq village a few miles from Halabja, causing 30,000 Kurdish/Iranian casualties (earlier yet use of chemical weapons at Haij Umran had resulted in 100 casualtis.) In 1984, Iran introduced a draft resolution to the United Nations Security Council condemning Saddam Hussein's use of chemical weapons on the battlefield. In response, the United States instructed its delegate at the UN to lobby friendly representatives in support of a motion to take "no decision" on the use of chemical munitions by Iraq. If backing to obstruct the resolution could be won, then the U.S. delegation was to proceed and vote in favour of taking zero action; if support were not forthcoming, the U.S. delegate were to refrain from voting altogether.
From then on, Iranians and Iraqis suffered thousands of casualties from Saddam's chemical weapons, while at the same time, Iraq was removed from the US State Dept list of terrorist nations so as to ease the process of sending weapons to Saddam, a process that National Security Council adviser Howard Teicher explained in a court affidavit (which was later sealed) was intended to ensure Saddam's grip on power in the face of Iranian battlefield victories. There were also two trips to Baghdad in 1983 and 1984 by Donald Rumsfeld, then serving as a special envoy of President Ronald Reagan, in which Rumsfeld was famously shown shaking hands with Saddam.
Lets remember now, the United States had a key role in the development of the Iraqi chemical weapons program, which included arranging forthe sale of cluster munitions, sharing intelligence, and facilitating Iraq's acquisition of chemical and biological weapons components. Leaked portions of Iraq's "Full, Final and Complete" dislosure of the sources for its weapons programs lists many American companies which provided the chemical precursors to Iraq's weapons program, even though the US tried to suppress the disclosure. These reportedly include thiodiglycol, a substance needed to manufacture deadly mustard gas, which made its way to Iraq via Alcolac International, Inc., a Maryland company, since dissolved and reformed as Alcolac Inc., and Phillips, once a subsidiary of Phillips Petroleum and now part of ConocoPhillips, an American oil and energy company. The US was fully aware of the use of these chemicals - in fact, the Reagan administration had to first remove Iraq from the State Department list of terrorist nations in order to ease the transfer of the technology and material to Iraq.
Imagine my surprise when I see an editorial in the NY Times that I can actually agree with! The NY Times editors typically have the most misleading and inaccurate claims about Iran, even repeatedly referring to a non-existent "Iranian nuclear weapons program" but today they have an editorial entitled "Congress gets in the way on Iran" in which they complain that fresh Congressional sanctions on Iran harm the nuclear negotiations. More significantly, it indirectly cites AIPAC, Israel and Netanyahu as the motivation behind the measures.
Way back in Jan 2012, I asked a simple question: even assuming for the mere sake of argument that the Obama administration is serious about wanting a deal with Iran and isn't just playing "rope-a-dope" wth Iran in the hopes of eventually achieving regime-change there (which I think it is totally the case, a policy continued and adopted by Obama from the Bush admin, which is why Dennis Ross was initially brough aboard from the Bush administration), since any sort of viable nuclear deal with Iran is going to require the lifting of sanctions, and since most of the US sanctions on Iran are imposed by Congress and not the President, then is the Obama administration actually capable of delivering on any such deal with Iran?
The answer, of course, is a big fat "No." The US Congress is bought-and-paid for by Israel. Obama can barely get his Def Sec nominee Hagel past Congress, and the fellow had to literally debase himself and practically swear never-ending fealty to Israel before he sqeaked by the nomination committee. (Apparently Israel was mentioned during the Hagel hearings more often than Afghanistan, where US troops are still fighting an actual war.)
So, like I said before and before then too these talks will in all liklihood die too. Sorry. That's how the world is.
Why? The Israelis and AIPAC haven't suddenly disappeared, folks. They're still running the show in DC, and will be doing so for the forseeable future, as long as US election laws allow money to talk louder than votes and as long as most American voters can barely find their own country (let alone Iran) on a map. Like I said before, the US-Iran standoff is a sympton of a much greater pathology: the dysfunctional relation between Israel and the US, in which the "tail wags the dog."
At some point, maybe, the burden of this albatross around the US's neck may become so great that people will wake up and throw it off. There are even encouraging signs. After all not so long ago AIPAC lobbyists boasted of their ability to operate in the dark, comparing themselves to night-blooming flowers, but today the excess and malign influence of Israel on US foreign policy (especially over Iran) is part of the mainstream discussion. No longer is mentioning the phrase "pro-Israel lobby" cause to have the utterer classified with various lunatics and genuine or accused anti-Semites as in the past. And like I said before, the more Israel pushes Iran into the spotlight, the more it exposes itself too.
But they still own Congress, so don't hold your breath about any real deal coming out of these nuclear negotiations yet. Won't happen. Rest assured.
There's a rather interesting Associated Press piece published in the Washington Post today that has several interesting points. The article is about the comments of Joseph Macmanus, the chief U.S. delegate to the International Atomic Energy Agency, accusing Iran of various things, but that's not the main interest to me.
First, the article is uncharacteristically fair, albeit based on my standards which have been worn down quite low due to the otherwise lamentable and pathetic standards of journalism (and ethics) displayed by most of the media when it comes to their Iran coverage.
For example, the author (whose name I was not able to find in the piece as published right now) writes:
"Macmanus concentrated on expressing the U.S. view of Iran’s alleged failure to meet its international obligations and diminish concerns that it wants nuclear weapons."
Yes, he actually said that the Iranian violations are merely "alleged." Based on my very, very, very lowered expectations of the media, that's a victory. He or she also writes that the main source of the allegations about Iran's alleged past nuclear activities are from the US and Israel, which is nice to see acknowledged.
Of course, the article is not accurate when it claims that Iran "hid its enrichment program for years" as I've demonstrated before. And why not mention that Iran had allowed the IAEA to visit "Parcin" (sic) twice already, and furthermore that legally Iran isn't required to allow any inspections of "Parcin" (sic) at all? Or why not mention what Iran's actual objections to another visit to Parchin which are actually quite reasonable?
And I am pretty sure the article is downright wrong at the end, when it characterizes the previous offer made to Iran thusly:
"Diplomats say the proposal made to Iran late last month... would obligate Iran to decommission its centrifuge plant at Fordo...and ship out the approximately 165 kilograms... as well as allowing increased U.N. oversight....In return, the six are offering to help supply and run Iran’s research reactor which is fueled by plates made from higher enriched uranium, coupled with what Iran wants most — relief from sanctions meant to penalize Iran for refusing to heed U.N. Security Council demands"
No, sorry, this is contrary to other reports of what was actually offered to Iran. Scott Peterson of the Christian Science Monitor wrote about what was offered Iran back then thus:
"On the P5+1 side, the "offer" put on the table earlier this year – which US and European diplomats say privately they would never accept for themselves, if they were in Iran's position – was widely deemed to have been a necessity of the White House before the Nov. 6, presidential election, so that Obama would not be open to accusations that he was "soft" on Iran by offering concessions"
And Barbara Slavin wrote in Al-Monitor:
"The “refreshed” proposal includes spare parts for Iran’s aging Western jetliners — a perennial carrot — and assistance with Iran’s civilian nuclear infrastructure but no specific promise of sanctions relief, Al-Monitor has learned...Iran will be expected to agree to concessions before knowing exactly what it would get in return."
This is altogether a very different version of what was offered Iran than what the unnamed diplomats told the reporter.
There are other issues of fairness and accuracy too but I won't go into all of them now. (For example, when citing Iran's representative who said that Amano had politicized the issue, why not mention the Wikileaks exposure of Amano swearing loyalty to the US on the Iran issue?)
Second, the article mentions the issue of "special inspections" at Parchin. This is the first time that I've seen the media mention Special Inspections. Basically, if there's enough evidence that a country has not declared all of the nuclear material/work it should have declared to the IAEA so the sites can be inspected, the IAEA Board can require "special inspections" of the sites in that country. These inspections are conducted on an ad hoc basis, and are separate from the "normal" and routine IAEA inspections. "Special Inspections" are supposed to be conducted only on "rare occasions", and there's supposed to be a very high evidentiary bar imposed on requests for Special Inspections.
The IAEA Board has approved of requests for Special Inspections twice before: Once for North Korea (but the NKoreans withdrew from the NonProliferation Treaty before the inspections could be carried out, and reached a separate agreement with the US) and in Romania, after the fall of the Soviet Union (the inspections were requested by the Romanians themselves because they wanted to see what the Soviets had been up to, nuclear-wise, in their newly-independent state.)
But this bit is rather ominous-sounding:
"Asked about possible requests for a special inspection or an IAEA board resolution in the future, [Joseph Macmanus, US representative to the IAEA] later told reporters that “some adjustment might have to be made” in ways to address concerns about Iran, adding that will be taken up by the board “over the next several months.”
Hmm...what sorts of "adjustments" have to be made, I wonder? I think it is obvious that they're going to try to get special inspections without having to come up with the necessary evidence, and IAEA boardmember votes. Lets remember that thus far, the US has failed to actually release the full "Laptop of Death" documentation of the "Alleged Studies" and "Possible Military Dimensions" claims asserted against Iran. Of the documentation that was provided, the US has prevented the IAEA from sharing them with Iran (requiring Iran to disprove allegations that it is not allowed to see) and in some instances the US has refused to even share the documentation with the IAEA itself. Other leaked documents that supposedly incriminated Iran turned out to be laughably obvious fakes -- such as the infamous "AP graph" or the "neutron initiator" document promoted by Oliver Kamm in Rupert Murdoch's London Times. So how will the US provide the necessary evidence to get Special Inspections on Iran to the IAEA Board -- or will it instead just politicize the issue to get what it wants out of the IAEA as before?
As for what Joseph Macmanus actually had to say in this article: who cares? He accused Iran of engaging in deceit etc etc. The usual blah blah blah. But this, as the article points out, is contrary to the noises we've been hearing thus far about the last Iran/P5+1 meeting which supposedly ended in a hopeful note. Add to that, the recent assertions by Kerry, Biden and General Mattis and other sabre-rattling which followed the end of the last round of negotiations a few days ago.
I attribute this inconsistency to several factors:
First, there was an exaggeration of the "success" of the last Iran/P5+1 meeting. I personally don't think the US side is willing to compromise over the issue so naturally they're now pouring cold water on the happy reporting about the meeting.
Second, since Obama is scheduled to visit Israel and AIPAC is holding its conference in DC, the politicians are keen to burnish their pro-Israeli credentials. Oh and Kerry is visiting Saudi Arabia, and the Saudis are just as keen as the Israelis to prevent a US-Iran rapprochement of any sort.
However a third possibility -- however unlikely it seems to me -- exists and that is the US is taking a tough stance in public because it is actually interested in making compromises with Iran in the talks. So this is just posturing and a cover. I seriously discount this explanation and think it is actually more wishful thinking than analysis based on facts.
Laura Secor has written a NY Times book review of the Leverett's book, "Going to Tehran," which amounts to a lot of bullshit.
The Leveretts argue that the Islamic Republic faces no significant democratic opposition. They scoff at the notion that Iran’s 2009 presidential election suffered from gross irregularities. In their view, it was President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s challenger, Mir Hussein Moussavi, who tried to steal the election by inciting protests that they claim turned violent and that the country’s security forces rightly put down. They assert (without evidence) that virtually all the Iranians who took to the streets in 2009 came from one rich, irrelevant area of Tehran.
What rubbish.
First of all, the burden of providing evidence is on the party making the assertion that the elections were fraudulent in the first place. And the Leveretts pointed out that NO ONE -- not Mousavi, and certainly not Laura Secor -- has been able to provide such evidence. And the fact that the so-called "Green Movement" was based largely on the rich areas of Iran is observable from the election turnout statistics, amongst other things.
For example, in Shemiranat – the affluent and westernized Northern section of the greater Tehran area, abounding with shopping malls and luxury cars (and where the Green movement is strongest) – Mousavi beat Ahmadinejad by almost a 2 to 1 margin, winning 200,931 votes to
Ahmadinjead’s 102,433.
And while we're on the subject of election turnout statistics, lets take a look at the figures:
Oh and as regrettable as the post-election violence was, if there was no election fraud, that puts a whole different meaning to what happened as well as to the legitimacy of the so-called "Green Movement."
UPDATE: It seems to me an interesting question of just how much proof is required in the discussion of international affairs to consider a point to have been established. The proponents of regime change and "Green Movements" in Iran have no problem making excess and unsourced claims about the popularity of their movement -- providing NO objective evidence at all and relying entirely on emotional appeals and "blood shirt waving" (literally) -- a and yet they pooh pooh multiple, independent polls of Iranian public opinion conducted by reputable and experienced organizations and demand a degree of certainty about the evidence that is far far beyond what they've provided themselves or what is generally the standard in international affairs. We're supposed to take it for granted that there was election fraud, with no evidence of any quality deemed necessary, but if anyone challenges that presumption, they have to meet a standard of evidence far beyond what is generally accepted in interntional debates, beyond even a scientific standard of proof.
I don't know much about the science of polling beyond my undergraduate statistics course, but I do know that while there are many reasons that a poll can be legitimately criticized, the fact that you simply don't like the outcome is not one of these reasons. Polls in general amount to scientific evidence of a fact, which is a standard of proof far higher than what is even generally accepted in international affairs debates.
In citing these polls, as the Leveretts or I do, we are not saying that they represent Iranian public opinion with absolute certainty, we only point out that the polls amount to very high quality and objective evidence of Iranian opinion. And this objective evidence says the people do generally support the regime. That by itself is more than enough to shift the burden of proof onto the Laura's of the world, who are now obligated to counter that view with their own objective evidence, something which the proponents of the "stolen election" myth have thus far absolutely failed to do.
So in short, are the polls perfect? No. Are they the best evidence we have? Yes. Have the critics of the polls provided any evidence of their own? No. (But don't worry, I'm sure they're cooking up a few polls of their own.)
Pennsylvania State University's School of International Affairs and Law School are holding a seminar on Feb 18th (this coming Monday) on the subject of US-Iran relations (with Continuing Legal Ed credits, for you lawyers who need to get some CLE credits. Attendance is free everyone else.)
There will be a live webcast. (link below)
I wish I could attend but too short notice for me. However you can imagine how happy I am that we're hearing something other than the usual false conventional wisdom becoming mainstream. It has been a long time coming.
Symposium to consider potential outcomes of U.S.-Iran relationship
Thought leaders Flynt Leverett, professor at Penn State Law and School of International Affairs, and Hillary Mann Leverett, authors of the new book Going to Tehran: Why the United States Must Come to Terms with the Islamic Republic of Iran, will headline a symposium, “The U.S.-Iranian Relationship and the Future of International Order.” The event will assess how the course of U.S.-Iranian relations will affect the rules-based regimes and legal frameworks that shape international order in the 21st century. The Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs (JLIA) will sponsor the event, to be held in the Greg Sutliff Auditorium of the Lewis Katz Building in University Park, PA, with simulcast to Lewis Katz Hall in Carlisle, PA, on February 15, 2013, beginning at 9 a.m. A live webcast will also be available.
“Hillary and I wrote Going to Tehran out of a conviction that how Washington deals with Iran over the next few years will largely determine America’s standing as a great power, in the Middle East and globally, for at least the next quarter century," Leverett said. "We also recognized that the course of U.S.-Iranian relations will have enormous implications for the future of international order," he said.
Program highlights include:
The proceedings and related essays will be published in JLIA’s symposium issue slated for release in Fall 2013. Information on registering for the symposium can be found online.
Professor Leverett describes Going to Tehran as challenging much of the prevailing orthodoxy in Washington about Iran and how the United States should deal with it, offering a provocative but uniquely informed depiction of the Islamic Republic as a rational and fundamentally defensive political order that retains the support of most Iranians. The book also argues that the United States needs to come to terms with the Islamic Republic to avert strategic catastrophe in the Middle East. Before its publication, Going to Tehran was excerpted in Harper's, highlighted as a “New and Noteworthy” book by Politico, and featured in Foreign Policy’s “What to Read in 2013” list. Since then, the authors have given presentations at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, the East-West Institute (to be rebroadcast on C-Span), and Politics & Prose and have discussed Going to Tehran on CNN’s Newsroom, Andrew Sullivan’s “Ask Anything” video series, and HuffPost Live.
The Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs is a digital, interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal, jointly published by Penn State's School of Law and School of International Affairs. The journal promotes academic and public discourse at the intersection of law and international affairs, featuring contributions in the areas of public and private international law, international relations, comparative law and politics, geography, economics, history, and policy issues in the various sciences.
The media are full of reports about how Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatullah Khamenei has 'rejected talks' with the US, trying to portray Iran as the unreasonably intransigent party in this standoff. But if you check the events just prior to this bit of news, you get a better sense of what actually happened:
JAN 31st 2013: Iran informs IAEA of plans to add 3,000 faster centrifuges to its main uranium enrichment facility
Feb 2: VP Joe Biden: “We have made it clear at the outset that we would be prepared to meet bilaterally with the Iranian leadership”
Feb 3: Iranian FM Salehi: “No red lines for talks”, “But we have to make sure … that the other side comes with authentic intentions with a fair and real intention to resolve the issue.”
Feb 6: Treasury Under Secretary David Cohen announces new sanctions on Iran to take effect.
Feb 7th: Iranian Supreme Leader: “You (US) should know that pressure and negotiations are not compatible and our nation will not be intimidated by these actions”
(Chronology by BibiJon)
The Guardian has an article that sets straight the mix-up over the Iranian "space monkey" photograph that caused a great deal of uproar lately, with accusations that Iran was hiding something by showing a different monkey, and so the entire space flight was just a hoax.
But, let's get the facts straight. The initial picture was merely an archive photo, taken of a monkey during a failed attempt in 2011. The Iranian student news agency (ISNA) had published the photo of the monkey with the red spot back two years ago. It is not unusual of Iranian agencies to publish archive pictures for current news and not provide a caption, leading to confusion among readers.
These things usually start by a bit of shoddy journalism, which is grabbed by the more anti-Iran news sources in the West that proceed to exaggerate the issue and combine it with screaming headlines about Iranian duplicity, turning what should have been a positive news story into yet more Iran-bashing.
Then there was the whole "Mysterious explosion at Fordo" report to consider. The report did not originate from Iranian media (it originated from a claim in a far-right conspiracy website, in an article written by a self-proclaimed former CIA spy in Iran's revolutionary guard named "Reza Khalili" who has made a career of making wild claims about Iran) in contrast to the space monkey story, but again there reason why the story got any traction was because it wasn't handled properly, so the conspiracy theorizing was allowed to run rampant until the IAEA and US govt denied the claims ... but by then the news cycle had turned over, and public opinion had already formed on the issue and had moved onto other things.
All of these things could be avoided with a bit of better basic journalistic practices. It is unnecessary to give opportunities, through negligence, to the opportunists.