Peter Tatchell: Ahmadinejad accepts Israel's right to exist | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

 

The Iranian president has said he would accept a two-state solution if the Palestinians agree. So where are the headlines?

• 
  • Monday September 29 2008 19:30 BST

Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has made a remarkable announcement. He's admitted that Iran might agree to the existence of the state of Israel.

Ahmadinejad was asked: "If the Palestinian leaders agree to a two-state solution, could Iran live with an Israeli state?"

This was his astonishing reply:

If they [the Palestinians] want to keep the Zionists, they can stay ... Whatever the people decide, we will respect it. I mean, it's very much in correspondence with our proposal to allow Palestinian people to decide through free referendums.

Since most Palestinians are willing to accept a two-state solution, the Iranian president is, in effect, agreeing to Israel's right to exist and opening the door to a peace deal that Iran will endorse.

Ahmadinejad made this apparently extraordinary shift in policy during an
interview last week when he was in New York to address the UN general assembly.

He was interviewed on September 24 by reporters Juan Gonzalez, writing for the New York Daily News, and Amy Goodman for the current affairs TV programme, Democracy Now.

You can watch the full interview and read the full text on the Democracy Now website.

Surprisingly, Ahmadinejad's sensational softening of his long-standing, point-blank anti-Israeli stance was not even headlined by the two reporters. Perhaps this was a decision by their editors? Did they not want to admit that Ahmadinejad may have, for once, said something vaguely progressive?

Equally odd, the story wasn't picked up by the world's media. For many years, the Iranian president has been vilified, usually justifiably. Now, when he says something positive and helpful, the media ignores it. Is this because of some anti-Iran or pro-Israel agenda?

Why ignore a statement that is, from any political and journalistic perspective, a radical departure from Ahmadinejad's previous unyielding anti-Israel tirades? Only a week earlier in Tehran he was saying that the Israeli state would not survive.

Confused? Aren't we all. Will the real Mahmoud Ahmadinejad please stand up?

Is he a deceiver and an unprincipled opportunist who will say anything to further Iran's political agenda? Or could it be that beneath his often demagogic public rhetoric against Israel he is, in fact, open to options more moderate than his reported remarks about wiping the Israeli state off the map?

I am not defending or endorsing Ahmadinejad in any way, shape or form. Indeed, I am on record as being one of Ahmadinejad's harshest critics. I've protested dozens of times outside the Iranian Embassy in London and written scores of articles exposing his regime's persecution of trade unionists, students, journalists, human rights defenders, women's equality campaigners, gay people, Sunni Muslims and ethnic minorities such as the Arabs, Kurds, Azeris and Balochis.

You can watch my Talking with Tatchell online TV programmes on the Iranian regime's anti-Arab racism here, and on the rising popular resistance to its police state methods here.

But I also hope I am open-minded and fair. Even I can see that Ahmadinejad appears to have moderated his position and is now apparently willing, with Palestinian agreement, to accept the co-existence of two states: Israel and Palestine.

Many Israelis and their allies will no doubt say Ahmadinejad can't be trusted; that his comments were part of a manipulative charm offensive during his visit to the UN in New York. They may be right. But even if he is being disingenuous, that fact that he's made this public concession on Israel at all is a softening of sorts.

News of what he said will filter back to Tehran and he'll have to account for his words to his government, including the hardline anti-Israel ayatollahs and revolutionary guards. I wonder what they think?

Call me naive, but in my view Ahmadinejad's words were of major significance. He ought be pressed by world leaders, and Israel, to repeat them and to clarify them. His statement might, and I emphasise might, be evidence that Iran is open to some negotiation on the future of the Israeli state.

If Israel's leaders had any sense, they would ignore past provocations by Iran and seize this moment to have dialogue with the Palestinian and Iranian leaders on a two-state solution. What Ahmadinejad has said could be an opening to diffuse the stand-off between Iran and Israel.

I am not relenting one inch in my condemnation of Ahmadinejad's regime, with its grisly torture chambers, execution of juvenile offenders and neocolonial subjugation of national minorities. But I do find myself in considerable agreement with the Iranian president's analysis of why the Middle East peace process has stalled. He told Gonzales and Goodman:

The first reason is that none of the solutions have actually addressed the root cause of the problem. The root cause is the presence of an illegitimate government regime that has usurped and imposed itself on, meaning they have brought people from other parts of the world, replaced them with people who had existed in the territory and then forced the exit of the old people out, the people who lived there, out of the country or the territories. So there have been two simultaneous displacements. The indigenous people were forced out and displaced, and a group of other people scattered around the globe were gathered and placed in a new place ... A second reason is that none of those peace plans offered so far have given attention to the right to self-determination of the Palestinians. If a group of people are forced out of their country, that doesn't mean their rights are gone, even with the passage of 60 years. Can you ignore the rights of those displaced? How is it possible for people to arrive from far-off lands and have the right to self-determination, whereas the indigenous people of the territory are denied that right?

Much as I loathe his regime, Ahmadinejad is basically right. The key to peace in the Middle East is concessions from the occupying power. As the stronger, wealthier and conquering partner, Israel should take the initiative and help kick-start the peace process by withdrawing unilaterally and totally from the territories it has occupied illegally (according to international law) since the 1967 war. This means pulling out from all of the West Bank and dismantling all the illegal Israeli settlements.

The West Bank, plus Gaza, should become the independent, sovereign state of Palestine, backed with international aid and investment to create the infrastructure for economic development and for social provision (new houses, schools, hospitals, transport links and sports facilities).

Jobs and prosperity in Palestine will undercut and isolate the men of violence. They will lose support and become marginalised in a self-governing state where ordinary Palestinians experience the tangible benefits of peace.

This is so damn obvious. When will Israel's leaders wake up and realise that peace with justice is the only way to give their people lasting security?

Peter Tatchell: Ahmadinejad accepts Israel's right to exist | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

The American Conservative -- An Open Letter to Sarah Palin

 "We can win, they say, as long as we’re prepared to bomb Iran ..."

By TAC Editors

To: Gov. Sarah Palin
From: TAC Editors
Re: What Your Tutors Aren’t Telling You

Congratulations on being chosen as John McCain’s running mate. It’s an honor, if a dubious one. As you know, conservatives have reservations about McCain. To your credit, they have few such concerns about you.

You’ve given new life to a party whose brand was bankrupt. You’ve energized a campaign that was embarrassing its own partisans. Across America, crowds flock to see you—not that old man who barely wheezed his way through the primaries. If John McCain wins, he will owe you, as the guy in the undisclosed location says, “Big time.”

Wonder why Middle America finds you irresistible? Maybe they’re big Tina Fey fans. More likely, you remind them of the conservative values they feared lost: faith, family, independence. This impression owes more to who you are than what you’ve done. But at least you keep Obama from cornering the market on hope. Conservatives have faith in you. Don’t fail them as George W. Bush has.

You see what happened: the president’s entire domestic agenda collapsed under the weight of his failed foreign policy. Social Security reform stalled. Pro-lifers became political orphans. And whatever gains Bush’s tax cuts secured were wiped out by record spending. Everything was subordinated to the war on terror.

Conservatives grasping for something to commend give the president points for his judicial picks. But he would have much preferred justices like Alberto Gonzales and Harriet Miers—toadies whose top qualification was their willingness to give the executive more power.

The party that championed the things you prize—individual liberty, fiscal restraint, and a strong defense—has trampled civil rights, pushed us to the brink of insolvency, and broken our Armed Forces. After eight years of Bush, even diehard Republicans are glad to see him go. You might have noticed the elephant not in the room in St. Paul.

There’s a better way. In fact, you figured it out in the 1996 presidential primary when you sported the flair of the leading pro-life candidate. (Your minders would prefer that we not mention his name. It triggers their Tourette’s.) As you surely know, even beyond social issues, he represents a strain of conservatism that offers a consistent ethic of life and philosophy of limited government. It was not a coincidence that the most pro-life candidate in ’96 was also passionately noninterventionist.

It’s also no coincidence that those who want you to heed the siren call of global democratization care little for traditionalist causes. Recall that second night of the Republican Convention when you were told to blow off a reception in your honor hosted by Phyllis Schlafly so Joe Lieberman could chaperone your debut before the directors of AIPAC. Neoconservatives pay lip service to life, but, as their enthusiasm for Lieberman shows, they have higher priorities. Now they plan to make them yours.

You’ll find the new friends conducting your foreign-policy crash course pleasant enough, if a little dogmatic and a lot condescending. They call you “Project Sarah.” We saw that one staffer at AEI—that mystery monogram on all your briefing books—said you’re “a blank slate.” He added, “She’s going places, and it’s worth going there with her.” That’s how they operate. They don’t implement their agenda themselves. Rather, they impose it on rising star. If things don’t work out, it’s because the Project wasn’t sufficiently committed. (Just ask President Bush.)

Now you’re the latest object of their attention, and you’re probably finding the program a bit confusing. They tell you that the U.S. is fighting “World War IV,” a struggle against “Islamofascism.” We can win, they say, as long as we’re prepared to bomb Iran and build up the national-security establishment at home, just like Reagan did.

Trouble is, your tutors also believe we’re still engaged in “World War III,” the Cold War with Russia. So maybe the Gipper didn’t win that one after all. In fact, neoconservatives like Norman Podhoretz chided Reagan for appeasing Moscow. And when terrorists struck the Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983, Reagan, instead of “staying the course,” withdrew our troops. Your Beltway suitors prescribe the opposite of Reagan’s strategy.

And as they would have it, we’re not only waging World Wars III and IV, we’re still fighting World War II. At least, that’s the way it sounds when Robert Kagan opens a Washington Post op-ed by likening Russia’s conflict with Georgia to Hitler’s invasion of Czechoslovakia. 

But Russia is not Germany, Georgia is no innocent Czechoslovakia, and Vladimir Putin is not Adolf Hitler—no matter what your guru Randy Scheunemann says. (He probably forgot to tell you that he used to lobby for the government of Georgia.)

Here’s a hint: don’t believe everything you read in the papers, especially if the byline is Kristol or Krauthammer. Russia is not an expansionist, ideological empire. It’s a traditional, semi-authoritarian great power intent on preserving its influence in its own backyard and its prestige on the world stage. That’s why Russia intercedes in the domestic disputes of unruly states on its periphery. Putin balks at Poland hosting our antimissile systems for the same reason we would bristle at Cuba or Mexico receiving Chinese antitank missiles.

With more validity, some of the people whispering in your ear tell you that Moscow wants to corner the European markets for oil and natural gas. And what nefarious end does Putin have in mind? Raising prices and reinforcing Moscow’s political clout, not with nuclear blackmail but with good, old-fashioned economic power. We have plenty of that ourselves (or at least we used to). Putin, far from being a totalitarian ideologue, is an economic nationalist, as the leaders of great powers traditionally have been.

Then there’s the Middle East, where only American arms (and lives) can prevent little Israel from being swept into the sea by Muslim hordes. Surely that’s what AIPAC told you that night you left Phyllis cooling her heels. But again, it isn’t true. Israel has nuclear weapons, for one thing, and can outfight her neighbors even without resort to atom bombs. Israel’s problem isn’t external threat so much as internal security and demographics. When the Jewish state was founded, tens of thousands of Palestinians—Christians as well as Muslims—lost their homes. Palestine was no wide-open Alaskan frontier: when the newcomers moved in, Arabs were moved out, often by force. Terrorism didn’t come to the region with Hamas or Hezbollah; decades earlier groups like the Stern Gang and Irgun used violence to clear the way for Israel’s creation. Nor was Palestinian Authority leader Yassar Arafat the first terrorist to lead a state in the Holy Land. Israeli Prime Ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir had unclean hands as well.

While your minders probably don’t put much stock in his work, University of Chicago political scientist Robert Pape has shown that suicide terrorism develops almost always among occupied peoples. The task before the Israelis is not to defend themselves against aggressive neighbors but to give justice to the Palestinians already in their midst—to suppress terrorism without suppressing civil liberties and human rights, which only leads to more bloodshed. The most helpful role the United States can play is that of impartial mediator in the conflict. There is injustice and suffering on both sides.

No doubt you’ve been told (again and again) that Iran wants to “wipe Israel off the map.” Here’s something to keep in mind: Iran does not have nuclear weapons and is far from attaining them. Ironically, the Bush Doctrine’s pledge that “America is committed to keeping the world’s most dangerous weapons out of the hands of the most dangerous regimes” makes rogue states like Iran more likely to seek nuclear devices, as a deterrent against pre-emptive U.S. strikes. This is a vicious circle. Instead of boxing Iran into a corner, we should engage with Ahmadinejad, unsavory fellow though he is. Even with nuclear weapons, Iran would not pose an existential threat to Israel, let alone America. 

Since you had some difficulties in your oral exam with Charlie Gibson, your new friends will no doubt ramp up their lessons. (For the record, you can scarcely be blamed for fumbling the answer about the Bush Doctrine. Your tutors were clearly reluctant to bring it up, even though the whole scheme was theirs, not Project George’s.)

They may even start assigning you book reports. It will feel like the third grade, except the subjects won’t be charming orphans. Now it’s rogue states against America the Benevolent. Near the top of the list will be An End to Evil by Richard Perle and David Frum. They’d have you think that Muslims will impose Islamic law on America if we don’t go to war with 18 different countries. But you know that a bunch of Muslims can’t make red-blooded, moose-hunting Americans wear burqas. Think what happens if you try to get a book pulled out of the library.

That’s only the beginning of the curriculum. You’ll be handed titles like Present Dangers and The Return of History. Thankfully, just like third grade, you don’t really have to read them. If they ask, just say, “The enemies of freedom won’t be appeased. We must stand firm, like Churchill.”

Meanwhile, we suggest sneaking a look at The Limits of Power by Andrew Bacevich. It’s stern stuff, but he gets to the point: America can’t spend money it doesn’t have, beat everyone up, and expect to stay healthy, wealthy, and wise. If you want a good book on how America screwed up in Iraq, there is Fiasco by Thomas Ricks. You said some nice things about Ron Paul during the primary. He gave Giuliani a list of books that might be worth your time.

You’ll have to keep your extracurriculars quiet. We know how these things work. Since he helped you break into the big leagues, you have to toe McCain’s line. But the outgoing administration has shown us how powerful a veep can be. If you go all the way, President McCain will be in your debt. (If he forgets, ask him how many rallies he held while you were home in Alaska. He wisely opted not to deliver speeches in phone booths.) Don’t leave your maverick spirit on the campaign trail. 

Despite all the briefing books being thrown at you, you know your own mind—and you realize that the neoconservative agenda doesn’t square with your worldview. You prize localism, their vision is grandiose. You value fiscal discipline, neocons will ruin the country to finance endless war. You honor life, and they think nothing of killing hundreds of thousands in the service of ideology. But they’ll tell you this alien vision—imported from the Left—is coherent and conservative.

It is neither, but your supporters are both. They’ve turned against this war and definitely don’t want another. Yet your running mate does. Perhaps you’ve noticed that his interest in domestic policy pales alongside his foreign-policy ambitions. Or maybe you caught his virtuoso performance of “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran.”

You surely see that the Bush policies have come to a dead end. If the millions poised to vote for you wanted four more years, the president’s approval rating wouldn’t be 25 percent. This isn’t because Republicans dislike Bush personally or disagree with his positions on energy and taxes. It’s because they know that his main legacy—the Iraq War—is a disaster.

Thankfully, they don’t think you’re like him. They see in you someone like themselves—a patriot and a mother. The Middle Americans waiting hours to hear you speak don’t want the United States to be defeated, and they don’t want Iraq to be a haven for al-Qaeda—something it never was before the invasion. They are pleased that the surge has made it more possible to leave because they don’t want to send their boys back for a third or fourth tour. They want America to come home—not because she’s weak but because she’s wise. They hope that you are, too.

The American Conservative welcomes letters to the editor.
Send letters to: letters@amconmag.com

The American Conservative -- An Open Letter to Sarah Palin

Rupert Cornwell: Iran is a bigger threat to the US than the financial crisis - Rupert Cornwell, Commentators - The Independent

 

As Americans look the other way, Tehran's bomb moves closer

Wednesday, 24 September 2008

Change font size: A | A | A

Live in the US any length of time, and one thing you soon realise: the country, be that its media or its government, can only focus on one crisis at a time. Right now, that failing is eminently forgiveable. Nothing is more pressing than a financial meltdown that unless it is tackled in days – or a very few weeks at the most – could lead to the Great Depression of the 21st century.

But amid the turmoil, another crisis has been forgotten. Once it was measured in years, now the critical moment may arrive in months. Does anyone remember a certain country called Iran, and its suspected plan to build a nuclear weapon?

Lehman Bros and Fannie Mae may have forced Mahmoud Ahmedinejad from the headlines. But Tehran's nuclear programme if anything is accelerating. In a report that was swamped by the drama on Wall Street, the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency, the IAEA, last week effectively threw up its hands in despair.

Teheran continues to refuse to answer questions about its past nuclear activities, the IAEA said, even as it was stepping up its production of enriched uranium. Some experts believe that within 12 months Iran may have amassed enough to build a bomb. And what then?

The impasse looks more intractable and perilous than ever. The truculence of Ahmedinejad only grows, as he revels in this period of deepening American weakness. Action at the UN is stymied by resistance from Russia and China. With relations between Moscow and Washington at their chilliest since the Cold War, there is scant prospect of Security Council agreement on the tougher sanctions that might give Teheran pause – perhaps an arms embargo, and the withdrawal of Russia's promise to supply an advanced air defence system to protect Iran's nuclear sites.

And then there is Israel. The political crisis caused by the resignation of Ehud Olmert, the Prime Minister, will not last for ever. Last summer the country carried out military exercises over the eastern Mediterranean that it let be known were a dry run for a strike on Iran's nuclear installations. Israeli generals and politicians leave no doubt that they regard an Iranian nuclear bomb – even an Iranian capacity to build a nuclear bomb – as an existential threat, which they would act to eliminate on their own if necessary.

An Israeli attack would cause chaos across the Middle East, and send the price of oil into the stratosphere. The Pentagon has signalled it opposes such an operation. In fact, whether the Americans participate or not is irrelevant. Given the US role as Israel's ally of last resort, Iran would assume Washington had tacitly given a green light to an attack, and would act accordingly.

Somehow a way out of this impasse must be found. During the summer there were some encouraging signs: Teheran reduced its involvement in violence in Iraq, and there was talk of the State Department opening a US interests section in the Iranian capital, that would see the first US diplomats based in the city since the 1979 hostage crisis. Nothing since has been heard of the idea – but never would it be more timely than now.

Such is the bleak backdrop against which Barack Obama and John McCain hold their first, and possibly decisive, candidates' debate on Friday. It is supposed to be about foreign policy and national security, but given the only-one-crisis-at-a-time rule, it would be astonishing if the financial mayhem did not intrude – and rightly so, given how domestic financial turmoil will ultimately condition how America behaves in the world.

But Iran ought to be front and centre of proceedings. Almost certainly it will be the first major foreign issue the next President must tackle. John McCain's throwaway line of of "Bomb, Bomb, Bomb –, Bomb Bomb Iran," to the tune of the Beach Boys' "Barbara Ann", uttered during the primaries, was presumably just a joke in bad taste, not a pointer to his intentions in the Oval Office. But every sign is that he would pursue an uncompromising policy.

Like his opponent, Barack Obama insists that Iran must not get the bomb, and has sought to water down his earlier promise that as President he would sit down and talk with the country's enemies, among them Iran.

Plainly though, Obama's instincts lie in that direction. In 2003, flush with the initial success of the Iraq war, the Bush administration rashly rejected an Iranian offer for talks at which everything would be on the table. Today, such an initiative has never been so desperately

Rupert Cornwell: Iran is a bigger threat to the US than the financial crisis - Rupert Cornwell, Commentators - The Independent

Israel Waging 'Secret War With Iran' - September 15, 2008 - The New York Sun

 

New Book Details Mishaps That Have Likely Delayed Iran's Efforts To Go Nuclear

By ELI LAKE, Staff Reporter of the Sun | September 15, 2008

• WASHINGTON — Israel and America are intensifying a clandestine war against Iran that has run hot and cold since the Islamic Revolution in 1979 but has grown more urgent as Iran races to obtain an atomic bomb.

That is a central claim in a new book, "The Secret War with Iran," by an Israeli journalist, Ronen Bergman, who also details a series of mishaps during the past 2 1/2 years that have likely delayed Iran's efforts to go nuclear.

While President Bush and other Western leaders have warned of the seriousness of the threat that Iran may obtain a nuclear weapon, little reporting has surfaced in the West on the efforts in the shadows to stop the Iranians. Mr. Bergman himself has had to skate a close line in this area, in part because of military censorship in Israel, where some of his reporting has been withheld from publication pending rulings from the Israeli Supreme Court.

Nonetheless, the Israeli journalist compiles a picture that suggests that the West has had some successes in the war to stop the Iranian bomb. Mr. Bergman reports, for example, that in January 2007 Iran determined that some of its nuclear suppliers in Europe were fronts for Western intelligence services, specifically Britain's MI6.

And Mr. Bergman writes that between February 2006 and March 2007, at least three planes "belonging to the Revolutionary Guards crashed in Iran, while carrying personnel connected with the security of the nuclear project." Specialized pipes for centrifuges sold to Iran have been modified, he writes, and specialized computers sold to Iran for its nuclear laboratories contained viruses that sabotaged the code.

The secret efforts appear not to be limited to modifying equipment: On January 18, 2007, an Iranian expert on electromagnetics who worked in an Isfahan enrichment facility, Ardeshir Hosseinpour, died in his apartment, Mr. Bergman writes.

The author quotes the deputy director of the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission, Eli Levite, as saying in a closed forum that operations against Iran "gained time for us" and have "doubtless caused significant delays in the project. The process has led to the revealing of large parts of the program in the areas of sources of supply, of the infrastructure, and of the goals, which were not known or were known at a different resolution."

While Israel's Mossad and military intelligence have targeted Iranian terrorists almost since the 1979 revolution, the Jewish state was relatively slow to pick up on the full extent of Iran's nuclear program. Mr. Bergman reports that Israel first learned of the nuclear facility in Natanz in 1996, a full six years before the facility was first disclosed to the public, but several years after the Iranians began their initial work there. Two Israeli operatives, posing as tourists, arrived at the site and took soil samples, which they brought back to Israel in their shoes and which showed some radiation.

Mr. Bergman also details a success for the CIA in the shadow war against Iran, when General Ali Reza Askari defected to the American side in February 2007. Mr. Bergman reports that General Askari was closer to the reformist President Khatami and felt threatened by his old rival in intelligence when President Ahmadinejad came to power in 2005.

General Askari, for example, warned Mr. Khatami after the attacks of September 11, 2001, that Iran's Revolutionary Guards had given shelter to key Al Qaeda operatives fleeing American troops in Afghanistan. He said in his debriefings, according to Mr. Bergman, that Iran had entered into joint nuclear projects with both Syria and North Korea.

The defector also claimed that Iran erected a secret enrichment facility near the known centrifuge area in Natanz.

Mr. Bergman finally comes close to saying outright that Israel was responsible for the assassination in February of a master Hezbollah terrorist, Imad Mugniyah. He writes: "Although Israel has denied responsibility for the assassination, the Mugniyah hit was exactly the kind of thing needed to restore the country's faith in, and more importantly the enemy's fear of, Israel's intelligence services."

Mr. Bergman then quotes an Israeli intelligence official, who recalls the exact model of the vehicle Mugniyah was driving when he was attacked. "Pity about that new Pijero," he said.

Israel Waging 'Secret War With Iran' - September 15, 2008 - The New York Sun

New Statesman - ''The shah's plan was to build bombs''

 

Maziar Bahari

Published 11 September 2008

Akbar Etemad, the shah's chief atomic energy adviser, tells Maziar Bahari about the unlikely birth of Iran's nuclear programme

Dr Akbar Etemad is the father of Iran's nuclear programme. After graduating from Lausanne University in 1963, Etemad returned to Iran and became a nuclear adviser to the Iranian government. He was the president of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran (AEOI) between 1974 and 1978.

The rising oil prices of the early 1970s allowed the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, to embark on ambitious industrial and military projects. Under Etemad's supervision, Iran launched an extensive nuclear energy programme. The goal was to produce roughly 23,000 megawatts of electrical power from a series of nuclear power stations within 20 years.

A host of contracts between Iran and nuclear suppliers in Europe and the United States followed: Iran struck a deal with Kraftwerk Union, a Siemens subsidiary of then West Germany, to build two 1,200-megawatt reactors at Bushehr, and negotiated with the French company Framatome for two additional 900-megawatt reactors. In 1974, Iran reportedly invested $1bn in a French uranium enrichment plant owned by Eurodif, a European consortium.

The shah's plans and Iran's co-operation with Europe and the US came to an abrupt halt after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Many of Etemad's colleagues fled the country or were summarily executed by the new rulers, and Etemad left Iran for France, where he has been living for the past 30 years. Yet losing his position has not made him bitter. He primarily blames the Europeans and the Americans for the current Iranian nuclear crisis. He believes that the west does not respect Iran's sovereignty - and that it is natural for Iranians not to trust Europeans and Americans.

Q Could you tell us about the history of Iran's nuclear technology?

A When Dwight Eisenhower initiated his Atoms for Peace programme in 1953, Iran was one of the first countries to receive a small nuclear reactor. It was primarily used for university research. Then, in the early 1970s, the shah came to the conclusion that Iran should develop its nuclear technology. We needed nuclear power plants to generate electricity: the population was increasing and people were using more electricity than before.

Q Did you ever ask the shah why he decided to develop Iran's nuclear programme when Iran had large oil and gas reserves?

A The shah always believed that oil shouldn't just be burned to produce energy. He used to tell other world leaders that oil is an industrial product and we have only a limited amount of it available to us. He thought that everyone should be looking for alternative sources of energy.

Q What did the American government, Iran's main ally at the time, think of Iran's nuclear policy?

A They agreed with Iran's nuclear policy, but with some reservations. Our negotiations with the Americans started in 1974. From the beginning, they had the precondition that they should have complete control over our nuclear fuel cycle. Both the Ford and Carter administrations told us privately that they didn't have any issues with the Iranian government. The problem was that Yugoslavia and Egypt were waiting to see what Iran and the US agreed. The Americans were asking us to compromise so they could replicate the agreement with other countries. I remember President Ford even wrote a private letter to the shah asking for more flexibility. But I told the shah that the Americans' relationship with other countries is their own problem. We must think about our national interest and have total control over our own fuel cycle. The shah agreed with me and put my comments in his reply to Ford.

Q Did the shah ever tell you that he may have wanted to build nuclear weapons?

A I always suspected that part of the shah's plan was to build bombs. So I came up with a plan to dissuade him. I asked the shah if I could spend a few hours every week teaching him about nuclear technology. I thought he should know enough about nuclear energy to know the dangers of a bomb. At the end of the sixth month I asked him, "So now that you have a good grasp of the technology, what direction do you want to take? Do you want to use it for peaceful purposes or to build bombs? I have to know that in order to plan it."

We talked for about three hours, and the shah told me his ideas about Iranian defence strategy. He thought that Iran's conventional army was already the most powerful in the region, and believed that Iran didn't need nuclear weapons at that moment. He also realised that if Iran developed nuclear weapons, the Europeans and the Americans wouldn't co-operate with it. But I think that if the shah had remained in power he would have developed nuclear weapons because now Pakistan, India and Israel all have them.

Q The current government of Iran says that its reasons for developing its nuclear programme are also peaceful. What do you think about the nuclear policy of the Islamic government?

A You may be able to criticise certain aspects of current Iranian nuclear policy. But the west has isolated Iran. The Europeans and the Americans, for instance, are not even providing them with spare parts for commercial airplanes that were paid for in the shah's time. So Iran has to buy second-hand Russian planes that fail every now and then and kill many Iranians every year. But young Iranian scientists are developing Iran's nuclear technology without any help from the west. This is something that I am really proud of.

Q The Europeans and the US argue that Iran has forfeited its right to enrich uranium because of what the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) described as "patterns of concealment" in the 1980s and 1990s.

A This is not a legal argument. I'm not sure what happened in the past. But even if they were not transparent 20 years ago, it doesn't mean that Iran cannot enjoy its right to enrich uranium within the framework of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Many countries have lapsed in reporting their activities but were never punished. Iran has co-operated fully with the IAEA over the past five years. The west has only "suspicions". And suspicions have no legal weight.

Q You don't think that the Iranian government is trying to build nuclear weapons?

A I'm not a mind reader. The Iranian government says that it doesn't want to build bombs. But if you ask me, the way the west is isolating Iran leaves it no choice but to build nuclear weapons. Iran has nothing to lose and nothing to fear from sanctions any more. When Israel threatens to attack Iran, it dares to do so because it has nuclear weapons and Iran does not. The Iranian government may now see them as the only way they can defend themselves.

Q It seems that the Iranian government is preoccupied with its survival. Do you think if the west, especially the Americans, guarantees the security and survival of the Islamic regime, it would then be more flexible in its nuclear stance?

A Definitely. Iran wants the nuclear negotiations to be part of a bigger package that guarantees its security. If the west can assure Iranian officials that it doesn't want to overthrow them, Iranians would be more willing to negotiate. The west should stop supporting terrorism against Iran and helping groups such as the MKO [the People's Mujahedin of Iran, a militant Islamist opposition movement based in Iraq].

Q What do you think should be done now?

A Iran doesn't trust the west, and vice versa. By agreeing a temporary freeze of its programme for enrichment of uranium in November 2004, Iran showed its willingness to work with the west. But it was disappointed by the west's response, or lack of it.

There is no solution for Iran's nuclear prob-lem other than a diplomatic solution. I, as an Iranian, feel insulted when countries talk about attacking Iran militarily. A military attack would not weaken the Iranian government, and it could not stop the nuclear programme. It would only start a new regional crisis without a foreseeable end.

When a country is included in the world community it will be much more careful about what it does. The proposals and counterproposals should be transparent. No one knows what it is that the west is offering Iran and what is the Iranian response. A transparent policy would encourage Iranian leaders to be more responsive to international public opinion and act more responsibly. If the west adopts this policy, it can sort out its differences with Iran - not only over its nuclear programme but over other issues as well.

New Statesman - ''The shah's plan was to build bombs''

Russia's role in the Iran crisis - The Boston Globe

 

IT IS ONE of the rites of passage of the fall - every September, the Bush administration returns to the United Nation for another sanctions resolution against Iran. However, this time there is much consternation in Washington that Russia's invasion of Georgia - and the subsequent chill that has descended on relations between Russia and the West - has ended any possibility of cooperation between the United States and Russia in dealing with Iran's nuclear imbroglio. Such fears are overblown.

Russia's assault on Georgia may produce no measurable change of its Iran policy. Indeed, President Dmitry Medvedev of Russia made it clear that, despite the harsh rhetoric that has been exchanged between Moscow and Washington, Russia continues to support efforts to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

The primary reason for the continuity is that both Iran and Russia are essentially satisfied with existing US-European policy of applying incremental and largely symbolic UN sanctions on Tehran. Moscow feels that as long as the diplomatic process remains in play, America is in no position to launch a military strike that could destabilize the Middle East. At the same time, the theocratic regime has increasingly adjusted to a sanctions policy whose impact is negated by increasing oil prices.

Although Tehran would be grateful for a Russian veto of any future sanctions resolutions, it does seem content with a Russian policy that waters down UN mandates while deepening its commercial ties with Iran. On the one hand, Moscow has supported three previous Security Council injunctions against Iran, yet it has also signed lucrative trade deals and expanded its diplomatic representation in Iran. The incongruity of today's situation is that Russia rebukes Iran for its nuclear infractions while providing technical assistance to the Bushehr plant, which is a critical component of Iran's atomic industry.

For its part, Russia is happy with the standoff between Iran and the United States. Not only does it destabilize international oil markets - keeping prices higher than they ought to be - but Iran's large natural gas reserves are effectively off-limits for European use, reinforcing the continent's dependency on Moscow. At the same time, as Iran strengthens its economic links with key Asian powers, it makes it more dependent on Russia and China for its critical trade and investments. Russia can only benefit from Iran's gradual reorientation toward the East.

All this is not to suggest that Iran has not benefited from the Russian-Georgian conflagration, but that those advantages have been subtle. Tehran is using the Georgian crisis as a cautionary lesson to the Persian Gulf states. From its podiums and platforms, the message emanating from the Islamic Republic is that the Georgians mistakenly accepted American pledges of support only to pay a heavy price for their naiveté. The Gulf sheikdoms who similarly put much stock in US security assurances would be wise to come to terms with their populous and powerful Persian neighbor. In a region where America is viewed as unpredictable and unreliable, this message has a powerful resonance.

The contours of Russia's policy became obvious in the recent meeting of the Shanghi Cooperation Organization. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran was unable to persuade Moscow and its partners to extend security guarantees to Tehran, or to gain Russian support for switching oil pricing from dollars to euros. Medvedev and his Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov continued to urge Iran to be flexible and negotiate a restraint on its nuclear activities. Yet, Moscow also declared support for Iran's nuclear activities that were designed for peaceful purposes.

Given the fact that technologies employed for civilian use can be the basis of a military program, it is hard to see the utility of Russia's latest pronouncement.

What this means?

Russia is not interested in playing an active role in resolving the Iran crisis on terms America will find acceptable. If the next president is going to solve the Iranian nuclear conundrum, he must appreciate that the UN process has reached its limits, and that the only manner of moving forward is for Washington to engage in direct negotiations with Tehran.

Ray Takeyh is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Nikolas Gvosdev is a member of the faculty of the US Naval War College.

Russia's role in the Iran crisis - The Boston Globe

At RNC, Issues Intervene: Iran, Nukes And Israel - Forbes.com

 

At RNC, Issues Intervene: Iran, Nukes And Israel
Carl Lavin, 09.03.08, 6:15 PM ET

At RNC, Issues Intervene: Iran, Nukes And Israel

Mike Huckabee's band is playing in Minneapolis. John McCain flew in at midday. Sarah Palin, the virtually unknown governor who now has the most-searched name on the Internet, is practicing for her speech Wednesday night.

The Republican convention calendar is also filled with items including a California delegation trip to the Mall of America and a Kansas delegation trip for souvenirs.

In a conference room at the University Club of St. Paul, however, a few dozen convention visitors gathered to discuss weightier issues--Iran, nuclear weapons, the threat to Israel and how to build on Israel's high level of support among voters.

Americans in both parties overwhelmingly view Iran as a serious threat to the U.S. and believe that if Iran acquired nuclear weapons, it would share that capability with terrorist groups.

The findings come from a poll commissioned by The Israel Project, a non-partisan research and advocacy group. Democrats heard a similar presentation from the group in Denver. We dropped in Wednesday afternoon to hear pollsters Frank Luntz and Mark Feierstein discuss the results with Republicans.

Luntz goes beyond public opinion polls to equip small groups of viewers with dials to turn as they watch videos--dials that indicate second by second how negatively or positively each person feels about a speech.

Such an analysis allows him to precisely identify words that work. Luntz calls this a "power phrase."

He displayed a chart that showed a rapid increase in support from an audience that heard the phrase "no nuclear weapons for Iran" in a video of a Hillary Clinton speech.

"The strongest way to communicate about Iran," Luntz added, "is not that they will attack the U.S. or Israel but that they will supply this technology to terrorist groups."

An ineffective way to communicate, he said, is to tie Iran and Iraq together. Iraq policy has so little support that twinning the threats posed by the two countries damages advocacy about the danger posed by Iran.

Long speeches with many bullet points are not needed when "a single statement of seven or eight words will do," Luntz said.

The audience included Cheryl Halpern, a New Jersey delegate and the chairman of the Corp. for Public Broadcasting. She and her husband, Fred, who also attended, are longtime Republican donors. Halpern said afterward that in her role supporting public broadcasting, she is particularly interested in ensuring that unbiased information is presented.

She said she is also interested, as is most of the country, in what Palin will say Wednesday evening.

At RNC, Issues Intervene: Iran, Nukes And Israel - Forbes.com