It just might work

Words are cheap, of course, but Iran has reacted somewhat positively to a package of incentives designed to get it to give up its nuclear ambitions.

The package, agreed on in Vienna on Friday, includes specific rewards to Iran like new commercial planes and light-water nuclear reactors if it suspends enrichment and reprocessing activities while talks over the deal are continuing, the officials said. But it does not say just how long the suspension would last, they added.

The United States gave crucial heft to the package by offering to remove certain economic sanctions against Iran that date from more than two decades ago, and to talk directly with Iran if the country agrees to an enrichment freeze.

It's always kind of irritating to reward a country for behaving badly, but the proposals here are reasonable. The question now is whether Iran is willing to give up its enrichment program under any circumstances, or whether this is simply another stalling tactic.

I hope it works; I've got my fingers crossed and everything. But it's far from a done deal.

nuclear, Iran, politics, midtopia

Newspaper apologizes for false Iran story

Canada's National Post has apologized for printing a story saying Iran was going to require Jews to wear yellow badges.

"It is now clear the story is not true," Douglas Kelly, the National Post's editor in chief, wrote in a long editorial on Page 2. "We apologize for the mistake and for the consternation it has caused not just National Post readers, but the broader public who read the story."

This was unusual in that it's a mainstream newspaper. But it comes at a time when a lot of false stories are getting circulated: the Karl Rove indictment, for instance, or the Internet movie featuring alleged Ranger Jesse Macbeth.

More than ever it pays to pay attention, and try to separate the trustworthy information sources from the trash.

National Post, Iran, Jesse Macbeth, politics, midtopia

Trying on the Hitler suit

Canada's National Post is reporting that Iran's parliament has approved a law that would require religious minorities to wear colored bands identifying their faith.

The law mandates the government to make sure that all Iranians wear "standard Islamic garments" designed to remove ethnic and class distinctions reflected in clothing, and to eliminate "the influence of the infidel" on the way Iranians, especially, the young dress. It also envisages separate dress codes for religious minorities, Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians, who will have to adopt distinct colour schemes to make them identifiable in public. The new codes would enable Muslims to easily recognize non-Muslims so that they can avoid shaking hands with them by mistake, and thus becoming najis (unclean).

The law has apparently been passed by the Iranian parliament but still requires approval by the true ruler of Iran, Ali Khamenei. The law would take effect in the fall at the earliest.

I'm not seeing much independent confirmation of this yet, just articles in some Israeli papers, conservative blogs and Christian news sites. So there may be less here than meets the eye.

If true, though, it's yet another sign of what a nutcase Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is -- he pushed hard to get the law through -- and how willing Iran is to embrace every bad image their critics have ever painted them with.

And how important it is to ensure that these guys never get nukes.

Ahmadinejad, Hitler, Islam, nuclear, Iran, politics, midtopia

Reactor-for-peace deal with Iran?

Europe is considering building a light-water reactor in Iran as part of a package of incentives to get Iran to give up its domestic uranium-enrichment capability.

McCormack said Tehran would be required to halt its program of enriching and reprocessing uranium on Iranian soil, saying the U.S. and others "do not want the Iranian regime to have the ability to master those critical pathways to a nuclear weapon."

The Iranian reaction? I'll give you one guess.

Hojjatollah Soltani, second secretary of the Iranian Embassy in Venezuela, said such a proposal would acceptable only if it "only if they recognize our right to (use) nuclear technology" — including uranium enrichment.

The deal is similar to the one we offered North Korea back in the 1990s, when we began building them two reactors in exchange for them giving up their nuclear program. Work on the reactors was halted a few years later when it became clear North Korea hadn't given up its own program.

There's no reason to think the outcome will be any different with Iran, but it's a worthwhile offer to make. Reactors take years to build, which provides plenty of time to ensure Iran is complying with the terms of the agreement. And if they reject the deal it's just one more example of Iranian intransigence on this subject.

nuclear, Iran, politics, midtopia

Highly-enriched uranium found in Iran

is Iran still operating a clandestine nuclear enrichment program?

U.N. inspectors have found traces of near bomb-grade enriched uranium on nuclear equipment in Iran, diplomats said on Friday, as the EU prepared a declaration that will insist Tehran shelve all enrichment work.

Maybe not:

The new discovery by U.N. inspectors of high-enriched uranium traces in Iran was made on equipment from a former research site razed by Iran in 2004 before the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) could examine it, diplomats said.

Er, okay. So that means they had a clandestine enrichment program. Something we already knew. Phew.

Still, the fact that they had near bomb-grade uranium casts doubt on the peacefulness of the venture. Power plants don't need anywhere near that level of enrichment.

The Iranian reaction was, paraphrased, "you're all a bunch of pussies":

Iran signaled undiminished confidence in a lack of big power resolve against its atomic work with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calling Western pressure "psychological propaganda" and the U.S.-mooted, last-resort option of war "unlikely." ... Reacting to the report, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told the students' news agency ISNA: "These comments lack any importance and do not come from a real source."

Not really the words of someone interested in a diplomatic solution, are they?

nuclear, Iran, politics, midtopia

The UN finds its spine

Well, not the UN just yet, but the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said Friday that Iran had enriched uranium and persists with related activities in its nuclear program in defiance of the U.N. Security Council.... The finding set the stage for a showdown in the U.N. Security Council, which is expected to meet next week and start a process that could result in punitive measures against the Islamic republic.

Good. This means the UN will have to take some sort of action.

Iran's reaction was to continue painting targets on itself.

Just before the report was released, Iran's president said the country "won't give a damn" about any U.N. resolutions concerning its nuclear program.... Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said no Security Council resolution could make Iran give up its nuclear program.

The great thing about Iran is the clarity. Oh, there's the question of whether their intent is for peaceful or military use. But that's not much of a question, since they were caught redhanded with a secret enrichment program and have hardened their nuclear sites against attack. You don't really need to do that if you're just pursuing electricity.

No, with Iran there are none of the uncertainties that surrounded Iraq's WMD program. Iran is pursuing nukes, they admit it, and they're daring the world to do something about it. They didn't even bother responding to the Security Council demands for information, a direct diss of the organization.

If the Security Council is to remain relevant, such defiance cannot be tolerated. The question now comes down to what sort of punishment Russia and China will permit -- and whether that will be enough to dissuade Iran from its pursuit. Because that's the bottom line. Try every diplomatic option first. And I mean every diplomatic option. But the only acceptable outcome is for Iran to abandon its nuclear program. We cannot accept a result short of that and call it victory.

Security Council, nuclear, Iran, politics, midtopia

Back from the dead

You know that on-again, off-again deal whereby Russia would enrich nuclear fuel for Iran? Well, apparently it's on again.

Iran's envoy to the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said Saturday the Islamic republic had reached a "basic deal" with the Kremlin to form a joint uranium enrichment venture on Russian territory, state-run television reported.

Ali Asghar Soltanieh, envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency , "spoke of a basic agreement between Iran and Russia to set up a joint uranium enrichment firm on Russian soil," Iranian state television reported.

That's a pretty vague statement. A "basic agreement" is not the same thing as a specific and signed agreement. A lot of people think Iran used the possibility of such a deal as a delaying tactic the last time around, and they may well be doing the same thing here. As the story points out:

In February, Iran and Russia announced that they had reached a "basic agreement" to establish a joint uranium enrichment venture in Russian, but details were never worked out.

So we still need to hold Iran's feet to the fire. But if such a deal actually becomes a reality, it would be the best solution to the problem.

The next question then becomes ensuring that Iran dismantles its home-grown enrichment program. Ideally the best way to do that is with supervised demolition of the enrichment sites and equipment. But somehow I doubt Iran will agree to that. Expect the dispute to carry on for quite some time even if Iran and Russia seal a deal.


enrichment, nuclear, Russia, Iran, politics, midtopia

U.S. seeks sanctions against Iran

The United States will ask its allies to freeze Iranian assets, impose visa restrictions and perhaps apply some trade sanctions if Iran does not abandon its nuclear program.

And why not? Iran is enriching uranium (though its claims are overblown and it's years away from acquiring strategic amounts of weapons-grade material), and their president is a nutcase. A basic rule of thumb: don't let nutcases have nukes, especially when they've been caught redhanded violating the treaties they say give them the right to have nukes.

Wouldn't it be nice if sanctions caused the Iranians to capitulate? Yep. Unfortunately, even setting aside the question of Iranian psychology, the U.S. will have trouble getting sanctions approved by the U.N. Security Council, what with Russia and China opposing the idea. We should still try; it will at least get that debate over with so we can consider other options. But it's a long shot.

Why? Well, the best way to make Iran pay attention without unduly harming Iranian civilians is to cut off military sales and aid. That -- and Iranian oil and trade -- is why Russia and China oppose sanctions: they're Iran's major arms suppliers, and they'd be the ones taking the big economic hit.

Might the West agree to compensate them for the lost trade in exchange for not opposing sanctions? That might work with Russia, which has plentiful oil of its own, but not China: China's economy is thirsty, and Iran's oil is not easily replaced. As well, both see their relationship with Iran as a key one for the future, giving them an oil-rich ally in a volatile region. They're not going to jeopardize that if they can help it. And both would prefer to make their money on trade rather than take handouts from the West.

Maybe careful diplomacy can persuade Russia that Iran getting nukes is just a short step away from a nuclear Beslan. But there's very little we can offer China that will speak louder than Iran's oil.

If either Russia or China refuses to budge, there's not much we can do other than use the IAEA to build the case against Iran and try to build a sanctions regime that bypasses the U.N.

Which is why a military strike must remain an option. An option of last resort, to be sure -- let's exhaust every other avenue first -- but an option nonetheless. Because it may well be that the threat of force -- and, if it comes to that, the use of force -- is the only thing that can make Iran pay attention.

sanctions, nuclear, Iran, politics, midtopia

Iran: the nuclear option

Seymour Hersh reports that the Bush administration is making plans for a massive bombing campaign in Iran.

That in itself is not particularly surprising. Such contingency plans are standard fare in military circles, and as I've said before, a bombing campaign may well be necessary to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons.

And before getting too excited, we should note that all the sources are anonymous. Hersh is a solid investigative journalist, so he gets the benefit of the doubt from me. But don't jump on this as proven fact just yet.

That said, the report contains two remarkable and worrisome details:

There is a growing conviction among members of the United States military, and in the international community, that President Bush’s ultimate goal in the nuclear confrontation with Iran is regime change. Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has challenged the reality of the Holocaust and said that Israel must be “wiped off the map.” Bush and others in the White House view him as a potential Adolf Hitler, a former senior intelligence official said. “That’s the name they’re using. They say, ‘Will Iran get a strategic weapon and threaten another world war?’ ”

Adolf Hitler? Even if Ahmadinejad had aspirations to be a new Hitler, he wields little actual power withint Iran -- and Iran is no Germany in terms of military strength. Bandying that term about so readily indicates a moralistic drive behind the planning, and calls up two bad associations I had hoped were dead and buried. It's very neocon language, and in the runup to the invasion of Iraq the administration repeatedly invoked Hitler in relation to Saddam Hussein. They can't seriously be contemplating the same thing with Iran.

And regime change through bombing? Has that ever worked? Apparently the administration thinks it will this time:

One former defense official, who still deals with sensitive issues for the Bush Administration, told me that the military planning was premised on a belief that “a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government.” He added, “I was shocked when I heard it, and asked myself, ‘What are they smoking?’ ”

Every conflict I can think of teaches the opposite lesson: that bombing rallies a population behind the government, however despised it may be otherwise. Iranians may dislike the mullahs, but they will dislike American bombs even more. It may be necessary to send in bombers to disrupt their nuclear capacity; but sending in bombers in hopes of toppling the mullahs is pure fantasy.

If this report is true, it means the same strain of naivety and wishful thinking that led to the botched Iraqi occupation is still in control of administration thinking -- which means besides being naive they're also incapable of learning from experience.

The second notable thing is that the administration is reportedly considering using tactical nuclear bunker busters to get at deeply buried facilities. On one level this is simply practical: If the facility is buried deeply enough, like the main Iranian centrifuge plant at Natanz, a nuke may be the only way to destroy it. But the political fallout from America using nuclear weapons again, as well as the irony of using nuclear weapons to keep Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, should give planners serious pause. But apparently it's not.

The attention given to the nuclear option has created serious misgivings inside the offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he added, and some officers have talked about resigning. Late this winter, the Joint Chiefs of Staff sought to remove the nuclear option from the evolving war plans for Iran—without success, the former intelligence official said. “The White House said, ‘Why are you challenging this? The option came from you.’ ”

We should avoid nukes if at all possible. Maybe we can simply deny use of deeply buried facilities by destroying the entrances, ventilation shafts and the like. Maybe we can simply target and destroy any vehicles moving in and out of it, so that whatever is in the facility stays there. It may take more work, and be less certain of success. But that is probably preferable to the huge downsides of using nukes.

Here's what I worry about:

Speaking of President Bush, the House member said, “The most worrisome thing is that this guy has a messianic vision.”

That's what got us in trouble the first time. And it's impervious to reason.

A bombing campaign to eliminate Iran's nuclear capability is one thing, and something I will support once it's clear the diplomacy is going nowhere -- as I think it is. And if the preparations are part of a campaign to put pressure on Iran and show them that we're serious about using force if necessary, so much the better. Diplomacy based on the threat of force requires that the threat be credible.

But the principles underlying the reported planning go far beyond that -- and are a huge mistake.

nuclear, Bush, bombing, Iran, politics, midtopia

Cracks in the Iranian facade

Iran's hard-line stance on its nuclear program is producing some domestic dissent.

Some people in powerful positions have begun to insist that the confrontational tactics of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have been backfiring, making it harder instead of easier for Iran to develop a nuclear program.

This week, the United Nations Security Council is meeting to take up the Iranian nuclear program. That referral and, perhaps more important, Iran's inability so far to win Russia's unequivocal support for its plans have empowered critics of Mr. Ahmadinejad, according to political analysts with close ties to the government.

One senior Iranian official, who asked to remain anonymous because of the delicate nature of the issue, said: "I tell you, if what they were doing was working, we would say, 'Good.' " But, he added: "For 27 years after the revolution, America wanted to get Iran to the Security Council and America failed. In less than six months, Ahmadinejad did that."

It remains to be seen whether the opposition has any actual teeth, especially with Iran's top cleric, Ali Khamenei, supporting the hardline approach.

In the end it may require a very delicate diplomatic approach from us: keeping the pressure ratcheted up sufficiently high that we reward neither delaying tactics nor the hard-line approach, but not so high that we push the reformers into a united front with the hardliners.

With luck we can avoid the need for my earlier suggestion.


diplomacy, nuclear, Iran, politics, midtopia

What to do about Iran

After several years of fixating on Iraq, the Bush administration is finally waking up to the nuclear ambition of Iran.

Some observers argue that a confrontation with Iran may be politically helpful to Bush, giving him a chance to demonstrate leadership and regain some of the lost luster on his security credentials. But there are a lot of little things that will probably prevent it from rescuing his reputation.

Any confrontation with Iran will point up:

1. How much of our military capability is tied up in Iraq, leaving us unable to do much more than saber-rattle against real threats;

2. How much Bush ignored Iran in the last several years;

3. How passive Bush has been even in recent months, letting the Europeans take the lead in dealing with the problem.

So what can we do?

Our policy begins with an unwavering bottom line: Iran must not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons. It's not just that they've signed the nonproliferation treaty; treaty or not, we would be foolish to let unstable states get nukes, and Iran grows more unstable every year.

However, we have to recognize Iran's legitimate interest in civilian nuclear power. A lot of people scoff at the idea of an oil-rich state needing nuclear energy, but they miss three points:

1. When the oil runs out it will run out for everyone, including suppliers;

2. As the price of oil climbs, every barrel of oil not used domestically is another barrel that can be sold for hard currency;

3. There may be remote places where it's more efficient to build a nuclear plant than run a pipeline or transmission towers.

As far as options, we begin with negotiations, of course. The basic outline of the Russian offer -- providing closely-accounted-for nuclear fuel to Iran, so that Iran does not enrich any of its own -- is a good solution. Iran has some legitimate complaints about sovereignity, but they mostly lost the right to complain about that when they were caught redhanded with an illegal enrichment program. If they want civilian nuclear energy, there will be serious strings attached.

What happens if we fail to reach a diplomatic solution?

Invading Iran just isn't going to happen; it would be plain stupid. Iran doesn't pose much offensive threat, but they could shut down shipping in the Persian Gulf at least temporarily, and I wouldn't want to dig a few hundred thousand infantry out of those mountains. Never mind what China or Russia might do, or how much further we'd inflame the Middle East by knocking over yet *another* Muslim country -- this one full of Shiites, our erstwhile allies in Iraq.

Besides, we don't have enough troops to provide security in Iraq, population 27 million. How are we going to occupy Iran and its 70 million?

We can try sanctions, but sanctions alone are unlikely to solve the problem. And our experience in Iraq was that strict sanctions hurt the populace far more than it damaged Saddam.

If it comes to the last resort, the best way to deal with nuclear ambitions is through coercive, muscular inspections, backed by the *credible* threat of force:

Step 1: Establish a credible independent inspection regime under international auspices (not necessarily UN, but something that makes it clear this is not a U.S. operation).

Step 2: Get the inspectors in the country, with free access and the right to conduct unannounced surprise inspections. Part of the negotiations may well include "Let the inspectors in and give them free access or we will destroy anything we think is a nuclear facility." Then do so if they try to call our bluff.

Step 3: Once they're in, be consistent and deadly serious about enforcing their access. "Let the inspectors into this facility *right now* or we will bomb it" may be one tactic. Then do so if they try to call our bluff.

We won't necessarily find everything, and some facilities may be both hidden or buried so deeply that bombs can't reach. But that's okay. A nuclear weapon isn't something you can build in your basement. You need enrichment facilities, fabrication facilities, testing facilities... all of which leave a reasonably large footprint. Sufficiently intrusive inspections will make building a bomb prohibitively difficult and expensive.

bush, nuclear, Iran, politics, midtopia

Bush is channeling John Kerry

I was wondering if anyone else had noticed that Bush's current policy on Iran -- provide them with closely monitored nuclear fuel so they don't enrich it themselves -- is pretty much exactly what John Kerry suggested we do back in 2004. A suggestion, by the way, that was roundly panned by Republicans, who labeled it "appeasement."

Then I found this article in the New York Sun.

President Bush's endorsement of a plan to end the nuclear standoff with Iran by giving the Islamic republic nuclear fuel for civilian use under close monitoring has left some of his supporters baffled.

One cause for the chagrin is that the proposal, which is backed by Russia, essentially adopts a strategy advocated by Mr. Bush's Democratic opponent in the 2004 election, Senator Kerry of Massachusetts.

(snip)

Republican commentators accused the senator of favoring "appeasement" and warned that the Iranians could divert nuclear fuel to make bombs.

A Pentagon official under President Reagan, Frank Gaffney Jr., skewered the plan in a column entitled, "Kerry's Nuclear Nonsense." Mr. Gaffney, who did not return a call seeking comment for this story, declared, "Mr. Bush understands the folly of going that route."

Writing in National Review, a Defense Department official under President George H.W. Bush, Jed Babbin, called Mr. Kerry's proposal "ignorant" and "dangerously wrong."

Of course, now that Bush supports it, I'm sure these fine folks think it's a dandy idea.

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bush, kerry, iran, politics, midtopia