War clouds
From the Los Angeles Times ROSA BROOKS
Russia’s dangerous double game with Israel and Iran could easily spark a Middle East conflict, with dire consequences for the U.S.
Rosa Brooks
April 28, 2006
LET ME TELL YOU about the next war.
It will start sooner than you think — sometime between now and September. And it will be precipitated by the $700-million Russian deal this week to sell Tor air defense missile systems to Iran.
When the war begins, it will be between Iran and Israel. Before it ends, though, it may set the whole of the Middle East on fire, pulling in the United States, leaving a legacy of instability that will last for generations and permanently ending a century of American supremacy.
Despite the high stakes, the Bush administration seems barely to have noticed the danger posed by the Russian missile sale. But the signs are there, for those inclined to read them.
As international pressure over their nuclear program mounts, the Iranians have become increasingly bellicose toward the U.S. and Israel. On Monday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Israel was a “fake regime” that “cannot logically continue to live.” On Wednesday, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, warned that “if the U.S. ventured into any aggression on Iran, Iran will retaliate by damaging the U.S. interests worldwide.”
Israel has upped the rhetorical heat as well. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reiterated Israel’s determination to “make sure no one has the capability or the power to commit destruction against us.”
This alone should make any observer jittery. In June 1981, Israel unilaterally launched an airstrike against a nuclear reactor near Baghdad. Iran’s nuclear facilities are dispersed and well-concealed, making a preemptive Israeli strike far more difficult this time around. But there’s no reason to doubt Israel’s willingness to try.
Of course, there’s no firm evidence that Iran has offensive nuclear capabilities. And even a successful military strike against Iran would be a risky move for Israel, potentially igniting regionwide instability. Absent external meddling, Israel has a substantial incentive to wait to see if a diplomatic solution can be found.
But Russian brinksmanship is about to remove Israel’s incentive to pursue a peaceful diplomatic path.
Russian leaders continue to mouth the usual diplomatic platitudes about democracy and global cooperation, but Russia is actually playing a complex double game. On Tuesday, Russia launched a spy satellite for Israel, which the Israelis can use to monitor Iran’s nuclear facilities. On the same day, Russian leaders confirmed their opposition to any U.N. Security Council effort to impose sanctions against Iran, and their intention to go through with the lucrative sale of 29 Tor M1 air defense missile systems to Iran.
“There are no circumstances which would get in the way of us carrying out our commitments in the field of military cooperation with Iran,” declared Nikolai Spassky, deputy head of Russia’s National Security Council.
The upcoming deployment of Tor missiles around Iranian nuclear sites dramatically changes the calculus in the Middle East, and it significantly increases the risk of a regional war. Once the missile systems are deployed, Iran’s air defenses will become far more sophisticated, and Israel will likely lose whatever ability it now has to unilaterally destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities.
The clock is ticking for Israel. To have a hope of succeeding, any unilateral Israeli strike against Iran must take place before September, when the Tor missile deployment is set to be completed.
At best, a conflict between Israel and Iran (with resulting civilian casualties) would further inflame anti-Israel sentiment in the Islamic world, with a consequent increase in terrorism, both against Israel and against the U.S., Israel’s main foreign backer. At worst — if the U.S. gets drawn into the conflict directly — the entire Middle East could implode, terrorist attacks worldwide would increase, the already overstretched U.S. military would be badly damaged and U.S. global influence would wane — perhaps forever.
So what is Russia up to? Andrei Piontkovsky, a Russian political analyst, suggests that Russia’s oil and gas oligarchs wouldn’t shed any tears over a war in the Middle East, especially if it’s a war that ensnares the U.S. and keeps oil prices high.
Even so, it may not be too late to avert a new war in the Middle East. A quiet but firm U.S. threat to boycott the G-8 summit in July in St. Petersburg might inspire Russian President Vladimir V. Putin to freeze the missile transfer. And a promise to facilitate Russian entry into the World Trade Organization might even get Russia’s oil and gas oligarchs on board. Freezing the missile sale would buy crucial time to find a diplomatic solution to the stalemate over Iran’s nuclear program.
Unfortunately, the Bush administration appears to be asleep at the wheel, too distracted by Iraq, skyrocketing gas prices and plummeting approval ratings to devote any attention to Russia’s potentially catastrophic mischief.
Meanwhile, the clock is ticking
Iran: Let the Democratic Process Work
http://www.atimes.com http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HD28Ak02.html
SPEAKING FREELY
Iran: Let the democratic process work
By Hamid Dabashi
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have their say. Please click here if you are interested in contributing.
The “war on terror”, as US President George W Bush defines it, is a moving target. The current record of his administration is the active fabrication of a public enemy No 1 followed by a major war every two years, one on the trail of the other.
In 2001, it was Osama bin Laden and Afghanistan, in 2003 it was Saddam Hussein and Iraq, in 2006 it is Mahmud Ahmadinejad and Iran.
The current concern over an impending attack on Iran intensified this month when US journalist Seymour Hersh reported that the Pentagon had in fact put into operational gear its plans for a major attack against Iranian nuclear facilities.
The tangible possibility of yet another US-led war, generated by this report, can be read in one of four ways: (1) the veteran American journalist has indeed teased out of his varied sources a genuine plan according to which the US military intends to dismantle the clerical regime’s ambition to achieve nuclear capabilities for peaceful and/or belligerent purposes; (2) he is being used by his Pentagon sources to launch a psychological operation (psy-op) against Iran; (3) a combination of both, for psy-op after all is in fact integral to any military planning; and (4) dissident US generals, now openly criticizing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, are putting the report of this pending invasion out to generate a public outcry against the Bush administration.
Any one of these readings that one might choose to believe, and indeed their common denominator, amounts to the same: a sudden and irreversible consolidation of the Islamic Republic against all its internal and external opponents – once again immunizing it to any peaceful process of democratization, as perhaps best epitomized in the course of the reform movement spearheaded during Mohammed Khatami’s presidency (1997-2005).
After the Central Intelligence Agency-engineered coup of 1953 and the toppling of the democratically elected prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh, one might persuasively argue this is the second-most-significant time that the US has effectively thwarted the democratic aspirations of Iranians.
If the damage of such military adventurism were limited to Iranian people’s struggle for freedom and democracy, one could just add it to the litany of other legitimate grievances that people around the world and human-rights organizations have with the US. But the problems that a potential or actual attack on Iran would today generate are manifold and open-ended.
The most immediate result of even the rumor of a pending US attack on Iran is the adversarial consolidation of a recalcitrant Islamic Republic, which thus resumes a warring posture, and any internal or external criticism of its abusive records will amount to treason and siding with the strategic maneuvers of an even more rebarbative power in the region.
The assumption of a popular uprising against the Islamic Republic once the US and/or Israel attack Iran is delusional and dangerous. Quite to the contrary. The issue of nuclear energy (and potentially nuclear arms) has already become a matter of national pride for Iranians, and people across a wide range of the political divide vociferously endorse it.
The deeply fragmented class divisions within the Islamic Republic also indicate that should the US attack Iran, it is the poorest and most disfranchised, the 15 million militarized poor who voted for Ahmadinejad – namely the Pasdars, the Basijis and the Hezbollah – who will be immediately mobilized for the protracted guerrilla warfare that will ensue, while the middle-class audience of expatriate, mostly Los Angeles-based, propaganda against the Islamic Republic will all run for cover.
Those analysts, Americans or expatriate Iranians, posing to defend the cause of democracy and/or human rights in Iran from the safe distance of US think-tanks, promising that Iranian people are all pro-American and thus will welcome the US Army, will have to be held accountable for their dangerous delusions should the US attack Iran and tens of thousands of Iranians and Americans are maimed and killed – with women in particular yet again the most under-reported victims of such crimes against humanity.
The emerging assumption that Ahmadinejad is yet another Adolf Hitler is factually false and rhetorically lame. His outlandish remarks about the Holocaust and Israel notwithstanding, Ahmadinejad is deeply in trouble and severely challenged from within the clerical establishment itself. The tug-of-war that is currently under way inside the leading organs of the Islamic Republic has very much sidestepped Ahmadinejad.
He is not a player in the high-power clerical clique. By virtue of the mandate the Iranian electorate handed him and the modicum of integrity invested in his office because of its previous occupant, he carries certain limited authority, but not much power.
Any potential or actual US/Israeli attack on the Islamic Republic will significantly change that balance, will unify the clerical establishment and popular resentment alike, and will lead to a Shi’ite/Islamic alliance across the Iranian borders and well into Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon – an alliance that will aggravate the already volatile region in terms of even more violent guerrilla operations, making even more room for al-Qaeda-like globalized terrorism.
Add to this condition the fact that the US simply lacks the military wherewithal to engage in a prolonged war inside Iran, and thus the only plan of action would be some sort of a US/Israeli hit-and-run operation – which will be immediately replicated in kind and most probably extend into US and European territories.
There are myriad similar problems that all follow the simple logic of violence breeding more violence. Even the threat of using the so-called “tactical” nuclear weapon will open a Pandora’s box of unfathomable brutality.
The only sensible solution to the current crisis is to keep US and Israeli hands off the Islamic Republic, withdraw any military plan, suspend all financial aid to self-serving, ill-informed expatriate opposition groups, or those that discredit the legitimate oppositional forces inside Iran – and thus allow the democratic process to work itself out.
This is not just the best alternative. This is the only solution – for any investment in the self-promotional promises of the so-called Iranian oppositional forces and their neo-conservative cohorts in major US think-tanks is a waste of taxpayers’ money in the US and an affront to the dignity and agency of Iranian people themselves.
If the international community at large has an issue with Iranians going nuclear, and it must, then it will have to wed that legitimate concern to the region at large, include Israel, Pakistan, Russia and the US (the four nuclear powers surrounding the Islamic Republic) in the equation, and subject them all to an identical application of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Hamid Dabashi is Hagop Kevorkian professor of Iranian studies and comparative literature and society at Columbia University in New York. He is the author of Theology of Discontent: The Ideological Foundation of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. His forthcoming book, Iran: A People Interrupted, is scheduled for publication this year from the New Press.
(Copyright 2006 Hamid Dabashi.)
The Key Lies in Iran’s History
The key lies in Iran’s history Charles A. Kupchan and Ray Takeyh International Herald Tribune THURSDAY, MARCH 30, 2006 WASHINGTON After years of indecision and internal squabbling, the Bush administration has finally settled on an Iran policy: Washington will rely on coercive diplomacy – sanctions backed by the threat of military strikes – to rid Iran of its nuclear program, while simultaneously seeking to foment regime change in Tehran.
This approach is ill-advised and based on a fundamental misreading of Iran’s perception of the current standoff.
For the Bush administration, the confrontation is all about Tehran’s nuclear ambitions and fears that Iran is seeking to build the bomb.
But for the Iranian government and the vast majority of its citizens, the nuclear issue has become larger than life, a nationalist cause that is all about defending the country’s sovereignty and dignity.
Relying on blustery threats to browbeat Tehran into submission is poised only to backfire. Historical sensitivity and judicious diplomacy are needed to steer the theocratic regime in the right direction.
For Iranians, history is a living enterprise. Throughout the 20th century, Iran was a stomping ground for the great powers. It was a pawn first in the struggle between Britain and Russia, then between America and the Soviet Union.
Behind every shah was a foreign hand that could empower or humble the Peacock Throne. An ancient and proud civilization was reduced to a vassal state, irked by the capitulation treaties repeatedly imposed on it by Occidental powers.
Americans fixate on the 1979 revolution and the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran. But for Iranians, the events of 1953 loom much larger, when America and Britain teamed up to depose a nationalist regime, replacing it with a pliant but tyrannical monarchy.
This past has produced a nation deeply averse to international dictates. That is one of the main reasons the Islamic Revolution has had so much staying power. Iran’s mullahs freed the country of great power domination for the first time in a century.
Themes of sacrifice and resistance remain the currency of Iranian politics; to resist American pressure is to validate national dignity.
With this historical narrative shaping Iran’s approach to the nuclear debate, the Bush administration’s assumption that calibrated pressure will yield Iranian acquiescence is doomed to failure. On the contrary, the more intense the pressure, the more intransigent Iran’s response is likely to be.
As Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said last week, “We know well that a county’s backing down one iota on its undeniable rights is the same as losing everything.”
President George W. Bush may please his conservative base by branding Iran an “axis of evil” and an “outpost of tyranny.” But the provocative rhetoric only plays into the hands of Iran’s hardliners. Washington is far more likely to see its efforts pay off if it tones down its language and adopts a diplomatic stance more mindful of Iran’s historical baggage.
The substance of American diplomacy must change as well. When Tehran is told to suspend its nuclear program or face “dire consequences” at the same time that Washington agrees to help India expand its nuclear program, Iranians only dig in their heels.
Washington should broaden the context of negotiations by tendering clear inducements. The Bush administration has already indicated that it is prepared to discuss with Iran how best to bring stability to Iraq. A U.S.-Iran dialogue should also address broader security issues in the Gulf.
Easing sanctions, releasing Iranian assets frozen since the revolution and ultimately establishing diplomatic relations should also be on the table. The prospect of such rewards will do much more to empower Iranian moderates than a tightened economic embargo or attacks on nuclear facilities.
Tapping into Iran’s national pride rather than confronting it head-on holds out the best hope for containing its nuclear ambitions and undercutting a belligerent regime that depends on isolation and defiance for its political survival.
(Charles A. Kupchan, a professor of international affairs at Georgetown University, and Ray Takeyh are senior fellows at the Council on Foreign Relations.)
The Liberation of America Begins
The Liberation of America Begins 
Thursday, 30 March 2006 “If you start looking at them as humans, and stuff like that, then how are you going to kill them?”
So says Jody Casey, a U.S. soldier who had just left military service and almost immediately joined a remarkable march of atonement, protest and patriotism led by Iraq Veterans Against the War, walking 130 miles from Mobile to New Orleans along with military families and survivors. (The full story is in the Guardian, via the indispensible Information Clearing House.)
Vets March on New Orleans – fluxview.com
This march, and the testimony of the soldiers, should be seen as part of the on-going liberation of the United States from the nihilistic militarism that has captured the nation’s government – and its psyche. Like the protests of Cindy Sheehan at Fortress Crawford last summer (see “The Fire Sermon: A Spark is Lit in the Texas Scrub“), the march is a milestone in what will certainly be a long and perilous struggle to reclaim and redeem the Republic.
Honour these men and women. They are fighting for you. Listen to their words, support their cause, and denounce at every turn the crimes of the liars and killers at the top who have brought our long-running infection of blind and brutal militarism to a fever pitch. Let the days of our shame and degradation be done with at last. Reclaim, renew and redeem the Republic!
Excerpts from the Guardian
Lebanon conflict could benefit Iran
Lebanon conflict could benefit Iran
By Jocelyne Zablit
US support of Israel’s campaign in Lebanon to crush the Shiite militant group Hezbollah may end up being counter-productive and could empower Iran in its nuclear standoff with the West, analysts say. Several said that rather then dealing a blow to the hardline regime in Tehran, the offensive against Hezbollah, considered Iran’s proxy force in Lebanon, has so far had a reverse effect. “I think if the mullahs were not opposed to drinking alcohol they would be popping the champagne corks in Tehran these days,” Ted Carpenter, vice president for defence and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, a Washington think tank, told AFP.
He said heavy civilian casualties in Lebanon and mounting international criticism of the Israeli offensive have benefited Iran as it seeks to manoeuvre its way out of the crisis with the United States and other countries over its nuclear ambitions. “Indirectly, the Iranian government has gained confidence that it can survive any pressure from the US and the rest of the international community,” Carpenter said. “That it might even be able to withstand a military assault by the United States and still end up winning in the long run.”
Vali Nasr, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of a new book entitled “The Shia Revival”, said the war between Israel and Hezbollah is not likely to dramatically impact on efforts by the UN Security Council to curtail Iran’s nuclear ambitions but could leave the West in a weaker position when dealing with the hardline regime. “One of the points of Iran in Lebanon was to make sure that the West understands that it needs Iran and that it cannot isolate Iran out of the region,” Nasr said.
He said Israel’s ongoing offensive in Lebanon has served to highlight the limitations of such an operation and has scuttled US hopes that in addition to crushing Hezbollah, the offensive would further isolate Iran. “The lesson of Lebanon is that when you bomb somebody you actually make him more popular,” Nasr said. “That could tell you that if you did the same in Iran, you’re actually going to strengthen the Iranian regime and there is no guarantee that it will fall either.” Some analysts also raised the possibility that Washington’s steadfast backing of the Israeli offensive in Lebanon could alienate countries such as France and Russia, whose backing is essential in the nuclear standoff with Iran.
“Both look at any interaction with the United States in part through the prism of wanting to make sure the US is restrained,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “They think in terms of creating an alternative model for what they see as a unilateralist world and if the US is acting at the moment in a way in which France and Russia perceive as unilateralist (…) then they are going to be less likely to want to cooperate with us.” The UN Security Council on Monday adopted a resolution calling on Iran to freeze sensitive nuclear work by the end of the month or face possible sanctions. Tehran contends that its nuclear program is for civilian purposes but the West believes the Islamic regime is seeking to develop a nuclear bomb. – AP
On religion and gender
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/06/08/news/muslim.php
This article has shown and proven to us that there is a need to make changes to the economic and political system in Muslim nations. What the various surveys that The Gallup Orgainsation has conducted have shown us that Muslim women are eager and want to have their say in the political field of the nation they are residing in, by having the right to vote without influence.
To those who view the Muslim community as people who advocates violent extremisim, the results of the polls showed otherwise. What they view as pressing issues are in line with what people from other nations or religions.
To my interest, is the fact that Muslim women or rather Musilms in general view the West as in general a perception of moral decay, promiscuity and pornography that pollsters called the "Hollywood image" that is regarded as degrading to women. This is further proven by the recent Anti-pornography campaign that Muslim groups are advocating.
The hijab, or head scarf, and burqa, the garment covering face and body, seen by some Westerners as tools of oppression, were never mentioned in the women's answers to the open-ended questions.
There is nothing much to discuss in this article, however the data provide fresh insight into the Muslim world, where Western perceptions generally cast women as victims of the religious laws in Muslim nations.
