Middle East peace talks are 'doomed to fail', says Ahmadinejad.

You have to wonder sometimes about what goes on inside Ahmadinejad's head. Why would he come out - at the very moment when Israel and Palestine are holding their first face to face in two years - and say this?

Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, today launched an angry attack on "doomed" US-brokered Middle East peace talks and urged the Palestinians to continue armed resistance to Israel.

Ahmadinejad used the annual al-Quds (Jerusalem) Day rally in Tehran to scorn the Obama administration's efforts in launching the first Arab-Israeli negotiations in nearly two years.

"What do they want to negotiate about? Who are they representing? What are they going to talk about?" the hardline Iranian leader said of the Palestinian negotiating team in Washington.

"Who gave them the right to sell a piece of Palestinian land? The people of Palestine and the people of the region will not allow them to sell even an inch of Palestinian soil to the enemy. The negotiations are stillborn and doomed."

Now, I understand that the larger point he is making concerns the fact that Hamas, the Palestinian people's democratically elected representatives, have been excluded from the process.

I get that point and obviously, somewhere down the road, Hamas will have to be brought into the process. But why does Ahmadinejad favour armed resistance over negotiation? Armed resistance has gotten the Palestinian people nowhere.

I personally am doubtful about how successful these talks will be, but surely everyone sees them as preferable to the alternative?

And, at a time when many in the west are calling for action against Iran, Ahmadinejad does not make it more difficult for them to make their case. Indeed, in the minds of many, he makes the case better than Blair and the neo-cons do.

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Tags: Ahmadinejad, Iran, Israel, Palestine, peace talks

Ashtiani outrage spurs Iran to commute stoning sentences to hanging.

The case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, and the world wide condemnation which it has brought upon Iran, appears to have caused the Iranian regime to rethink it's plans to stone people to death.

Mariam Ghorbanzadeh, 25, who was six months' pregnant and miscarried after being beaten up in Tabriz prison this week, was initially sentenced to death by stoning for adultery but her sentence has been commuted to hanging in a rapid judicial review. The decision is thought to have been driven by the Iranian authorities' desire to avoid further international condemnation over the barbaric punishment.

According to Iranian law, officials could not carry out her sentence while she was pregnant. Speaking to the Guardian, her lawyer, Houtan Kian, who represents Mohammadi Ashtiani and two other women kept in Tabriz prison convicted of adultery, said: "My fear is that Iran executes Mariam and those others whose cases have not attracted media attention."

Hanging is, of course, not as primitive as stoning someone to death, but it is still a barbaric way for any nation to deal with criminality.

Another of Kian's clients, Azar Bagheri, 19, was imprisoned at the age of 15 after her husband accused her of having an extramarital relationship. Bagheri was on death row for adultery but her sentence was commuted to 100 lashes after Mohammadi Ashtiani's story came to light. Although Bagheri's death penalty was handed down four years ago, the sentence could not be carried out until she was 18 years of old.

"All these women are convicted for adultery but Iran is trying to change their sentences after Sakineh's case has embarrassed them," Kian said.

Mohammadi Ashtiani has appeared on state TV in Iran appearing to confess to adultery and promising that she intended to sue her lawyer for embarrassing her by making this case so public. One couldn't help feel that it was the Iranian government which has been embarrassed, and that the words coming out of her mouth were reflecting the way they felt rather than Ashtiani.

Her lawyer has stated that she was tortured for two days before giving this "confession", prompting Amnesty International to condemn this as "a complete mockery of the judiciary system in Iran".

Of course, Amnesty International and people like myself find it very easy to condemn the torture of Ashtiani, but I wonder how the American right wingers - usually so keen to condemn all things Iranian - can square the circle of their own embrace of torture during the Bush administration.

Will they actually be hypocritical enough to condemn the Iranians for doing the very thing which they previously applauded? Or will they continue to argue that torture is different when they do it? That torture somehow leads to the truth when carried out in Guantanamo Bay, but leads to lies when practiced in Iran?

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Tags: Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, Iran, stoning, torture

Iranian Green movement oppose the sanctions.

This is why I think Obama's further UN sanctions against Iran are unhelpful.

Zahra Rahnavard, the wife of the defeated reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, stated:

Rahnavard, 64, said she opposed the sanctions passed this week by the UN security council against Iran enriching uranium that the west fears will be used to build nuclear weapons. "Sanctions are only harmful for the people of Iran," she warned. "The Iranian government is rich with oil money and the money is at its disposal. Sanctions would not affect such a government."

If even the Green movement oppose the sanctions, then the sanctions help to unite everyone in Iran against them, which in turn only strengthens Ahmadinejad and the brutal regime to which Obama is opposed.

It would have been far better to embrace the deal done by Turkey and Brazil than to have encouraged the notion that Iran is being singled out for treatment which everyone in Iran thinks is unfair. That's not harming Ahmadinejad, that's helping him.

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Tags: Iran, Ahmadinejad, UN, sanctions, Obama

UN sanctions on Iran: A gift to the regime.

I really don't get Obama when it comes to Iran.

In pushing ahead with a new round of UN security council sanctions, the US has rendered redundant an Iranian offer to send 1.2 tonnes of low-enriched uranium (LEU) to Turkey for reprocessing as reactor fuel. Western diplomats claimed they had not rejected the idea, but it was clear to all what the effect of the UN resolution would now be. This is a mistake President Barack Obama may yet come to regret. True, this time, the US has Russia and China at its side, but neither country is risking much by going with the flow while taking the credit for diminishing its strength. The same is not true for Mr Obama, who has invested so much of his time and energy attempting to re-establish the primacy of US diplomacy over force. He will be seen by many to be walking away from the table at the very moment something appears to be on it.

Turkey and Brazil had come to deal with the Iranians which appeared to do much of what the West was demanding.

This is not to belittle the difficulties the deal brokered by Turkey and Brazil posed. They were real enough: the quantity of LEU Iran offered to export abroad only represents half of its total stockpile; Iran would continue enrichment up to 20% of fissile purity; and no date had been set for the removal van. But nor should one lose sight of the concessions Iran made in offering to trade: that the fuel would be delivered in one shipment; that reprocessing could take place outside Iran's borders; and that the fuel rods would have to be delivered in a set timeframe. These were Iran's objections to the deal when it was proposed in October last year, and ones which they dropped this time round. The fuel swap would not have ended doubts about Iran's nuclear programme, but it would have established a precedent.

Ahmadinejad was widely seen as on the ropes following his disputed re-election, but the enrichment of uranium is seen as a right even by his political opponents.

Applying further sanctions on Iran, after it had brokered a deal with Turkey and Brazil, will only strengthen Ahmadinejad's hand. One year after the protests which shook his authority, the best the Iranians can now come up with are peaceful marches.

"I understand why people are no longer willing to pour on to the streets," said the mother of a female student activist, who did not want to be named for fear of exposing her jailed daughter. "If you do so, you can be sure to face any kind of punishment, either being arrested, raped, killed or anything else. I don't think people will come out in the numbers we saw last year.

"But I don't think the absence of protesters means the opposition movement is defeated. They'll find a time again. It can't continue like this."

The Iranians actually sound even more defiant as the news of the new round of sanctions came through.

"Nothing will change. The Islamic Republic of Iran will continue uranium enrichment activities," Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's envoy to the UN nuclear watchdog in Vienna, said after the vote.

I really don't know what Obama is doing. He is trying to hurt Ahmadinejad, but - in reality - I think this will help Ahmadinejad in the long run.

Nothing unites a nation more than the feeling that they are being unjustly punished.

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Tags: Iran, Obama, United Nations, Ahmadinejad

Kristol cheers 'use of force' to delay Iranian nukes.

Bill Kristol is, once again, on air demanding that the Obama administration must be prepared to use force against Iran.

"I think we have to have a credible threat of force and the preparation to use force against Iran. It would be much better if we used force against -- to delay the Iranian nuclear program than if Israel did and there is no evidence that the US government is being at all serious about the use force there," Kristol told Fox News' Chris Wallace Sunday.

Nina Easton, also appearing on the Fox News Sunday panel, quickly rebuked Kristol. "Use of force. You say that so blithely as if use of force -- what happens the next day after the use of force?" she asked.

Even Chris Wallace points out that the most this will achieve is to slow the Iranians down for a couple of years, but Kristol insists that this is still the route that the US should take.

But then, attacking countries without fully thinking out the consequences of what happens after you attack, is what Kristol always appears to advocate.

Tags: Bill Kristol, Chris Wallace, Fox News, Fox News Sunday, Iran, Israel, Neoconservatives, Nina Easton, nuclear program

Palin: Nuclear Iran Would Trigger 'Second Holocaust'.

Bible Spice has lent us her extraordinary foreign policy expertise once again to slam Obama's Middle-East policy via her Facebook page. She's warning of Israel's "second Holocaust" should Obama fail to confront Iran.

"Many, many Americans and our allies know that if Iran acquires nuclear weapons, the consequences will be catastrophic for our interests in the Middle East, and we want our government to do everything in its power to prevent Iran from acquiring nukes," she writes.

"Israel would face the gravest threat since its creation. Iran’s leaders have repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel and with nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them, the mullahs would be in a position to launch a Second Holocaust."

I thought the reason right wingers supported nuclear weapons was the notion of Mutually Assured Destruction which, during the eighties, was the mantra for why we had to have these weapons. The reasoning then was that we had to have them to ensure that they could never be used by anyone else, as we also had the power to destroy them.

Now, it goes without saying that we would all like a world in which Iran did not possess nuclear weapons, and no-one has yet shown that they actually want nuclear weapons, but why has the logic of MAD suddenly been turned on it's head in this instance?

Does Bible Spice really think that the Iranians are unaware of Israel's own nuclear programme? Or does she imagine that this is an entire nation of suicide bombers just itching for their own nuclear devastation?

Palin also argues that the Obama administration's actions have failed to rein in Tehran's nuclear ambitions, and that more than one year into Obama's presidency, his administration has made "no progress" on sanctions.

"The Obama administration has their priorities exactly backwards; we should be working with our friend and democratic ally to stop Iran's nuclear program, not throwing in the towel on sanctions while treating Israel like an enemy.

And she comes out with this tripe a day after Beijing agreed to begin drafting a UN resolution imposing sanctions against Tehran over its nuclear programme.

Bill Burton, a White House spokesman, yesterday said there was a sense of urgency about applying pressure to Iran.

"There are some very intense conversations happening at the United Nations right now that we're able to make some real progress on," he said.

Mark Toner, a US state department spokesman, confirmed that the telephone conference had taken place and said the US had been represented by the number three at the state department, William Burns.

The agreement came after a similar conference call a week ago, in which China participated after weeks of stalling.

Burton said the White House was confident it would be able to work with China to apply "meaningful" pressure.

With China's recent change of heart, meaningful sanctions have become possible for the first time in months, and this is the very moment Palin chooses to speak out.

Nor should we forget why Palin is so concerned for Israel's welfare:

Palin's flamboyant display of her so-called love for Israel -- she previously boasted that the Israeli flag was the "only" one she kept in her Gubernatorial office -- is almost certainly grounded in her creepy desire to mold America's foreign policy to fit her evangelical belief that God demands that "Israeli land" be unified under Israeli control in order for Jesus to return and sweep all the good Christians up to heaven in Rapture (while banishing everyone else -- including the Jews she loves so much -- straight to hell forever).

Bible Spice thinks Israel should be unified because that's when the Rapture will take place.

Tags: Palin, Israel, second Holocaust, Iran, Obama

Iran touts nuclear gains and quashes protests.

There's a reason why Ahmadinejad is playing up the fact that Iran is now, "a nuclear state". He's highlighting something which even the Iranians who oppose him take great pride in. And, should the US and others come together to sanction Iran, Ahmadinejad knows that this will quell those who question his governments legitimacy after the recent elections and the torrent of protests which those elections unleashed.

Yesterday, as Iran celebrated the anniversary of the revolution, Ahmadinejad spoke of Iran's nuclear power whilst using his security forces to put down any hint of protest.

Anti-government protesters had hoped to use revolution day celebrations for a big display of defiance, but a massive security clampdown choked off the threat of major disruption. There were clashes with police at several locations across Tehran, with tear gas and paintballs fired to disperse crowds chanting opposition slogans. Opposition websites claimed at least one person was shot dead by security forces.

Leading figures from within the opposition camp were reportedly harassed, including the elderly cleric Mehdi Karroubi, who stood in last June's disputed elections. He was attacked by hardliners who broke the windows of his car and had pepper sprayed on him.

Zahra Rahnavard, the wife of Mirhosein Moussavi, the other presidential challenger, also reportedly suffered a beating when she appeared in the streets, while Zahra Eshraghi, the reformist granddaughter of Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, was briefly detained.

Videos purportedly of protesters shouting "Death to the dictator" in Isfahan Mashhad and other Iranian cities were posted on opposition websites. But posts on Twitter from Iran reported that while counter-demonstrations took place in locations such as Tehran's Saddeqiya Street, efforts to move into the heart of the city were pushed back by armed Basiji militias on motorbikes.

It was exactly what was to be expected after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had threatened to give protesters a "punch in the mouth" if they used yesterday as a means to challenge the legitimacy of the regime.

But it's also an indication of the danger Obama faces as he tries to challenge Iran's nuclear programme. Sanctions, oddly enough, will play into Ahmadinejad's hands. Most Iranians think that they should be allowed to be a nuclear power and they are also well aware that, under the NNPT, Iran is within it's rights to enrich uranium.

It would suit Ahmadinejad to be portrayed as being picked on unfairly by western empiricists. Nationalism is no less powerful when played by Ahmadinejad than it was when it was played by Bush. "With us or with the terrorists" can easily be transferred to Iran as "With us or with the West."

As Obama's main goal is to stop the Iranian nuclear programme then he possibly has no choice other than to proceed with sanctions. But, every sanction we impose will further stifle opposition to the Ahmadinejad regime. I think he is well aware of that, which is why he is shouting about his nuclear capability quite so loudly.

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Tags: Iran, Ahmadinejad, sanctions

Iran president Ahmadinejad accepts nuclear deal terms.

Well, well, well...

I spoke the other day of Obama increasing the pressure on Tehran:

The US will provide new anti-missile systems to at least four Arab countries, and help Saudi Arabia triple the size of a 10,000-man force protecting its most important potential military targets from attack. America's Navy will also begin deploying ships capable of intercepting medium-range nuclear missiles off the Iranian coast at all times.

And, almost immediately, we have a result:

Iran's president has said it is ready to send its enriched uranium abroad for further enrichment under a deal to ease concerns about its nuclear programme.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told state TV that Iran would have "no problem" if most of its stock was held for several months before being returned as fuel rods.

Correspondents say that such a decision would be a major shift in Tehran's position.

The US said that if this was a new offer, it was "prepared to listen".

Now, if Obama was prepared to use that same carrot and stick approach with Netanyahu, then I am sure he could go some way towards forcing the restarting of meaningful peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

At the moment, bugger all is happening, because Obama seems unwilling to apply any pressure to Israel. But, as appears from the situation with Iran, sometimes pressure works.

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Tags: Obama, Ahmadinejad, Iran, nuclear proliferation

Activists and relatives held as Iran accuses Britain of backing protesters.

One of the reasons why I think Obama is right to stay quiet on the subject of the recent protests in Iran is that the government of Ahmadinejad is desperate to portray what is taking place there as somehow being influenced by the US, Zionists or the UK.

Indeed, yesterday they indulged in extraordinarily undiplomatic language when they accused Britain of being behind the protests as Iran started to arrest leading activists and their relatives.

The foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, is said to have threatened Britain with "a slap in the mouth" after they summoned the ambassador to Tehran, Simon Gass, to listen to their grievances about supposed British involvement in the protests.

The official narrative of a western-backed opposition was reinforced by the president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who described Sunday's events as a "nauseating masquerade" backed by Americans and "Zionists", according to the official news agency, Irna.

Ahmadinejad and Khamenei now both find themselves with their backs to the wall, so it was to be expected that they would seek to make any protests the work of Americans, Brits and Zionists.

Indeed, the situation is worrying enough for Khamenei to have ordered that his jet be prepared in case he needs to flee to Russia in the face of growing protests.

The media organization reports that the Supreme National Security Council ordered a check-up Sunday of the jet on standby to evacuate Khamenei and his family should the need arise.

Neo-con lunatics like Krauthammer continue to insist that Obama should be speaking out more to assist in the collapse of the Iranian regime, but to speak out would actually be throwing a lifeline to the Khamenei regime; as they would seize on this as proof of foreign interference.

Their behaviour is becoming increasingly erratic:

The warning came as opposition websites reported that 1,000 people had been arrested in Tehran alone on Sunday. The regime has stepped up the pressure by targeting its opponents' relatives, most notably the sister of the Nobel laureate and rights campaigner, Shirin Ebadi, and the brother-in-law of the reformist opposition leader, Mir Hossein Mousavi.

Ebadi, who is in London, said her sister, Noushin Ebadi, a lecturer in medical science at Tehran Azad university, was arrested at her home on Monday night. Noushin Ebadi was not a political activist but had been singled out in an attempt to force her Nobel peace prize-winning sibling to abandon her human rights activities, according to a statement from Shirin Ebadi on the reformist website, Rah-e Sabz. The International Committee for Human Rights in Iran condemned the arrest as "a kidnapping consistent with the tactics of criminal gangs".

They are beginning to look fairly desperate, so it would be foolish in the extreme to interfere in any way.

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Tags: Iran, Protests, Khamenei, Ahmadinejad, UK, US

Krauthammer Blames Obama For Iranian Regime's Survival.

According to Charles Krauthammer, it is Obama's fault that the Iranian protest over last summer did not result in the collapse of the Iranian regime.

Obama responded by distancing himself from this new birth of freedom. First, scandalous silence. Then, a few grudging words. Then relentless engagement with the murderous regime. With offer after offer, gesture after gesture — to not Iran, but the “Islamic Republic of Iran,” as Obama ever so respectfully called these clerical fascists — the U.S. conferred legitimacy on a regime desperate to regain it.

Why is this so important? Because revolutions succeed at that singular moment, that imperceptible historical inflection, when the people, and particularly those in power, realize that the regime has lost the mandate of heaven. With this weakening dictatorship desperate for affirmation, why is the U.S. repeatedly offering just such affirmation?

Yeah, and how did eight years of Bush's constant bullying work out then? But Krauthammer is displaying a well known neo-con trait; insist that your tactics are the only ones which will work even when they have been shown to have repeatedly failed.

I find their insistence that everything is Obama's fault - from the economic collapse which occurred under the Bush regime, to the fact that Ahmadinejad hasn't gotten down on his knees and offered to disarm - simply tiresome.

And, of course, behind this insistence that Obama alone could bring about the collapse of the Iranian regime is the belief in the falsehood that Ronald Reagan brought down the Soviet Union single handedly.

This is why it is so hard to engage in any meaningful dialogue with neo-cons, they simply supply their own set of facts, which bear little relation to how anyone else sees the world.

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Tags: Krauthammer, Obama, Iran

Iran 'releases' British sailors.

I said yesterday that I thought Ahmadinejad was being foolish to hold on to the British yachtsmen, and the latest reports appear to suggest that he has come to his senses.

Five British yachtsmen who were being held by the Iranian Navy after allegedly straying into their waters, have been released, according to reports on Iranian state radio.

A Foreign Office spokeswoman said it was "actively investigating" reports, that the sailors, who were captured a week ago, have been freed.

I hope this turns out to be true. Holding them as spies was simply irrational paranoid rubbish which would only harden the resolve of those seeking to persuade the US to attack Iran.

Iran should be seeking to portray itself as a rational nation seeking to fulfill it's rights and obligations under the NNPT, and not make it so easy for it's enemies to portray it as a nation of paranoiacs who will accuse every Tom, Dick and Harry of being a spy.

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Tags: Iran

Bid to free British yacht crew detained by Iran.

I have always been willing to give Iran the benefit of the doubt, subject to inspection, when it comes to the nuclear issue, but this is becoming tedious.

Efforts are continuing by the Foreign Office to secure the release of five Britons detained by the Iranian navy while sailing from Bahrain to Dubai.

Their Volvo 60 yacht backed by the UK's Team Pindar was stopped on 25 November.

The FCO said the crew - Luke Porter, Oliver Smith, David Bloomer, Oliver Young and Sam Usher - may have "strayed inadvertently into Iranian waters".

When they picked up members of the UK military a while back, we all knew enough about UK and US forces working inside Iran to destabilise the nation to think that the Iranian claims might just have merit. But, in this instance, it seems very clear that these people are simply civilians who got into trouble at sea.

Dubai-Muscat Offshore Race organisers said the crew, who were participating in a race, may have been "drifting" after experiencing propeller problems.

Louay Habib, from the Dubai Offshore Sailing Club, told the BBC the shore crew for the boat the Kingdom of Bahrain had said "there was no wind at the time, and they told us that they were organising for a tow to come and get them".

He added: "It's purely speculation but they would have probably been drifting... in 10 hours they could well have strayed into Iranian waters."

Obama is doing his best to offer Iran a way out of the impasse of the past few years, but incidents like this don't endear the Iranians to anyone.

Ahmadinejad should release them as soon as possible. His credibility is already shot to pieces, and this won't help him one little bit.

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Tags: Ahmadinejad, Iran, sailors

Iran jails British diplomat over summer uprising.

It sometimes feels as if Ahmadinejad wants the entire planet lined up against him, whether it's his stupid claims that the Holocaust didn't happen or the fact that he thinks that there is no such thing as a gay Iranian. And now we hear of this:

Britain's relations with Iran worsened last night after a senior UK diplomat in Tehran was reportedly sentenced to four years' imprisonment for orchestrating the mass protests that followed June's bitterly disputed presidential election that returned the hardliners to power.

Britain denies that Hossein Rassam, its chief political analyst at the Tehran embassy, was involved in the demonstrations that angered and embarrassed the Iranian regime.

The notion that any one person could have been behind the protests, which broke out all over Iran, is simply nonsensical. How could any one person have such influence?

But there is such a history in Iran of blaming Britain for every ill that Ahamdinejad might actually get away with this.

Resentment at many levels of Iranian society towards Britain runs deep, fuelled by the perception that the UK has for decades meddled in its internal affairs, at first over oil and then as part of London's political closeness to the United States.

The protests happened because there was a widespread feeling in Iran that the election was stolen, it certainly didn't need any British intervention to get people to take to the streets.

After Rassam's arrest the Fars news agency, which has close ties to the hardline Revolutionary guard, claimed that he was the "kingpin" and key strategist behind a purported embassy attempt to foment street demonstrations after the 12 June poll.

He was also accused of "acting against national security", a vague catch-all charge often brought against political detainees. Britain has denied the claims against Rassam.

So there we have it. There was actually no suspicion that the election was stolen, it was simply the evil Brits fomenting discontent.

As I say, nonsensical.

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Tags: Ahmadinejad, Iran, Britain, UK

Iran ignores deadline and takes nuclear talks to brink.

Iran have asked for more time to respond to a proposal to have its uranium enriched in Russia, saying it would prefer to give it's answer next week, rather than to adhere to the deadline set by it's most recent talks with the US.

The International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) had given Tehran until yesterday to sign up to an agreement under which it would send its uranium to Russia and France for enrichment. As the deadline loomed, state television quoted a member of Iran's negotiating team who attended this week's talks in Vienna as saying that Tehran preferred to buy in nuclear fuel from abroad. This would fail to reduce Iran's domestic stockpile from worrying the international community, which fears it could be used for weapons.

As fears grew that the negotiations might be on the brink of collapse, the IAEA issued a statement saying that Iran had asked for more time to respond to the proposal, which had already been accepted by Washington, Paris and Moscow. "Iran informed [us] today that it is considering the proposal in depth and in a favourable light, but needs until the middle of next week to provide a response," it said.

We can only hope that Iran is playing for time and that the Iranians will eventually come around to accepting the deal.

I have long argued that there is no proof that the Iranians are seeking a nuclear weapon, but any reticence on their part to sign up to this deal would mean that they would need to be treated with the greatest suspicion.

US President Barack Obama has stepped up diplomatic engagement with the Iranian regime since coming to power, and Tehran's signature on the deal would have been seen as a major triumph for this new approach. Last night, a US State Department department spokesman said: "Obviously we would have preferred to have a response today. We approach this with a sense of urgency ... We hope that they will next week provide a positive response".

Talks were continuing last night, but Bernard Kouchner, the French Foreign Minister, said: "I cannot say the situation regarding Iran is very positive."

I have not, until now, supported measures to sanction the Iranians for doing what they are allowed to do under the NNPT, but, should Iran fail to agree to have it's uranium enriched in Russia, then I would change my mind and think that sanctions should be implemented as soon as possible.

Iran have been given every chance to prove that they have no intentions of attaining a nuclear weapon and I, certainly, have been willing to grant them the benefit of the doubt; however, should they reject this opportunity to reassure the international community of their intentions, then my position would change.

David Albright of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, which monitors nuclear proliferation, said: "This is a bad sign – buying nuclear fuel abroad is a complete non-starter. They seem to be looking for modifications that would fundamentally weaken the deal."

Although the IAEA's plan has not been made public, it is understood that it entails Iran shipping out 1.2 tonnes of its stockpile of 1.5 tonnes of low-enriched uranium to the IAEA. It would then be passed to Russia for refinement to 19.7 per cent purity, and then moved on to France to be turned into fuel rods.

If Tehran signs up to the deal, it would seriously handicap the country's options for manufacturing nuclear weapons, as 0.98 tonnes is the generally accepted amount of low-enriched uranium needed for a single nuclear bomb.

Iran has a chance here to completely normalise it's relations with the international community, it would be a tragedy if she were to reject it.

Let's hope that the answer given next week is the right one.

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Tags: Iran, Ahmadinejad, nuclear talks, NNPT, Obama

Iran blames west for deadly suicide bombing.

Sometimes Ahmadinejad is simply dumb, and this is one of those times. A suicide bomb has gone off in one of his most unstable provinces, killing six of his commanders and 37 others.

At a time when his country is in turmoil over his disputed re-election, there are many possible suspects for such an atrocity; but where does Ahmadinejad seek to place the blame?

Iran's Revolutionary Guards today vowed to take revenge after blaming Britain and the US for a suicide bombing that killed six of its commanders and 37 others in one of the country's most unstable provinces.

The attack, which killed the deputy commander of the guard's ground forces, General Noor Ali Shooshtari, and Rajab Ali Mohammadzadeh, the provincial commander for Sistan-Baluchistan, inflicted Iran's worst military casualties in years and raised questions of intelligence and security failures in a region long blighted by a violent Sunni insurgency.

A Sunni group, Jundallah ("soldiers of God"), claimed responsibility and said it was a response to "the constant crime of the regime in Baluchistan". It named the bomber as Abdol Vahed Mohammadi Saravani.

I know that Ahmadinejad will be seeking to underplay any link between his controversial re-election and this latest attack, but it is simply dumb to try to link this to the US and the UK . And the fact is that Jundallah have already admitted responsibility and they have a proven track record for this kind of activity:

The attack appeared to be a direct challenge to the Revolutionary Guards, who took over direct responsibility for Sistan-Baluchistan's security last April. The guards have taken an increasingly prominent role in Iranian affairs in recent times under the auspices of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Jundallah has taken up arms on behalf of Sistan-Baluchistan's Sunni Baluch population, which it says suffers discrimination at the hands of Iran's Shia rulers. Commanded by Abdolmalek Rigi, the group claims to have killed more than 400 Iranian troops during its insurgency.

It claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that killed 25 people at a Shia mosque in Zahedan, Sistan-Baluchistan's provincial capital, last May. The authorities responded by hanging 13 group members they said had been involved.

However, having witnessed some people in the west who were dumb enough to buy their leaders attempts to link Saddam Hussein and 9-11, it should surprise no-one if there are some Iranians gullible enough to swallow this obviously false narrative.

Some people are simply authoritarian at heart and believe everything which they are told by those in power. They have some need to believe that their leaders "know things" which they don't, and they willingly surrender all common sense to parrot whatever official line is being handed down from above.

So perhaps Ahmadinejad, like Bush and Blair in the west, will have some success pedaling this particular piece of tosh in Iran, but it is still an unwise path for him to take.

His government are due to meet with American and European officials in Vienna to discuss his nuclear programme, so it is hardly helping get things off to a good start by preparing for the meeting by accusing the US and UK of participating in a practice which they have no record of employing.

Obama has offered an open hand to Ahmadinejad if he will only first unclench his fist. Ahmadinejad, already weakened by questions of the legitimacy of his re-election, sends his envoy to Vienna with his fist tightly clenched shut. As I say, that's simply dumb.

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Tags: Ahmadinejad, Iran, Obama, Vienna, Jundallah, UK, US

Krauthammer Times It Very Badly.

I wondered yesterday how the naysayers would react to the news that Obama had achieved more in one day of negotiating than George W. Bush achieved in eight years of sabre rattling.

Charles Krauthammer couldn't even wait till negotiations were over before he dismissed them as worse than useless:

Confusing ends and means, the Obama administration strives mightily for shows of allied unity, good feeling and pious concern about Iran's nuclear program -- whereas the real objective is stopping that program. This feel-good posturing is worse than useless, because all the time spent achieving gestures is precious time granted Iran to finish its race to acquire the bomb.

Don't take it from me. Take it from Sarkozy, who could not conceal his astonishment at Obama's naivete.

And, just as he dismissed Obama's chances of getting Iran to agree to nuclear inspections, likewise, he is dismissive of Obama's hopes of securing a nuclear free world. He berates Obama for deciding not to reveal the knowledge he had of the facility at Qom because Obama wanted to concentrate on the deal he had struck with Russia to reduce the number of both country's nuclear warheads. This strikes Krauthammer as typical of Obama's childishness, and he cites Sarkosy as proof that he is right and Obama is wrong:

The French and the British were urging him to use this most dramatic of settings to stun the world with the revelation and to call for immediate action.

Obama refused. Not only did he say nothing about it, but, reports the Wall Street Journal (citing Le Monde), Sarkozy was forced to scrap the Qom section of his speech. Obama held the news until a day later -- in Pittsburgh. I've got nothing against Pittsburgh (site of the G-20 summit), but a stacked-with-world-leaders Security Council chamber it is not.

Why forgo the opportunity? Because Obama wanted the Security Council meeting to be about his own dream of a nuclear-free world. The president, reports the New York Times citing "White House officials," did not want to "dilute" his disarmament resolution "by diverting to Iran."

Diversion? It's the most serious security issue in the world. A diversion from what? From a worthless U.N. disarmament resolution?

The cynicism of the right wingers is so hard wired into them, it has become such a sign of their supposed "seriousness", that they dismiss anyone who thinks that there might be another way as naive in the extreme. Krauthammer produced this article on the very day that Iran agreed to inspections and to sending their uranium to be processed in a third country. On the very day when Obama got Iran to agree to this, Krauthammer was accusing him of "adolescent mindlessness" for daring to believe that there might be a more rational way to behave than the neo-con path of confrontation and force.

Certainly, regarding both Iran and Russian nuclear weapons, all the signs at the moment are that the Obama method is proving much more successful than the neo-con methods employed by the Bush regime. Which is why it is the greatest irony that Krauthammer should produce this cynical diatribe on the very day when Obama's positivism triumphs over the negativism and cynicism which Krauthammer has applauded for the past eight years.

The Bush years and the methods which they employed produced nothing in terms of a deal with Iran, indeed, they simply allowed Iran to go on enriching uranium because Bush insisted that Iran give up all of it's rights under the NNPT before talks of any kind could take place.

Obama, in one day, has shown that more can be achieved by treating your opponents as adults than can be achieved by bullying and threats.

Listen to Krauthammer's shock when he describes Obama's vision:

After all, just a day earlier in addressing the General Assembly, Obama actually said, "No one nation can . . . dominate another nation."

That's shocking to Krauthammer because he believes bullying is the only way. He wants the US to dominate other nations. He regards negotiation as weakness.

Thankfully, Obama is showing that there is a much more productive way to proceed. And it is the deranged right wingers with their fixation on world domination who are exhibiting "adolescent mindlessness".

Click title for Krauthammer's diatribe.

Tags: Krauthammer, Iran, nuclear weapons, nuclear disarmament, Obama, Ahmadinejad

Iran agrees to send uranium abroad after talks breakthrough.

After years of the Bush regime demanding that Iran stop spinning it's centrifuges before negotiations can take place, the new Obama policy of simply talking to Iran appears to be yielding results.

Iran agreed in principle today to export much of its stock of enriched uranium for processing and to open its newly revealed enrichment plant to UN inspections within a fortnight.

The agreements, struck at negotiations in Geneva with six major powers, represented the most significant progress in talks with Tehran in more than three years, and offered hope that the nuclear crisis could be defused, at least temporarily.

Western officials cautioned that the preliminary agreements could unravel in negotiations over the details. But if the deals are completed, it will push back the looming threat of further sanctions and possible military action.

I have been critical of the way the Obama administration made such a big deal out of the plant at Qom, which I thought was overly dramatic, but the end result is the end result, and that's not to be sniffled at.

Obama's approach appears to be succeeding, which is nothing short of jaw dropping after decades of distrust between these two nations.

A full day of talks in a lakeside villa just outside Geneva included the most senior and substantive bilateral meeting between an American and an Iranian official for three decades. At a lunchtime break in the proceedings, the US delegate, William Burns, took aside Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, for a one-to-one chat that lasted 40 minutes.

At the end of the negotiations, the EU foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, on behalf of the six-nation group – known as the E3+3 and consisting of Britain, France, Germany, the US, Russia and China – said the meeting "represented the start of what we hope will be an intensive process".

The most concrete, and potentially most significant, gain from the Geneva talks was an agreement in principle that Iran would send a significant quantity of its stockpile of low-enriched uranium (LEU) for further enriching and processing in Russia and France respectively, so that it could be used as fuel in its research reactor in Tehran, which makes isotopes for medical uses. President Barack Obama said yesterday: "Taking the step of transferring its low-enriched uranium to a third country would be a step towards building confidence that Iran's programme is peaceful."

If Iran agree to allow a third nation to process it's uranium from below 5% purity to 20%, then it would be highly unlikely that Iran could ever use such uranium for a nuclear weapon. So, the entire question of Iran wanting to build a nuclear bomb could be answered in the negative.

Obviously we must be cautious, Iran needs to take these steps rather than simply promise that it will do these things, but the signs so far are incredibly positive.

I wonder what Joe Lieberman and Benjamin Netanyahu will do now? How will they manage to find a negative in the midst of such a positive outcome? Will they attack Obama's naivete? How soon before they argue that other sites must exist for the real task of building the bomb?

They have viewed Iran as evil for over three decades, and it simply doesn't suit their purposes for Iran to be behaving so sensibly, so I can only imagine where they are going to go from here.

Click title for full article.

Tags: Iran, talks, Obama, Ahmadinejad

'No credible evidence' of Iranian nuclear weapons, says UN inspector

It feels like deja vu all over again. Mohamed ElBaradei is saying that he has seen "no credible evidence" that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon, just as he told us before the Iraq war that he had seen "no credible evidence" that Saddam possessed WMD.

ElBaradei's words were ignored six years ago by an American administration determined to remove Saddam at all costs, a decision which still haunts the US to this day. The recent language from Obama, Sarkosy and Brown makes me wonder if we are about to repeat that mistake. Oh, don't get me wrong, we won't go to war this time, but we might end up taking action based on threats rather than realities, chasing shadows rather than shining a torch and revealing what is true.

Iran insists its programme is for peaceful purposes, and that there is nothing illegal about a uranium enrichment plant under construction near the city of Qom, the existence of which was revealed last week. Iranian leaders say they did not have to inform the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) until six months before the first uranium was processed.

But ElBaradei, the outgoing IAEA director general, publicly disagreed today, saying Iran had been under an obligation to tell the agency "on the day it was decided to construct the facility". He said the Iranian government was "on the wrong side of the law".

However, ElBaradei rejected British intelligence claims that Iran had reactivated its weapons programme at least four years ago. By making the claims the UK broke with the official US intelligence position that Iranian work on developing a warhead probably stopped in 2003. They said that even if there was a halt, as reported in a US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) two years ago, the programme restarted in late 2004 or early 2005.

British officials had been privately sceptical about the NIE finding since its publication in 2007, but this was the first time they had made detailed allegations about Iran's weapons programme.

So, ElBaradei disagrees with Ahmadinejad's claim that he was under no obligation to disclose the facility at Qom until six months before uranium was introduced to the site, yet he still disagrees with the assessment of the Brits that the Iranians have restarted their nuclear weapons progamme.

This is because ElBaradei deals with facts, he deals with what can be proven. Intelligence agencies have to, by their very nature, deal with what might be.

But it really is tiresome, six years after the Iraq war, to find ourselves once again weighed down with claim and counter claim.

The US, Britain and France need to insist on inspections, and, unlike the inspections which took place prior to the Iraq war, they need to see these inspections as an ongoing way to ensure Iranian compliance with the NNPT. It would be stupid to use the inspections as a way to impose sanctions on Iran, as Iran has already made it perfectly clear that it will not stop it's uranium enrichment process as this process is legal under the NNPT.

Iranian officials say its programme remains non-negotiable, despite five UN security council resolutions calling for Iran to suspend enrichment. Western negotiators say they will push for a date for an IAEA inspection of the Qom uranium plant, and further concrete steps from the Iranian government to restore international confidence in the peaceful purpose of its programme. Failing that, multilateral talks will start on the imposition of more sanctions.

We are right to insist on inspections and to threaten to carry out sanctions should Iran not comply, but we should not go down the George Bush route of threatening sanctions unless Iran agrees to turn off it's centrifuges.

The burden of proof in this instance lies with us. We have to be able to prove that Iran is building a weapon or we have to allow them to do what is legal under the NNPT.

After the shame of the Iraq war, we have lost the right to have our suspicions treated as if they were facts. And, just has happened before the Iraq war, ElBaradei is, once again, telling us that the facts on the ground do not support our assertions.

This time, we should listen.

Click title for full article.

Tags: Obama, Brown, Sarkosy, United States, Britain, France, Iran, NNPT, sanctions

Scott Ritter: Keeping Iran honest.

Prior to the Iraq war I found Scott Ritter to be consistently right in a way that many of the right wing commentators were not. Here, he turns his attention to the recent revelations concerning Iran's nuclear facility at Qom.

The need to create a mechanism of economic survival in the face of the real threat of either US or Israeli military action is probably the most likely explanation behind the Qom facility. Iran's declaration of this facility to the IAEA, which predates Obama's announcement by several days, is probably a recognition on the part of Iran that this duplication of effort is no longer representative of sound policy on its part.

In any event, the facility is now out of the shadows, and will soon be subjected to a vast range of IAEA inspections, making any speculation about Iran's nuclear intentions moot. Moreover, Iran, in declaring this facility, has to know that because it has allegedly placed operational centrifuges in the Qom plant (even if no nuclear material has been introduced), there will be a need to provide the IAEA with full access to Iran's centrifuge manufacturing capability, so that a material balance can be acquired for these items as well.

Rather than representing the tip of the iceberg in terms of uncovering a covert nuclear weapons capability, the emergence of the existence of the Qom enrichment facility could very well mark the initiation of a period of even greater transparency on the part of Iran, leading to its full adoption and implementation of the IAEA additional protocol. This, more than anything, should be the desired outcome of the "Qom declaration".

Calls for "crippling" sanctions on Iran by Obama and Brown are certainly not the most productive policy options available to these two world leaders. Both have indicated a desire to strengthen the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Iran's action, in declaring the existence of the Qom facility, has created a window of opportunity for doing just that, and should be fully exploited within the framework of IAEA negotiations and inspections, and not more bluster and threats form the leaders of the western world.

There should be no surprise that Iran, faced with constant threats of attack on it's facilities by both the US and Israel, should have sought to hide part of it's nuclear programme. The really interesting thing is that it has made this declaration; it has come clean.

Obama, Sarkosy and Brown have chosen to take the Netanyahu line in all of this, and I'm not sure how useful that will turn out to be.

For example, in today's New York Times we are given lists of the various ways in which we can bring this regime to it's knees:

The Obama administration is scrambling to assemble a package of harsher economic sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program that could include a cutoff of investments to the country’s oil-and-gas industry and restrictions on many more Iranian banks than those currently blacklisted, senior administration officials said Sunday.

“There are a variety of options still available,” Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union,” said of the potential list of targets for Iranian sanctions, notably in energy equipment and technology. He called it “a pretty rich list to pick from.”

I know that they have to prepare themselves in case Ahmadinejad refuses to allow inspections, but aren't we getting way ahead of ourselves here?

Ahmadinejad has said that he will allow inspections. Shouldn't we at least wait the few days until the talks before we start issuing threats of what we will do if we don't get our way? Indeed, the very fact that we are issuing so many threats, and making it clear that we have a myriad of ways to hurt the Iranians, makes me feel that we are actually worried that we won't get these sanctions past the Russian and Chinese veto, which is causing us to overplay our hand.

The most important thing that we need to keep in mind is that the announcement regarding Qom changes nothing at all in terms of Iran's capability to manufacture a weapon.

Simply put, Iran is no closer to producing a hypothetical nuclear weapon today than it was prior to Obama's announcement concerning the Qom facility.

You wouldn't know that if you watched Obama, Brown and Sarkosy the other day. You would be forgiven for thinking that Doctor Death had been caught red handed charging up his ray gun.

This is all hyperbolic nonsense. There will be time for talk of sanctions should Iran refuse to allow inspections, but, until we get to that point, I would prefer if Obama, Brown and Sarkosy put their George W. Bush impressions back in the box.

Click title for Ritter's article.

Tags: Scott Ritter, Obama, Sarkosy, Brown, Ahmadinejad, Iran, nuclear weapons, NNPT, IAEA

U.S. to Demand Inspection of New Iran Plant ‘Within Weeks’

Obama is using the revelation regarding Iran's new nuclear site at Qum to demand that Ahmadinejad allow inspections of all Iran's nuclear facilities with weeks.

The Obama administration plans to tell Iran this week that it must open a newly revealed nuclear enrichment site to international inspectors “within weeks,” according to senior administration officials. The administration will also tell Tehran that inspectors must have full access to the key personnel who put together the clandestine plant and to the documents surrounding its construction, the officials said Saturday.

The demands, following the revelation Friday of the secret facility at a military base near the holy city of Qum, set the stage for the next chapter of a diplomatic drama that has toughened the West’s posture and heightened tensions with Iran. The first direct negotiations between the United States and Iran in 30 years are scheduled to open in Geneva on Thursday.

I think that's actually fair enough. If Iran, as Ahmadinejad insists, have nothing to hide then there is no reason for them not to open up all of their sites to inspection.

And Obama - if I am reading this correctly and not missing anything - is going about this the right way by not demanding that the centrifuges stop turning. Bush always came at this from the angle that Iran should stop what it was doing immediately, implying that Iran was somehow already in breach of the NNPT.

Now that the clandestine site has been revealed, however, American and European officials say they see an opportunity to press for broader disclosures. Iran will be told that to avoid sanctions, it must adhere to an I.A.E.A. agreement that would allow inspectors to go virtually anywhere in the country to follow suspicions of nuclear work.

American and European officials should tread carefully here. It is one thing to insist that Iran prove that it is not developing a nuclear weapon, it is quite another to humiliate another nation and to trample on their sovereignty.

I trust Obama is level headed enough to know the difference.

Obama has every right to insist that we know exactly what is going on in Iran, and it is in Iran's interests to comply with this process. But it doesn't help to have American officials offering baseless speculation and assumptions as if they represent fact:

In an interview to be broadcast Sunday on ABC, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said the hidden facility was “part of a pattern of deception and lies on the part of the Iranians from the very beginning with respect to their nuclear program.”

But he deflected a question that has been circulating inside the government: Is the Qum facility one of a kind, or just one of several hidden facilities that were intended to give Iran a covert means of enriching uranium, far from the inspectors who regularly visit a far larger enrichment facility, also once kept secret, at Natanz.

“My personal opinion is that the Iranians have the intention of having nuclear weapons,” Mr. Gates concluded, though he said it was still an open question “whether they have made a formal decision” to manufacture weapons.

That may very well be Gates' "personal opinion" but it certainly isn't based on fact. It can't be. Because the truth is that none of us know what is going on inside Iran.

So let Obama insist on inspections and lets follow the evidence where it leads us.

Let's not repeat the mistakes of Iraq, where certain people "knew" that Saddam had WMD based on nothing more solid than their own prejudices.

Click title for full article.

Tags: Iran, Obama, Ahmadinejad, NNPT, inspections