His Excellency Manouchehr Mottaki, Foreign Minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran since 2005, has come now for the third time to The Asia Society during the September - October period of the UN General Assembly In New York City.

Last year I had the opportunity to ask him about about Climate Change and why Iran, with its great scientists, and people involved at the UN level, does not embark in a leadership position in the area of renewable energy rather then striving for nuclear energy incurring only indignities. Others asked him about Iran’s stand on Israel.

This year - none of the above. One question from the floor asked about Israel - but was answered in the general line of the presentation - without the question been tackled at all. The Moderator was illustrious US Career Ambassador Frank G. Wisner, who served as impeccable host, presenting lots of compliments to his guest and making sure he is very comfortable. Further, The Asia Society simply managed to put the press away in a back room, and without the Q & A period reaching out to them - that is except the literally last question which asked about the possibility for regional negotiations in the crucial Middle East problem.  And the answer to that question was then submerged under the previous line of presentation that exposed beautifully the way Iran wants to be seen. No mention was made of the name Israel also in this  answer by the Minister.

The reality is  that many in Iran like actually some of the cocoons  created via the 1980 revolution that came as a reaction to some real injustices its people incurred from the hand of the US CIA when it undid the Mohammad Mosaddeq  April 28, 1951 – August 19, 1953 regime for its nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) and reinstated the  Shah who returned  on 22 August 1953, from the brief self-imposed exile in Rome. Also, some in the US Administration feared that Mossadeq was, or would become, dependent on the pro-Soviet Tudeh Party, at a time of returning Soviet influence, and too close for comfort to have the cold War Tectonic Plates reach towards the Saudi and Iraqi oilfields.

The extent of the US role in Mossadeq’s overthrow was not formally acknowledged for many years, although the Eisenhower administration was quite vocal in its opposition to the policies of the ousted Iranian Prime Minister. In his memoirs, Eisenhower writes angrily about Mossadeq, and describes him as impractical and naive, though he stops short of admitting any overt involvement in the coup.

Eventually the CIA’s role became well-known, and caused controversy within the organization itself, and within the CIA congressional hearings of the 1970s. CIA supporters maintain that the plot against Mosaddeq was strategically necessary, and praise the efficiency of agents in carrying out the plan. Critics say the scheme was paranoid and colonial, as well as immoral.

In March 2000, then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright stated her regret that Mosaddeq was ousted: “The Eisenhower administration believed its actions were justified for strategic reasons. But the coup was clearly a setback for Iran’s political development, and it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America.” In the same year, the New York Times published a detailed report about the coup based on alleged CIA documents. For his sudden rise in popularity inside and outside of Iran, and for his defiance of the British, Mosaddeq was named as Time Magazine’s 1951 Man of the Year. Other notables considered for the title that year included Dean Acheson, President Dwight D. Eisenhower and General Douglas MacArthur.

In early 2004, the Egyptian government changed a street name in Cairo from Pahlavi to Mosaddeq, to facilitate closer relations with Iran.

 Now, these last few paragraphs, obviously, do not come from the monologue of Minister Mottaki, but I thought to bring this up because otherwise the show at the Asia Society cannot be understood, and the Ministers personality grasped.

***

The literally last question mentioned above, that came from the back-room filled with people from media was added when the announced “last question” that came from a lady sitting at the front-right table, clearly laudatory asked, “for those of us interested in the understanding of the history of the Middle East, when did Iran invade last one of its neighbors?”  The clear short answer was - “not in our lifetime.”

***

Had be given to me the opportunity to ask a question - what I had in mind was something like this:

“In light of what your excellency has said in regard to regional solutions for regional problems, and in light of justifiable aspirations by Iran to become an Asian powerhouse, what is your reaction to the Bahrain proposal at this year’s High-Level Meeting of the UN General Assembly, when Bahrain suggested the creation of a new UN organization comprising ALL STATES OF THE REGION - that wasinterpreted as meaning a Middle East organization that includes Israel?” This is exactly the most wanting direct question that was not put before our guest.

***

From The Speakers Profile and The Internet:

 Manouchehr Mottaki was born  May 12, 1953 in Bandar Gaz, in the northern Iranian Province of Golestan, and went to school there. Bandar-Gaz, during the Reza Shah Pahlavi rule, was an important city in the north with a national railroad and “several infrastructures.” It was considered  a transit bridge to the Soviet Union. After graduation, he joined the army and as per national plan joined the public education program by which was conducted by the government. He went to Khorasan province and established a school in a poor village around Mashhad, and taught there. After his service in the army, since he was interested in social and political issues, he decided to travel abroad both for experience and study. At that time India was a popular academic destination for young Iranians. So he traveled and studied for a few years in India, before the revolution in Iran.    He holds a bachelor’s degree in social sciences from Bangalore University in India (1976). Mottaki also holds a master’s degree (MA) in international relations from the University of Tehran (1996).

 After the 1980 revolution, he was elected by the people of his home town and the neighboring cities as the first parliament representative and assigned by the other representatives as the head of the national security and foreign policy committee due to his politic and diplomatic talents. During his years in Majlis (Congress) and effective collaboration with the foreign ministry, he was employed then by the ministry after parliament.  Or, he made thus his career within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs during 24 years of continuous presence in different positions through  the Majlis (Parliament)..

He served thus as member of parliament in the first Majlis, head of seventh political bureau of Foreign Ministry (1984),

Iran’s ambassador to Turkey (1985),

Foreign Ministry’s secretary general for Western European affairs (1989),

Deputy Foreign Minister - first for international affairs (1989) and then  for legal, consular and parliamentary affairs (1992).

 Iran’s ambassador to Japan (1994),

Advisor to foreign minister (1999),

Deputy head of Culture and Islamic Communications Organization (2001)

Chief of the Foreign Relations Committee of the 7th Majlis National Security and Foreign Relations Commission (2004).

During the 2005 presidential election, he was the campaign manager of Ali Larijani, the right-conservative candidate.

President Mahmoud Ahmadi-nejad, in 2005,  appointed him to the position of Foreign Minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 2005.

 

Mottaki quotations:

“Referring the case to the Security Council would be a lose-lose game, and we would prefer that this game does not happen. We see a win-win situation, that is where the EU and international community have confidence and the Islamic Republic of Iran reaches its legitimate right.”

“The Islamic Republic pays great cost to control and prevent transfer of narcotics to West.

“We do not accept global nuclear ‘apartheid’ and scientific ‘apartheid’.

“All voluntary measures taken over the past two-and-a-half or three years have been halted and we have no further commitment to the additional protocol and other voluntary commitments.”

“We should try to cool down the situation. We do not support any violence.”

“Nobody can remove a country from the map. This is a misunderstanding in Europe of what our president mentioned.”

“The time for using language of threats is over, it’s time for negotiation. We express our readiness for negotiations based on justice and a comprehensive compromise. We want to peacefully solve the problem.

“Nuclear weapons are not in Iran’s defense doctrine.”

“The issue is quite simple. We would like to enjoy our membership as well as the other members of the [Nuclear] Nonproliferation Treaty. The country has followed the rules and regulations of the [International Atomic Energy Agency] and wants to keep its rights.”

***

The Foreign Minister’s Introductory Presentation Before The Asia Society, Thursday, October 2, 2008:

Mottaki started by saying that since our last meeting here (2007), we had three events:

(1) The enjoyable visit of members of this Society in Tehran - he hopes this is a start for more such exchanges. This as a better way for mutual understanding - Scholars, Tourists, Students in such exchanges create the possibility to have more realistic picture of each other.

 

(2) LEBANON: A solution of more then 30 months of crisis was achieved after being initiated by different parties. Foreign Minister Mottaki wants to talk about how it was achieved - because the process is as important as the results.

It was a regional-based solution for the Lebanon crisis. The decision was that it has to be a solution based on votes by a 50+ plurality of all groups in the country - all groups in the country come to the table and a consensus is built - that was the tone of the Lebanon Policy agreement.

On the second day of the negotiations in Doha, at 2:30 AM, the feeling was that it all collapsed the negotiations were locked. Amr Moussa, the Secretary General of the Arab League said go ahead, but others opposed. Mottaki was in contact with Doha and Beirut and  at 9 AM they took up the issue again, and it was settled after a day of negotiations by 9 PM.

One learned that use of force should expect a reaction from the other side. Then also that territorial integrity is an integral part of any solution. These lessons apply whenever you have conflict - this clearly also in the Georgia - Russia case.

 

(3) GEORGIA: The areas are already affected by crisis - energy, transportation, security.

The crisis started by use of force based on wrong information and miscalculation. The latter by not expecting reaction.

The second point is territorial integrity.

Its the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia now, before it was Kosovo, Does it result from the same policies? If so, are there other areas where action led to reaction? If Yes - What are these?

On the second day of the Georgia case there was an agreement signed with Poland. If this signing of the agreement with Poland has become another step, should we look for reaction in Syria? in Venezuela?

What is NATO going to do?

Iran is a neighbor of Azerbaijan and Armenia - so there is a regional concern and Iran has to take part in the initiatives - parallel with Europe. So he went to the region and to Berlin. Is NATO moving to accept Georgia as a member?               The interesting question is then the borders.

***

 

Now it was the turn for Ambassador Frank G. Wisner to take his position as moderator and conversation partner.

He has retired from the US Foreign Service in 1997 with the highest rank - that of a Career Ambassador, but continued to be involved in special positions like the Special US envoy for the Kosovo Final Status (December 2005 - March 2008).  Now he is in the private sector.  In his career postings he was Ambassador to India, the Philippines, Egypt, Zambia… among other appointments, he was also Under Secretary of Defence for Policy.

He started by saying that Iran is a great nation that commands and deserves respect - yet for many of us it is difficult to see how Iran chooses to challenge the international community. How do you square your requirement for respect with a confrontation attitude he then asked the Minister.

Mottaki, who made his introductory presentation in English, but now used a translator for the conversation part of the event, started to smile.

His answer was: A very nice gathering and behavior - my response - What we see is  selective dealing and approach - and double standards.

Back in the 80s we extensively talked up issues. I suggest how the first Iraq war was dealt with and the second war - the war of Saddam against Kuwait. In all  these the underlying issue is the occupation of foreign lands. {I assume he means the Iraq war against Iran as the first war and the war of Iraq on Kuwait as the second war}  Back then the heated discussion was having a cease-fire not a settlement. So the first step is a cease-fire, another first step is withdrawal. We wanted to have the an “a” inserted so that it is clear that a withdrawal comes after the cease-fire. See, using “oil-for-food” money - even now a percentage goes to Kuwait, this while for 4 years we were engaged in lengthy negotiations that were ordered by the UN. Two Assistant Secretary-Generals that dealt with this are present here - they remember those negotiations. Sometimes just to keep things going we had to put proposals on the table. We felt these were in Iraq’s favor and Iraq asked - what do you pay us to accept?

On the nuclear issue - at the end of the day - it is officials of one country … But Islamic and Sharia teachings say that atomic bombs have no place in our defense.we also contend that nuclear weapons are nomore effective. Also military powr has lost effectiveness.

I outlined new agreements for the IAEA last year. 1,5 years ago, in Madrid, we said to the Agency we will give the right answers to the IAEA questions. Then the US turned over questions to the IAEA and they posed them to us. The agency said they have other questions and we started answering them one by one. For each set of questions they sent us a written letter that they accepted the answer as adequate. What expectations should Iran have? We expect the 5+1 to thank us for these efforts to answer all questions. We expected that at the September meeting to be told by the Agency that they put aside all questions, but they provided a second US set of contentions.

They were supposed to bring up questions in one set of timetable. These questions went beyond the timetable. but we accepted.

These questions, like the previous are baseless, we will not agre to the US directed routes. I believe if we continue the negotiations we will reach a point of agreement that will lead to action.

 

{All the above sounded to me like a reprise of the 1001 Nights stories - this time from Tehran. I wonder how many people in the room accepted these, though, as I remarked at the beginning of this article, I am probably one of the most inclined to allow some slack to the Iranians because of past US behavior - but this story contained really too much rope. It did not inspire safety at all.}

 

Now Ambassador Wisner had one more short question he said. The elections in the US. “Do you see from Iran’s point of view an opportunity for dialogue? What will be the modalities for negotiation?

A. A US President will have to reach out including the Middle East. If there are changes in the White House we will intently consider them. We take note of comments made by previous Presidents, who are not in power anymore, also candidates not yet elected. Comments made, promises given by them cannot yet be seriously considered. We have to wait and see.

As for an interest section, there is only stories in news media.

 

***

Q&A from the floor:

Answer On Israel of sorts:  Iran US relations are dependent on a number of issues. Unilateral Vs. Policies in the Middle East have complicated the situation. NO MENTION OF ISRAEL IN THE ANSWER.

 

Answer on Nuclear In The Middle East:  Atomic weapons cannot provide security. We all heard that the US had enough to destroy Russia. It helped in the balance of fear.

Six years have passed from the day your troops have entered Iraq - they have not succeeded. Why could not atomic weapons help in Afghanistan and Iraq? This year the 13th anniversary since the Islamic revolution in Iran.

if I were to list our grievances against the US it will be a long long list. Had we a nuclear bomb, could that have changed your actions in Iraq?

In tandem with development on hardware side, the software side. The US is not lacking in modern weapons, also in its economic might (except for the present problems). No serious changes will occur in the US. The problem is - insufficient reasoning to convince the international public opinion.

 

Answer to the last question on the Middle East: We go about our business about our nuclear problems. We provided the answers.

if a person is asleep- how hard you knock, it will not help. The US cannot accept Iran’s peaceful proposals because once they accept they will not be able to stay in this position.

US intelligence agencies announced that Iran does not work on nuclear bomb, but the uS did not accept. I know of five different reports. I think it is high time for them to accept this.

The 15 years they were against my country. What is wrong about changing policies - and see what was wrong for their country?

 

 

EU - save Ukraine from Russia, The European Foreign Policy Council (ECFR) NGO says.

Philippa Runner, from Brussels for the EUobserver, August 25, 2008.

The European Union should formally recognise Ukraine’s right to join the EU and offer it a “solidarity clause” to help prevent Russia from undermining Kiev’s pro-democratic government in the wake of the Georgia conflict, a European foreign affairs think-tank has said.

“The next focal point for security tensions - although not for war - might be Ukraine,” the European Foreign Policy Council (ECFR) warned in a flash report on Monday (25 August), urging Brussels to make a strong show of friendship with Ukraine at an EU foreign ministers’ meeting on 5 September and the EU-Ukraine summit on 9 September.

Russian cruiser - the Black Sea fleet has been stationed in Crimea since 1783.

In the “mid-term,” the ECFR advised the EU to make a political declaration endorsing Ukraine’s EU perspective, draft a road-map for a visa-free travel deal, and help Ukraine to ready itself for NATO membership and the ejection of Russia’s Black Sea fleet from its old home in Crimea.

 www.SustainabiliTank.info thinks this is a very raw idea - not even half backed. We have seen Sevastopol and neighboring towns and waters. They are filled with old and newer Russian warships and the people in the towns are mainly Russian. Talking of the people - also in the Eastern part of Ukraine most people are Russian transplants, they speak Russian and feel they want to be part of Russia. We said this many times - to save Ukraine from Russia, the solution is an amicable divorce - so the best the EU could do is to advise the Ukraine to go for their own good to a marriage/divorce councillor and promise them the EU membership if they agree to severance from some of the heavily Russian territories. Surely, the EU can say to the Russian Prime-Minister that moving in with force will be dealt with in economic terms, but we all know that if ,and when, these statements are put to test, the EU will not go to war because of the Ukraine. Further, in the Ukraine case there is not even an argument like we had for Ossetia, where we said that if one opts for independence - this should lead to an Ossetia State that includes both - South and North Ossetia. There is no similar condition in the case of The Ukraine.}
A new bilateral EU-Ukraine treaty - currently under negotiation - should also legally oblige the EU to “consult and assist Ukraine in case of challenges to the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine.”

The ECFR study sees Russia’s assault on Georgia as part of a wider plan to rebuild the old Soviet sphere of influence, noting that some pro-Kremlin analysts such as Sergei Markov recently floated the idea of a Russia-led “East European Union,” which would mimic EU integration and include countries such as Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Turkey.

“What matters here is Russia’s drive to become the centre (and the sheriff) of a pole of influence in a multi-polar world and a bipolar Europe,” the ECFR said.

***

Tensions flare:

Russia-Ukraine tensions flared in recent weeks after Moscow accused Kiev of supplying arms to Georgia, and Kiev tried to limit Russia’s use of its Crimea-stationed warships against Georgia.

Inside Ukraine, pro-western President Viktor Yushchenko’s senior aide, Andriy Kyslynskiy, last week accused Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko of striking a secret deal with the Kremlin in return for Russia’s support when she runs in the next Ukrainian presidential elections in 2010.

Mr Kyslynskiy also said political “interference” by pro-Kremlin elements in the Ukrainian establishment has reached levels unseen since the run-up to the 2004 Orange Revolution, adding that Russian intelligence is funding and steering Crimean separatist groups.

Some 60 percent of the 2 million people who live in Crimea are ethnically Russian, hundreds of thousands of whom secretly hold Russian passports, the ECFR says.

Crimea was historically Russian and has been home to the Black Sea fleet since 1783. It became part of Ukraine when Ukraine won independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, with the Russian fleet set to leave by 2017 under a bilateral deal.

In the wider Ukraine, about 25 percent of the 50 million-strong population are Russophone, most of whom live in the east of the country and many of whom oppose Ukraine’s integration with NATO and the EU.

***

Warning shots already fired:

On 22 August, some 2,500 people held an anti-Georgia rally in the eastern Ukrainian town of Donetsk. The same day, 50 people in Simferopol in Crimea called for the peninsula to rejoin Russia, with the crowd nonetheless gaining coverage in Russian state media.

In late July, anti-NATO protestors in Crimea threw stones at Ukrainian police, who fired warning shots in the air. A second group used small boats to try and block NATO warships leave the port of Odessa to take part in a naval drill.

“[Russia] is likely to play on deep rifts within Ukraine on the ‘Russia question’ to try and influence the country’s future,” the ECFR said. “[The EU] must demonstrate that an escalation of tensions in the post-Soviet space will be met with more, not less, engagement in the Eastern neighbourhood.”

——————–

Georgian rebels in Abkhazia seek greater EU recognition.
LEIGH PHILLIPS, 25.08.2008, EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS.

Sukhumi, the capital of Abkhazia, on the Black Sea - is a once a popular holiday spot for Russian elite.

The Georgian breakaway region of Abkhazia is keen to get EU recognition as an independent country, after the Russian parliament passed a resolution urging the Russian president to endorse Georgian rebels’ ambitions of statehood.

“We are not interested in only Russia recognising us,” Abkhaz deputy foreign minister, Maxim Gunjia, told EUobserver on Monday (25 August), adding that he expects Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to shortly back the pro-independence vote by Russian MPs.

“We want the European Union and all states to recognise our independence. This is a very positive moment for the EU - it could follow Russia’s example and also recognise Abkhazia. It is the only way to preserve stability and peace in the region.”

“We recognise that full recognition is a very big demand of Abkhazia for the EU at the moment,” Mr Gunja added, indicating that Abkhazia would also be interested in other ways of increasing its presence on the international stage.

“The EU could instead give a voice to Abkhazia in various European forums and institutions,” he said. “Only Georgia is invited to such forums while discussing the Caucasus, which is why the information the EU is receiving is biased, and why the conflict became possible.”

***

The lower house and the upper house of the Russian parliament on Monday both unanimously voted through a resolution urging Mr Medvedev to recognise Abkhazia and a second Georgian rebel territory, South Ossetia, as independent states.

The resolution has a largely symbolic value so far, as the legal decision resides solely with the Russian president, with some western experts doubting the Kremlin will follow through.

“The game is completely open, but it would be much more reasonable for Medvedev not to do so. If he doesn’t, he holds onto a very powerful bargaining chip with regards to the EU and US, and Georgia itself,” conflict prevention think-tank, the International Crisis Group (ICG), analyst, Alain Deletroz, said.

“If he wants to turn a military victory into a diplomatic victory, he will not recognise [the rebel enclaves], because it will then become extremely difficult for the EU to keep an open dialogue with Moscow,” Mr Deletroz explained. “What Russia wanted was a division within NATO. If they go too far, they will only achieve the opposite - a unification within the alliance.”

***

The China angle:

“Even for the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation [the China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan security alliance], recognition would create problems. For the same reasons that China was not happy with the West’s recognition of Kosovo, Beijing would also not be happy with Russian recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia,” the ICG expert added, pointing to China’s discomfort over its own separatist problems, such as Taiwan.

The European Commission was reluctant to issue any reaction to the Russian parliamentary vote ahead of next week’s extraordinary summit on EU-Russia relations, but the EU has repeatedly said it supports Georgia’s “territorial integrity.”

“The debate is ongoing in Russia, and we will not react as long as the debate is ongoing,” European Commission spokesperson, Ton Van Lierop, told reporters in Brussels.

Abkhazia and South Ossetia broke away from Tbilisi in civil wars in the 1990s, setting up de facto states with their own mini-parliaments and paramilitary forces within Georgia’s internationally-recognised borders during a tense, 15-year long ceasefire that erupted into open conflict on 7 August.

Tbilisi has accused Russia of giving the rebels financial and political backing, as well as arms, in order to keep NATO and EU-aspirant Georgia divided. It also accuses the separatist and Russian forces of “ethnic cleansing” in pushing out the last remaining ethnic Georgians from the two territories during the recent war.

———————-

UNDP Releases Information on a UN Angle:

Please see - http://www.innercitypress.com/undp1georg…

It seems that Inner City Press came up with information, acknowledged by UNDP, that together with the George Soros Open Society International, and the Swedish Government, there was a very modest supplemental funding of Georgian officials, including the President, to make it possible for them to run a rather non-corrupt government in the National interest of Georgia, and perhaps also in the interest of the oil buyers of the West.

Above link leads to an article that starts:

UN’s Engagement with Saakashvili Included $1500 a Month, Soros and Sweden Also Paid.

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, August 25 — Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili was paid $1500 a month by the UN Development Program earlier this decade, on top of his official presidential salary, UNDP has told Inner City Press. UNDP says the goals of these payments, in which the Swedish government and financier George Soros joined, were to allow the Georgian “government to recruit the staff it needed and also to help remove incentives for corruption.”

  While receiving these $1500 monthly payment, Saakashvili committed to increase tax collection in Georgia. Deals were signed with , among others, British Petroleum, for the Baku - Tbilisi - Ceyhan oil pipeline. UNDP, and presumably its two co-funders, applauded this development.

——-

This last article mentions also the old UNDP problem with having helped with injecting hard currency to North Korea that, as the claim goes, has helped them finance the acquisition of nuclear know-how. So, UNDP is a tool for covert actions and not just a victim of side effects in what they consider to be development work? In the tape attached to the article, Matthew Russell Lee points out at the unevenness of the way, North Korea, Sudan, and Zimbabwe were dealt with, and surfaces the idea that the treatment is in relation to the interest of internal politics in the US. So back to our posting, how will the UN be used in the case of the Ukraine - which is rather more of an EU then a US problem?

Terror War Re-Evaluated as Musharraf Steps Down.
By BENNY AVNI, Staff Reporter of the Sun | August 19, 2008

America and Pakistan’s neighbors are being forced to re-evaluate their strategy in the war on Al Qaeda and the Taliban after the resignation yesterday of President Musharraf, whose nine-year reign included a decision after September 11, 2001, to cooperate closely with America in the fight against international terrorism.

President Musharraf of Pakistan responds to people gathered after the farewell ceremony in Islamabad yesterday. Officials in Washington yesterday were careful to balance statements of praise for Mr. Musharraf with expressions of confidence that his successors would do just as well. But in New Delhi, where Mr. Musharraf’s recent misfortunes are seen as a probable cause for the renewal of Pakistani-Indian hostilities in the disputed region of Kashmir and elsewhere, officials were almost openly ruing his departure.

A Pakistani-born diplomat yesterday said it is ironical that Mr. Musharraf, after long being maligned as a ruthless dictator, could end up ushering in a new, more democratically oriented government in Islamabad. “He left like Nixon did, under pressure of probable impeachment,” the diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said. “Then again, he is also the first Pakistani leader to leave on his own, without being hanged, assassinated, or deposed by the military. For Pakistan, that is a certain step forward.”

But it was unclear yesterday whether Mr. Musharraf would stay in Pakistan, where some are calling for him to be put on trial, or be forced to seek asylum in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, or the West. Asylum in America “is not on the table,” Secretary of State Rice said yesterday. According to reports from the region, a Saudi plane departed Pakistan yesterday without picking up Mr. Musharraf, after sitting on the tarmac for hours. A leader of the ruling coalition in Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif, spent years in Saudi exile after he was deposed as prime minister in a 1999 military coup by Mr. Musharraf, who was then chief of the army.

“President Musharraf has been a friend to the United States and one of the world’s most committed partners in the war against terrorism and extremism,” Ms. Rice said in a statement.

“President Bush appreciates President Musharraf’s efforts in the democratic transition of Pakistan as well as his commitment to fighting Al Qaeda and extremist groups,” a White House spokesman, Gordon Johndroe, said. He added: “We’re confident that we will maintain a good relationship with the government of Pakistan.”

American officials said they were confident that the uneasy ruling coalition of the moderately Islamic party led by Mr. Sharif and the Western-oriented party that was led by Benazir Bhutto until her assassination and is now led by her widower, Asif Ali Zardari; son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, and Prime Minister Gilani, would cooperate with America on the war on terror as closely as Mr. Musharraf did. “The war against extremism is bigger than one man,” a State Department spokesman, Robert Wood, said.

Mr. Musharraf’s “departure is a loss for the U.S. because the civilian government will not do as good a job against terrorism,” a former American ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, told The New York Sun.

In the aftermath of the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, “What we needed in Pakistan is someone to stand with us, and Musharraf did just that,” a Bush administration official said yesterday, speaking on the condition of anonymity. America reciprocated to the tune of $10 billion in military support for the Pakistani government after Mr. Musharraf promised to dedicate his army and intelligence services to the fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

Now, according to some in Washington, the best remaining Pakistani partner in the war on terror is the current army chief of staff, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who has yet to express a preference for any party. Meanwhile, the partnership between the Pakistan Muslim League-N and the secular Pakistan Peoples Party is fragile and unlikely to maintain Mr. Musharraf’s tight grip over the army and the country’s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence.

India is specifically concerned that a resurgent ISI could shift Pakistan’s attention to Kashmir and hostilities with New Delhi from the war on terror and the Afghan border. As speculation about Mr. Musharraf’s departure increased in recent weeks, India’s national security adviser, M.K. Narayanan, told a Singaporean newspaper, the Straits Times, that the president’s absence would leave “a big vacuum.” India is “deeply concerned about this vacuum because it leaves the radical extremist outfits with freedom to do what they like, not merely on Pak-Afghan border but clearly our side of the border too,” Mr. Narayanan told the paper.

In recent years, the long-standing tensions between New Delhi and Islamabad have eased under Mr. Musharraf. The two countries established commercial ties, while the situation in Kashmir grew calmer. During the last few weeks, however, cross-border attacks have increased, Pakistani-backed pro-independence Kashmiri fighters have intensified their activities, and diplomatic talks have slowed. Additionally, both India and Afghanistan blamed the ISI for the bombing in July of the Indian Embassy in Kabul.

—————-

So, all acknowledge that the real power in Pakistan - military dictatorship or not - is in the hands of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and who rules over them? Quite clearly, there never was a Pakistani Ataturk - and what do these generals want? Whatever it is - it is not democracy.

What does Military Nationalism mean in a Pakistani context? Where is their loyalty when it comes to the Taliban, and even Al-Qaeda? What was their historic relationship to the Saudi Arabian money pipeline, or to the US involvement in the Cold War heating-up proxy-stage in Afghanistan with the introduction of religious extremism well funded via the Saudis? Will someone start using this Sunni potential as an antidote to the Iranian Shia element in the larger Islamic World? Historically, it was just only Pakistan, who besides the Saudi monarchy, recognized the annexation of Jerusalem by Jordan. Without a military hand ruling in Islamabad - this being replaced by a politically broad, but weak, alliance - will the ISI, and everybody else, find it more convenient to spend the ISI time now in playing the fields outside Pakistan, rather then trying to muddle the waters at home? Will anyone look under the rug of the old nuclear materials, and know-how sales, and will there be a second round of this sort of sales - specially as they have more to offer then Iran or North Korea?

Musharraf or not, the incomming US President will have to worry about what goes on inside the nominal borders of Pakistan much more then the stated preocupation with Afghanistan.

The Mullahs’ Dead End?
By Jamie Glazov, FrontPageMagazine.com | Monday, July 14, 2008

An anti-aircraft gun, pictured in front of the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran. Israel and the United States differ on how to act on their fears about Iran’s nuclear interests, according to Mother Jones.
(Photo: Behrouz Mehri / AFP)

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Hassan Daioleslam, an Iranian human rights activist and political scholar. Daioleslam was born in Tehran in 1957. After finishing his primary and high school in Tehran, he entered the Polytechnic University of Tehran in 1974. In the years after the 1979 Iranian Islamist Revolution in Iran, he became a student movement leader standing up against Khomeini’s repression and mass executions. He eventually left the country and settled in France. During the 1980s and early 1990s, Daioleslam was active with Iranian secular movements, human rights activities and the defense of Iranian political prisoners.

In 2001, Daioleslam moved to the United States and concentrated on political research. Since 2005, he has been collaborating with two independent Iranian journalists inside Iran focusing on the Iranian Regime’s lobby in the U.S. His reports have been largely published by major Farsi websites and several US journals. Daioleslam has frequently appeared as an expert guest on the Voice of America-TV as well as on other outlets of Persian media.

FP: Hassan Daioleslam welcome back to Frontpage Interview.
Daioleslam: I am delighted to be back.

FP: In our last interview we discussed the new calls for negotiating with Iran. You talked about the fact that negotiating with the Iranian government is really not new and that it has been going on for the last three decades to no avail. So if we should not negotiate with the Mullahs and if as you have argued before, military action against Iran is a disastrous option, what course of action is left? What could the US do to curtail the Iranian nuclear ambitions and stop its drive to dominating the Middle East?
Daioleslam: Before suggesting a realistic and viable approach, we must first understand the situation in Iran. There are a range of suggested solutions there. Unfortunately, many of them are based on a very poor or wrong understanding of the state of the Iranian government. Probably the main reason for that is the sophisticated misinformation campaign of the Iranian lobby in the US. A clear example of such misinformation campaign is the war mongering boastings of Trita Parsi, the president of the Iranian lobby NIAC that suggests Iran is so powerful now that the US has to share the Middle East with them – as if Middle East is someone’s to give and someone’s to get. An accurate understanding of the internal state of affairs of the Iranian regime places numerous winning cards in the hands of the international community to stop the Mullahs’ drive to expansionism and nuclear weapons.

FP: So what is the situation in Iran? Ahmadinejad has a good grip on the country, yes?
Daioleslam: The Iranian regime is experiencing its most difficult situation of the past thirty years. As some Iranian analysts are arguing, the regime is at a turning point that will eventually decide the fate of the Clerical rule. The governmental figures use words such as: “economic disintegration,” “political impasse,” “leadership crisis,” “unprecedented social unrests,” and “total corruption” to describe the conditions in the country.

FP: Could these words be just excessive rhetoric rather than the reality of the situation?
Daioleslam: Good question. Let me quote some of the Iranian politicians. Recently, there was a very interesting dialogue between two famous politician and analysts in Iran. Saeed Hadjarian was interviewed by Abbas Abdi. They are considered as the pillars of “reformist” faction. Let’s read an excerpt of the dialogue:

A. Abdi: It has been a while that the people I encounter ask me about the future, they want to know what will happen. Apparently, for many, the future of the country is uncertain. Do the people ask you the same question?

Hadjarian: Yes. They have no clue about their tomorrow and feel insecure. The government can’t control anything. There is actually anarchism in the country. The government is being disintegrated. It is like the end of the time. We have descended in the hell.

Another Iranian commentator, Ahmad Zeidabadi, compared the regime’s difficulties to a “seven head dragon”.

Ibrahim Yazdi, the former foreign minister and one of the most experienced Iranian politicians, went even further and recently talked about the regime’s total impasse:

“I believe that the regime as a whole is going to a total impasse. There is something wrong that whatever they do, the situation gets worst. The Economic situation is worsening and Ahmadinejad is bringing the economic disintegration.

The situation is so bad that the regime should quickly opt for a historical and fundamental turn.”

FP: How does this situation affect the outcome of the Iranian nuclear issue?
Daioleslam: There are two distinct views about the Iranian choices and the path it will eventually take. There are those who believe that the regime is in such a weak position that it will finally surrender to the international pressure. Ibrahim Yazdi for example said:

“At the end of the war with Iraq, Iran was in such a bad position that finally accepted the UN resolution. We are in the same position now because the catastrophic political and economic situation will force the regime to surrender to internal exigencies in much worst conditions. Briefly, if we take into account the two experiences of war with Iraq and the US embassy hostage taking, we should be concerned that the regime would eventually surrender to the UN resolutions in such bad terms that the national interests would be jeopardized.”

There is also another view which I personally believe will dominate. This point of view is that the regime cannot or should not retreat. Any retreat is like a breach in a dam and will only stop with the regime’s total surrender. This is the dominant belief among the Iranian leadership. As Rafsanjani has recently declared: “if we retreat on this issue, we will allow our enemy to interfere with all the issues of our country.”

FP: Ok, so some critics argue that, because of this situation, there may be some flexibility from the Iranians on the nuclear impasse. The deal that the West is offering Tehran is very sweet and might be hard for them to turn down.
Daioleslam: Let me explain this further. In order to understand the Iranian regime’s dilemma, we should go back to 2002-2003 when the regime passed a fundamental turning point. The result was the emergence of the Revolutionary Guards as the dominant force in Iran, symbolized later by Ahmadinejad’s ascendance to power. That turning point is the root cause of the actual gloomy conditions in Iran and the mullahs’ incapacity to accommodate the demands of the international pressure.

FP: Elaborate on this please.
Daioleslam: Ok, I will try. Let’s start with a question. Why in 2005, did the Iranian leadership replace Mohammad Khatami, a smiling and internationally greeted president with a radical and repelling personality as Ahmadinejad? Note that in Iran, despite the masquerade of elections, presidents are selected rather than elected. It is naïve to believe that Ahmadinejad’s triumph was the result of a popular democratic process. The 2005 elections were particularly rigged. For the first time in the three decade history of the Clerical rule, all the candidates (except the lucky winner) publicly talked about massive intervention of the Guards and organized cheating.

So, the question is why the Iranian regime underwent such a radical transformation. Why was there a need to unify the power under the Guards’ control?

FP: Are you suggesting that Ahmadinejad was Tehran’s answer to a challenge?
Daioleslam: Exactly. In 2002- 2003, the Iranian clandestine nuclear program was uncovered and the regime was under immense pressure. At the same time, Iraq was invaded by the coalition forces and Tehran was faced with US massive presence. These two new elements were on top of the most important threat that regime was facing: the internal unrests and a growing social and political dissent movement.

To face these three challenges, regime had two choices: First choice was to come clean in nuclear dossier, get along with new regional geopolitics and finally liberalize the political atmosphere inside the country. We know that Tehran did not follow this path. The Ayatollahs opted for the second choice:

- Confronting the new regional order and using it as a stepping stone for their expansionism,

- Buying time to advance the nuclear program, and

- Crushing the social and political movements.

All three of these elements required means of implementing them: Mullahs’ armed forces- The Pasdaran Army (Revolutionary Gaurds); Hence Ahmedinejad’s presidency. The current catastrophic economic, political and social conditions, international isolation and placing the whole region at the verge of a dangerous war, are all consequences of this strategic choice by Tehran.

FP: Are these conditions irreversible, or can the regime get out of this?
Daioleslam: Let’s for the sake of argument imagine that tomorrow, the West gets tenfold more generous and even offers the whole Middle East on a tray to the Iranian regime. And then in return, requests that Iran abandon its nuclear program. Since the nuclear program has been largely under the Guards’ control and because of the missile program directly related to the nuclear program, the first step in verification should have to be total access to the suspected Iranian military bases and weapon facilities controlled by the Guards. Tehran will undoubtedly refuse. In Iran the Revolutionary Guards are the dominant power players. They have operations in many Middle Eastern countries. They have strategic military build ups in Iraq, Lebonan and several other countries. They have direct and active partnerships with radical groups in the region. They have direct involvement with Iraqi government. Can they possibly open their doors to the Western observers and inspectors?

Furthermore, for the past five years, Iran with the help of their lobby machinery in the US, has played the role of victim, targeted and harassed by the Israel-US hawks. How can they afford to lose this card and become guilty of pursuing a secret and advanced nuclear weapon program?

If the scope of Iranian weapon program becomes visible, the Western public opinion will push for a Libya or North Korean scenario: to bring and end to their whole nuclear program. Iran will not genuinely agree to any meaningful inspection of their facilities.

FP: One could argue that the incentives are so high that the Iranian regime would accept all these consequences.
Daioleslam: In order to predict what kind of incentive would bring the Iranian to a negotiating table, we should first understand how much Iran has spent on their nuclear project. I mean political cost, economic cost and diplomatic cost. The nuclear program has been the single most important project in Iran for almost three decades. It has bled the oil rich country to poverty. What can the West pay Tehran for stopping a program that is so heavily invested in? For Ayatollahs, this project is a weapon of power projection in Islamic world and not a weapon of deterrence.

FP: What about the argument that Iran should be given security guarantees in return for stopping the nuclear program?
Daioleslam: Iran’s main threat comes from the Iranian people. What kind of international guarantee could reconcile the Iranians with their rulers? Iran’s surrender to the international exigencies will weaken the regime against the Iranian people. A clerical rule, confined to its borders and under strict international inspection is a naked king before its subjects. More than anyone else, mullahs know that.

Remember the end of war with Iraq. Immediately after Iran was forced to accept the cease fire, a huge demand for social and political freedom grew in the country. Khomeini responded by massacre of political prisoners and then, to fill the vacuum of the war, he issued the infamous fatwa against Salman Rushdie. The repeat of this scenario would be almost impossible for the regime.

FP: Based on your argument, the Iranian regime on one hand is incapable of retreating from its nuclear aspirations and accommodating the international community. On the other hand Tehran is suffering from a catastrophic economic, social and political situation. What is the impact of this dilemma on the Iranian leadership?
Daioleslam: Confusion. Weakness. Chaos. The lack of authority in the government is so obvious that even if the West comes to Tehran for surrender, we would not know whom we should surrender to! Just a few days after the 5+1 proposal, there was a fight between different factions each claiming to have the final authority to respond to the proposal.

FP: Is this state of disorientation well perceived in the Western capitals?
Daioleslam: I believe that the decision makers are aware of the economic, social, political and the leadership crisis in Iran. Of course it does not prevent the Iranian lobby to stick to its traditional campaign of projecting a powerful and unified Iranian leadership. To give an example, let’s go to the predictable CFR Iran expert, Ray Takeyh, a champion of distorting the Iranian reality. He recently wrote in the Washington Post:

“Although Iran’s theocratic regime is perennially divided against itself, it has sustained a remarkable consensus on the nuclear issue. In today’s political climate, neither Western sanctions nor offers of incentives will fracture state unity.”

Of course, a newspaper reader in Iran sees that instead of this imaginary “unity”, there is a disintegrated leadership.

FP: Is the crisis in leadership an additional hurdle for a hypothetical deal with Iran?
Daioleslam: Absolutely. Many in Iran compare the current situation in Iran to the last year of Iran’s war with Iraq in 1998. At that time, Iran was forced to accept the UN resolution “drank the cup of poison” as Ayatollah Khomeini described it. Now, Iran has to drink a more potent poison while the regime lacks Khomeini’s authority to minimize the political and social consequences. The patient is weaker, the poison more fatal and no one in the Iranian leadership capable of drinking it.

FP: Mr. Daioleslam, thank you for joining us.
Daioleslam: Thank you for the opportunity to share my views with your readers.

Jamie Glazov is Frontpage Magazine’s managing editor. He holds a Ph.D. in History with a specialty in U.S. and Canadian foreign policy.

———————–

News

Iran Red Lines. What are the US and Israel’s Views on Iran?

Thursday 10 July 2008, by: Laura Rozen, Mother Jones.

An anti-aircraft gun, pictured in front of the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran. Israel and the United States differ on how to act on their fears about Iran’s nuclear interests, according to Mother Jones.

Mother Jones has learned that a parade of high-level Israeli officials are on their way to the White House over the next two weeks to discuss Iran policy. Here’s where the two countries differ on what to do next.”

While the Israeli government considers the Bush administration highly sympathetic and sensitive to its security concerns, there are growing signs that Washington and Jerusalem may be diverging in their analysis of the urgency of the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program and its defensive military preparations for countering a possible strike, and their subsequent prospective timelines for considering possible military action against Iran. While Israeli national security experts say that Israel would not act without coordinating with the US, and there are other significant factors weighing against prospective Israeli military action on Iran before the Bush term ends, there are also emerging differences between the US and Israel on the accepted intelligence over when Iran would be considered to have a nuclear breakthrough, as well as what would constitute a “redline” that would prompt military action, Washington analysts say. In addition, the US, unlike Israel, feels more deeply constrained by the considerable investment it has made in blood and treasure in stabilizing Iraq, which could be risked by the tumult that could follow military action on Iran.
“My sense is the Pentagon would be worried or opposed to an Israeli attack,” says David Wurmser, former Middle East adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, who left the White House job late last summer. “They are afraid it would inflame the situation in Iraq, which could undermine the US position there.
“Ultimately, my gut tells me that most of the administration on most levels would push back very hard,” on Israeli pressure on Washington to authorize it to strike Iran, Wurmser added. “What those in the administration who don’t want Israel to act probably won’t want is for it to be taken to the highest level. They would always be afraid that [the president] might not be so tough on the Israelis. If the Israeli [government] really intends to do something, they would go to the highest level without a lot of people knowing.”
Last week, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen visited Israel, during which Mullen is reported to have told Israeli leaders that, speaking for the highest levels of the Bush administration, they did not have a green light from Washington for military action on Iran. Now, Mother Jones has learned, a parade of senior Israeli government officials is making its way to Washington over the coming two weeks, to discuss the Iran issue with top Bush administration officials. Among those scheduled to arrive, Mother Jones has confirmed with Israeli sources in Washington and Israel: Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak, who departs Israel Monday for meetings in Washington with President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and Pentagon officials; and the Israeli Defense Forces chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi, who comes the following week on his first visit to Washington in that position. A former Pentagon intelligence official who spoke with Mother Jones also alleges that Meir Dagan, the chief of the Israeli intelligence service, the Mossad, held secret meetings with officials in the White House on Wednesday. Neither the Israeli embassy nor National Security Council would comment on whether Dagan had been at the White House.
US sources who did not wish to be identified describe a disagreement between the US and Israeli intelligence communities over the timetable of Iran’s alleged weaponization and research and development efforts. Nuclear analysts at Livermore nuclear facility crunched the numbers and looked at the information on Iran’s centrifuges and concluded that they are sticking to the public estimates in the 2007 US National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear program, which forecast Iran could have enough enriched material for nuclear weapons capability in the mid next decade. The Israelis allegedly presented the US with Iranian weaponization evidence that they consider very credible, which the US intelligence community allegedly did not consider credible. Analysts also say Israel and the US are drawing different definitions and redlines about what they consider would be Iran’s nuclear “breakout” capability.
“The last report from the [International Atomic Energy Agency] IAEA suggested that the Iranians are making considerable advances, and could reach a stage of having a mass of material for breakout capability before terribly long,” says Patrick Clawson, an Iran policy expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. How long? “It’s hard to say. Iran already has fuel rods shipped by the Russians. If they decided to just take that material and run it through centrifuges, that activity would be very obvious.
“What most people concentrate on is when Iran would have 600 to 700 kilos of its own low enriched uranium, which is enough to make enough highly enriched uranium for a bomb,” Clawson added. How long is that projected to take? Clawson: “If everything works perfectly, two months. If everything doesn’t work perfectly, a bit longer. The answer would be the space of a few months.
“It certainly appears from the last [IAEA] report that Iran is on track to have enough kilos [of low enriched uranium to enrich to weapons grade] within a year-well within,” Clawson added.
Next page: “Adding to Israeli concern…”
Adding to Israeli concern, Clawson and Wurmser said, is uncertainty over whether the next US administration will be willing and able to get organized on Iran policy quickly enough to meet Israeli concerns about Iran’s nuclear progress as the calendar advances.
“Even beyond the question of whether McCain or Obama wins, the Israelis are afraid that no new administration is really going to be able to get its act together quickly to be able to mobilize a plan and do something,” Wurmser said.
Wurmser put the odds of Israel striking Iran before Bush leaves office at “slightly, slightly above 50-50.”
Wurmser said that different pressures weigh for and against Israeli military action either before or after the US election in November, but before Bush leaves office. “Israelis may think politically they don’t want to get in a situation to do something that causes a reaction against US forces in Iraq, which causes the Republicans to lose the election.” But acting after the elections would deeply complicate Israeli relations with the incoming administration.
Wurmser posits a third possibility. “The Israelis may have new information,” and that may explain the up-tempo in the high-level US Israeli discussions on Iran. “But a second thing that might explain it is, this is not real. This is pressure to get Bush to act before he leaves.”
“A lot turns on details about the assessment not just of Iran’s nuclear progress, but also on parts of the Iran program that may not be publicly disclosed and on the projected status of Iran’s air defenses or other countermeasures,” says one former Bush administration official who asked to speak on background. “I think this also may be a more demanding option operationally than may be apparent from the public debate.
“I’ve been skeptical of the war talk until recently because I was informed enough to know better,” the former official added. “Now I’m not gloomier, just less informed.”
Robert Gallucci, a former longtime State Department nonproliferation expert who now serves as dean of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, said a recent consultation with US government scientists persuaded him that Iran is not likely to have significant nuclear breakout capability for about five years.
“The test is when Iran could plausibly accumulate significant quantities of highly enriched uranium or plutonium so you have to worry about not only nuclear weapons development, but also the possible threat of transfer to a terrorist organization,” Gallucci said Friday.
“I came away [from recent consultations with government scientists] believing that is actually some distance away in time - beyond five years,” Gallucci said.
Gallucci said he was talking about when Iran could conceivably produce five or ten or more nuclear weapons. (Iran denies it is seeking a nuclear weapons capability at all, and the 2007 US NIE concluded that Iran had halted its weaponization program in 2003.) Are Israel’s threat assessments based on the projection of when Iran could produce one nuclear weapon? “I tend to want to answer that and say there are two ways to come up with a difference [between US and Israeli assessments]. Technically, Israel and the US could have a different assessment of the obstacles that the Iranians might run into and how quickly they could overcome them.”
“There could also be a tolerance [difference],” Gallucci said. “We’re prepared to say, ‘It’s unlikely they could do this in this amount of time.’ The Israelis could be saying, ‘Thank you very much, we’re a little closer to the problem than you are.’ American national security types are not certain of how quickly Iran could do it, but are just as uncertain about whether Iran would do it or not.”
——–
Laura Rozen is national security correspondent for Mother Jones. She can be reached at  lrozen at motherjones.com.