Gavin's Blog

This appears to be fresh out of Iran via BBC Persian. It appears to show Basij militia firing on unarmed protesters. It’s pretty raw footage, so viewer discretion is advised.

The Guardian have a story that George Bush will establish a US diplomatic mission in Tehran for the first time in 30 years.

The Guardian has learned that an announcement will be made in the next month to establish a US interests section in Tehran, a halfway house to setting up a full embassy. The move will see US diplomats stationed in the country.

It goes on:

Bush has taken a hard line with Iran throughout the last seven years but, in the dying days of his administration, it is believed he is keen to have a positive legacy that he can point to.

The return of US diplomats to Iran is dependent on agreement by Tehran. But president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad indicated earlier this week that he is not against the opening of a US mission, saying Iran will consider favourably any request aimed at boosting relations between the two countries.

He has his legacy to think about I guess.

Back to Iran again. Geoffrey Kemp writing in the National Interest is hoping that for the sake of America’s interest, Israel is not planning to strike Iran.

Could or would Israel try to drag the United States into such a confrontation? The answer is no, unless this is what the Bush administration wants to happen. The indications are that while some White House advisors may still contemplate such an action, it would be far more difficult to convince the secretaries of defense and state that another Middle Eastern war would serve American interests.

As was brought up yesterday, if Israel were considering a strike, they could wait until the near end of the Bush lame duck administration, and the beginning of an Obama/McCain one, thus avoiding the issue Kemp raises above.

Mr Hersh is talking about Iran again. Kevin Drum points to a good Q&A by Laura Rozen over at Mother Jones.

Danny Postel points to this interesting piece in the Economist. It does not make for pleasant reading. After Israel’s recent practice run for bombing Iran, the newspaper concludes that they may not be bluffing.

It may well be true that Mr Bush is disinclined to bomb Iran now that he is a lame duck, but the possible advent of a President Obama might just make Israel more inclined to do so itself. As the hawkish John Bolton, a former Bush administration official, said this week, Israel may think the best time to attack would be during America’s presidential transition—too late to be accused of influencing the election and before needing a new president’s green light.

Love it.

It looks like deadlock. We will have to wait and see.

A UK diplomat said the EU3, the foreign ministers of the UK, Germany and France – had not heard anything new.

The Iranian official, Javad Vaeedi, cast the talks in a positive light and said he hoped the talks would continue.

The UN’s nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, is meeting in Vienna on Thursday and could refer Iran to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions.

Diplomats from EU3 plus the US, Russia and China are meeting for dinner in London on Monday evening to try to agree a common stance ahead of the Vienna talks.

I thought this quote rather interesting:

IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei told Newsweek magazine that after three years of intensive work, he is still not able to conclude that Iran’s nuclear programme is aimed purely at energy creation rather than the manufacture of nuclear weapons.

“If they have the nuclear material and they have a parallel weaponisation programme along the way, they are really not very far – a few months – from a weapon,” he said.

With the US military stretched, how can a military option be considered. Special forces/air strikes, combined with a trade embargo, seems like the only options. And when Bush says he is seeking a non-military solution, is it the same as when he said the same during the inspections in Iraq in early 2003?

The question is, how will the new Israeli Prime Minister react to Iran’s behaviour – whoever he may be.

Iran seems determined. Even with the recent agreements with North Korea, Iran seems set on a collision course with the US and Britain. Where sanctions could lead is anyone’s guess. Referring Iran to the Security Council is the first step into dangerous territory.

Iran may stop allowing snap inspections of its nuclear facilities if it is referred to the UN Security Council, says the country’s top negotiator.

Ali Larijani said Tehran would also consider pulling out of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) if the “language of force” continues.

The UN nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, is discussing Tehran’s activities, which Iran insists are for peaceful purposes.

The US and the EU are calling for Iran to be referred to the Security Council.

And Russia and China have given some support to Iran:

Moscow and Beijing may block the plan, with Russia saying the current situation was “not irreversible”.

It was interesting to see an Iranian representative on the news saying that all the Europeans offered them were ‘lollipops’. To be honest I think you could offer Iran the world, but in the end they would still go ahead with their nuclear project, either in the open or at some level of secrecy. This turn of events could still lead to a showdown at the UN.

Seems like Iran is further from nuclear weapons than we were led to believe, but then who knows?

Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center in Washington, has a lengthy piece in Policy Review on Iran. He argues that were Iran to attain Nuclear weapons capability there would be three major repurcussions:

Even more nuclear proliferation. Iran’s continued insistence that it acquired its nuclear capabilities legally under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (npt) would, if unchallenged, encourage its neighbors (including Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Algeria) to develop nuclear options of their own and overtly declare possession or import weapons from elsewhere. Such announcements and efforts would likely undermine nuclear nonproliferation restraints internationally and strain American relations with most of its friends in the Middle East.

Dramatically higher oil prices. A nuclear-ready Iran could be emboldened to manipulate oil prices upward, either by threatening the freedom of the seas (by mining oil transit points as it did in the 1980s or by seeking to close the Straits of Hormuz) or by using terrorist proxies to threaten the destruction of Saudi and other Gulf state oil facilities and pipelines.

Increased terrorism geared to diminish U.S. influence. With a nuclear weapons option acting as a deterrent to U.S. and allied action against it, Iran would likely lend greater support to terrorists operating against Israel, Iraq, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Europe, and the U.S.

He believes the two options currently proving popular, bribery or bombing, could be disastrous.

On bombing:

Targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities risks leaving other covert facilities and Iran’s cadre of nuclear technicians untouched. More important, any overt military attack would give Tehran a casus belli either to withdraw from the npt or to rally Islamic Jihadists to wage war against the U.S. and its allies more directly. Whatever might be gained by technically delaying the completion of Iran’s bomb option, then, would have to be weighed against what might be lost in Washington’s long-term effort to encourage more moderate Islamic rule in Iran and the Middle East, to synchronize allied policies against nuclear proliferation, and to deflate Iran’s rhetorical demonstrations against U.S. and allied hostility. Moreover, bluffing an attack against Iran — sometimes urged as a way around these difficulties — would only aggravate matters: The bluff would inevitably be exposed and further embolden Iran and weaken U.S. and allied credibility.

On bribing:

As for negotiating directly with Tehran to limit its declared nuclear program — an approach preferred by most of America’s European allies — this too seems self-defeating. First, any deal the Iranian regime would agree to would validate the claim that the npt legally allows its members to acquire all the capabilities Iran possesses. In other words, working supposedly within the terms of the npt, any state can get as far along as Tehran is now. Second, it would foster the view internationally that the only risk in violating required npt inspections would be getting caught at it — and that the consequence of getting caught would amount to being bribed to limit only those activities the inspectors managed to discover.

He then goes on to suggest a broad range of diplomatic alternatives – all of which are worth reading.