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Posts Tagged ‘iran’

IMPACT – START – IRAN

START WILL BOOST US-RUSSIAN COOPERATION ON IRAN

INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE 4-9-2010

US SIGNALS NUCLEAR ARMS TREATY WITH RUSSIA, BAKER

Mr. Obama hopes to use the trust built during

the treaty negotiations to leverage more cooperation from Moscow on other issues, most notably pressuring Iran to give up its nuclear program.

Speaking after signing the treaty with Mr. Medvedev, Mr. Obama said the United States and Russia were ”part of a coalition of nations insisting that the Islamic Republic of Iran face consequences, because they have continually failed to meet their obligations” under international rules governing the use of nuclear materials.

”Those nations that refuse to meet their obligations will be isolated and denied the opportunity that comes with international integration,” he said. Iran maintains its nuclear program is for civilian purposes, but the United States and its Western allies suspect that Tehran wants to build a nuclear weapon.

NUCLEARIZATION – SANCTIONS FAIL

SANCTIONS ARE IDIOT DIPLOMACY – WILL ACCOMPLISH NOTHING IN IRAN

THE GUARDIAN 2009

IMPOSING IDIOT SANCTIONS ON IRAN, JENKINS, 12-2

At this point the interventionists reach wearily for their favourite whip – tighter economic sanctions. Two decades of sanctions did not bring Saddam to his knees. They enriched him, ruined Iraq’s middle class, drove opposition into exile and entrenched a siege economy. The same happened with the Taliban in Afghanistan. The idea that sanctions will dismantle Natanz, crush the Revolutionary Guards and drive Ahmadinejad to respect the outcome of the summer election is barmy.

Sanctions are idiot diplomacy. They are the last gasp of the “something must be done” brigade, before surrendering to the military/industrial complex and going to war. Bred in the ideological bone to intervene in the affairs of other states, these people cannot admit that sometimes nothing can be done, or that anything done might make matters worse. Yet more sanctions are the proclaimed policy of David Miliband. Only Moscow and Beijing protest that sanctions do more harm than good.

Sanctions will not stop Iran developing nuclear weapons. But so what? Such weapons have become useless. While it is just arguable that they prevented an east-west war in the second half of the last century, in every other theatre they are ineffective, even in tactical form. Their possession by one side or other made no difference in Korea, Vietnam, the Falklands, Lebanon, India-China, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Gaza. They are useless in the new wars of separatism and insurgency.

As Iran continues to flaunt its nuclear program against Western overtures and demands, US officials are now saying that sanctions may be the only resort to attempt to pressure Iran to change their policy on nuclear weapons:

“We must still try and find a peaceful way to resolve this issue. The only path that is left to us at this point, it seems to me, is that pressure track but it will require all of the international community to work together,” Gates said at a joint news conference with French Defense Minister Herve Morin.

SANCTIONS ARE PART OF A BROADER SOFT-POWER STRATEGY VITAL TO ELIMINATING IRAN’S THREAT TO GLOBAL STABILITY

DORAN ET AL 2010 – PROF NYU WAGNER SCHOOL

WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE SOFT POWER SOLUTION IN IRAN, 1-21

Al Qaeda bombers on U.S. airliners need prompt attention, but it is Iran, a supporter of terrorism now developing the capacity to fire nuclear-tipped missiles, that may pose the greatest threat to global stability and American security.

That threat can be diminished three ways: by military action, by compromise by Iran’s regime, or by a new, less bellicose government taking power in Tehran. The first two appear unlikely, but the third, at least since protests broke out last June after the presidential election, seems more and more realistic. Yet so far the United States and its allies have shrunk from seriously encouraging that third way.

Immediately after the post-election Green Revolution protests began in Iran, some policy makers argued that overt U.S. support would allow the regime to claim that those in the opposition were somehow our agents. Even with no evidence, the regime did that anyway—to little effect.

So how can the U.S. support the opposition? The key is strategic communications that integrate words and deeds to achieve a major political goal—in this case, changing the character of the Iranian leadership. Everything that we do, everything that we say—and everything that we don’t do and don’t say—should be coordinated to meet this goal.

Such a policy would have four separate tasks:

• Provide moral and educational support for the Green Revolution. Here third parties, rather than the U.S. government, should play the main role. Dissidents should be reminded that others have succeeded on the same path they are travelling.

We should, for instance, publicize reports on what worked in Ukraine or Georgia, spread testimony by leaders like the Czech Republic’s Vaclav Havel, and distribute, in Farsi, guides to nonviolent change like Gene Sharp’s “From Dictatorship to Democracy” and Peter Ackerman’s “A Force More Powerful.” It’s time to dub into Farsi documentaries on the fall of Ceausescu, Milosevic and Pinochet; the transitions in South Africa and Poland; and the achievements of the U.S. civil-rights movement.

• Tighten sanctions on the Iranian economy and publicize the connection between regime belligerence and economic malaise. Despite Iran’s oil wealth, the economy has for years been in miserable shape thanks to bad management, corruption and the squandering of funds on Arab terrorist groups and the nuclear program. The slogans of the protestors demonstrate that they are connecting the dots between the regime’s foreign policy and economic privation.

• Do all we can to increase communications within Iran, as well as between Iran and the outside world. Opposition movements succeed through sharing and disseminating information. Broadcasting by the taxpayer-funded Radio Farda and Voice of America satellite TV should be ramped up, and we should encourage the U.K. to do the same with the BBC. We also should vigorously protest attempts by Iran to jam broadcast signals in defiance of international law, back private media—from satellite TV pitched at young people to cell-phone messaging to social networking—and help Iranians get the technology to overcome regime attempts to block and censor.

• Finally, we should refute, in campaign style, the four key propositions of Iranian propaganda. These are that the reformers are unrepresentative and unpatriotic; that the U.S. is in decline and wants to cut a deal with Iran and extricate itself from the Middle East; that Iran’s nuclear program will advance the country technologically; and that international opposition to the program is a Western plot to keep Iran, as a Muslim nation, poor and backward.

For this last task, America’s comparative advantages—our technology and imagination—are the best tools. For example, to counter the claim that the West wants to hold Iran back, the U.S. government, using a private foundation, could rally CEOs in Silicon Valley (and Japan, India and Indonesia, for that matter) to offer Iranian engineering students seminars on high-tech entrepreneurship. We could saturate the airwaves of Iran with messages from, say, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger seeking applicants for the seminars. The Iranian government would likely oppose such a program and the message would be: “Your regime, not the West, wants to keep you down.”

Similarly, we should be using all our tools, including intelligence, to track the individuals responsible for cracking down on the protesters, and to publicize their identities. Naming and shaming perpetrators would put the regime on the defensive and assure the protesters that their sacrifice will not be forgotten. As we know from Soviet dissidents, moral support works.

A serious strategic communications program for Iran could have dozens, even hundreds, of programs like these. It should extend across government agencies with clear leadership and include private-sector participation.

Too often in foreign policy our interests demand that we compromise our core values. With Iran, however, we have been blessed with remarkable luck: Our strategic and moral imperatives stand in perfect alignment. And Iranians like Americans.

The Iranian challenge appears more amenable than any other serious national threat to a soft-power solution. Let’s get going.

LINK – CHINA RELATIONS – IRAN SANCTIONS

SANCTIONS ON IRAN CUT OFF MASSIVE AMMOUNTS OF TRADE WITH CHINA

HENDERSON 1-8-2010 – FELLOW HOOVER INSTITUTIONS

THE CASE AGAINST IRAN SANCTIONS, IRAN TIMES INTERNATIONAL

Let’s put aside the fact that the bill, taken literally, would give the U.S. government the power to cut off much of our trade with China. Even if that weren’t true, economic sanctions rarely achieve their stated goals and almost always harm innocent people. These innocentpeople will not thank our government for its action.

How would the bill cut off much trade with China? Here’s how. Section 3(a) (1) A of the bill, H.R. 2194, “Iran Petroleum Refining Sanctions Act of 2009,” states: “(A) INVESTMENT-Except as provided in subsection (f), the President shall impose 2 or more of the sanctions described in paragraphs (1) through (6) of section 6(a) if the Presidentdetermines that a person has knowingly, on or after the date of the enactment of this Act, made an investment of $20,000,000 or more (or any combination of investments of at least $5,000,000 each, which in the aggregate equals or exceeds $20,000,000 in any 12-month period), that directly and significantly contributed to the enhancement of Iran’s ability to develop petroleum resources of Iran.“

Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas), who voted against the bill, pointed out on the House floor: “Recently, the Financial Times reported that, ‘[i]n recent months, Chinese companies have greatly expanded theirpresence in Iran’s oil sector. In the coming months, Sinopec, the state-owned Chinese oil company, is scheduled to complete the expansionof the Tabriz and Shazand refineries–adding 3.3 million gallons of gasoline per day.’”

Congressman Paul went on to say: “Are we to conclude, with this inmind, that China or its major state-owned corporations will be forbidden by this legislation from doing business with the United States?”

It seems so. Of course, no one believes that that is the intent ofthose 412 congressmen. But this wouldn’t be the first time that manyof them voted for a bill that achieves destructive ends that they did not intend.

Pollack and Takeyh discuss a potential rift within the Iranian leadership that economic sanctions might exploit with a nuanced foreign policy. Regardless of how it’s done, there seems to be no question that Iran nuclearization is something to avoid:

There is no question, however, that the United States, the Middle East, and probably the rest of the world would be better off if they did not have to deal with a nuclear Iran. The hard part, of course, is making sure that Tehran never gets to that point. It appears to have made considerable progress in many aspects of its nuclear program, thanks to extensive assistance from Chinese, Germans, Pakistanis, Russians, and perhaps North Koreans. Iran’s clerical regime has also shown itself willing to endure considerable sacrifices to achieve its most important objectives.

Read the full article here. Also find many more Iran sanctions resources here.

As the Security Council member nations met to discuss what to do with regards to Iran’s nuclearization, China continued its hesitance towards sanctions, only sending a low-level diplomat to the meeting which was attended by high level officials from other nations.

In an expected move, China resisted sanctions, highlighting the key role that the country, with its United Nations Security Council veto power, is able to play in the international relationship with Iran.

China’s reluctance to allow democracy movements to thrive and its mixed relationship with Iran has led to it’s opposition to sanctions in many rounds of Security Council talks. Look for this situation to heat up as the United States intelligence organizations will release a new appraisal of Iran’s nuclear program soon.

Iran blames the west for death of a leading nuclear scientist

IRAN PROLIF – IL – SANCTIONS KEY

BERGNER 2009 – FRMR ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE

DAILY STANDARD, SAUL ALINSKY ON IRAN, 12-16

Unless the Obama administration intends to blink and to allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons–and this seems like a very real possibility–there is only one way to bring Iran to negotiate seriously over its nuclear program. That is to compel Iran to negotiate out of fear of a worse alternative.

This compulsion could take many forms. It could include a naval embargo against Iran; it could include other targeted military action; it could include an overt understanding with Israel; or it could include truly crippling economic sanctions (as opposed to those now in place or those likely to be adopted by a Security Council that includes Russia and China). Whether even targeted sanctions against, say, Iran’s importation of refined gasoline would be enough remains to be seen. But one thing is certain: if the Obama administration is serious about preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons, Iran is going to have to pay a far higher price than it has to date. And this is going to have to occur with little or no help from Russia.

As presidential candidate and as president, Obama has said that it is “unacceptable” for Iran to possess nuclear weapons. To bring Iran to negotiate seriously, Iran must be presented with incentives so powerful that it is compelled to negotiate. Administration officials grasp these tactics when dealing with domestic policy opponents. Why can’t they understand that they apply on the world stage as well? Let us turn again to Saul Alinsky, who explains the inescapable need to compel negotiations. “Anything otherwise,” he says, “is wishful non-thinking. To attempt to operate on a good-will rather than on a power basis would be to attempt something that the world has not yet experienced.”

US SEEKING NEW SANCTIONS ON IRAN – REPORTS THAT THEY HAVE RESUMED NUCLEAR WEAPONS DEVELOPMENT

THE GUARDIAN 1-3-2010

US BELIEVES IRAN WORKING ON DESIGN OF NUCLEAR WEAPON, BORGER

The US believes the official intelligence assessment of Iran’s nuclear programme is wrong and Tehran is working on the design of a nuclear weapon, it was reported today.

Washington is seeking support for new sanctions against Iran at the UN security council following the expiry of a new year deadline, imposed by the US president, Barack Obama, for Tehran to respond to an offer of economic help and improved diplomatic relations in return for curbing its nuclear programme.

Washington is distancing itself from a controversial National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), produced by several US spy agencies in 2007, which suggested Iran had suspended work on weapons design four years earlier.

“After reviewing new documents that have leaked out of Iran and debriefing defectors lured to the west, Mr Obama’s advisers say they believe the work on weapons design is continuing on a smaller scale – the same assessment reached by Britain, France, Germany and Israel,” the New York Times reported.

The key sources of new intelligence are likely to include two recent Iranian defectors – Ali Reza Asgari, a Revolutionary Guards general who vanished in Istanbul in 2007, and Shahram Amiri, a leading Iranian nuclear scientist, who disappeared while on a pilgrimage to Mecca last summer.

The Iranian government has blamed the US for their disappearance.

However, the Obama administration believes there is still time to try sanctions as a means of stemming Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

It feels there is scope for them to work because of serious technical problems in the country’s uranium enrichment programme and because the regime is distracted by continuing political unrest.

The US is about to be embroiled in another controversy over economic sanctions as Obama evaluates his options on Iran:

Two senior administration officials, Undersecretary of the Treasury Stuart Levey and Undersecretary of State William Burns, have for months quietly assembled working groups across the government to determine what a sanctions package might contain. The groups examine Iranian vulnerabilities across a variety of economic sectors, “everything from energy to IRGC [the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, an influential and ideological branch of the Iranian military] to financial sector” activity, said a knowledgeable U.S. official who requested anonymity to discuss the unsettled contours of administration policy. The House of Representatives last week approved a bill giving Obama new authority to enact additional unilateral sanctions on Iran’s energy imports.

As the LD topic gets ready to debate about Iran Sanctions, Congress is providing fuel to the fire with recent initiatives to ratchet up pressure on Iran:

The U.S. House of Representatives has approved stronger sanctions on oil-related imports to Iran in a move proponents hope will aid in preventing the extremist Islamic regime from developing nuclear weapons.

The House passed the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act by a 412-12 vote. The bill, H.R. 2194, calls for the imposition of sanctions on anyone who knowingly enables Iran to continue or increase its domestic oil production or who aids in the importation of oil products to the southwest Asian country.

While we don’t think this recent increase in U.S. pressure is retaliation for the “Iranian Cyber Army’s Twitter Attack,” it does set up continued friction between the west and Iran in international negotiations on nuclear weapons.

TOUGH SANCTIONS ON IRAN COMING NOW – US BRITAIN AND FRANCE CONSENSUS

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR 12-11-2009

IRAN NUCLEAR PROGRAM, ADAMS

A top US official warned Friday of “significant” new sanctions on Iran, joining others in ratcheting up pressure on Tehran to fulfill an October agreement to curb its nuclear program.

The European Union is preparing a draft of a statement supporting stronger global action to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions. That follows the UN’s expression of “grave concern” Thursday for Iran’s apparent violations of a UN ban on arms exports.

In a speech to soldiers Friday in Kirkuk, Iraq, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Iran would be sanctioned if it didn’t honor its recent agreements, according to The New York Times.

“I think you’re going to see some significant additional sanctions imposed by the international community, assuming that the Iranians don’t change course and agree to do the things that they signed up to do at the beginning of October,” Mr. Gates said during a question-and-answer session with American troops in Kirkuk, an oil-rich region north of Baghdad.

The US, Britain, and France are pushing for tougher measures to halt Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.Agence France-Presse said that the 27 European Union nations backed that approach, and had drafted a joint statement that will be released soon.

“Iran’s persistent failure to meet its international obligations and Iran’s apparent lack of interest in pursuing negotiations require a clear response, including through appropriate measures,” the draft document said.

“Consistent with the dual-track approach, the European Union would support action by the UNSC (Security Council) if Iran continues not to cooperate with the international community over its nuclear program.”

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NU – SOFTPOWER LOW – CHINA TRIP PROVES

NEW YORK TIMES 11-18-2009

Those who are most disappointed by the new global reality are probably Chinese human-rights activists, Tibetans and the Uighur ethnic minority in Xinjiang. Despite Mr. Obama’s soft approach to the human rights and Tibetan issues, Mr. Hu flatly refused to go along with Mr. Obama’s assertions that all countries should uphold the “universal rights” of every man and woman.

NU – OBAMA WILL FAIL IN PUSH TO GET IRAN SANCTIONS

ASSOCIATED PRESS 11-20-2009

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is shifting the focus of its Iran policy from talk to sanctions, but the prospect of winning early international support for toughened new penalties appears dim.

Equally problematic is finding a set of sanctions that would have a significant impact on the prime target of American and international worry: Iran’s suspected pursuit of an atom bomb. Three rounds of U.N. sanctions, dating to December 2006 and aimed mainly at squeezing Iran’s nuclear work, have had little apparent effect.

The administration may get an early indication of its prospects at a huddle Friday in Brussels with senior diplomats from the four other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council — Russia, China, Britain and France — plus Germany. Any decisions on new Iran sanctions, though, are likely weeks away.

The administration has tried for months to draw Iran into talks to resolve international worries that its declared intent to develop a civilian nuclear power network is cover for a secret nuclear weapons program. But the Iranians have shown little interest, while denying any clandestine nuclear ambition.