Iranian Alert -- September 7, 2004 [EST]-- IRAN LIVE THREAD -- "Americans for Regime Change in Iran"

Posted on Tue, Sep. 07, 2004

Coercive diplomacy best option in Iran

DANIEL SNEIDER: COERCIVE DIPLOMACY BEST OPTION IN IRAN

When it comes to national security, the elephant in the room is Iran. Beneath the din of pumped-up political rhetoric about the war on terrorism, the Islamic regime in Iran is resuming its march toward nuclear weapons.

Last October, Iran reached an agreement with Britain, France and Germany to accept more intrusive inspections of its nuclear facilities by the International Atomic Energy Agency. It also suspended uranium enrichment in return for assistance to its civilian nuclear energy program.

But in June, the Iranians announced they were resuming production of centrifuges for enrichment. While continuing to deny they are seeking weapons, Iranian officials recently declared they would never give up their "legitimate right" to such programs.

A broad consensus has emerged in Iran in recent months to preserve the nuclear option, one that stretches from anti-regime emigres to hard-line Islamists, say close observers. Regime officials believe the U.S. is too bogged down in Iraq to threaten them.

More militant elements, such as the Revolutionary Guard (which has effective control of the nuclear facilities), have concluded that unless Iran has nuclear weapons, it will suffer the fate of Iraq. They see North Korea as the model tofollow.

"They are hell-bent on getting the bomb," said Abbas Milani, an Iran scholar at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. "They see all these negotiations as delaying tactics."

Year or two away

Most experts believe that Iran is still a year or two away from even the beginnings of a bomb. The IAEA's inspections have slowed the Iranian program, though there may still be secret facilities. The latest IAEA report offers a mixed picture of Iranian compliance; important questions are still unanswered.

The diplomatic option is not yet exhausted. The Europeans are offering a "grand bargain" -- shutting down the weapons-related programs in exchange for broader economic ties, security assurances and other incentives. They would support civilian nuclear energy, including completion of the Russian-built Bushehr power plant, provided that Iran returns all the spent fuel to Russia.

Doubts about allies

There are serious doubts, though, about the will of our allies to join us in applying coercive pressure on Iran. That would begin with reporting Iranian violations to the United Nations Security Council, setting the stage for imposing economic sanctions.

President Bush has backed the European negotiations. Senior officials have signaled they could live with the Russian reactor.

But the administration is also fractured. The leak of secret documents on Iran by Pentagon officials reflects those battles. Hard-liners led by John Bolton, the undersecretary of state for arms control, argue that Iran must be isolated, not engaged. Bolton calls for the Bushehr reactor to be halted, and is pressing to move now to the United Nations.

Those circles advocate giving money and guns to Iranian opposition groups. Most Iranian experts believe such an attempt to impose regime change from the outside will fail. And any Iranian government, for reasons of national pride and aspirations for great power status, may want to possess nuclear weapons.

A military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities should remain a last resort. Iran has probably deeply buried and dispersed its facilities. It would require not only air strikes but also special forces on the ground, said Jay Davis, a former senior nuclear planner and defense official. "We'd lose people and it's an act of war, but we certainly can do it," he told me.

But it would come at a great cost. Iran can retaliate, from terrorism to aiding anti-American forces in Iraq. An attack would strengthen hard-line Islamist elements within Iran and weaken pro-Western moderates.

"That is what the Revolutionary Guards are dying to happen," said Milani, who is a critic of the Islamic regime. "It would be a shot in the arm for this regime -- even more than $50-a-barrel oil."

For now, coercive diplomacy is the only real option. We cannot hesitate to escalate pressure, beginning with economic sanctions and by making it clear that a military strike is a real, if last, option. This is a time for cool heads and firm hands.

Iran Nears Deal on Renewed Nuclear Freeze

By REUTERS

Filed at 10:07 a.m. ET

VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran has agreed in principle to renew a freeze of some sensitive nuclear activities in a move apparently aimed at easing pressure ahead of a U.N. nuclear watchdog meeting next week, diplomats said Tuesday.

Details of the deal were not immediately clear and have yet to be finalized. However, two diplomats said it would include halting production, testing and assembly of centrifuges.

Iran pledged last year to suspend all enrichment-related activities but has since resumed building centrifuges and last week said it intended to process 37 tons of raw uranium into uranium hexafluoride, the feed material for centrifuges.

Centrifuges enrich uranium for use in power stations or -- if enriched further -- nuclear bombs.

``Iran said this weekend that they would come back to the suspension. (IAEA chief Mohamed) ElBaradei is trying to work out the details with the Iranians,'' a Western diplomat on the IAEA board told Reuters.

Washington says Iran's uranium enrichment program is aimed at making material for nuclear weapons. Iran denies the charge, saying it is only interested in generating electricity.

Negotiations between Iran and ElBaradei took place at the weekend. The European Union's 'big three' -- France, Britain and Germany -- who negotiated the original suspension, followed proceedings closely, diplomats said.

Iran's ambassador to the United Nations in Vienna would neither confirm nor deny that talks had taken place. Officials in Tehran were not immediately available for comment.

All the diplomats contacted by Reuters said it was unclear whether uranium hexafluoride production would be included in the suspension.

``It would include a suspension of centrifuge production, assembly and testing. It's unclear what the status of (uranium hexafluoride) would be,'' the Western diplomat said.

Another diplomat said he was unsure if centrifuge assembly would be included.

``I understand a deal like that is imminent though I don't know the content -- the duration, the extent, timing of the suspension,'' one Western diplomat close to the IAEA said.

EASING TENSIONS

One Western diplomat said Iran was clearly trying to improve its diplomatic position ahead of a Sept. 13 meeting of the IAEA's Board of Governors and lessen the shock of last week's announcement that it intends to produce large amounts of uranium hexafluoride.

``I don't know how much an Iranian promise is worth any more,'' he said, alluding to past concealment of activities.

The board can refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council, which has the power to impose economic sanctions.

One nuclear expert said the uranium hexafluoride Iran intends to produce would hypothetically be enough for roughly five nuclear weapons.

Tehran's announcement provoked the wrath of Washington, Iran's harshest critic.

``Iran's announcements are further strong evidence of the compelling need to take Iran's nuclear program to the Security Council,'' U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton said then.

Diplomats at the United Nations, however, say Washington has little support for such a move now.

The three EU powers, frustrated by Iran's lack of transparency, are planning to propose a board resolution but have so far been unable to agree on how critical it should be, one diplomat said.

``There is no consensus on a resolution. The Brits want a tough resolution and the Germans would prefer to avoid that. The French are undecided,'' he said.

The European Union, the United States and the IAEA condemned Iran in June after it said it intended to resume assembling and testing centrifuges as well as making centrifuge components.

The IAEA's sixth report in its two-year investigation into Iran's nuclear program said many questions remained unanswered, including the origin of enriched-uranium particles found in Iran and work on advanced P-2 centrifuges.

Iran's Promise: "80 Seconds of Hell

"
By Dateline D.C.
Pittsburgh Live | September 7, 2004

Let's begin by looking at some facts.

On Saturday, June 26, only a few weeks ago, two security guards at the Iranian U.N. Mission were expelled from the United States, and allowed to sneak back to Tehran. The State Department says that they were "engaged in activities inconsistent with their duties." Sure. They were spies.

The pair had been observed by the FBI for months moving around Manhattan videotaping landmark buildings and other infrastructure. It took an alert transit police officer to arrest them when he saw them taking video images on the subway tracks. They claimed diplomatic immunity and were not charged with any crime.

In Tehran, as August began, the Islamic Republic's supreme guide Ali Khamenei was answering questions from a hundred or so Islamic guidance officials, home from foreign postings for retraining. Most of his answers were trite slogans, but when he was asked, "Is our Islamic Republic at war against the United States," he paused before replying. "It is the United States that is at war against our Islamic Revolution."

However, Khamenei's own newspaper was even more direct. Writing this July, it said, ">b>the White House's 80 years of exclusive rule are likely to become 80 seconds of hell that will burn to ashes. Those who resist Iran will be struck from directions they never expected."

To these facts add that an Arab newspaper published in London and Beirut reported that an Iranian intelligence unit has established a center called "The Brigades of the Shahids of the Global Islamic Awakening," controlled by a Revolutionary Guards intelligence officer, Hassan Abbasi. The newspaper has a tape recording of Abbasi when he spoke of Iran's secret plans, which include "a strategy drawn up for the destruction of Anglo-Saxon civilization."

Missile strikes

To bring this about, Abbasi said, "There are 29 sensitive sites in the U.S. and in the West. We have already spied on these sites and we know how we are going to attack them." This Revolutionary Guard officer continued by saying, "Iran's missiles are now ready to strike at Western targets, and as soon as the instructions arrive from Ali Khamenei, we will launch our missiles at their cities and installations."

These are facts. Now let's consider the information coming in from Iraq where, day after day, our troops are being killed.

Most of the killing is now being done by Muslim militia -- Shi'ite Muslims -- in the cities of Fallujah, Mosul and Najaf. This militia appears to have some loyalty -- but not much -- to the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, but he is equally obviously not their paymaster.

The militias need weapons, ammunition, gas for their vehicles, food, water and everything else to fight the Iraqi police and our military. Just remember that these are Shi'ites. The Iranians just over the border are also Shi'ites. So we needn't be surprised to learn that the word on the streets of Baghdad and Tehran is that they are providing millions of dollars every month for the "hot" war against the Americans.

The Iranian Shi'ites have during the past few weeks established relations with the Kurds in the north of Iraq and with the main Arab Sunni rebel group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. And, every alliance is cemented with dollars.

25-year war

Iran has been at war with the United States since the mullahs ousted the shah's forces in 1979.

Iran's war against the United States has gone on for 25 years. It is past time that the ayatollahs, mullahs and imams begin to understand that there are limits to our tolerance and that our military might is by no means exhausted.

That February in 1979, the Revolutionary Guards invaded 27 U.S. listening posts in Iran that had been set up to monitor Soviet rocket tests. The posts were closed and our guys expelled.

That was enough for Democrat Jimmy Carter. He sent a wonderful letter to the Ayatollah Khomeini, praising him as "a man of God." And, in a show of goodwill, Carter lifted the ban he had imposed on arms exports to Iran.

A few days later, the Revolutionary Guards raided our embassy in Tehran and seized our diplomats as hostages for a year and a half. In April 1980, Carter tried a military rescue attempt, which ended in disaster with more Americans being killed.

Since then Iran has created one disaster after another. The Marine barracks in Beirut with 241 U.S. Marines killed, some 30 U.S. hostages taken in Lebanon, the torture-killing of the CIA's Middle Eastern chief and the generalized support of all America's enemies.

On July 27, Iranian Member of Parliament Hamid-Reza Katoziyan told a television audience "Muslims living in the U.S. are currently, in my opinion, in a special situation. Perhaps they do not walk the streets with weapons or attach bombs to themselves to carry out a suicide operation, but the thought is there."

And, one last fact: The 9/11 commission in its report poses a question, "September 11 was a day of unprecedented shock. The nation was unprepared. How can we avoid such a tragedy again?"

The answer has to be obvious. Ensure that Iran does not have the opportunity to make a first-strike against the U.S. and that Iran stops attempting to make Iraq a colony.
Dateline D.C. is written by a Washington-based British journalist and political observer.

Iran ready to show off missile

From correspondents in Tehran
September 7, 2004

IRAN said today it was ready to show off a test of its improved Shahab-3 medium range missile, which is capable of hitting Israel, to "observers" in order to prove it is a success.

"The ministry is ready to organise a new test of the Shahab-3 missile in the presence of observers," Defence Minister Rear Admiral Ali Shamkhani said in a statement carried by the official news agency IRNA.

"The recent test that was carried out was a success."

The minister appeared to be reacting to recent foreign press reports that questioned whether an August 11 test had been a failure, noting that the missile had apparently been remotely detonated in mid-flight.

The Israeli daily Haaretz, however, recently has written that the upgraded version of the Shahab-3 had a range of 2000km, whereas the previous version was believed to have a range of 1300km to 1700km.

The Shahab-3 missile was deployed among the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in July last year. Although the missile has been paraded with the banner "Israel should be wiped off the map", Iran says it is purely defensive.

In Persian, "Shahab" means "meteor" or "shooting star".

Europe is reaching crisis point

Forget America: the government should be worrying about the situations in France and Germany

Will Hutton
Sunday September 5, 2004
The Observer

With all eyes fixed on the American presidential elections, the scale of the looming crisis in France and Germany has gone largely unremarked. But it may so change the political geography of Europe that British arguments for and against the EU will be made redundant. A pervasive sense of decline in both countries, only partially justified but none the less virulent, is destabilising not just the structures of the EU - but the political systems of France and Germany.

Last week in France, charismatic finance minister Nicolas Sarkozy resigned from the government in order to challenge for the leadership of President Chirac's UMP party, despairing of what is seen in France as a do-nothing regime that is fiddling while the country burns. The economy is mired in low growth and high unemployment; government spending at 54 per cent of GDP can go no higher.

There is universal agreement that France needs decisive action to reverse economic decline; there are rancorous arguments about not just how the economy should be run and society organised but whether the constitution of the Fifth Republic works any more. The socialist opposition wants to limit the President's current powers to allow more pluralism. With two-and-half years to run until the next presidential elections, France is descending into acrimony and division.

In Germany, Gerhard Schröder is presiding over the wreckage of the SPD, once the standard bearer of European social democracy. September sees four key state elections, including the vital election in North Rhine Westphalia, the SPD's historic heartland. Sixteen per cent behind in the polls there, its loss would be a disaster, not just for what it signals about Schröder's standing but because it will mean control that of the German upper house will pass to the conservative CDU and make him a titular Chancellor, governing only within the parameters of what his opponents will permit. His capacity to continue will be undermined. If he went, an SPD successor would be forced to abandon recasting Germany's unemployment benefit system so that it stops offering what amounts to a generous pension for life and, instead, becomes a means of moving the unemployed from one job to another. This is a vital prerequisite to restoring German economic health, but it is the direct cause of Schröder's crisis. His party can't and won't accept the need for reform and neither does an important swath of public opinion.

Germany is still two countries and East Germans regard any reform of the welfare system as directed against them because more than twice as many East Germans are on unemployment benefit as in the West. They are right. Thus it is no surprise that the 'Monday' demonstrations against the reforms are centred in the great East German cities of Leipzig and Dresden or that the demonstrators echo the fight against communism with their chant of 'We the people'. The protests are a focus for all the resentments of reunification and for the continued feeling among East Germans that they hold a second-class status. Germany and Schröder are in a corner; reform of the welfare state is an imperative, but the reform programme threatens the cohesion of the state.

As in France, the structures of the German political system are now being put in play. Twisting and turning for any kind of electoral advantage, Schröder last week said he was prepared to reverse Germany's 54-year-long ban on the referendum, the populist tool used by Hitler to establish the Nazi regime. Germany could then hold a referendum on the EU constitution. This is a key plank of the postwar constitution being knocked away. For the paradox of referendums is that they are fundamentally anti-democratic, confusing democracy with populism and placing power in the hands of those who can manipulate public opinion for their own ends. Germany's history is testimony to the consequences.

The proximate cause of both France and Germany's political crisis is that they are not generating enough jobs and growth even though both are high productivity economies. Employment in advanced economies today comes from the service and knowledge sectors rather than traditional manufacturing, under assault from low-wage countries in an era of globalisation. Thus German and France need more investment in their universities; in research and development; and in links between universities and business. They also need to change the structures in their labour markets, from wage bargaining to rules on working hours, that inhibit employment growth in the growing parts of their economy while designing welfare systems that support and encourage workers to move from areas of decline into areas of growth. And they need more demand.

These are, at bottom, technical issues; both economies, given their inherent strengths - Germany is the world's number one exporter in 2004 - would respond quickly to any decent reform package. The issue is putting one together given the implacable opposition by organised labour in both countries to even the tiniest concession, even as both national conversations are dominated by talk of irreversible decline and the need for change - an echo of Britain in the 1970s. The immobilism and sense of decay infects consumer confidence; in both countries consumers are building up their savings, weakening demand growth and deferring still further the chances of an economic recovery.

Opposition to change may seem irrational, but that in turn is rooted in history. The German left is profoundly attached to the German welfare state not just because it represents social democracy but because it is a shield against a repeat of the 1930s. In France the idea of capitalism is compromised by its collaboration with the right and defeat in war. To surrender social advance, even in the name of reform and necessity, is to give into forces that historically have brought France low. For both countries the European Union offers a different, brighter history. But instead of buttressing the EU, Chirac and Schröder - as soft option politicians - find it easier to blame it to help them out of their political weakness. In so doing they lock themselves more tightly into thenational discourses that are the source of their problems.

It could all turn ugly; an unratified European Constitution, stagnating economies, new dark nationalist politics and a fragmenting European Union.

To imagine that Britain will be immune from this is absurd; what happens in mainland Europe will directly impact upon us as it has throughout our history. What is needed is an understanding that if European states don't hang together they will hang separately - and that because the European Union is the best we have, we'd better make it work.

Instead national leaders, Blair included, strenuously avoid the language of working together. These are unsteady times for Europe - without a recovery of purpose and leadership the future could look sticky indeed.

Iran: "A Tougher Nut" than N. Korea

[Excerpt]

Richard Armitage on the tricky choices the Bush Administration and its allies face as they try to halt the spread of nuclear weapons

Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage is an experienced troubleshooter. A Vietnam veteran with previous stints at the State Dept. and the Pentagon under his belt, Armitage has been involved in everything from handling Philippines' efforts to boot U.S. troops out of the country to the collapse of the former Soviet Union. He has had no end of troubles to shoot in the Bush Administration. An Asia hand, Armitage helped negotiate the extrication of pilots downed in China early in President Bush's term. He has played a role in everything from Iraq to Iran to North Korea.

Armitage sat down with BusinessWeek Chief Diplomatic Correspondent Stan Crock on Sept. 1 to discuss some of the issues at the top of his in-box, including the challenges in Iraq, North Korea, and Iran. Edited excerpts of their conversation follow in two parts. Here is Part 1:

Q: In Najaf and Fallujah, the options seemed to be between what's portrayed as a military defeat that lets [Muqtada] Al-Sadr's militia melt away and what would be a political disaster: If you went in and holy sites got damaged. The trade-off was made to avert political blowback. A similar calculation was made in Fallujah. But when is the military going to say we're killing ourselves here by letting these guys loose?
A: Let me differentiate between Najaf and Fallujah. Najaf, I think, by all accounts, is a stunning victory for the Allawi government. The reason I say that is Grand Ayatollah [Ali] al-Sistani came down on the side of the government. And unlike when he was last negotiating with young Sadr, in April, this time he was successful.

He was successful because military pressure had been applied, and both Iraqi forces and coalition forces right outside the compound wall were sitting there immediately after. It's an overall victory.

Al Jazeera went right into Najaf and started photographing and speaking to Iraqi National Guard soldiers in full uniform and full kit. That's the first time Al Jazeera has shown sort of a different face to this conflict.

Q: What about Fallujah?
A: Sooner or later, Fallujah has to be dealt with. And the Prime Minister knows that. I have no doubt that when his security forces are numerous enough, well-trained enough, and most important of all, well-led, that he will handle that situation.

Q: Is there any reason to believe that North Korea or Iran would actually give up their nuclear capabilities?
A: Well, they haven't exhibited it yet.... Iran, I think, is a tougher nut, actually, than North Korea. I served in Iran years ago.... And I found Iranians, generally, to be both charming and hegemonistic and very ethnocentric.

The dream of being a player on a large stage is in the breast of most Iranians. So I think they will be a lot more difficult, regarding the elimination of their weapons program.

Q: What is China prepared to do if North Korea remains intransigent?
A: You'll be seeing them send some real tough messages to North Korea, and at the end of the day, North Korea can't make it without China.

There's a lot going on in North Korea right now. You've read about the cell-phone stoppage -- people aren't allowed to use cell phones anymore. There have been arrests recently. It appears that the handling of the railroad disaster was bungled. North Korea is a pretty dynamic situation.

Q: What odds would you give that --
A: You can't do this to me because I took my son yesterday -- he's 21 -- to Charlestown, W. Va., and we played the slots. We lost. [Laughter] So don't talk to me about odds and gambling.

Q: You can answer it or not. What odds would you give successful negotiations in these two instances -- getting Iran and North Korea to give up their nuclear weapons programs?
A: I'm not going to answer the odds question, but I'll try to answer your question more generally. In the mid-1980s, late '80s, and earliest part of the '90s, the question for Asian hands was what's going to happen to North Korea? Does it implode, explode, or just devolve?

All of us were wrong. I think North Korea will evolve, and I think [the nuclear-weapons issue] will be resolved peacefully, in terms of the international community. I don't know what will happen internally in Korea, among the North Koreans themselves. Clearly, factions in North Korea are unhappy with the present direction of their country.

Q: What about Iran?
A: Iran is much more difficult. There are some things internal to Iran that one has to look at. Demographics are one. The Persians are almost a minority in their own country now -- they're like 52% or something. There are many more Azeris in Tabriz than there are in Azerbaijan, just for the record. So that has an effect over time of changing things.

They've developed no new infrastructure since the revolution. That impedes them as a society from moving forward.

Regarding U.S. policy to Iran, we're content to let the EU-3 ministers take the lead. They are the ones who came out thinking they had an agreement with the Iranians and had the Iranians pull the rug out from under them. We'll look forward to the September International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) meeting and then the November meeting.

Q: Are sanctions an option?
A: There's not much enthusiasm in the Security Council for sanctions. We've seen attitudes in Europe starting to harden against the Iranians because of the ministers who had approached Iran with very good intentions and had the rug pulled out from under them.

We'll continue to push from the outside, and we'll be the tough cop, I would say, so that others can be the good cop -- whatever works. But at the end of the day, we're all policemen. If we're all policemen, something has to give, and we'll be looking to see if we can't move to sanctions, unless there's a change of behavior. ...

Tomorrow: Part 2 of this interview with Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage

Sep. 6, 2004 19:06 | Updated Sep. 6, 2004 23:46

The Region: Wrong, yet winning

On the anniversary of September 11, a curious paradox about the United States is evident: the sharp contrast between its policies' brilliant success in the Middle East and its strategies' abject failure there.

To put it another way, broader US goals and interests in the region have done remarkably well over the last half-century while its clever plans have ended in disaster.

Whenever I contemplate the very different life I would have had by working in the US government, I recall that the opportunity I passed up would have let me participate in half-a-dozen disasters:

misjudging Iran in regard to the revolution and humiliating mishandling of the hostage crisis in the late 1970s and into 1980;
participating in the silliness that produced the Iran arms sale debacle of 1985-1986;
wrongly evaluating Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's intention to help bring about his invasion of Kuwait;
letting him survive the war's end, and betraying those who rose up against him at the US's urging in the period from 1988 to 1991;
managing the 1990-1993 Israel-Palestinian peace process, which led to abject failure and many deaths;
underestimating the radical Islamist terrorist threat that led to September 11;
becoming involved in the mistaken 2003 war on Iraq and the ensuing bungling.
In every case there was a conception that was wrong and a plan that did not work.
One factor here was ignorance about a system in the Arab world and Iran where problems stem not from misunderstandings or insufficient Western concessions, but rather on the needs of ruthless dictators and lying ideologies.
But does this astonishingly bad record regarding well-intentioned schemes mean US policy has been a failure? Not at all. The US has been an awesome success story in the region.
To list a few points: It defeated the USSR and that country's allies, helped prevent the whole region's radicalization, preserved stability where needed, kept the Arab-Israeli conflict from spinning out of control, forced even those who hated it to respect its interests, kept oil flowing, stopped an Iranian or Iraqi conquest of the Gulf, avoided a genocidal destruction of Israel, and played a role in avoiding revolutionary Islamist takeovers.
The US did not do all this alone; but it played an important role on all these fronts and others. In truth, in 50 years of policy the US has done rather well.
Other forces in the region opposed to US policies have been repeatedly contained or defeated. They failed to bend the US to their will through either force or persuasion.
A key cause of this outcome was that they endlessly complained about America but offered it no attractive alternative. Whatever the periodic frictions between Israel and the US, Israel was on America's side at each critical juncture. The Arabs, with a few exceptions, were not.
For example, Arab regimes could, during the Cold War, have offered the US real and energetic support against the USSR in exchange for things they wanted, like the US standing aside while Israel was wiped off the map. Instead, they remained neutral or supported Moscow, giving Washington no real incentive to change its approach.
The same applies to US peacemaking efforts on the Arab-Israeli conflict, where Arab leaders remained either intransigent or passive.
What if the Arab world had united to press Yasser Arafat into a deal in 2000? What if Arafat or the Arab states collectively had rallied to the US's side in the aftermath of September 11 in a war against terror instead of criticizing every American move?
Suppose they had agreed on getting rid of Saddam in 2003 in exchange for a specific list of goals?
Europe has at times – again with exceptions – made a parallel error of its own in dealing with US power. For instance, what would have happened if just before the 2003 Iraq war the Europeans had credibly offered to implement and maintain a tough policy against Baghdad in exchange for the US not launching an all-out attack? Suppose the Europeans had lined up behind America in demanding that Arafat and Arab states accept peace in 2000 or suffer material consequences?
America may be about to elect a presidential candidate running on a claim that he can get Europe to cooperate with the US in the Middle East by listening to its advice. But what is going to happen after a few months, when he discovers that the Europeans will do nothing real to help him in Iraq, to pressure those blocking Arab-Israeli peace through terrorism and extremism, or to stop Iran getting nuclear weapons?
In short, people in Washington who do not understand the Middle East and people in Europe or the Middle East who do not understand America have not done very well. Yet the US has repeatedly triumphed in the region even when its specific plans have fallen apart.
Being wrong and winning is better than being even more wrong, and losing.
The writer is director of the GLORIA Center and co-author of the newly published Hating America: A History.

Movement criticizes Kerry's Iran policy during VOA program

SMCCDI (Information Service)
Sep 6, 2004

The SMCCDI Coordinator, Aryo B. Pirouznia, criticized Senator John Kerry for his controversial and rejectable stands on the Islamic republic regime and his recent proposal of Nuclear deal with the illegitimate and shaky theocracy. These comments were made, tonight, during a VOA Satellite TV program which was, as well, broadcasted worldwide on short wave radio and Internet from WDC.

In parts of the interview and responding live to VOA well respected anchor's Setareh Derakhshesh, on the correlation of the upcoming US Presidential elections and the Islamic regime's Nuclear activities, Pirouznia, while describing this controversial deal proposal, stated: "It's sad to see that Mr. Kerry is intending, now, to propose such deal to such tyrannical and terrorist regime that he has qualified in the past as a kind of democracy. Such consecutive irresponsible statements are only helping the Islamic regime to claim a false legitimacy while killing more Iranians and buying time for pushing ahead in its dangerous plans."

"Of course and by witnessing increasing criticisms, Senator J. Edwards is, now trying to correct parts of Senator Kerry's deal proposal by declaring that the current Iranian and N. Korean regimes are potential dangers. Such contradictory statement can only be qualified as what many Americans are naming as Kerry campaign's Flip Flop behavior".

"By difference and contrary to some desperate and demagogic propaganda, we do have President George Bush who's running for his re-election while supporting morally the Iranian Nation for reaching freedom and democracy by putting an end to the rule of the Islamic regime. He has declared clearly and at several occasions that each problem has its own solution and that he's not wishing to carry any military attack against Iran's installation."

"That's why a majority of Iranians and especially many Iranian-Americans do believe correctly that voting for Bush, is voting for the freedom of Iran and its future accountable regime" the SMCCDI Coordinator emphasized.

The VOA's "News & Views" program of 9/06/04 will be re-aired tomorrow morning, Iran's local time, and can be seen at the following link till 12:00 PM US EST by visiting: http://www.voanews.com/real/voa/nenaf/fars/fars1700v.ram . The part, in reference to the Islamic regime's nuclear activities starts at minute 11':30" and the interview with SMCCDI from the minute 14':42''. It will be transferred after 12:00 PM to the VOA website's archives section.

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