Join Us At Today's Iranian Alert Thread – The Most Underreported Story Of The Year!

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Not to worry John Kerry has a suggestion :

"With respect to Iran" "I think the United States should have offered the opportunity to provide the nuclear fuel"

(directly from the debate)

*shiver*

Join Us At Today's Iranian Alert Thread – The Most Underreported Story Of The Year!

"If you want on or off this Iran ping list, Freepmail DoctorZin”

What a fantastic story. I wish the news media would pick this up. We are now headed on a collision course with Iran and what better way to avoid that by having the people or Iran--with help from other freedom loving people--throw those bastards out? Now that is a good way to deal with the Iran issue.

Kerry would rather give them Uranium like we did with North Korea!

A Strategy for Nuclear Iran

By Thomas Donnelly

Posted: Thursday, September 30, 2004

NATIONAL SECURITY OUTLOOK

AEI Online (Washington)

Publication Date: October 1, 2004

Regardless of who is elected to the presidency in November, the growing threat posed by a nuclear Iran is certain to be at the top of the next administration’s national security agenda. Unfortunately, neither a “grand bargain” with Tehran nor a conventional military strike against its nuclear facilities offers much hope of preventing one of the world’s most dangerous regimes from acquiring the world’s most dangerous weapons.

In the short term, at least, the United States must instead work to isolate Iran not only militarily but ideologically, by succeeding in the democratic transformation of Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Islamic Republic in Iran continues to speed toward acquiring nuclear weapons, with every week, it seems, bringing further evidence of its progress. In late September, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Gholamreza Aghazadeh, announced his country had begun enriching a “test amount” of uranium--enough, that is, for several nuclear weapons. Soon, there will be no insurmountable hurdles left; it is simply a matter of engineering, time, and Tehran’s choice. This is a reality that the next U.S. administration will have to confront--and a very unpleasant reality it will be.[1] As Max Boot recently observed:

[Iran] is also working on missiles with the range to strike targets in Europe and North America, though the likeliest vehicles for delivering an Iranian nuke would be its terrorist networks. Hassan Abasi, a senior member of the Revolutionary Guards, recently boasted that Iran had “a strategy drawn up for the destruction of Anglo-Saxon civilization.”[2]

The anxiety raised by the prospect of nuclear-armed Iran is creating a “Do Something!” moment in Washington. Boot, a strong supporter of the Bush administration’s strategy for the greater Middle East, allows that, “on Iran, as in so many other areas, the administration seems to be paralyzed by disagreements between Defense Department hawks and State Department doves.”[3] The Democrats, by contrast, have made a point of advocating a “grand bargain” with the mullahs that would allow them to keep their nuclear power plants in exchange for a promise to give up the kind of nuclear fuel used to make bombs. Upon closer inspection, however, the idea of a grand bargain is quickly revealed to be no bargain at all. Instead, it is merely a recycling of the Clinton-era “Agreed Framework” with North Korea, a widely celebrated bit of arms control that did nothing to prevent Kim Jong Il from acquiring his current arsenal. Undeterred by that failure, Senators Kerry and Edwards have made a point of advancing a “non-confrontational” approach to Iran that emphasizes areas of “mutual interest.”

Kerry is not the only one eager for engagement with Iran; indeed, this has been a pet project of many American diplomats since the Iranian revolution of 1979. A more tempered version of the Kerry “grand bargain” proposal--call it the “modest bargain” alternative--is encapsulated in the recent report, Iran: Time for a New Approach, by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).4 As is so often the case, this “task force” of foreign policy mandarins calling for a new approach is really just rehashing old ideas. Thus, the CFR report finds:

[Tehran] could play a potentially significant role in promoting a stable, pluralistic government in Baghdad. It might be induced to be a constructive actor toward both Iraq and Afghanistan, but it retains the capacity to create significant difficulties for these regimes if it is alienated from the new post-conflict governments in those two countries.[5]

Thus, inevitably, it is the council’s recommendation that the United States “engage selectively with Iran to promote regional stability.” This, in the task force’s eyes, constitutes a “revised strategic approach to Iran.”

At least the CFR task force acknowledges that the “grand bargain” notion “that would settle comprehensively the outstanding conflicts between Iran and the United States is not a realistic goal, and pursuing such an outcome would be unlikely to produce near-term progress on Washington’s central interests.”[6] However, the depth of the differences between the United States and Iran is no excuse for restricting “engagement,” in the report’s view, and in particular the use of “incentives,” including expanded trade relations: “Given the increasingly important role of economic interests in shaping Iran’s policy options at home and abroad, the prospect of commercial relations with the United States could be a powerful tool in Washington’s arsenal.”[7] Even more saliently, the task force believes that, while the United States is right to advocate democracy,

America should abandon the “rhetoric of regime change, as it would be likely to rouse nationalist sentiments in defense of the regime even among those who currently oppose it.”[8] While willing to forgo the grandeur, the Council of Foreign Relations hates to pass up a bargain.

Indeed, to the extent that the CFR report proves anything, it is that the Cold War is not over: it lives on, and not just in time-warp regimes like Kim Jong Il’s North Korea or Saparmurat Niyazov’s Turkmenistan, but among the strategic smart set in the United States, for whom détente never dies.

Alas for the Council on Foreign Relations, and at last for the rest of us, the real world has moved on.

New geopolitical facts obtain, and the United States has started to formulate new strategies based upon them. And given that the “greater Middle East”--the immense swath of the planet stretching from West Africa to Southeast Asia--is now the central strategic focus of American security policy, our approach to the Islamic Republic of Iran cannot be written freely on a blank sheet of paper.

Remember the Bush Doctrine?

Whatever the outcome of this November’s election, some version of the “Bush Doctrine”--whose main purpose is to preserve the generally liberal, stable, and peaceful international order that has resulted from the collapse of the Soviet empire and that is predicated upon the United States’ role as global guarantor of international security--is likely to continue. Just as the Bush Doctrine represents, in some sense, a continuation of the de facto policies of the Clinton administration, a Kerry administration would likewise discover that it is hard to retreat from the responsibilities of unipolarity. As much as the Democratic Party might wish to bury its head in the strategic sand, and despite its deep-seated hatred of President Bush, there is no quiet life for the world’s sole superpower.

In particular, Kerry’s pretense of a return to the status quo in the greater Middle East, of balancing one thuggish regime against another and making strategy in partnership with Western European “powers” such as France and Germany, is impossible to take seriously in a post-9/11 world. Even if the United States could neatly withdraw from Iraq--itself an almost oxymoronic formulation--the war on terrorism would not end and would still include many other actors besides Osama bin Laden.

Thus there may be little alternative to the Bush Doctrine’s “forward strategy of freedom”; a purely defensive approach is impossible exactly because the pre-9/11 political order in the region was the primary source of the nihilism and violence that led to those attacks. The Bush Doctrine’s fundamental set of premises may prove remarkably stable: the rollback of both Islamic terror organizations and the governments that support them; containing China’s military ambitions; and, key to it all, preventing any true “axis of evil” that marks a conjunction of Islamic radicalism with the rising great-power capabilities in Beijing.

This strategy is nothing if not ambitious. We are attempting to resolve a massive civil war within the Islamic world while simultaneously preventing a dissatisfied China--even more dependent for its economic growth on Middle Eastern oil than the United States is--from interfering with our efforts. The Bush administration’s occasional confessions about the magnitude of the effort required--reflected in Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s forecast of a “long, hard slog” in Iraq and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice’s profession of a “generational commitment” to the project of transforming the Middle East--only begin to hint at the task before the United States. The only good news is that, while our enemies are many, they are individually weak and not immediately disposed to unite against us.

Sources of Iranian Conduct

Iran stands directly athwart this project of regional transformation. Indeed, the regime in Tehran came to power by ousting Shah Reza Pahlavi in the tumultuous year of 1979, when the old, autocratic order in the greater Middle East began to crumble. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini established an unabashedly theocratic and revolutionary government, at the same time calling for a broader Muslim uprising and attacks upon the United States, the “Great Satan.” And despite international isolation, devastating defeat in war, and widespread internal unrest, the regime retains its ideological character, as well as a firm grip on power. As the Council on Foreign Relations notes, the Islamic Republic has achieved some “durability.”[9]

But if its political and strategic ends have been consistent, Tehran’s means have changed dramatically. One of the best studies of the Iran-Iraq War, done by the United States Marine Corps, observed that the casualties of that conflict were so great that it essentially bled the Iranian revolution to death.[10] Khomeini and his fellow mullahs were more than willing to spread revolution by conventional military means, but a generation of young Pasdaran zealots broke itself in human wave attacks on Saddam Hussein’s army; what the U.S. military was able to do so decisively in 1991 and again in 2003--slice through the Iraqi field force--the Iranian army could not manage even at the cost of perhaps a million casualties over eight years.

If Iran could not export its revolution by conventional military means, then unconventional means would have to suffice. Iran’s sponsorship of terrorists is well-known. As the U.S. State Department’s most recent report on global terrorism puts it, “Iran remained the most active state sponsor of terrorism in 2003. Its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Ministry of Intelligence and Security were involved in the planning of and support for terrorist acts and continued to exhort a variety of groups that use terrorism to pursue their goals.”[11]

From Beirut to Buenos Aires, international terrorism has been central to Iran’s foreign policy since the 1979 revolution. Tehran openly provides funding, training, and weapons to Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Iran also has a long relationship with al Qaeda. As early as late 1991, Sudan’s Islamist leader, Hassan al-Turabi, sponsored meetings designed to encourage Shia and Sunni fundamentalists to put aside their differences and work together against the United States. “Not long afterward,” according to the 9/11 Commission report, “senior Al Qaeda operatives and trainers traveled to Iran to receive training in explosives.”[12]

Senior al Qaeda operatives captured by the United States have revealed that Tehran attempted to strengthen its ties to Osama bin Laden after the USS Cole attack in 2000, and that Iranian officials have facilitated the travel of al Qaeda members through their territory, failing to stamp their passports. It is also believed that eight to fourteen of the 9/11 hijackers took advantage of this arrangement to transit through Iran in 2000-2001.[13]

After the fall of the Taliban, several senior al Qaeda operatives fled to Iran, where they have found a safe haven from which to plot further attacks--including the May 2003 terrorist bombing in Riyadh, in which thirty-four people were killed.14 Although Iran claims to hold several al Qaeda members in custody, it refuses to disclose their identities publicly and has rebuffed attempts to arrange for their transfer.[15]

Yet for all the vehemence of its ideology and the violence of its anti-Americanism, the clerical regime in Tehran has found itself incapable of stemming the seeping U.S. presence in the Persian Gulf and in the broader region. While Iran essentially stood aside when Operation Desert Storm drove the Iraqi army from Kuwait and contained Saddam Hussein’s regional ambitions, the war ushered in the policy of “dual containment,” targeted at Tehran as well as Baghdad; indeed, the first Bush administration left Saddam in power primarily to serve as a bulwark against Iranian expansionism. The “no-fly-zones” and other U.S. operations in the area throughout the 1990s attested to the fact that, even with no real regional partner--beyond the on-again, off-again support offered by the Saudis--the United States was more than capable of maintaining its military forces at Iran’s doorstep and had no intention of withdrawing.

And while the mullahs may have celebrated the attacks of September 11, 2001, they have come to rue many of the subsequent events. Although there was little love lost between Tehran and the Taliban, the expanded American military presence along Iran’s eastern flank is far from welcome. The invasion of Iraq, though it removed Tehran’s longtime nemesis in Baghdad, completed the near-encirclement of Iran by U.S. military forces. Iran’s attempts to influence the direction of post-Saddam Iraq have yet to produce anything more substantive than its past efforts to undermine Saddam; Tehran’s sponsorship of Moqtada al Sadr have helped the “Mahdi army” make headlines, but the finality with which mainstream Iraqi cleric Ayatollah Ali al Sistani evicted Sadr’s forces from the shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf suggests that the majority of Iraq’s Shia still have little interest in taking orders from Iran.

Under such apparently bleak circumstances, Tehran’s traditional hankering for nuclear weapons has sharpened significantly. Iran’s conventional options are now restricted to attempts to limit American access to the region, such as by pointing missiles at the Straits of Hormuz and bolstering ground-based air defenses. Terrorism with a return address carries greater risks, too: it is interesting to speculate what the U.S. reaction would be now, in a post-9/11 world, to a Khobar Towers–type bombing. What the Iranians could safely sponsor in 1996 might not be so safe now.

The surest deterrent to American action is a functioning nuclear arsenal.

What to Do?

To be sure, the prospect of a nuclear Iran is a nightmare. But it is less a nightmare because of the high likelihood that Tehran would employ its weapons or pass them on to terrorist groups--although that is not beyond the realm of possibility--and more because of the constraining effect it threatens to impose upon U.S. strategy for the greater Middle East. The danger is that Iran will “extend” its deterrence, either directly or de facto, to a variety of states and other actors throughout the region. This would be an ironic echo of the extended deterrence thought to apply to U.S. allies during the Cold War. But in the greater Middle East of the twenty-first century, we are the truly revolutionary force and “revolutionary” Iran is more the status quo power.

The attitudes of the Council on Foreign Relations Iran task force reveal this dynamic with creepy perfection. Aware that the fundamental strategic choice on Iran is between policies of regime change and détente, the consensus among the task force members is that the problem is the weapons, not the government building them. Indeed, the report makes it clear that the task force was divided about the state of Iran’s nuclear program:

Although Task Force members voiced differing opinions on whether evidence is sufficient to determine that Iran has fully committed itself to developing nuclear weapons, the Task Force agreed that Iran is likely to continue its pattern of tactical cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency while attempting to conceal the scope of its nuclear program in order to keep its options open as long as possible.[16]

But if there were nuances about the state of Tehran’s nukes, there seems to be consensus about American policy: forget the regime-change idea and concentrate on the weapons. By focusing narrowly on the issues of Iran’s weapons, any discussion of the larger consequences for American policy can be avoided.

What would the consequences be of a bargain with Iran--be it grand or small--for a strategy of political transformation in the greater Middle East? Is it possible to pursue détente with Iran and regime change elsewhere?

Throughout the greater Middle East, any overt bargain with Iran will surely be read as a retreat on the part of the United States. Three years after September 11, the question remains: do the Americans have the strength, stomach, and sincerity to carry through their project of democratization and regional transformation? Observers in the Middle East can see that President Bush is committed, but there are doubts about the rest of his government. The world’s other industrial powers are either openly afraid and thus hostile, skeptical, or at best noncommittal; but for a handful of allies, America stands alone. If John Kerry becomes president, he will backpedal--and the message in the region will be clear.

Détente with Iran would compel the forces of freedom in the Middle East to further hedge their bets, and our sometime allies, like the Saudis, who through the 1990s tried to reach an accommodation with Tehran, would equally reckon that U.S. ambitions for change had overleaped themselves. Even Pakistan--congenitally unstable and prone to play all ends against the middle absent unceasing American attention--might toy with the idea of reversing its post-9/11 policies.

A bargain with Iran would also have global effects. The most serious would not be in France or Germany, whose governments have made it plain that they have no heart for transformation in the Middle East or for a serious effort to oppose Iran, but in China. Beijing and Tehran share a mutual dissatisfaction with the Pax Americana and have a long record of direct and indirect cooperation on nuclear and missile programs. Hu Jintao and the new generation of leaders in China have a much larger, global perspective than did Jiang Zemin and Deng Xiaoping before them, greater confidence flowing from China’s economic modernization, and, almost certainly, an appetite to play the geopolitical game more actively. Their horizons very clearly extend throughout the greater Middle East--China’s energy interest in Sudan already poses the single greatest roadblock to stopping the genocide in Darfur, for example--and they are deeply conscious of the potential U.S. stranglehold on China’s future growth. Torn between their interests in U.S. security guarantees and a desire for greater autonomy, Beijing will keenly note, and perhaps be happy to broker, any bargain for Iran.

Regime Change by Other Means

If détente with a nuclear Islamic Republic jeopardizes the project of Middle East transformation, then direct military confrontation is an equally unappetizing method of regime change. In the heat of the “Do Something!” moment, the difficulties of even limited military strikes are too little appreciated. While a full discussion of the operational realities is beyond the scope of this essay, some hard truths are worth mentioning. Iran is large, populous, rugged, and its nuclear facilities are spread throughout the country. Its nuclear program probably cannot be crippled in a single, surgical strike, as was Iraq’s in Israel’s famous Osirak raid.

And, speaking of the Israelis, it is not uncommon to hear the hope expressed among U.S. policymakers, albeit sotto voce, that they will somehow solve the puzzle that perplexes us. Earlier in September, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Tel Aviv was planning on buying 500 bunker-busters, precisely the kind of munitions that might be able to destroy Iran’s underground nuclear facilities.[17]

In truth, however, a preemptive strike by Tel Aviv would be exceedingly difficult. Israel’s long-range strike capacity is a fraction of the U.S. military’s and would, as a matter of logistics, require at least American acquiescence (we own a good deal of the airspace between Tel Aviv and Tehran). And even if, miraculously, an Israeli strike achieved some tactical success, the Iranians would surely hold us responsible and target U.S. interests in retaliation. In sum, punitive strikes cannot be designed to end the Iranian nuclear threat nor ensure regime change, as our decade-long experience with Saddam Hussein should remind us.

Nor, it seems, can traditional, “multilateral” diplomacy. From Khartoum to Tehran, the “international community” is proving again that it is unwilling to confront renegade regimes. Iran’s flouting of the IAEA and the UN also takes a page from Saddam’s book. Despite growing evidence of Iran’s nuclear malfeasance, many countries are reluctant to sanction it for what they view as its legitimate right to develop a complete nuclear fuel cycle.

Alas, the primary burden of isolating and containing a nearly nuclear Iran rests with the United States. Like so much of our future work in the greater Middle East, this must be a long-term effort requiring patience and resolve. The first order of business is to keep Iran from establishing a deeper relationship with great-power sponsors. Breaking Tehran’s ties to China will be difficult, given the fact that no American administration, Republican or Democrat, has yet been willing to force Beijing to choose between the constraints and the benefits of the Pax Americana--witness Taiwan, North Korea, and now Sudan. Better hopes lie with India, which, if pressured to scale back its links to Iran as the price of a real strategic partnership with the United States, might become a serious future ally.

The second order of business is for the United States to retain the initiative in its new project of reform and transformation in the greater Middle East. The real isolation of revolutionary Iran will come when it is drowned in a larger sea of liberal, accountable governments in the region. If democracy takes hold in Afghanistan--where ten million have registered to vote in October’s presidential election, far more than expected--and Iraq--where, despite a continuing counterinsurgency campaign, the transitional government of Iyad Allawi has pledged to hold a vote this January--Iran’s dictatorship will come under increasing pressure.

In a curious way, Iran suffers from both the Middle East’s great maladies--it is both a sclerotic autocracy and a backward-looking theocracy. The success of democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq not only will surround Iran strategically, but ideologically as well. In the final analysis, supporting and expanding the forces of freedom in the region offers, for now, our best hope for containing Iran and diluting the value of its nuclear deterrent.

Notes

1. The author is indebted to Henry Sokolski, director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, for making available the draft report, Restraining a Nuclear-Ready Iran: Seven Levers, A Report of NPEC’s Competitive Strategies Working Group, September 13, 2004. Though the conclusions about Iran’s nuclear program are the author’s, they rest heavily on the innovative and original research that NPEC has conducted.

2. Max Boot, “Bush Can’t Afford Inaction on Iran,” Los Angeles Times, September 9, 2004.

3. Ibid.

4. Zbigniew Brzezinski and Robert M. Gates, cochairs, Iran: Time for a New Approach (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 2004). Accessed at http://www.cfr.org/pdf/ Iran_TF.pdf.

5. Ibid., 2.

6. Ibid., 3.

7. Ibid., 3-4.

8. Ibid., 4.

9. Ibid., 1.

10. Douglas V. Johnson and Stephen C. Pelletiere, Lessons Learned: The Iran-Iraq War, Volume I, Fleet Marine Force Reference Publication 3-203, 1990.

11. Patterns of Global Terrorism 2003 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of State, April 2004). Available at http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2003/.

12. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report (July 2004), 61. Available at http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/ 911Report_FM.pdf.

13. Ibid., 240-241.

14. Douglas Jehl and Eric Schmitt, “U.S. Suggests a Qaeda Cell in Iran Directed Saudi Bombings,” New York Times, May 21, 2003.

15. Patterns of Global Terrorism 2003 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of State, April 2004). Available at http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2003/.

16. Brzezinski and Gates, Iran: Time for a New Approach, 2.

17. Craig S. Smith, “Iran Moves Toward Enriching Uranium,” New York Times, September 22, 2004.

Thomas Donnelly is a resident fellow at AEI.

A November showdown on Iran's nuclear program

By Emile El-Hokayem
Special to The Daily Star
Friday, October 01, 2004

Despite intense negotiations recently at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) headquarters in Vienna, the Iranian nuclear challenge has remained very much unresolved. Delegates struggled to come up with a unified stance, but even their apparent unity was insufficient to get the Iranians to agree to minimal compliance with IAEA demands.

While some approaches to the problem might buy time, the Iranians seem set on their course. Their most recent announcement that they would convert uranium into gas needed for enrichment was yet another threshold crossed by Tehran in its defiance of the IAEA. The assurances of Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, a weakened leader who is set to leave office next year, that Iran would refrain from building nuclear weapons, had little if any credibility. Barring a dramatic shift on Iran's part, the stage is set for a showdown at the UN Security Council in November, after the American presidential election.

Yet, the Security Council is unlikely to be the venue for reaching a viable solution. What the U.S. will seek in New York depends on whether President George W. Bush gets reelected. A second Bush administration will push for international sanctions, but wide-ranging agreement is needed for the sanctions to become effective. Without this consensus, the U.S. will be unable to achieve much. Indeed, if the use of force is taken off the table, Washington has little leverage over Tehran: the U.S. Congress and different American administrations have imposed all possible political and economic sanctions. Washington, therefore, needs unanimous European, Russian and Chinese endorsement of its views. The Europeans might be frustrated by Iranian tactics and deception, feel embarrassed by their own lack of success, and side with the U.S. But even with some European Union countries on board, new sanctions will require arduous negotiations and more American frustration with the UN process.

Whether Bush can succeed in garnering international support for his plan is doubtful. Many countries remain distrustful of the U.S. and remember the strenuous negotiations over Resolution 1441 and subsequent debates over Iraq. And making the case for sanctions against Iran will be tough: With Iraq fresh in mind, questions as to the quality of intelligence and the wisdom of a coercive approach would come to dominate the debate.

Moreover, Russia and China, who publicly, if quietly, opposed the Iraq war, are likely to actively resist the efforts of the U.S. and its allies. Both countries have massive economic and political interests in Iran and helped it develop its nuclear industry. With Iran now surrounded by American allies, both worry about U.S. designs for the region. Finally, the two countries do not share Washington's Middle East vision or its anxiousness over the direction being taken by Tehran. The Bush administration has not prepared the ground for a successful diplomatic outcome, and the trade-offs required to get Beijing and Moscow on board might come at too high a cost for Washington.

The Democratic candidate John Kerry has articulated a daring strategy that would put Tehran to the test by guaranteeing fuel supply to Iranian nuclear plants, but also see to it that the fuel is reprocessed outside the country. The pluses of this approach are evident - Iran's intentions would be exposed, while it would also be given the benefit of the doubt. However, it could also precipitate a showdown should Iran hesitate or rebuff the offer. This plan evokes - without replicating - the 1994 Agreed Framework that the Clinton administration offered to North Korea, which delayed rather than stopped its nuclear program. However, the Kerry plan is even bolder because it seeks an end to the crisis.

Bush, in turn, would impose sanctions because his basic policy assumption is that Iran is on its way to building nuclear weapons. Kerry would expose Iranian intentions first, and, if a nuclear weapons program is confirmed, proceed to enroll the international community in a vast effort to roll it back.

The problem with both strategies is that they divorce the nuclear question from the larger issues at stake, thus ignoring the reasoning behind Tehran's security policy. By treating the Iranian nuclear issue as solely a security concern (albeit one that is crucial), the U.S. is avoiding the difficult task of defining a comprehensive and consistent policy toward Iran. It also ignores the matter of Iran's role in the region. However, Iran's now-evidenced interference in American efforts in Iraq, as well as its continued support for radical groups, makes it difficult for U.S. policymakers to reason in grand strategic terms.

That said, the Washington policy debate is abuzz with new ideas on how to deal with Iran. The hawks might be counting the troops and equipment needed to deal a blow to Iran, but from "selective engagement" to a "grand bargain" an array of more pragmatic ideas is available. Their proponents include former high-level officials and regional experts who understand the danger of reducing the discussion to the nuclear issue. This inflates the value of Iran's nuclear program while obscuring other areas where progress can be made.

Iran has several valid rationales, at least in its own eyes, for pursuing a military nuclear capability. For many Iranian decision-makers, the Iraq war suggests that a strong, credible deterrent is the best shield against American aggressiveness. Similarly, the North Korean negotiations suggest that the U.S. will come to the negotiation table and even explore deals that include security concessions when it is faced with complex challenges from nuclear states.

If Iran's wager that the international community will be unable to formulate a common approach proves right, and if the Europeans refrain from imposing sanctions, the Iranians could reap substantial benefits. But if the U.S. pursues a policy of engagement, Tehran will be hard-pressed to respond positively to American overtures. Iran might prefer a grand bargain, but it should also accept incremental steps aimed at diffusing tensions. If it wavers, it will send a damaging message to the world and confirm the worst fears about its aims.

A showdown with Iran will have grave repercussions on global affairs. From arms control and terrorism to stability in the Gulf and democracy, Iran is at the nexus of several major issues dominating the international agenda. If the U.S. can move beyond domestic considerations and its structural limitations in comprehending Iran, it could at least convince the world of its good intentions.

Emile El-Hokayem is a researcher in Middle East security issues at the Henry L. Stimson

Center, a Washington think tank. He wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR

Iran leader reasserts arms views

Susan Chira NYT Friday, October 1, 2004

Iran's foreign minister has said that his country will never give up its right to develop nuclear technology for peaceful use, though he denied any intent to produce nuclear weapons.

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The minister, Kamal Kharrazi, told journalists Wednesday that relations with the United States were at a low point, and charged that influential neoconservatives were urging the United States to attack Iran, seeking "regime change." But he said that Iran was ready to negotiate with European ministers to find a way to calm fears that it was developing nuclear weapons.

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"Nobody has the right to deny Iran its right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes," he said. "We are ready to negotiate with them on any instrument or mechanism that would remove the concern of others."

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Previous meetings with European ministers have ended with no resolution; Kharrazi said no new meetings had been scheduled.

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Last week, Iran defied the International Atomic Energy Agency by saying it was resuming the process that enriches uranium, but it said it was to produce power, not bombs, as the United States has charged. The United States has been pushing to bring the matter before the UN Security Council.

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Asked whether Iran had converted all the uranium it possessed, Kharrazi said, "I don't know, but the IAEA cameras are there."

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During the Wednesday meeting with American journalists at the residence of the Iranian ambassador to the UN, Kharrazi also said that Iran was eager to see Iraq hold elections in January, even if not every city could participate - a position shared by Iraq's influential cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who has longstanding ties with Iran. He also said he was confident that the Iraqi elections, as well as elections scheduled Oct. 9 in Afghanistan, would be good for the entire region.

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He said he was not worried that Iran's interests would be threatened by elections in the two nations, which border Iran. "Democracy does not necessarily bring pro-U.S. governments," he said.

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Some Pentagon officials have charged that Iran is sending money and weapons into Iraq, both to bolster Shiite insurgents such as Moktada al-Sadr and to increase its influence over Shiite political parties to help sway the election.

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"The Pentagon is quite wrong that Iran is doing this," Kharrazi said. Instead of backing al-Sadr, he said, Iran had in fact helped to moderate him.

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The United States made a mistake in opposing al-Sadr, Kharrazi said, because it merely swelled his popularity. And he said Iran did not need to send money, since it already wields influence in Iraq.

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He predicted that the insurgency would continue, swelled by resentment of ordinary Iraqis. "Iraqis who have been humiliated somehow by the United States - and their families have been killed or tortured - are very ready to kill Americans," he said.

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He said the only solution would be a multinational force under the command of the United Nations, an idea the United States has opposed.

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He cited recent opinion polls showing that even in nations whose governments have been friendly to the United States, like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, the vast majority of people are hostile to the American government. Such hostility fuels extremism, he said.

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Only if the United States changes policies that support Israel can it hope to win over ordinary people in the Middle East, he said.

Iran reassures Russia on nukes

* Envoy says Tehran will work with UN to remove all concerns about its nukes

MOSCOW: Iran’s envoy to Russia assured Moscow on Thursday Tehran would work with the UN atomic agency to remove all concerns about its nuclear programme after Russia criticised Iran’s stance on the issue.

Russia’s criticism of nuclear partner Iran could lead to Moscow throwing its weight behind US efforts to take Iran to the UN Security Council for possible economic sanctions at a UN nuclear watchdog meeting in November, diplomats say.

In a note sent to Reuters after talks between Iranian Ambassador Gholamreza Shafei and Russia’s top nuclear official, Alexander Rumyantsev, Iran nevertheless stressed making nuclear fuel did not breach any UN nuclear rules.

“During the conversation Iran stressed that the Islamic Republic’s nuclear programme is fully peaceful,” it said.

“While continuing to work with the IAEA and the global community to prove the Iranian nuclear programme is peaceful, Iran states that making nuclear fuel is within norms stipulated by the NPT (nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty)...and no country can take away that right.”

Russia toughened its stance on Iran this month after Tehran threatened to defy a call by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for it to stop work on enriching uranium - a process that can be used to develop nuclear arms.

Formally, Russia - a permanent UN Security Council member with a veto right - opposes taking Iran to the Council.

Washington says Iran wants nuclear weapons and may use Russian atomic know-how to acquire them - a charge Iran and Moscow deny.

Russia has been building a nuclear power station near the Iranian city of Bushehr on and off for more than a decade. President Vladimir Putin has said Russia would ditch the $800 million project should Iran breach any IAEA requirements.

The Iranian embassy also said Rumyantsev would travel to Iran in late November to discuss nuclear ties. reuters

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_1-10-2004_pg4_12

Iran's Revolutionary Guard chief shrugs off danger from Israel

TEHRAN (AFP) — The chief of Iran's Revolutionary Guard shrugged off the danger of Israel waging a long-distance war against the Islamic Republic, the official IRNA news agency reported Thursday.

"The Zionist regime is not capable of waging a long-distance war against Iran," said General Yahya Rahim Safavi, head of Iran's ideological army, in apparent reference to Israel's ballistic arsenal. "We keep watch of the Zionist military movements against Iran and we regard them as incompetent," he said, without elaborating. But Israel is "not only a threat to the Arab and Islamic region and the Middle East, but for the entire world's security", the Revolutionary Guard commander said. Defence Minister Ali Shamkhani said last week that the Iranian army had taken delivery of a new "strategic missile" and that the weapon, unnamed for security reasons, was successfully tested. Iran has deliberately kept mum on whether the missile was the Shahab-3. Believed to be based on a North Korean design, it is thought to be capable of carrying a one-tonne warhead at least 1,300 kilometres, well within range of Israel. On Wednesday, Israel's Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz said Iran must be stopped before it achieves nuclear capability. Iran insists that its atomic energy programme is purely peaceful, but the United States and Israel, in particular, fear it conceals efforts to develop nuclear weapons. Israel, believed the be the only nuclear-armed country in the Middle East, now views Iran as its number one enemy after the downfall of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq and has been lobbying hard for greater international pressure to be exerted on Tehran. Iran's Revolutionary Guard commander said his country had "achieved self-sufficiency in the military industry, especially in medium-range and long-range missiles."

http://www.jordantimes.com/fri/news/news5.htm

Russia is Against Taking Iran’s Case to U.N. Security Council

Russia, which is building Iran’s first nuclear reactor in Bushehr, said today it is against referring Iran’s nuclear program to the U.N. Security Council.

"Taking this issue to the U.N. Security Council - which is a political body - will hardly do us any favors," Igor Ivanov, head of Russia's Security Council and a former foreign minister told the Interfax news agency.
Ivanov’s comments came a day after Iran said its nuclear program should not be referred to the U.N. body. But at the same time John Bolton, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, said the U.S. is pushing for Iran’s nuclear activities to be debated at the Security Council. The U.S> is accusing Iran of secretly pursuing a nuclear weapons program. Iran rejects the US allegations and says its nuclear program is solely for civilian purposes.

Iran’s Foreign Minster Kamal Kharrazi told CNN on Tuesday that Iran is not seeking nuclear bombs, but it has developed long and medium-range missiles to defend itself against potential threats. Kharrazi also said that Iran’s nuclear program should not be referred to the UN Security Council because “there hasn't been a violation.”

Meanwhile, John Bolton said at a conference at the American Enterprise Institute that, "The reason we favor taking it to the Security Council is, we want to put Iran in the international spotlight, in the agency and the UN system responsible for such matters, to change the global political dynamic, to increase the pressure on Iran to give up pursuit of nuclear weapons.”

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has called on Iran to immediately suspend all activities related to uranium enrichment and to provide a definitive review of its nuclear activities until the 25th of November . The agency will decide in its November session “whether or not further steps are appropriate “.

http://www.radiofarda.com/en_article/2004/9/258d0ff3-743f-4e29-89ee-67eed4ef87da.html

Ahura Yazdi has cancelled his "liberation" trip to Iran after telling people for over 300 days that he will be going Iran. After taking 3 calls all the sudden the guy cancels his liberation trip.

He told the interviewer in Persian that he won't be attending now but will be attending sometime later. He said the Iranian government have worked it so that his plans will not work out.

He sounds like a total con dodging every single question and changing everything he's ever said during this interview. The interviewer slams him throughout with questions he answers and then quotes his previous statements for which he has no answer other then the Iranian government has plans.

http://www.radiofarda.com/iran_article/2004/9/8d99a998-73cc-4ae5-a0e2-f260ad4d19a3.html

He also said that the people of Iran will be free in spirit, but the interview questioned him on his previous statements on how he'd enter the country and there will be an immediate revolution, whereby he dodged the question and gave an off the wall answer about timing. The interviewer kept asking him so you won't return until the people themselves take out the regime and he kept saying it is the will of the people and said that it was the people who didn't want him to go.

US Official Calls Alleged Iranian Nuclear Ambitions a Growing Threat

Gary Thomas
Washington
30 Sep 2004, 19:22 UTC

Listen to Gary Thomas' report (RealAudio)

Thomas report - Download 331k (RealAudio)

A senior U.S. official says the United States sees Iran, with its pursuit of nuclear technology, as a growing threat to U.S. troops in Iraq, as well as to its neighbors in the Middle East. The State Department official also denounced what he says is Iranian involvement in neighboring Iraq.


AP
John Bolton file photo

In an interview with VOA Thursday, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton said Iran's alleged bid to make nuclear weapons is a threat to U.S. troops and allies.

"We see the Iranian pursuit of nuclear weapons as being particularly dangerous for the United States forces in the region, and for our friends and allies in the Middle East and in Eastern Europe," he said. "As Iran develops ballistic missile capabilities, and pursues nuclear weapons, we see that threat as growing."

Iran has repeatedly denied it is pursuing nuclear weapons, and says it is only seeking to produce electricity from nuclear power. The United States wants to bring the matter before the U.N. Security Council.

In New York Wednesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazzi told journalists Iran would never give up peaceful nuclear technology, but again denied that Iran wants to produce nuclear weapons. He added, however, that Iran finds concerns about its nuclear program understandable, and said Iran is willing to resume talks with European nations in a bid to calm fears.

The nuclear issue is one of several major impediments to any improvement in the frigid relationship between Washington and Tehran. Mr. Kharazzi acknowledged that U.S.-Iranian relations are at a low point.

U.S. officials have also accused Iran of sending arms and funds to Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shi'ite Muslim cleric who is waging an insurgency against U.S. forces and the Iraqi interim government. Mr. Bolton said Iran has been what he termed unhelpful in Iraq.

"I don't think there's any question that there's Iranian involvement in Iraq that's not helpful, and we've made that clear to them," he said. "British and other coalition partners have made that clear to them. We're determined to have free and fair elections in Iraq in January, and it's not helpful to that process to have anyone, inside or outside, try to disrupt the progress Iraq is making toward a democratic solution."

Iranian Foreign Minister Kharazzi denied any meddling in Iraq. He said Iran agrees that elections in Iraq must be held on time, even if some cities must be temporarily excluded because of poor security.

Mr. Bolton said efforts by insurgents to disrupt the electoral timetable in Iraq is evidence that they are, as he put it, getting desperate.

From: Esther's Children: A Portrait of Iranian Jews.

Directors of Hebra. Hamadan, 1918. (Courtesy of Center for Iranian Jewish Oral History, CIJOH. From the collection of Faryar Nikbakht.)

Kohan’s Antiques and Persian Rug Store, and other Jewish-owned stores. Eslambol Street. Tehran, c. 1940. Nurollah Kohan with Pahlavi hat. (Courtesy of CIJOH. From the collection of Parvaneh Kohan Comrouz.)

Aqa-Jan Abrishami Synagogue, Iran’s most prominent congregation with Hakham Yedidia Shofet and Rav David Shofet as its rabbis. Tehran, c. 1980.

Cemetery. Lenjan, near Isfahan. 1993. (Courtesy CIJOH. Photograph by Annabelle Sreberny.)

View of Zir-e taq. The edge of the vaulted roof that covers the kucheh can be seen at the top of the photograph. Shiraz. At the time of Reza Shah a new street called Khiaban-e Now (New Street) was driven through Shiraz’s mahalleh, dividing the Jewish residential area into two separate sections. One continued to be called mahalleh, and the other was referred to as Zir-e taq (under the dom), so called because many of its alleys (kucheh), often no wider than a meter, were covered with a vaulted roof (see fig. 1462). In colloquial parlance, these narrow side streets were referred to as Ashti-konun (see fig. 1461)-- a term that vaguely translates into “forgive-and-forget”-- because the passage was so tight that if two estranged friends encountered each other in them they could not pass by each other without their bodies touching and would hence be “forced” to resolve the issue that stood between them. (Courtesy of CIJOH. Photograph by Prof. Laurence Loeb.)

Good book on history of Iranian Jews. Esther's Children: A Portrait of Iranian Jews by Houman Sarshar

(10/01/2004) Send this article Print this Article Send this article

Iran Seeking Foothold In Lebanon

Effort to bolster Hezbollah as it develops nuclear weapons makes Tehran a major threat.

Stewart Ain - Staff Writer

As Israeli leaders continued to warn against the dangers posed should Iran develop nuclear weapons, Tehran reportedly conspired with Syria in August to have its Hezbollah proxies replace Yasir Arafat’s troops as the most important Palestinian force in Lebanon.

The effort failed, but the Israeli daily Maariv quotes Israeli intelligence sources as saying that Iran is expected to continue trying to gain a strong foothold along the Mediterranean coast in Lebanon and to allow al Qaeda to also operate from there. Such a base with Syrian troop protection would allow Iran to threaten Israel, Turkey and Europe.

Gerald Steinberg, a political science professor at Bar-Ilan University, confirmed that Syria and Hezbollah have been attempting to wrest control from Arafat’s Fatah movement in Lebanon for some time now. He noted that this power struggle comes at the same time that Arafat and Hezbollah are working together to fight Israel in the West Bank and Gaza.

“That’s the paradox of the Middle East,” Steinberg said. “They’re fighting each other and working together at the same time.”

It is these developments that are said to be a reason the U.S. — and later the United Nations — began exerting pressure on Syria to withdraw its 18,000 troops from Lebanon in the hope that Lebanon would then reassert its sovereignty and crush Hezbollah. As of mid-week, 3,000 Syrian troops had reportedly been redeployed in the hope of satisfying the demand.

The U.S. has also stepped up its pressure on Syria not to allow terrorists bent on causing havoc in Iraq to enter Iraq through Syria’s borders. Israel added to the pressure last Sunday when it killed a senior Hamas official, Izadin al-Sheik Khalil, with a car bomb in Damascus, the first time Israel struck a Hamas leader in Syria.

Syria had earlier claimed that all Hamas operatives had been expelled from its capital. Khalil reportedly had ties to Iran.

Mordechai Kedar, a senior research associate at Bar-Ilan University’s Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, said he has no doubt that Iran, despite its denials, is also seeking to develop nuclear weapons.

“They took their example from North Korea,” he explained, “a state that has possible nuclear weapons and that now nobody messes with. Iran wants to get to that point.”

Asked if the Iranian rulers would use their nuclear weapons, Kedar replied: “I would not like to risk it because if they decide to use it, it would be with the advice of Allah. And this is the real danger of this regime, one that thinks it rules by the word of Allah and will never be bound to rules of international political life.”

Yuval Steinitz, chairman of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, warned here last week that Iran must not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons.

“If Iran becomes nuclear, a dark curtain would cover the [Persian] Gulf, the Middle East, Israel and the West,” he said at a meeting of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

President George W. Bush told an interviewer this week that the U.S. would not allow Iran to develop a nuclear bomb.

“We’ve made it clear,” he said. “Our position is that they won’t have a nuclear weapon.”

Last month, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Israel is “taking measures to defend itself” against an Iranian nuclear threat, a statement some interpreted as meaning that Israel was preparing to militarily destroy Iran’s nuclear production facilities the way it blew up Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981. But analysts point out that a similar attack on Iran is impossible because Iran’s nuclear program is spread all over the country, with much of it underground.

The need to deal with the Iranian nuclear threat quickly was underscored in the last few days by several developments:

On Monday, Israel’s national security adviser, Giora Eiland, was quoted by Maariv as saying Iran would reach the “point of no return” in its nuclear weapons program in November rather than next year as previously believed.
Iranian Vice President Reza Aghazadeh revealed last week that Iran has started converting raw uranium into the gas needed for enrichment, a key step in the making of a nuclear bomb.
The International Atomic Energy Agency had earlier demanded that Iran freeze all uranium enrichment, including conversion, and threatened to bring the matter to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions if Iran ignored it.
On Tuesday, John Bolton, U.S. undersecretary for arms control and international security, told a meeting in Washington that the U.S. wants the IAEA to take the matter to the Security Council next month [November] “to put pressure on Iran to give up pursuit of nuclear weapons.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi told CNN Tuesday that this is not a Security Council matter “because there hasn’t been a violation,” contrary to U.S. claims that Iran is concealing its nuclear weapons development program.

“We are against [a] nuclear bomb,” Kharazi insisted. “And it’s not part of our defense strategy.”

Shteinitz said he favors bringing the matter to the Security Council but only if it is made “extremely clear to Iran’s leadership that at the end of the day we are not going to allow” them to develop a nuclear bomb.

“The effectiveness of warnings and sanctions is not due to the strength of each sanction,” Shteinitz stressed, “but due to Iran’s realization that it is going to have to pay the price” if its leaders do not heed the Security Council’s decision. n

Prof. warns of Iran's nuclear ability

Johns Hopkins Newsletter - By Mary Banks
Oct 1, 2004

Professor Steven David, director of international studies, started the Coalition of Hopkins Activists for Israel's (CHAI) "Professor Speak" Symposium Tuesday night, with a lecture and discussion session titled "Iran and Nukes: What Now?"

Professor Steven David stressed the dangers of Iran's nuclear program.

(Robin Shaw/News-Letter)

According to David, Iran now has the potential to create nuclear weapons through centrifugation, a process which involves separation of particles of varying density, to optimize the isotope U235, the isotope needed to create a nuclear weapon. From this process, which is referred to as "enriching," Iran can increase its uranium production by 90 percent.

David asserted that the United States should be concerned about Iran's potential. He warned that if nuclear weapons are in fact created, they could potentially fall into the hands of Iran"s Muslim extremists. Iran already has over 100 missiles, and though David conceded that these missiles do not have the capability of targeting an American city from Iran, they could be transported on a commercial planes or sea vessels to wreak havoc on American soil.

Though David painted a daunting picture of Iran's capability, he is even more pessimistic about the United States' capability to fight Iran. "Iran has a larger population and a better military than Iraq," said David.

Additionally, because uranium production is not performed in a centralized facility, "this creates the problem of locating the uranium. Centrifuges can be dispersed. You can't destroy something, if you don't know its location," David said.

Along with the difficulty involved in destroying nuclear production facilities, a tremendous amount of civilian casualties would occur, because these such facilities are located in populated cities.

Another option the United States could employ is not to do anything - to let Iran build their nuclear weapons. Advocates of this course of action argue that nuclear weapons create a "peaceful" situation, due to the fact that, because their neighbors have weapons, countries would be less inclined to use them.

David used the situation in India and Pakistan as an example of this method. Though he recognized the logic behind these claims, he found them unfavorable. He argued that once these weapons are in extremists' hands, "this would create a more volatile situation, as opposed to a friendly one."

According to David, "diplomacy is the third option." The United States could negotiate with Iran to see if they would agree to stop producing uranium. Though this is an optimistic outlook, David stated, this is unlikely to be effective, especially considering that Iran agreed to stop "enriching" its uranium, and then later reneged on this agreement.

David argued that the United States could "rely on deterrence" and threaten Iran into submission. However, if the United States were to do this, it would have to rely on its already overburdened military, which would not be advantageous for the United States. "The military options are not great, though they exist," said David.

Though he did not recommend it, David also suggested that the United States could use covert means to bring a change in government. He asserted that Iran is the second-most pro-American country in the Middle East, second to Israel; extremists are the ones who taint its atmosphere and political climate. However, he warned, if the United States were to use this tactic, and the American public were to find out, the government would loose its legitimacy.

Though David stressed that Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons should be stopped, he is not optimistic about this prospect. "I think we can slow it down, but we can not stop it," he said.

Inside Track / Next year in Tehran

Ha'aretz - By Amir Oren
Oct 1, 2004

For the past three years the central war game of the U.S. armed forces has been centered on Iran. But what exactly will await them there, even they do not purport to know

Six divisional task forces of the U.S. armed forces, subordinate to three corps commands arrive simultaneously from six different directions; two airborne expeditionary forces (combat wings, transport, command and control, intelligence, refueling); five aircraft carriers at a distance of up to 1,500 kilometers from their northernmost targets; three Special Forces battalions - all struck at Iran and pushed to seize its capital city.

The Iranians sent a far larger ground force into action against them, consisting of 15-17 corps commands, suffering blatantly from air inferiority but trained to use drones against the invader, along with missiles and weapons of mass destruction (most likely chemical and biological, not nuclear. The fighting centered on Tehran, where the Americans were out to topple the regime of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was 30 days away from installing a nuclear warhead on a surface-to-surface missile, whose range included American targets.

It is on the basis of this scenario that, for the past three years, the central war game of the U.S. armed forces has been conducted, under the codename Unified Quest, or UQ for short. The stages of the game continue throughout the year and it reaches its peak in one feverish week in May, at the War College in Carlyle, Pennsylvania.

There was no point trying to hide the Iranian background to the event, in which a large number of officers and civilians take part - more than 500 every year - including observers from foreign countries (Britain, Spain, France, Germany, Turkey, Australia and Israel, too), from the State Department and the Department of Interior, from the CIA and the FBI, and from organizations such as Medecins sans Frontieres (Physicians Without Borders), which this year sent a delegation of physicians. Indeed, not only did the Pentagon forgo any attempt to keep the event secret, it tried to play up the Iranian aspect. The enemy state was called "Nair," and for the mentally challenged it was explained that this is a fictional state on the basis of the geography and culture of Iran.

Officially, there is no direct connection between the doctrinal, organization and operational ideas that the command of the integrated forces and the land arm are putting into practice in Unified Quest - similar war games are held under the auspices of the air force, the navy and the marines - and the decisions that will be placed on the president's desk, for him to make with his exclusive authority, when the time comes. In practice, there is no differentiating between the insights that are achieved in the war game and what the Pentagon will prepare for the president's authorization. The one small difference is between a war game and a war that will be no game.

Other headaches

Just as the American presence in Afghanistan did not prevent the incursion into Iraq, so it will not prevent an operation in Iran, either. A hint in this direction can also be found in the innovation that has been introduced into the next exercise in the UQ series. The games of 2002-2004 dealt with three scenarios, of which the Iranian scenario was only one, albeit the most important of the three.

Alongside it Washington had to deal with two other headaches, one an underground revolt in "Sumasia" (Sumatra / Indonesia), the other terrorism in the American homeland. The Israeli representative was assigned to help rehabilitate battle-torn Sumasia and not in the activity in Nair, perhaps in order to ward off in advance allegations about joint American-Israeli planning against Iran.

Now the Sumasi scenario, which has been fully played out, has been set aside, and the 2005 UQ exercise, which will be played in May 2005, though the preparations begin this month, will focus on "Nair." That is the immediate mission, and to bridge the gaps that were revealed in the previous exercises will require the massing of all the forces.

It turns out that even as the eyes of the world are on the collision course between Iran's thrust for nuclear arms and the international community, which is imploring Tehran to stop and is hinting that there will be those (Americans, Israelis) who will not balk at a preemptive strike against the nuclear facilities in Iran, systematic preparations are underway for a different type of military operation: not against the nuclear sites - that could be part of the operation, by means of Special Forces and air strikes, but that will not be enough - but against the regime that refuses to stop.

To create a deterrent threat against Iran, as the country pushes to go nuclear, without admitting to offensive intentions, a UQ narrative farther into the future, in 2015-2016, was set. But the timing ploy is transparent and suffers from an internal contradiction, because the rationale of the confrontation with Iran will not occur in another dozen years. It will be resolved, one way or the other, by Iranian submission or American action, in the years immediately ahead, and perhaps within one year.

President Bush's top adviser, Karl Rove, is said to have declared that you don't shoot in an election year - and, in the months ahead, the efforts at persuasion will continue, along with the warnings and the sanctions, until the moment of decision arrives, though the threat must not be brandished before the polls close.

Secretary of State Colin Powell last week was careful to use the phrase "at present" when he said at the United Nations that the U.S. does not have plans for military action. As soon as the words left his mouth, that present ended and a different present, a new one, began. In its official, futuristic, timetable, the campaign that has been practiced in Unified Quest will be superfluous or too late.

Lessons from the IDF

The two main problems identified by the commanders of the Americans' "blue" force (joined by the British and, it's hoped, by others as well) in doing battle against the "red" enemy are the complexity of the urban environment and the vulnerability of the supply and communications lines. About 12 million people are crowded into the urban space of Tehran, and that number will rise to 17 million in the coming decade. The population of Greater Tehran has shot up by leaps of millions in recent years. Israelis who were last there a quarter of a century ago, when Khomeini took power, will discover that the city has more than doubled in size.

American officers warn that the routine training for combat in built-up areas is more appropriate to villages and towns than to a vast conurbation of this scale, a "mega-city" that extends across dozens of square kilometers of territory.

One of the commanders of the "red," quasi-Iranian, force, retired Colonel Richard Sinnreich, wrote, in justification of the Israeli arm's Operation Defensive Shield in Jenin, that U.S. forces are more likely to encounter situations similar to those in the West Bank than those they encountered in Afghanistan. That was before the war in Iraq. General Kevin Byrnes, commander of TRADOC (U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command), said this year in a lecture that the study of the up-to-date lessons of the Israel Defense Forces and the British Army was an essential element in planning for Iraq. Even as he spoke, the reds of Sinnreich and his colleagues surprised the blues in the capital of Nair by transferring military units from sector to sector not secretly but completely in the open - though without the blues being able to bomb them, because the move was made in the course of a parade in the streets where thousands of children and other civilians were gathered.

Every soldier a combatant

The Americans don't yet have an answer to the problem that is vexing them in both Iraq and "Nair," along the 900 kilometers of the road from a southern naval base to the capital: how to minimize damage to their combat troops along the access roads.

One in four American deaths in Iraq takes place in non-combat circumstances, usually in vehicle accidents. Many of the other casualties result from the detonation of makeshift bombs. The Americans discovered that there is a large difference between "soldiers" of the type of the captured heroine Jessica Lynch - that is, uniformed personnel in the role of combat support, who have forgotten their basic training - and combatants. The first type are very soon killed, wounded or taken captive.

General Peter Schoomaker, who was recalled from retirement by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to become army chief of staff, in order to make the ground force more combative, set a new goal: every soldier will be a combatant. Signal operator and artillery gunner, military policeman and sergeant in a civilian auxiliary unit - all will first of all be riflemen, so they can defend themselves (and undercut the image of costly entanglement).

In the UQ game the lesson of Iraq was described in more rational terms: there is no gradual transition between the stages of the campaign, from "main battle operations" (whose conclusion Bush festively declared on May 1, 2003) to operations of stabilization and security. All the stages are intertwined. Even if Tehran is conquered, the regime is toppled and the president declares victory, resistance will continue, with the possibility that four of every five Iranians will support it (and there are 68 million Iranians, half of them too young to remember the shah).

It's likely that the Americans will look for a local or exiled underground which it will invite to assist the invasion and thus legitimize it, in the hope that the masses of the regime's opponents - of whom 30 percent or even 40 percent are unemployed - will join. The astonishing phenomenon of the past few weeks - the popular demonstrations in the wake of a promise by a mysterious individual, Dr. Ahura Pileghi Yazdi, in broadcasts from Washington, that Iran will be liberated from the revolutionary regime today, October 1 - shows that latent processes can be awakened at any moment and for any reason. But an external attempt to ride that wave will be a gamble. The Iranians possess a proud national consciousness; they want democracy without ayatollahs, but they also abhor external intervention, and they still remember with affront the intrigues of the CIA and British intelligence which toppled the prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh, half a century ago.

The Americans have a long account to settle with the dead Khomeini and the living Khamenei. The day after the U.S. elections in another month will mark the 25th anniversary of the Iranian seizure of the American embassy in Tehran, which led to the incarceration of 50 hostages for 444 days. During that period the U.S. Army shamed itself in its own failure, without making contact with the enemy, in the planning and execution of an operation to free the hostages.

Afterward, toward the end of the Iran-Iraq war, the Americans fought the Iranians and felled them on the margins of the "war of the tankers" in the Persian Gulf. Iraq, from this point of view, was a double and ongoing diversion, in 1991 and 2003, and in the years between those two wars. The bothersome adversary - in developing missiles and seeking to go nuclear, in assisting Hezbollah and in exporting the revolution (and now also in encouraging insurrection against the Americans in Iraq) - was and remains, Iran.

American dreams

What exactly will await the Americans in Iran, even they do not purport to know. Speaking just a few months ago, at the convention of AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby in Washington, Philo Dibble, the deputy assistant secretary of state for Iran and Iraq (formerly the deputy to the U.S. ambassador in Damascus), said that in the absence of an ongoing presence of his government's representatives in Iran in the recent past, America has no concrete acquaintance with the field there; there's material for reading, conversations are held with Iranians outside their country, developments are analyzed - but America doesn't really know.

Powell, in a talk with the Washington Times, recalled the period when he was a young colonel, the adjutant of the undersecretary of defense in the Carter administration, Charles Duncan, during a visit to Iran. The Iranian air force put on a spectacular show of fighter planes for Duncan, but the American experts who were deployed to assist the air force spoke about it with contempt to Powell, and described to him the gap between the pilots, who were from the aristocracy, and the operators of the systems in the backseat, who were from the lower classes. Powell, who was the national security adviser in the Reagan administration at the end of the Iran-Iraq war, quoted approvingly a remark by Henry Kissinger, who said, "It's too bad both sides didn't lose." And Powell is considered the spokesman of the moderates in the Bush administration.

All these channels converge to one clear operational conclusion. The Americans will be happy not to be drawn into a large operation in Iran. They would rather Khamenei abandons nuclear development, as Khomeini suddenly changed his mind on the eve of his death and gave in to the Iraqi demand for a cease-fire (according to a new study, one reason for this was the downing of a civilian Airbus of Iran Air by missiles fired from an American ship). They will ask the UN to authorize a multilateral operation. They will want the counter-revolution to come from within and not be tainted by foreign intervention. But if all these dreams do not come true soon, and if the connection between missile and nuclear warhead becomes imminent, they will pull out the plans that were practiced in Unified Quest and send the blues to fight the reds.

More unrest in Iranian cities

SMCCDI (Information Service)
Oct 1, 2004

Sporadic clashes took place, late yesterday night, as groups of young sized the occasion offered by a religious ceremony in order to break taboos and to protest against the Islamic regime.

Young girls and boys were seen dancing, chanting and shouting slogans against the Islamic regime and its leaders, in the Keshavarz and Vali-e-Asr areas located in center of Tehran, despite the sporadic brutal attacks of some of regime's plainclothes men often retaliated.

Unprecedented traffic jams blocking several arteries slowed the security forces' deployment and the support of many of the civilian security agents on the ground.

An unusual number of surveillance helico, flying at very low altitude, have been reported from the early hours of today's morning especially in the Azad, Vali-e-Asr and Enghelab areas. It seems that the authorities are fearing popular gatherings at the occasion of the "Mehregan event" declared as "pagan" by the dogmatic Islamists and clerics. Many residents are intending to make, this evening, a celebration and popular show of force at the occasion of this Ancient Iran's legacy.

Clashes were reported as well, yesterday evening, from the cities of Esfahan, Shiraz and Hamadan leading to several injured and arrested. Same type of aerial show of force intending to intimidate the residents has been reported from these cities.

MEHREGAN 2004

Welcome to Persian Harvest Festival of (MEHREGAN) The 9th annual Mehregan event will be held on:
Saturday and Sunday

October 2 & 3, 2004

11:00 AM to 11:00 PM

Orange County Fair & Expo Center in Costa Mesa, CA.

(ENTERTAINMENT Programs).

Admission:
Adult
ONE-Day Pass $20
TWO-Day Pass $30

Child (under 10 years) Free.
Parking is FREE
(Tickets are sold at the Gate) & Major Iranian Markets Plus Ticket Master

Mehregan attracts tens of thousands of people to Orange County, CA. It is the largest Iranian-American gathering in the United States with over 20,000 visitors.

Mehregan is a community event where hundreds of volunteers (become a volunteer) donate their time and talents to its success. All proceeds from this event are used for future Mehregan celebrations, other cultural events, and student scholarships

Come and enjoy ancestral Dances, Persian Customs, Arts and Crafts, Ancient Sports, Live Musical Performances, and taste the exotic Persian food.

Dancing Strictly Sitting Down

In Iran's tourist showpiece, not quite anything goes

By CNN's Hala Gorani

KISH Island, Iran (CNN) -- I had slipped into my black abaya and headscarf on the plane to comply with the Islamic Republic's dress code from the moment I entered Iran.

On the tarmac at Tehran, and despite the early morning hour -- it was 2 a.m. -- the heat was stifling and an extra layer of synthetic fabric was the last thing I wanted to wear.

I was in Iran filming for the latest edition of CNN's "Inside the Middle East," which airs Friday, October 1.

Iran is among the three countries U.S. President George W. Bush refers to as the "axis of evil" -- a phrase the American leader coined in his 2002 State of the Union address that only added to the diplomatic bitterness between the two countries.

Recent disputes over Iranian nuclear sites and the war in Iraq certainly haven't helped relations.

So, as the holder of a U.S. passport, I am routinely targeted for special treatment at the immigration desks of countries like Iran.

This time, all the while smiling and remaining courteous, customs officers led me to a back office and fingerprinted my 10 fingers and both palms.

I was later told that Iran fingerprints U.S. citizens because America fingerprints Iranian travelers on arrival in U.S. airports. A bit of customs tit-for-tat, it seems.

I officially entered the Islamic Republic of Iran with black hands (there was nothing to wipe my hands with) and the lost look of someone in a completely foreign land.

I quickly found my translator and drove off with him to the Homa Hotel, one of Tehran's tired-looking luxury hotels that used to belong to the Sheraton group before the Islamic revolution of 1979.

Our "Inside the Middle East" crew was not given filming permission on the Iranian mainland. We were to fly to the vacation resort of Kish the next day: the only location in Iran, it seems, that officials were happy for us to film.

Freer - but not quite easier

Kish is an island south of the Iranian mainland in the Persian Gulf. I was told it was a freer, more open version of the Iranian mainland.

Indeed at the airport, there was a live Western-style band welcoming passengers, something that is technically illegal in the Islamic Republic. There was a man dressed as a big bunny to amuse the kids.

But the dress code for women was barely different. I could show a bit more hair, but not much. And the 45 degree heat and 100 percent humidity on the island made any extra layer of clothing almost unbearable.

Two million people and billions of dollars left Iran after the revolution in 1979. Kish authority officials are hoping to attract some of them and their money back to the free-trade-zone island.

For Iranian nationals, there are several tax-free malls with Western products that are either difficult or impossible to find on the mainland. From Fruit Loops cereal boxes to Moulinex kettles, it's all there.

Iranian nationals are given a tax-free allowance of goods to take back home. About 1.3 million Iranians come to the island every year, and officials here want to increase that number to 2 million.

In Kish, there is no morality police. There are female mannequins in the shop windows with uncovered heads, which is not allowed in shops in Tehran.

Hot dog stands

There are coffee shops and hot dog stands that wouldn't look out of place in a European shopping center. The women push the boundaries of what is socially acceptable with smaller, more colorful hijabs that barely cover their heads.

I spoke to Myriam and her veil-free 12-year-old daughter in the mall.

"Here, she can wear what she wants. That's why she likes it here," Myriam says.

And although alcohol is illegal, I am told that all I have to do is ask for it, and it could be delivered to my hotel room within a few hours.

Two years ago, the first five-star hotel opened in Kish. The Dariush Grand is an enormous complex built in the image of the ancient city of Persepolis in southern Iran. It smacks more of pre-revolution grandeur than stern Islamic Republic.

There is more freedom in Kish, without a doubt -- but not enough, according to some. Almost everyone I spoke to criticized the status quo in the Islamic regime. Some would do it in a subtle manner; others would openly call the ayatollahs crooks.

Having spent much time in Arab countries in the Middle East like Saudi Arabia and Syria, where openly criticizing the government can mean a considerable period of time in jail, I knew this was something powerful.

When I told Iranians in the UK about how openly some were critical of their own Islamic government, I was told that, in recent years, there is less fear of honestly slamming the regime.

Live pop music

In a country of 70 million, with a crushing majority under the age of 30, some observers wonder how long the current system can last without being challenged in some way.

During my stay, I visited one of the island's restaurants, where guests are allowed to enjoy live pop music in public. Some patrons hide their faces, uncomfortable being filmed while on a fun night out, but 27-year-old Hamed tells me why he likes Kish.

"Everywhere else, they catch you. Here, you have a little bit more freedom," he says.

Dancing is outlawed in Iran, so guests have an interesting way of moving to the music: arms up in the air, torso undulating, fingers snapping, while staying solidly seated in their chairs.

On the beach, men and woman are segregated. Females can wear the skimpiest bikinis on their beach, as long as men steer clear. There are big signs written in fat red letters -- "NO MEN ALLOWED" -- at the entrance to women's beaches.

"We're aware of the limitations," said Bezhad Shenandeh of the Kish Free Trade Organization, "but you have to work within the Iranian context."

He added that their immediate goal was to attract more Iranian expats, not too bothered with the republic's stringent interpretation of Islamic law, rather than Westerners who might find the stringent rules too difficult to deal with while on holiday.

Shopping festival

Officials were eager for us to film an outdoor music concert, complete with a raffle competition to win a car. There was a DJ who played club music, an MC on a big stage facing a parking lot filled with hundreds of seated men and women clapping to the music, live singing acts, even a fireworks display.

The open-air party was to celebrate the end of a two-month shopping festival. Often suffering from an image problem abroad, the Iranian government seemed intent on having us tell the world that this is a much more laid-back country than some in the world might believe. Perhaps it's a desire to counter-balance the daily trickle of stories on Iran's nuclear head-to-head with the West?

Kish is hoping that the British bank Standard Chartered will open an office on the island soon. It would be the first foreign lender to operate in Iran since the 1979 revolution.

Authorities there say this would help outside money trickle back into the country, helping tourism projects and trade between the Islamic Republic and the rest of the region.

The hope, for some at least, is to test things out on the island to determine how well they might work within the existing set of rules that govern the rest of the country.

"Kish has become a model, a pioneer," adds Bazhad Shenandeh, "And this is a place where things are tested and if it fits within the context of the regulations, then things could move onto the mainland."

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TRAVEL/09/28/iran.gorani/