Also see:     
AOL/Microsoft-Hotmail Preventing Delivery of Truthout Communications    [

Also see below:     
What Does the Eviction of Nuclear Negotiator Larijani Hide? Iran: The Permanent Coup d'Etat    [
Experts: Danger of Nuclear-Armed Iran May Be Hyped    [

    "Bush Wants War; We Don't ..."
    Sara Daniel Interviews Manouchehr Mottaki
    Le Nouvel Observateur

    Thursday 08 November 2007

"We're working to endow ourselves with nuclear energy capability," admits [Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister] Manouchehr Mottaki. But we have no intention of producing atomic weapons. And the Americans know it ..."

    Le Nouvel Observateur. Are we on the verge of war or is negotiation still possible over your nuclear program?

    Manouchehr Mottaki. I am a career diplomat. Consequently, I must, as a matter of principle, answer you: no; we are not on the verge of a war. In my opinion, diplomacy has not been exhausted. But we are very worried about this escalation towards war that is an artifact of our interlocutors and would entail a catastrophe comparable to that of Iraq today. Don't forget that the Baker-Hamilton report (1) reflected but a small part of the problems the United States has encountered in Iraq. Day after day, the Americans want to organize discussions, notably with Iran, to try and resolve that crisis. They want to share the Iraqi burden. They are so weak on the ground today that they negotiate with all kinds of terrorists, former Baathists, or Salafists. Those who thought themselves to be the most powerful people on the planet are now soliciting their enemies' help.

    President Ahmadinejad is convinced of the necessity of helping the Americans get out of this new quagmire. So that Bush does not repeat the strategic mistake of intervention in Iraq, he proposed a televised public debate on the nuclear question. Logic can resolve the current crisis. But the Americans distance themselves ever further from logic, in spite of the fact that they're no longer up to inflicting a war with a front that would stretch from China to Israel. Bush received a warning during the last elections. He no longer has the power to inflict a new burden on the American people. But although there exist some wise men within the heart of the American administration, others, like Dick Cheney, must fulfill the commitments they've made to their countries' weapons manufacturers. They want to double the billions of dollars they've already acquired in the course of the crises provoked in the region. And the electoral calendar hurries them along.

    How do you react to American sanctions and to the threat of European sanctions?

    M. Mottaki. As in the past, these sanctions are doomed to fail. At the beginning of 1990, the Americans imposed unilateral sanctions on oil investments. The first to violate those sanctions were the French. The company Total replaced the American companies and the French nullified the impact of the sanctions imposed on Iran. Now, imagine that several European countries join in on the American sanctions. Then who will replace Total? Do you believe that the Russians, who would love to dominate the European market, would miss that opportunity? And, imagining that Gazprom should replace Total in Iran, would that be a sufficient reason for France to cease its imports from Russia? In today's world, it's each country's own self-interest that dominates.

    Iran is approaching the threshold of 3,000 centrifuges that could rather quickly allow the production of enough fissile material for the manufacture of a nuclear bomb. For the international community, the halting of enrichment is a prerequisite to all discussion. Are you ready to accept the consequences of the pursuit of your nuclear program?

    M. Mottaki. You treat this question with the same mistaken attitude as that of the French Defense Minister in Abu Dhabi. By expressing doubts about the civilian character of the Iranian nuclear program, by contesting the statements of Mohamed ElBaradei, he expressed an irresponsible position. It is surprising that people keep on repeating that it is up to international organizations such as the International Atomic Energy Agency to settle disputes, all the while putting their statements into question! Is that a way to influence the IAEA before it submits its report? It's as though I had decided to express myself in the place of the French unions about the strikes taking place in Paris. If he has information, your Defense Minister has only to make it available to the Agency.

    But Iran does not dispute the fact of having arrived at the threshold of 3,000 centrifuges?

    M. Mottaki. We acknowledge it; it's true. We're working to endow ourselves with nuclear energy capability, as the NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) authorizes us to do. Does the French Defense Minister, perhaps inspired by Jules Verne, desire to predict the future for us? At the Iranian Embassy in Geneva, where I dined with ambassadors, the conversation concerned disarmament and the nuclear question and one of my guests asked me about Iran's hidden intentions. I asked him whether he had a machine to test the veracity of intentions. We, for our part, are equally mistrustful of Westerners' goals. And we have reason to be. But in international issues, one cannot depend upon daydreams or premonitions. We are on the point - it is true - of obtaining 3,000 centrifuges. But we honor the IAEA's controls in the utilization we are making of our nuclear capacities in different civilian domains. We have no intention of departing from the NPT framework. In reality, the worries expressed by George Bush proceed fom a state of mind particular to those who strive to ignite the flame of conflict. For Americans themselves know we are not after a nuclear weapon. Just like Vladimir Putin, who, during his last visit to Tehran, declared to President Ahmadinejad that he was convinced Iran did not want the bomb. In fact, the Americans are seeking to neutralize diplomatic efforts and gain time. During my last visit to New York, the Foreign Affairs Minister of a Western country told me that he possessed documents that showed that Iran was helping the Taliban in Afghanistan. I asked him whether those documents were as authentic as the ones Colin Powell detailed before the UN on the eve of the Iraq war that had motivated the support of my interlocutor's country for the American intervention. He told me he understood my argument. It is clear that the Iraqi precedent will make the Americans' task of convincing the international community of the legitimacy of a war against Iran more difficult.

    Your conviction, therefore, is that George Bush wants war and that he'll choose any pretext whatsoever, like the nuclear program or Iran's aid to the Taliban or to Iraqi terrorists to start it?

    M. Mottaki. Precisely. I add that George Bush does not gauge the consequences of this risky war of choice.

    Does the resignation of Iranian nuclear issues negotiator Ali Larijani, who has been replaced by an intimate of President Ahmadinejad, mean that the war party partisans in Iran have won?

    M. Mottaki. Ali Larijani has always defended not only the position of President Ahmadinejad, but that of the Iranian people as a whole. Larijani himself, the Supreme Guide, the Assembly, and all the organs of decision defend Iran's inalienable right to nuclear technology. A right that all states must acknowledge. So if you are asking me whether it's now the president who is in charge of the whole nuclear issue, I answer you that it's the Iranian people as a whole that sees to defending its rights. Iran is not a country where an individual governs alone. We strive to distance ourselves from the dictatorship that we knew under the Shah.

    Are there differences between the president and the Supreme Guide about the way the nuclear negotiations should be conducted and about who ultimately decides?

    M. Mottaki. There are consultations between the decision making bodies at the very highest levels. Everyone agrees on the objective. But to achieve it, there are several tactics. One consists of restoring our interlocutors' confidence. That's why, for example, we totally suspended the enrichment of our uranium for two years. But that restoration of confidence must not be a one-way street. Our adversaries must also reassure us.

    What pledges of your good faith are you prepared to give the international community today?

    M. Mottaki. What's new is that we are ready to cooperate with any country that does not contest our rights to acquire nuclear competence within the legal framework of the NPT. We want to fulfill our duties vis- -vis the IAEA as long as people respect our rights. If I wanted to describe this moment in history, I would tell you the situation reminds me of 1815, when the outrageousness of Napoleon's ambitions provoked a consensus of European nations against him. The war, which set Europe ablaze and provoked catastrophes like the destruction of Moscow, ended with the rout of Waterloo. Napoleon, like the Americans in Iraq, caused the deaths of thousands of soldiers in his debacle. The taxes Americans pay today finance the decline of the American Empire. It is imperative that the concert of nations replaces American unilateralism.

    (1) Written in 2006 by a group of American experts, this report drew up a damning picture of the situation in Iraq and advised the Bush administration notably to begin discussions with Iran and Syria.

    --------

    Manouchehr Mottaki, 54 years old, was named to head the Iranian diplomatic effort by President Ahmadinejad in 2005. Previously, he was most notably ambassador to Turkey and Japan, then an advisor to the Foreign Affairs Ministry.

---

    Translation: Truthout French language editor Leslie Thatcher.

 

---

    Go to Original

    What Does the Eviction of Nuclear Negotiator Larijani Hide?
    Iran: The Permanent Coup d'Etat
    By Sara Daniel
    Le Nouvel Observateur

    Thursday 08 November 2007

A secret battle is engaged between the cliques squabbling over power. But no Iranian representative thinks that strikes against the Guardians of the Revolution in this climate could destabilize the regime. They would, on the contrary, risk uniting the country against a foreign enemy ...

    While the international community's threats are getting more precise with respect to Iran, does Supreme Guide of the Islamic Republic Ali Khamenei envisage sacrificing his intransigent president Ahmadinejad on the altar of Western demands? In this country that has erected takkiya as a political philosophy - the pious lie that authorizes the believer to dissimulate his faith when danger lurks - one has been reduced to conjecture up until now. Today, the signs of discord are clearly perceptible. They are there as soon as one leaves the airport, in the cars of regime dignitaries who impose silence on foreign visitors for fear of indiscreet ears from the other side. Then later, in the apartments where people make merry scoping out the microphones hidden by competing cliques. Outside of the circle of power even - and of its legendary opacity - caution filters through the always-polite remarks that the members of the nomenklatura address to one another. In the partisan press, where obsequiousness is the least of ourtesies, one must look out for the false notes in the panegyrics to understand that, within the clan of conservative Iranians, the knives are drawn.

    For example, in the ultraconservative journal close to the Supreme Guide, "Kayhan," its editor-in-chief Hossein Shariatmadari - who had assured us three months ago of his unshakable support for the president, even for the latter's most sulfurous remarks on the necessity of the eradication of the state of Israel - dares today to scold his mentor. While the office of the presidency presents Ahmadinejad's performance at Columbia University in New York as a victory more important than that of Fao in the Shatt al-Arab in 1986 - where 650,000 Bassidji and Guardians of the Revolution (Pasdarans) defeated the Iraqi army - Hossein Shariatmadari, of whom it is said in Iran that he has more power than the ministers on account of his connections with the secret services, entitles his editorial: "One Must Know How to Maintain a Sense of Proportion." A warning that he had not deemed necessary when the president mentioned the halo of light that descended upon his head in New York. For all the exegetes of Iranian politicallife, the secret meaning of all this is clear: nothing works anymore between the Supreme Guide and the President.

    Persian style paradox ... Never has a president of the Islamic republic had so much power as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He presides without consulting the Islamic Republic's numerous governmental decision making bodies. He short circuits institutions, governs by edict, as when, during a trip to Belarus, he announced the reduction in bank interest rates in a country with runaway inflation, or when he quite simply did away with the planning ministry accused of discussing the allocation of expenses he had already determined! Above all, the president is placing his own men in key positions. Since his election, there's been a waltz of officials at all levels. The oil minister - too close to Rafsanjani - was axed, as was the director of the Central Bank; embassy employees have been sacked: "It's a progressive coup d' tat, that, little by little, eats away at the prerogatives of the Supreme Guide whom Ahmadinejad would like to reduce to a symbolic role only," explains a former advisor to President Khatami.

    The latest of these "takeovers," is the replacement of the head of nuclear negotiations, Ali Larijani, right in the middle of an international crisis, by one of the president's loyalists, Saïd Jalili. A decision deemed so sensitive that, for the first time in the much-muffled milieu of Iranian conservatives, the Supreme Guide's intimates are counter-attacking. Advisor to the latter and former Foreign Affairs Minister Ali Akbar Velayati publicly deplores Larijani's resignation. The height of irreverence in the country of the mullahs: 183 members of parliament have complimented the resignee for his work as negotiator. In a counterthrust from the country's premier cleric, not only will Larijani accompany Jalili to Rome as the Guide's representative, but he will also be the one to conduct the discussions with European Union representative Javier Solana, in front of his mute successor. As for Foreign Affairs Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, a Larijani intimate whose imminent axing had been announced, he is confirmedin his functions (see the interview above).

    Nonetheless, between Jalili and Larijani, between the two groups of conservatives, there are no differences on the nuclear issue. Like the vast majority of Iranians, they consider the acquisition of nuclear know-how their right in the strictest sense, guaranteed by their adhesion to international treaties. And the political class does not see why Iran should not enrich uranium on its own soil. The conservatives oppose one another with respect to the manner of reaching that result, undoubtedly by virtue of differing appreciations of the risks of war. President Ahmadinejad, personally, seems convinced that Americans, stuck in the Iraqi quagmire, cannot unleash strikes on Iran. That's what explains the lack of restraint from one who enamels his speech on the nuclear issue with provocations. That's also what explains his back-handed rejection of Russian president Vladimir Putin's offer to enrich the uranium for Iranian power stations on Russian soil, which would offer a way out of the crisis acceptable to all. n adept of another style, Ali Larijani, temporized with an international community sometimes wearied by his diplomatic procrastinations: "Larijani has more tact; he comes from a family of negotiators," explains an official close to the Supreme Guide, "remember that it was his brother who undid the crisis opened by the fatwa against Salman Rushdie ..."

    In fact, behind these dissensions that the Islamic Republic likes to exhibit to the West as so many levers offering handles for negotiation, there is a quarrel for power. "Little by little, Larijani had made the High Council for (Iranian) National Security a government within the government. Ahmadinejad, who was distrustful of the procedure, had refused to allow Larijani to make any new nominations. Then Larijani presented his resignation for the fifth time. In this context of crisis, he thought it would be rejected again ..." one expert in Iranian political life explains. Did Larijani, who will undoubtedly be the anti-Ahmadinejad conservatives' candidate in the next legislative elections, also want to send a message to the Supreme Guide by resigning? Can the latter take the risk of a rebellion against the president without destabilizing the entire Islamic Republic?

    According to a Western diplomat close to the nuclear issue, the conservatives in power in Iran do not oppose one another over the way to lull the international community: "They want to gain time." Time that Israel is not disposed to grant them. "George Bush would gladly pass up on war, but he will follow Ehud Olmert, who will not wait for the 3,000 Iranian centrifuges to be operational ..." deems one specialist on the issue. As for French diplomats, they renew the proposals made to the Iranians: "If the Islamic Republic agrees to see its uranium enriched by an international consortium outside of Iran, then we'll help them build nuclear power stations. That's the same proposal Nicolas Sarkozy has addressed to other Muslim countries."

    Among the Iranians, the coalition of those unhappy with President Ahmadinejad is growing. The bazaaris blame him for business being bad; the mullahs for their being sidelined; and the military have always considered the Bassidji as illegitimate punks. Is that to say that the impact of American strikes could be relayed domestically by a revolt of the coalition of the unhappy to destabilize the regime? Nothing is less certain. "Bush overestimated Saddam's army, but he underestimates ours," explains one former Iranian politician and savage opponent of the regime, who divides his time between the United States and Tehran. "As for the Guardians of the Revolution, they are not terrorists; they represent a veritable army of cruel and determined men. You will see; if someone attacks us, all Iranians will unite behind them!"

    Iran

    Capital: Tehran
    Surface Area: 1,648,200 km2
    Population: 70.27 million inhabitants
    Urban Population: 66.9 percent
    GDP per Inhabitant: $8,624
    Political Structure of the Regime: Islamic Republic
    Head of State: Ali Khamenei
    Principal Economic Activities:
    Agriculture (wheat, rice, sugar beets)
    Industry (oil, petrochemicals, textiles, natural gas)
    Tourism ($1.1 billion revenues in 2005)

    --------

    Source: L'Etat du monde 2008

---

    Translation: Truthout French language editor Leslie Thatcher.

 

---

    Go to Original

    Experts: Danger of Nuclear-Armed Iran May Be Hyped
    By Warren P. Strobel
    McClatchy Newspapers

    Sunday 11 November 2007

    Washington - A hostile country led by anti-American ideologues appears close to developing its first nuclear weapon and, as a U.S. election approaches, the president and his advisers debate a pre-emptive military strike. Newspaper columnists demand action to stop the nuclear peril.

    The country was China, the year was 1963 and the president was Lyndon Baines Johnson.

    Now it is Iran that is said to may be bent on acquiring nuclear arms, and President Bush who has declared that "unacceptable." Some U.S. officials and outside commentators are again pushing for a pre-emptive attack.

    But the White House and its partisans may be inflating the dangers of a nuclear-armed Iran, say experts on the Persian Gulf and nuclear deterrence. While there are dangers, they acknowledge, Iran appears to want a nuclear weapon for the same reason other countries do: to protect itself.

    Bush, by contrast, has suggested that a nuclear-armed Iran could bring about World War III. The president and his top aides, along with hawkish commentators, have suggested that Iran might launch a first strike on Israel or the United States, or hand nuclear weapons to terrorist groups Tehran supports.

    There is "only one terrible choice, which is either to bomb those (Iranian nuclear) facilities and retard their program or even cut it off altogether, or allow them to go nuclear," Norman Podhoretz, a foreign policy adviser to GOP presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, said last month.

    "Would I like Iran to have a nuclear bomb? No," said Robert Jervis, a Columbia University professor of international politics who has written widely on nuclear deterrence. But, "the fears (voiced) by the administration and a fair number of sensible people as well, just are exaggerated. The idea that this will really make a big difference, I think is foolish."

    Even some commentators in Israel, whose leaders see themselves in Iran's crosshairs, present a more nuanced view of the potential threat than the White House does.

    An Iranian nuclear bomb could present Israel "with the real potential for an existential threat," Ephraim Kam of the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv wrote in February.

    But Kam noted that Israel has its own unacknowledged nuclear deterrent - estimated at 100 to 200 warheads - larger than anything Iran could marshal for years to come.

    Despite Iran's "messianic religious motivations," he wrote, "it is highly doubtful that Tehran would want to risk an Israeli nuclear response" by attempting a first strike.

    Moreover, Iran, which says its nuclear research is aimed at generating electric power, is not thought to be close to having a nuclear weapon. In the worst-case scenario, it could have enough highly enriched uranium, a basic weapon ingredient in weapons, in two to three years.

    The International Atomic Energy Agency is due to report next week on whether Iran has cleared up questions about its past nuclear work. The IAEA's judgment will influence whether the U.N. Security Council imposes new sanctions on Iran for failing to suspend uranium enrichment.

    Bush administration officials insist that Iran is different from other countries that have sought and acquired nuclear weapons.

    The world's known nuclear club is comprised of the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea.

    "Iran has been willing to share technology and arms with terrorists and inappropriate regimes, in the way these others haven't," said a senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

    "The underlying facts of Iran and of nuclear weapons are different than these other cases," the official said. "I think they would behave differently."

    In fact, U.S. ally Pakistan provided nuclear weapons technology to Iran and Libya, and North Korea has sold ballistic missiles in several Middle Eastern countries.

    Iran's government is "a regime that is very aggressive in pursuit of its goals," added former undersecretary of state Robert Joseph, a conservative. "Having nuclear weapons would make it even more aggressive."

    It is difficult to judge whether Iran would be deterred from using nuclear weapons because the West has limited understanding of the government in Tehran and the United States has mainly indirect communications, analysts say.

    "We haven't talked to the Iranians well enough. We talked to the Soviets all the time," said former CIA analyst Judith Yaphe, now at the National Defense University. She added: "But I don't trust someone like (Iranian President Mahmoud) Ahmadenijad to understand where the red lines are."

    Others, including Columbia's Jervis, say the U.S. government has not examined in depth how a nuclear armed Iran might behave for a simple reason: Bush's policy is that Iran will not be allowed to have the bomb.

    U.S., Israeli and European concerns about a nuclear Iran generally fall into three categories:

    The first is that it would hand over a nuclear weapon to terrorists, hoping to elude responsibility for an attack on Israel or America.

    But Kam, the Israeli analyst, wrote that the chance of this "appears low." A more serious worry, he wrote, is that Iran could deter Israel from acting against Hezbollah, Iran's terrorist proxy that opposes Israel's existence.

    Mohsen Sazegara, who helped found Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and is now a U.S.-based dissident, also predicted Iran would not engage in nuclear terrorism. "If I found out somebody was thinking of this, I'd have to say I don't know my country," he said.

    The second concern is that a nuclear-armed Iran would prompt Arab powers such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt to seek their own bombs, sparking an arms race in the perpetually unstable Middle East.

    "They're all talking about it now," Yaphe said. "That's a bad thing."

    The third is that Iran, because of its radical religious government, will not be deterred from using nuclear weapons. Podhoretz said during a PBS debate that with Iran under the control of clerics and the "religious fanatic" Ahamadinejad "there's no assurance that self-preservation or the protection, preservation of the nation, will deter them."

    But Jervis noted that in the early 1960s, Chinese leader Mao Tse-tung "was foaming at the mouth" with anti-Americanism.

    President Johnson took no military steps to stop China from going nuclear, and it tested a weapon in 1964.

    Iran's leaders suspect the United States wants to overthrow them. "Nuclear weapons mainly protect the homeland," Jervis said.