US Democrats More Afraid for Israel than of Obstructionism Charge

Juan Cole suggests that Democrats do not cut funding for the war, which they could do with their bare majority today because they are afraid of being painted as obstructionists by the Republicans which might lead Republicans to win seats in a future election.

That doesn't make much sense to me, and this is a good segue into just how damaging for Israel a US withdrawal from Iraq would be.

The Democratic party just doesn't seem willing to differentiate itself from the Republicans in any practical way on this issue.

The problem is that mainstream Democrats do not want to withdraw from Iraq. To figure out why, we have to look at what will happen if the US withdraws.

Iran would reach out to the Saudis to stabilize the country, as is consistent with their interests and as they are repeatedly saying.

Iran and the Saudis together would certainly do a better job stabilizing the country and resolving the differences between Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds than the US can do.

If Iraq is to be held together, it will be held together by a Shiite Iraqi nationalist who is in the mainstream of Iraqi political thought, which is to say anti-Western/anti-Zionist (like Sadr). Iran and Saudi Arabia together can make that happen. The US cannot.

But the down side would be that Saudi Arabia would increase its cooperation with Iran and a unified democratic Iraq would vote by a landslide to join the Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria anti-Western/anti-Zionist configuration. That configuration would end up taking power in Lebanon (it does have the most votes now in any one-person one-vote arrangement) and start pressuring Jordan.

Saudi Arabia in these circumstances would strongly consider joining that configuration itself.

A US pullout would be an absolute nightmare for Israel. Yeah, it would save maybe hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, hundreds of billions of US military dollars and several hundred US troops per year but Israel's medium and longer-term viability as a Jewish state would be maybe fatally jeopardized.

To the degree that the US has interests that are separate from Israel's, there would not be much direct harm to US interests from a withdrawal. The Saudis and Iraqis would still sell oil, eventually at a lower price when Iraqi production comes on line and the country has stabilized.

This is a clear example of a divergence of interests between the US and Israel. Elements of the US political system sympathetic to Israel will have the US pursue a policy that is harmful to the US but essential for Israel.

So the Democrats are not taking effective action to force a withdrawal because they don't want a withdrawal.

The Democrats would ignore the charge of obstructionists the same way they ignore the charge of baby-killers over abortion - they have similar majorities of the public on their supposed side of both issues.

The United States at some point will have to begin a discussion about how much it is worth to US interests to ensure that Israel has a Jewish majority forever.

Israel accepting Palestinian refugees could be a peaceful, permanent solution to the Arab-Zionism dispute but would leave the Middle East without a Jewish state. How many US soldiers and resources is the US willing to sacrifice to prevent that is a question that is being answered by events as we speak.

The Saudis and Palestine

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jq3L2VR6blTV6z1SP8d1aJwlZy6A

A Hamas spokesman told AFP on Monday that ousted Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniya was prepared to meet with Abbas in Saudi Arabia to try to resolve the crisis on the basis of the Mecca accord.

The official Saudi account of the talks suggested Abbas had been assured of Riyadh's support.

The Saudi and Palestinian leaders discussed "the need to remove internal differences amongst the Palestinians... and return the situation to what it was," the state SPA news agency reported.

It said they also reviewed international efforts to activate the stalled Middle East peace process.

Saudi Arabia.

Reports about Saudi Arabia in regional relations almost always paraphrase Saudi statements. That makes me suspicious because I get the feeling there sometimes is an element of hopeful or wishful thinking on the part of Western Middle East analysts.

My feeling is the Saudis are less enthusiastic supporters of the West than Western analysts want to believe and their statements may have double edges that readers of the Western press are protected from. The Saudis right now are certainly less hostile to Iran than is commonly presented.

But it cannot be denied that Saudi Arabia often ends up on the side of Israel conflicting with other Arabs or Muslims. You never saw Nasser ally with Israel to confront Saudi Arabia, but you saw the other way around. You never saw Iran ally with Israel, or Syria ally with Israel. Somehow Saudi Arabia often ends up in these tacit allegiances with the United States and Israel against other Muslims but somehow the Saudis still claim to be leaders of the Muslim world. Weird.

And here we have the Saudis, claiming some principle or another, supporting Abbas along with Israel and George Bush.

How unfortunate it is for the people of the Middle East that Saudi Arabia is not a democracy. But the Saudi version of the Shah remains the most ardent defender of Israel in the Middle East. It is difficult to understand why this is so. One day I hope to ask a Saudi official what the story is.

Is Germany off the Team?

Four months since I've posted. Sorry.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,296450,00.html

Germany — a pivotal player among three European nations to rein in Iran's nuclear program over the last two-and-a-half years through a mixture of diplomacy and sanctions supported by the United States — notified its allies last week that the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel refuses to support the imposition of any further sanctions against Iran that could be imposed by the U.N. Security Council.

The announcement was made at a meeting in Berlin that brought German officials together with Iran desk officers from the five member states of the Security Council. It stunned the room, according to one of several Bush administration and foreign government sources who spoke to FOX News, and left most Bush administration principals concluding that sanctions are dead.

The Germans voiced concern about the damaging effects any further sanctions on Iran would have on the German economy — and also, according to diplomats from other countries, gave the distinct impression that they would privately welcome, while publicly protesting, an American bombing campaign against Iran's nuclear facilities.

Germany's withdrawal from the allied diplomatic offensive is the latest consensus across relevant U.S. agencies and offices, including the State Department, the National Security Council and the offices of the president and vice president. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns, the most ardent proponent of a diplomatic resolution to the problem of Iran's nuclear ambitions, has had his chance on the Iranian account and come up empty.

The Fox News article continues with supposed US plans to bomb Iran. A week of bombing to destroy Iran's air defenses and then the attack on Iran's nuclear installations.

How will Iran respond? According to this article, Iran won't respond in any significant way. Iran is already doing all it can to hurt the US in Iraq and can't do any real harm anywhere else.

Maybe you laughed out loud at the previous paragraph, maybe that seems plausible to you. In either case, there is nothing further I need to say on that matter.

The interesting issue is not the bomb plans that gave the article its headline. It is the defection from the sanctions regime by Germany.

If this is true, this is a huge story. No, there will not be a bombing of Iran unless Tehran has Cheney on its payroll - which has been alleged with various levels of facetiousness in the past.

My best guess since the IAEA agreement was signed to clear Iran's remaining questions has been that Iran has to a large degree won this conflict. Iran will continue its enrichment program while the most effective charge against it is being removed.

Iran's victory will be solidified when Russia, China or Germany publicly announce that they will not support sanctions if Iran cooperates with clearing the questions or has cleared the questions. Until then, we may be in garbage time, but the game isn't quite over.

Stratfor Says a US/Iran Deal Over Iraq in Works

Stratfor, a company whose Middle East analysis I often find mistaken but sometimes find insightful, believes the SCIRI-SIIC realignment is part of a deal between the US and Iran shepherding an orderly US retreat leaving an Iraq that is dominated by the Shiites and friendly with Iran. (And which benefits the Sunnis mostly at the expense of the Kurds.)

One data point in Stratfor's analysis is Abbas Araghchi's statement earlier this month that Iran was willing to help the US produce an honorable and face-saving retreat.

It is an interesting theory that may have some basis.

Stratfor is better at reporting US views and motives than those of non- or anti-Western actors. So this article is interesting in that it claims the US accepts that Iraq will not be a pro-US bastion in the Middle East, and is willing to negotiate with Iran exactly how antagonistic Iraq will end up being towards US policies.

The US position is that hopefully a formula will be found that Iraq will not pose a threat to Iran (a major concession) but it will also not pose a threat to Jordan or Israel. The US also seems to be willing to side against the Kurds to prevent Iraq from breaking up. These changes in US policy are very significant if they are real.

If these changes are implemented in time, they just may be enough to prevent the tremendous disaster for the US that is otherwise inevitable in this region.

Stratfor is connected enough into the US foreign policy community that this may well reflect US thinking, then this is a major step in the direction of US policy becoming cognizant of and responsive to the actual conditions in the region.

Stratfor's analysis that Iran will accept a long-term US presence in Iraq as long as it is not in the cities I find much less reliable. I think that is closer to what the US hopes Iran will accept.

For the time being, it is possible to read the subscription-only article though an agreement stratfor apparently has with google news.

Here is a google link.
Here is a link direct to stratfor.

Summary

Iran's main Iraqi Shiite proxy announced May 11 it is about to undergo a process of "Iraqization." The move is part of Tehran's detailed offer to assist the United States in stabilizing Iraq. A fresh power-sharing agreement likely will emerge out of this process -- one that will lead to an increase in the Sunni share of the Iraqi political pie, but could upset the Kurds.

Not on Fallon's Watch

How did this get into the press?

Fallon's refusal to support a further naval buildup in the Gulf reflected his firm opposition to an attack on Iran and an apparent readiness to put his career on the line to prevent it. A source who met privately with Fallon around the time of his confirmation hearing and who insists on anonymity quoted Fallon as saying that an attack on Iran "will not happen on my watch".

Asked how he could be sure, the source says, Fallon replied, "You know what choices I have. I'm a professional." Fallon said that he was not alone, according to the source, adding, "There are several of us trying to put the crazies back in the box."

I have assumed for over a year now that it is well understood in the United States, by actual decision makers, that an attack on Iran will not overthrow the current regime, will not weaken Iran's long-term strategic position and will hurt the US position in the Middle East much more than it hurts Iran's regime.

I have really assumed that everyone knows this:

A grandson of one of the late Shah's ministers, Soroush said, "Mr. President, I simply want to say one U.S. bomb on Iran and the regime will remain in power for another 20 or 30 years and 70 million Iranians will become radicalized."

"I know," President Bush answered.

If everyone serious knows this then Fallon does not have threaten to put his career on the line to prevent it. If everyone knows this then the US can comfortably play the game Nixon spoke of, which was to convince his adversaries that he might be crazy. That has the added benefit of scaring real investment away from Iran, which is certainly in line with US interests.

I've assumed that's what we've been seeing all along. If logic works, then that has to be what we've been seeing in US threats against Iran at least since the insurgency in Iraq began picking up steam, the Shiites empowered themselves in a way that gave the US limited influence over them and it became clear that the US will not be able to establish a stable client there.

Maybe Fallon is going public, which means that logic does not work and there are serious parties in the US government intending on attacking Iran regardless of the damage they know it will do to the US in the region over the medium and long term. Either that or Fallon is being smeared.

Maybe somebody in Cheney's office is angry that Fallon broke up plans on putting a showy third carrier into the region - more than were there before the Iraq invasion.

Thirty carriers in the gulf would not be enough to get a regime change, especially to a regime tolerable to the US. It would have been a stupid plan. The Iranians would not have taken it seriously though they may have used it as propaganda to strengthen the hard liners.

If the Bush administration is really self-destructive, not just pretending to be for strategic advantage then logic does not hold. Maybe Bush believes he is being guided by God and is inherently unpredictable.

At the time of the invasion, the attack on Iraq did not seem to me to be a disastrous move from the US point of view. I was pretty sure an unpopular dictator like Chalabi would take over and join the ranks of Mubarak, Jordanian Abdullah and (at the time) Saudi Abdullah (Saudi Abdullah does not seem to be in those ranks any more).

Since that time the US has done what it could. The US lost because it is fighting an unwinnable war that it did not know was unwinnable when it started. I have not seen the adminstration acting self-destructively at any point.

My best guess is that this is a smear, a blow to Fallon's career leaked not by Fallon but by an administration hawk. The battle over the third carrier was lost, but they are making sure it does not happen again.

One Person, One Vote, One Time

An interesting thing I've noticed is that with Erdogan and Turkey's AK party, with Maliki's electoral list in Iraq and with Hamas and Hezbollah is that Islamists actually make pretty effective participants in democratic electoral systems when they are allowed to compete on more or less fair terms.

I repeatedly read and hear that Islamists want one person, one vote, one time. That supposedly means Islamists will overturn democratic institutions if they ever come to power. But now an actual track record is being established. Islamists have a far better record than pro-Western anti-Islamist political groups.

I can think of several elections cancelled by Western or pro-Western groups to prevent Islamists from coming to power but I cannot think of an election that has been cancelled by Islamists anywhere to prevent pro-Western groups from coming to power.

One recent example is that Juan Cole reported last summer that the US postponed provincial elections in Iraq for fear that Sadr would do too well there.

I was told by an American official who had been in Baghdad that Iraqi provincial elections had been postponed because there are indications that Muqtada al-Sadr's movement is growing in popularity in the Shiite south and his lists might sweep to power.

I guess "one person, one vote, one time" has been the West projecting its own disdain for democracy onto the Islamists all along.

Veneer of Constitutionality

Do I get angry, do I just shake my head at this from the Financial Times?

Gen Musharraf insisted on Saturday that he would not impose a state of emergency, a move that would further undermine the veneer of constitutionality that Washington and London require from him.

The anger eventually subsides at the matter-of-factness with with the Financial Times describes the colonial relationship Musharaff has with Washington and London. Then I'm left with the question of whether or not Washington has calculated that Musharraf ruling under a state of emergency is tangibly worse for US interests than his removal from power.

My best guess is that this is a dance. Of course the US would rather see Musharraf impose a state of emergency than lose power. We are not yet at the point where those are the exclusive alternatives and it is not clear that imposing a state of emergency would effectively prevent Musharraf's removal from power, but if it was a choice either/or, the US would certainly pressure Musharraf to impose the state of emergency.

So who is the dance for?

Who is impressed by this claim that Washington and London "require" a "veneer of constitutionality" from Pakistan's dictator?

My guess for that is this is part of the willful self-delusion of a lot of Westerners in dealings with the post-colonized world. It is particularly striking in issues involving the Middle East but it is present elsewhere as well.

Edit: I hope I was clear that reading that Washington and London require "a veneer of constitutionality" but not fair elections from a pro-Western (I won't say puppet because the term is overused, but ... ) dictator - especially when this tidbit was presented in such an off-hand way, was shocking to me and made me wonder for a second if the year was 1807 or 2007. I'm angry that Washington and London are in a position to require anything from Pakistan's dictator. Fortunately, as is pointed out in a comment, the imperial prerogative of Washington and London has been substantially weakened, while not ended by the last five years or so of really counter-productive policies (from Washington and London's point of view).

Arguments against Western Hostility Towards Iran

Article in Znet
PDF at CampaignIran.org

Here, we examine and debunk the common myths and charges against Iran and provide a list of twenty reasons to oppose sanctions and military intervention in Iran. The Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran (CASMII) calls for immediate and direct negotiations between the US and Iran without any pre-conditions in order to avert a new even more horrifying catastrophe in the Middle East.

This is an excellent article. When I find an article that looks like I could have written it, if I had the time or inclination, I have to link to it so that I can find it later.

I'll add a tiny bit about what is on offer with regard to negotiations. The US position is that it cannot begin negotiations until Iran commits to suspend enrichment. From the US point of view, this precondition could serve only one purpose: It has to be the case that the US does not believe Iran would willingly trade enrichment for what the US is willing to offer in terms of trade incentives or security guarantees.

If the US believed it had an offer that either Iranians could accept or that any constituency of Iranians would consider good, the US would release details of that offer and either the Iranians would accept the offer and stop enrichment or those in Iran's government that reject the offer would face pressure from the Iranian people, for example in the next elections.

It has been a year since the US has offered to come to the table to negotiate after Iran suspends enrichment. If there was an offer to be made, it would have been made a year or maybe six months ago, and Iran would have suspended then.

An illustration might be if I was to walk into a clothing store and ask for a suit, but I won't tell exactly what I am willing to pay for it now, but if I wear it out, I'll call from home to negotiate a price. Of course, once the store has made a commitment to sell me the suit without knowing what I'm willing to offer, when I do make an offer it will be minimal.

Recently US diplomats have said the US is willing to suspend sanctions while Iran suspends enrichment and after six months, Iran would be able to resume enrichment and sanctions would resume. Iran already knows what is on offer is minimal, the only impact of a six month suspension would be six months of delayed progress on its program plus the costs of stopping and restarting.

The US is only willing to make limited concessions over the enrichment issue because the US concessions are the only leverage the US has to pressure Iran to be more accepting of Israel. If the US was to normalize trade with Iran in exchange for a suspension of enrichment, Iran would have more resources to use to support Hamas and Hezbollah. Iran's support for Hamas, Hezbollah, and anti-Israel Palestinians and Muslims generally, is the core of the US dispute with Iran.

Where we are left is that the US has been much more successful than I expected in expanding its sanctions against Iran slightly beyond Iran's nuclear program but no where near successful enough to persuade any segment of Iran's political leadership or society to abandon enrichment.

This equilibrium will continue until Iraq becomes unbearably expensive for the US and Iran offers to turn down the temperature in Iraq in exchange for relaxing US pressure on European and Asian countries' trade with Iran.

I still consider military strikes on Iran - outside of support for terrorist operations on Iran's periphery which are happening now - to be vanishingly unlikely.

Interesting Article About Europe and Iran

From the National Interest (found via Google News)

Some Europeans that I have spoken with privately feel that, for the next two years or so, Europe can afford to continue to support Iran’s economic isolation, but that, starting in the next decade, growing pressures to secure new supplies of energy will lead more European firms to begin investing in Iran to ensure that, by the 2020s, the infrastructure is in place for large-scale Iranian shipments of gas to Europe.

I pressed my interlocutors further—was this is a case of advising, "Whatever you do, do it quickly"—meaning that if the United States were to pursue forcible regime change the preference would be to do it sooner? They demurred. But the underlying impression I received was that, say, by 2011 or 2013, large-scale European investment in Iran will begin no matter whether it is still the Islamic Republic or some other form of government—and that Washington is faced with two clocks counting down with regard to its freedom of action vis-à-vis Tehran.

Iran is in a fairly strong position right now. If sanctions are increased, they will hurt the Iranian people, but they will not hurt the regime in Tehran, they are much more likely to strengthen it. A military attack can accomplish military aims, but they will have the political consequence of strengthening the Iranian regime and weakening the US' regional position.

If this article is correct, and pressure on Europe to deal with Iran will increase dramatically in the medium term, then Iran is likely to wait the US out until that time.

Three Mistakes

Three of my predictions on this site have been proven wrong. I want to look at them more closely.

1 - I predicted that in Lebanon, the government would lurch against the US without any attempt by Hezbollah to overturn it.

2 - I predicted that sanctions against Iran would stay limited to enrichment

3 - I expected Iran to hold the British sailors for a long period of confrontation, maybe turning them over to a post-Blair government after negotiations

As to the first prediction, polls show that the population certainly did lurch against the West after the 2006 summer war. The politicians didn't follow the population. This mistake is the result of a lack of understanding on my part, at the time, that politicians in small countries can be and often really are more beholden to the embassies of rich countries like the US than they are to their own constituents. My political instincts are not set for politics in countries like Lebanon, or at least they were not.

On the second prediction, Condoleeza Rice outperformed my expectations. A lot of pressure has been put onto China and Russia and they have gone along. Colin Powell said last year that the amount of pressure the Security Council would be willing to put on Iran is something Iran is willing to tolerate rather than give up on enrichment. I still think Powell was right but the amount of pressure the Security Council is willing to bring is more than I thought - though it is still far less than what would be required to get a suspension. I actually don't think Hussein/Iraq-level sanctions would get a suspension. But my prediction had been wrong. I think China was told that this vote was necessary for Korea's assets to be unfrozen and Russia is told that this vote is tied to missile defense in Europe. Both of these are higher priorities for their respective countries than the principle that the NPT is to be applied in a non-discriminatory manner.

The third prediction, Iran released the sailors. I think this is a reflection of current Iranian thinking on the first hostage crisis in 1979-80. If that crisis had ended this way, the US would still be hostile to Iran, but the trauma the US faced has been used to rally Americans against Iran where otherwise some of those Americans wouldn't have really cared. The US would still be hostile, because Iran is hostile to Israel, but the US would be less hostile because Israel's proponents would not have the crisis as a talking point.

While the first hostage crisis was an extreme statement against the US, it really didn't help Iran in the long run. I think Iran's leadership changed its view of that crisis before I did. Leading to a wrong prediction on my part.

Maybe I've made other predictions that have turned out wrong. So far the one prediction I am most proud of is that in October 2006, reading a speech by the Saudi Ambassador to the US, I predicted that by October 2007 the Saudis would sound and act a lot more like the Iranians with respect to Israel and the United States.

US-Turkey Alliance on the Way Out

When asked by a local reporter about Mr Barzani and Turkey’s alliance with the US, the general said: "He [Mr Barzani] is at a very low level and I look to the one who enables him to speak so, who enables the division of Iraq, which is the greatest threat to the region."

Do the Americans not understand how serious this is?

For the long term, the key situation in Iraq is the quasi-separatist movements of the Kurds and Badr/Shiites.

The only way the US can keep bases in Iraq is by allying with parties that want to split the country. Even the US expert class does not seem to acknowledge what everyone else in the region sees: The US either actively wants to break up the country or is unwilling to take steps to prevent it.

Turkey does not want this. Iran does not want this. Saudi Arabia does not want this. Iraq's nationalists, who probably are a majority in Iraq - Sadr's Shiites and other nationalist Shiites plus the Sunnis - do not want this.

Nobody in the US, including the experts, is willing to make the following statement:

"We would prefer a unified Iraq that is hostile to the US to a divided Iraq where the US can get temporary advantages by playing behind rivalries".

Everybody in the region except the US is emphatically eager to make that statement.

The US refusal to issue a withdrawal schedule or to commit to a full evacuation of US troops from the country is related to the US not being willing to accept a united Iraq that is hostile to the US.

That makes sense. The United States didn't invade Iraq because of personal animus against Hussein, it invaded because it did not want to tolerate a hostile Iraq.

The problem is that the costs of a non-hostile Iraq are clearer now and the cost is very high. The costs are, at minimum, civil war and increased sectarian violence between Shiites and Sunnis (and not just in Iraq) as well as Kurdish independence and support for Kurdish secessionists in Turkey, Iran and Syria.

The United States, by its actions demonstrates that it is willing to pay those costs. Nobody else in the region except Israel thinks it is worth it.

The US alliance with Saudi Arabia has, as far as I can see, been broken over this issue. Recently there have been none of the anti-Iranian official statements or actions from the Saudis that were routine one or two years ago.

The US alliance with Turkey has reached the point where it has not yet broken but it is not sustainable unless the US changes priorities in Iraq.

By changing priorities I mean the US must admit defeat in its project of attempting to make Iraq non-hostile to US interests by force. The longer the US waits to admit defeat, the more hostile Iraq will be toward US interests when it eventually stabilizes.

As things are going, the alliance with Turkey will not survive until the end of the Bush presidency.

Saudis Go Wild

Earlier I wrote that Iran calculated that either the Saudis, Egypt or Jordan would flip and join the anti-American grouping.

The Saudis are now officially outside of the pro-US regional axis.

When the Saudis pressured Abbas to give in to Hamas on forming a unity government without Hamas making the concessions the US wanted, I thought that was a clear step away from US influence but not yet conclusive.

When the Saudi King held hands with Ahmadinejad at the airport in Riyadh, I chuckled to myself about how much has been made about supposed secret meetings between Olmert and some unnamed Saudi royal - that the Saudi deny, and how much less is made about the King of Saudi Arabia taking pictures with Ahmadinejad on a state visit. But still not conclusive.

Yesterday the Saudis both invited Iran to the Arab league and called the US occupation of Iraq illegitimate. Clear step but not yet conclusive.

Today I read:

Saudi Arabia endorses Iran's AL observer membership

Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal has voiced his country's support for approving Iran's request for observer status in the Arab League.

Faisal made the remark Thursday in a meeting with his Iranian counterpart Manuchehr Mottaki on the sidelines of an Arab summit in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, where the two sides discussed the latest developments in the region and the Islamic world.

"Given the importance and key role of the Islamic Republic of Iran and in order to further strengthen cooperation between Tehran and the Arab League, we voice our full support for Iran's membership in the League with observer status," he said.

That's it. The Saudis are no longer a US ally in the Middle East.

I still don't like the Saudis. I still wish they would hold elections and be representative of the wishes of their people. On the other hand, I'm sure cutting the US off aligns Saudi foreign policy closer to what it would be under a democracy.

The mysterious Indian vessel

Sailing under an Indian flag?

Iranian forces seized the Britons, 14 men and Seaman Turney, last Friday, claiming they were operating in Iran’s territorial waters when they boarded a vessel sailing under an Indian flag to check for smuggling. British officials vehemently denied that their forces had strayed from Iraqi waters, and demanded the immediate return of the crew members.

I've read this a half dozen times - sailing under an Indian flag.

That is the only information about the vessel that the British are releasing. The important information was not whose flag the vessel was flying under, but whether it was going to Iran or to Iraq.

I'm assuming it was either going to or coming from Iran because otherwise it would be referred to as a vessel sailing to or from Iraq under an Indian flag.

Stopping a vessel trading with Iran in disputed waters is a lot more provocative than stopping one trading with Iraq.

The Enrichment Conflict from Iran's Point of View

Here are a couple of points Iran has made and maybe some points Iran has not said but that I figure Iran believes.

1 - The West's offer of technology and negotiations if Iran suspends enrichment is not a good deal.

First, there is almost no offer of technology. The technology Iran would get for suspending enrichment is civilian airline spare parts. Iran currently buys these used but would have access to new parts if it suspends enrichment.

The other technology, the power plants and the reduced restrictions on technology transfers would not come from suspension. If Iran suspends enrichment it would be entitled to enter talks about these other things. Would the terms be concessionary, market or above-market? Europe won't say. That means above market. If they were concessionary Iran would not consider that a fair trade for giving up domestic uranium enrichment. But an offer of talks about technology is not an offer of technology.

Second, once Iran suspends enrichment, Europe and the US have gotten what they want. There is no reason for talks to ever end at that point. If Iran suspends enrichment for talks, and talks cannot end until the US agrees, then the US has a permanent effective veto on Iranian enrichment.

The terms of the talks the UN is trying to impose on Iran explicitly give the US a permanent veto on Iranian enrichment. Even if they did not, if enrichment must be suspended for the duration of talks there is a de-facto veto anyway. As explained earlier, the compensation Iran gets for permanently allowing the US to prevent enrichment is spare parts for civilian aircraft.

Talks could then begin about other trades, but any further concessions from the West would not be compensation for giving up enrichment but for Iran accepting further demands from Europe and the US.

2 - Iran cannot trust foreign fuel suppliers.

The United States has pressured both Russia and China expand sanctions beyond enrichment. It has pressured Russia to stop construction at Bushehr and cancel fuel delivery. Other than fuel under Iran's control, there is no way Iran can have a guaranteed supply in the face of US pressure.

I think the most likely explanation is that Russia's fuel was tied to the missile defense system in Europe and cooperation with Korea was tied to Iran in China's case. Either way while there were no Iranian voices that advocated giving the US a veto over enrichment before, there are even fewer now.

3 - There is no silent anti-clerical majority in Iran.

The Iranian regime is relatively popular and relatively stable. You can find Iranian expatriots in the US who speak negatively about Ahmadinejad, you will even find them if you travel to Tehran. That is analogous to the Americans in Europe, or the Middle East who have nothing good to say about Bush - and you can even find them in Washington and New York.

According to the one poll I have seen that has addressed this question, more Iranians think their government is not religious enough than think it is too religious.

All of the foreign policies that the US dislikes in Iran are popular policies. The vast majority of Iranians believe Israel is not legitimate, and that Hamas and Hezbollah deserve support. The vast majority of Iranians believe Iran should have a military and economy that would make it at least a powerful as its neighbors. The majority of Iranians believe Iran should have a full domestic fuel cycle and even that Iran should be nuclear-weapons capable.

4 - Iran can win a confrontation with the West.

Iran sees its regime as infinitely more stable, and more structurally sound than Hussein's regime. Hussein's regime survived the most extensive bombing campaign ever launched and was only removed by a full scale invasion.

A full scale invasion of Iran is widely acknowledged to be impossible for the US to even consider. If Iraq had gone much better and was now able to play the role for the invasion of Iran that Kuwait played for the invasion of Iraq, a full scale invasion of Iran would still be beyond the capabilities of the US.

What is left is airstrikes, which will enrage Iran's population, and drive them to support their leaders, and sanctions which force the government to take a more central role in distribution of basic survival needs, thereby again strengthening the regime.

The cost of these is that Iran will retaliate against and destabilize US and European assets in the Middle East, at least.

Iran believes that Europe will decide that the cost of confrontation is greater than the gain of Iran giving up enrichment, given that Iran is willing to accept all of the safeguards Brazil, Taiwan, South Korea and Romania accept - each country named has been proven to have had an extensive nuclear weapons program, and is now theoretically nuclear capable, but now not pursuing nuclear weapons even though they all could if they were to perceive an emergency.

5 - Confrontation may be good for Iran.

Iran looks at the 8-year war with Iraq as a harsh test that Iran survived. Even if a new confrontation is harsher on Iran than the 8-year war was, Iran is stronger now than it was when the war started.

The war also radicalized Iran's population. It created the Ahmadinejad generation. Ahmadinejad is not a cleric, but an engineer who was radicalized in college and who stayed radical at least partly because of the war.

A confrontation will radicalize Iran's current young generation and keep them radical. A confrontation, though Iran's government must appear to be making at least token efforts to avoid it, is the best guarantee that there will be a new Ahmadinejad generation. This is as true for sanctions is it is for an invasion.

Hezbollah's survival of the summer war of 2006 is another source of pressure on Iran. Iran perceives itself as the parent of Hezbollah. If Hezbollah survived a month of bombing and a blockade and unlimited security council resolutions and sanctions, it would be a humiliation for Hezbollah's father, the regime of Iran, to succumb to those same tactics.

7 - In the end, Iran will be nuclear capable.

Iran will continue working on centrifuges and enrichment in protected parts of the country, still unknown to the West and will amass the knowledge of designing parts and coordinating their use over the next ten or fifteen years even after Natanz and Bushehr are bombed.

Iran is willing to hunker down and become a country whose only products are subsistance goods and services and its nuclear program. After it becomes nuclear capable, Iran will "surrender" and end any sanctions and confrontation as an irreversibly nuclear-capable power - the way North Korea can give up its weapons but can never again be nuclear-incapable. Then with its population, geography and resources it will catch up economically.

Regime change will be less likely then than it is now, Iran's government will be as stable and popular as it is now. Hussein's government did not become less popular because of the sanctions.


To conclude, stopping Iran from actually building a weapon is easy. Stopping Iran from becoming capable of building a weapon is hard. Slowing Iran's program by five years, pushing the day Iran reaches Brazil's level of nuclear capability to 15 years instead of 10 is possible, at a high cost to the US and to the Iranian people, but low cost to the Iranian regime.

The next generation of Iranian leaders - the generation that grows up through the confrontation that they will inevitably blame, correctly, on the US, Europe and Israel - will have nuclear capability, a decent economy and a major grudge whose consequences will have to be faced by the next generation of Americans, Europeans and Israelis.

The cost of Israel

Americans really have a difficult time getting their heads around the cost of Israel. Americans are people of the book. anti-Americanism in the Middle East is nearly entirely built from first and second order anti-Zionism.

First order in that anti-Americanism is fueled by the spectacle of America starving Palestinians because they didn't vote to accept Israel's right to exist - which in the Middle East means Israel's right to deny justice to the refugees and by Rice claiming Israel's bombing civilians are birth pangs for something good.

Second order in that anti-Americanism is fueled by US support for some of the most vicious dictatorships on Earth. Why would the US not support democratic movements in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan? Because democratic governments in those states would not accept Israel's right to deny what their populations see as justice to the Palestinian refugees. (By the way, the myth of a pro-US silent majority in Iran is belied by polls that say most Iranian agree that Israel is not a legitimate state and that Iran should be a major regional power.)

Other than Israel the US does not have any major dispute with any Middle East power or population. The United States does not like the idea of women being forced to wear veils, but female genital mutilation in other places has never risen to the level of geo-strategic competition. The dispute that sets the West against the Middle East has one and only one source: Israel.

Cheney could have a pro-US government in Iraq in twenty seconds, but he would have to abandon Israel. The US abandoning Israel would leave the Saudis and even Bin Laden with no compunction against hosting US troops.

As it is, a stable pro-US government in Iraq or anywhere in the Middle East with even a hint of democracy is impossible regardless of the amount of force applied because and only because of the US relationship with Israel.

Interestingly, it does not seem to be the case that Americans acknowledge the cost of Israel and believe it is worth it. Americans seem to block from their minds the idea that Israel is as expensive to US interests as it is.