Arab News Blog

UPDATE 1: Officials find large batches of milk powder laced with deadly chemical in at least three provinces.
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Taking cues from WINEP, Haaretz, here & Yediot, here

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WPR/ here

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More than 420,200 people from China and abroad visited the UAE pavilion at the Shanghai Expo 2010 since the event kicked off here three weeks ago, the organisers said.
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Iranian member of parliament Mohammad Reza Bahonar warned Thursday that “If (the West) issues a new resolution against Iran, we will not be committed to Tehran’s statement and dispatching fuel outside Iran will be canceled.”

Turkey and Brazil, with full backing from Washington DC and in close cooperation with the Obama administration, had apparently succeeded by Monday morning in negotiating a deal whereby Iran would send over half of its low enriched uranium to Turkey, which would then send it on to (presumably) France and Russia for enrichment to 19.75 percent for use in Iran’s medical reactor for the production of medical isotopes. The deal was nearly identical to the one sought last October in Geneva by the Obama administration. Iran had agreed to something like this arrangement, but then reneged.

In the meantime, the Obama administration determined to seek a further round of United Nations Security Council sanctions on Iran. Even as Brazil and Turkey were working overtime to get an agreement from Tehran, Washington had finally persuaded Russia and China to accept a new round of relatively weak sanctions. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton more or less rejected the Turkey-Brazil deal as soon as it was announced, in favor of increased sanctions.

Veteran Iran observer Gary Sick predicted this course, calling it “moving the goalposts”– an email observation. Yesterday Roger Cohen wrote an op-ed for NYT to the same effect. Obama would no longer take ‘yes’ for an answer.

One sticking point was that Iran did not offer, in the deal struck with Turkey and Brazil, to cease enriching uranium. But this goal is the primary one of the Obama administration and Gareth Porter argues that even last October’s negotiations were viewed in Washington as a step toward ending the enrichment program. (The Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty gives Iran the right to enrich for peaceful nuclear reactors to generate electricity, but the US and the Security Council have attempted to amend the NPT ex post facto).

Brazil’s foreign minister said, according to the USG Open Source Center translation of an article in the Portuguese Agencia Brasil for Thursday, May 20, 2010:

‘According to the minister of foreign affairs, who spoke with reporters at Itamaraty in Brasilia today, no one will be able to ignore the agreement signed in Tehran. “. . . I feel that ignoring that agreement would reflect an attitude of disdain for a peaceful solution. I don’t believe it is possible to do that.”

Amorim said that before traveling to Tehran with Lula, he had already learned that permanent members of the UN Security Council were drafting a resolution proposing new sanctions against Iran but that they would await the results of Lula’s trip. According to Amorim, there has not yet been time to analyze the document. “If you have a result and the next day someone presents a resolution proposing sanctions, the wait was in fact purely formal.”

The minister said the announcement that Iran would continue its uranium enrichment program even after the agreement was signed with Brazil and Turkey was a matter to be dealt with in a second phase.

“We were not intending to solve all the problems at once. That requires a conversation not with Brazil but with the permanent members of the UN Security Council, and I am optimistic about its results. We put the ball in the goal area, but the goal will have to be scored by the permanent members of the council and the representatives of the IAEA.”

Amorim emphasized that continuing the uranium enrichment program was not part of the negotiations leading to the agreement signed yesterday. “I am trusting in people’s common sense and feel that we have helped give a peaceful negotiation a chance. It was not we who invented the agreement. It had already been proposed by the UN Security Council and the IAEA.”

Amorim is likely to be disappointed by all sides, and in my view the reason lies in part in domestic US politics.

There are four domestic political forces affecting Iran policy. The War Hawks, including the more hard line of the Israel lobbies, would like to see the US back on the war footing with Iran characteristic of the late Bush administration. The pragmatic hawks such as US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, aware of how ruinous entering a third war would be for the US at this point, would at least like to see the imposition of robust sanctions. The Realists, exemplified by Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett, would like to see engagement and negotiation with the regime in Tehran, even at the cost of ignoring the Islamic Republic’s crackdown on the Green Movement and massive human rights violations. The Democratic left and the National Iranian American Council (the most effective Iranian-American lobby) would like to see a rapprochement with Iran, but urge continued pressure by the West on the regime to open up and to cease its authoritarian measures.

The Obama administration came into office talking like the Realists, and the Realists, most Iranian-Americans and the left wing of the Democratic Party would have liked to see him take the Brazil-Turkey deal. But through congressional pressure and that of the Israel lobbies, the pro-sanctions faction has come out on top. Adopting the position of the pragmatic hawks and seeking tighter sanctions has the advantage that it blunts the arguments of the War Hawks. It is a better platform for Democrats to run on in the November midterms than open, direct negotiations with Iran. Ironically, Obama has allowed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and SecDef Gates to continue to build up Iran as a supposedly major security challenge to the US, making it harder for him to follow through on his original plan of direct negotiations with Tehran. (How unlikely a candidate Iran is to play major foe of the United States is clear if you look, as Stephen Walt has, at the basic economic and military realities; Iran is poor and weak.

Unhelpful linkage with other Middle East policy may be in play, as well. The slight increase of sanctions may be intended to mollify Israel and forestall a disastrous military strike by that country on the Iranian nuclear facilities at Natanz near Isfahan. Promising stricter sanctions may also be important to the US negotiations with the Likud-led government of Israel over a two-state solution with the Palestinians. That is, horsetrading over Israel-Palestinian issues may be driving Iran policy in the White House.

Those pragmatic hawks eager for stronger sanctions seem to envisage restrictions on Iran’s finance sector in its interfacing with the rest of the world.

Likewise, they wish to forestall further Russian arms deals with Tehran. Vedomosti Online reported on Thursday, May 20, 2010 (according to the translation of the USG Open Source Center):

‘Konstantin Makiyenko, expert of the Center for Analysis of Strategy and Technology, says that the adoption of this resolution would terminate the military-technical cooperation of Russia and Iran, except, probably, merely for deliveries of transport helicopters, and would directly affect deliveries to Iran of S-300 missile systems. . . The first contract for the delivery of Tor M-1 air-defense missile systems was signed in 2006, and for deliveries of the S-300, in 2007, but the contract has still not been executed. Russia is citing technical problems.’

In contrast, Aleksey Arbatov of the Russian Academy of Sciences World Economy and International Relations Institute said, “The delivery of the S-300 never was planned since it would have provoked an Israeli military attack on Iran, now Israel is taking a time-out to asses the effectiveness of the new sanctions, and in the event of noncompliance with them, could strike in the fall or spring. . .” He added that Iran’s lack of the S-300 minimizes the number of casualties on the attacking side . . .”

Nevertheless, Arbatov thinks the West is flailing around on the sanctions issue and is unlikely to be effective: “The sanctions are being imposed as a conscience salve, they will have no effect, like the previous ones . . .’

Obama mysteriously has ceased leading on the Iran issue and is instead showing himself willing to be led. Thus have the pragmatic hawks (with the war hawks waiting in the wings) defeated the Realists and the liberal internationalists. Obama stabbed Turkey and Brazil in the back after asking them to risk their face for him. Obama is giving Iran the impression that he is indecisive. All of this backtracking for the sake of a sanctions regime that is highly unlikely actually to change Iran’s behavior, contrary to the express hopes of Secretary Gates. Obama’s current Iran policy cannot be explained in the terms of US-Iranian relations. It must be driven by something else. The Israel lobbies and dealings with the Netanyahu government are the likeliest candidates in explaining the abandonment of a Realist approach.

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OXFAN: Excerpts:

“… If the resolution is passed, its real significance will be seen not in the specific provisions that it contains, but rather in what it symbolises in terms of international agreement and the measures that individual countries and companies may subsequently undertake…..

Nine votes are required to pass the resolution. Brazil and Turkey will not support it, and Lebanon’s backing is also uncertain. Washington hopes it can rely on Uganda, Nigeria and Bosnia, but the former’s support is not guaranteed, and Bosnia may abstain. Yet even without unanimous support, the ability to muster consensus among the P5 still represents a positive diplomatic result for Washington.

Measures. The measures proposed in the new draft resolution build on those in the three previous rounds. The resolution:

• calls for greater scrutiny of Iranian financial activity as well as Iranian cargo;
• prohibits the sale of certain weapons to Iran; and
• expands the list of individuals and companies affiliated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) subject to asset seizures and travel restrictions….

In order to secure P5 consensus, the provisions do not include some of the more punitive measures proposed during negotiations, such as targeting Iran’s energy sector or blacklisting its Central Bank. Both are mentioned in the preamble as areas where companies and governments should exercise vigilance, possibly giving justification to those states wishing to target these areas (particularly through unilateral sanctions) but not enforcing such measures on unwilling states. Moreover, many of its terms include potential loopholes and stop short of calling for unconditional implementation. On its own, the package is no more likely to prompt Iran to change its position than previous sanctions.

Implications.

Its real significance lies outside of its written terms. ………the resolution is significant for its potential impact on the development of separate US and European sanctions and the attitude of individual companies……

Key here is the role of the United States, which has in recent years pursued its own financial ‘smart sanctions’ and encouraged the private sector to abandon the Iranian market. While US unilateral sanctions have not always been enforced on non-US companies, firms wishing to expand their US business may choose to scale back their Iranian operations, as was probably the case with India’s Reliance. Likewise, the abandonment of a project by Russia’s Lukoil in March may have been influenced by its stronger US connections than some other Russian companies.

This decision to act beyond specific UN demands (or to implement them strictly, despite potential loopholes) is likely to be key to determining the effect on Iran. For example, despite Western objections to Russia’s construction of the Bushehr reactor, previous sanctions resolutions exempt light-water nuclear reactors, including Bushehr. Nevertheless, EU directives on implementing UN sanctions do not exempt Bushehr, and diplomats reported yesterday that Germany has arrested several men on charges of buying dual-use technology for the project.

Impact on Iran. The regime and the IRGC have played down the significance of the proposal:

• IRGC figures are likely to find ways to circumvent financial restrictions, as they have in the past.
• Militarily, the measures fall short of an outright embargo — and it is not yet clear whether Russia will cancel its promised sale of an S-300 missile system to Iran, since it was agreed before the sanctions….
• Crucial areas such as the country’s oil and gas sectors have not been penalised — a likely result of Chinese resistance, as well as concerns about hurting the wider population. Key countries, such as Russia and China, are likely to continue their trade and investment.

Yet, should the new sanctions lead directly or indirectly to increased disengagement by international companies and a fall in investment, Tehran could face some deepening concerns….. Nevertheless, even these difficulties are unlikely in the short term to be enough to precipitate a reversal of position by the Iranian government over its nuclear programme…. (Also,) it is aware that the acquiescence of China and Russia necessitated significant weakening of the sanctions resolution, and Tehran will look to exploit cleavages within the P5 in the future.

At home, the fact that the proposal came after Tehran agreed to a fuel swap will strengthen the regime’s presentation of itself as a victim who has tried to be cooperative. The regime’s support among the security apparatus, including the IRGC, is likely to be strengthened ….The package is likely to be passed in June, but its provisions in themselves are unlikely to increase direct pressure on the Iranian regime…”

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Yesterday afternoon CNAS released another of the papers which has been keeping me away from the blog:   America’s Extended Hand:  An Assessment of the Obama Administration’s Global Engagement Strategy, written with my former Elliott School colleague and current CNAS Vice President Kristin Lord. This report started out with a meeting I convened in September with a group of high-level administration officials to talk about the follow-up to Cairo and the overall approach to public diplomacy.   Kristin and I originally planned to do a 5 page policy brief, but then it began to grow. We ended up talking to around 50 current and former government officials involved with public diplomacy and strategic communications, and greatly expanding the scope of the analysis. America’s Extended Hand presents a comprehensive overview of how the Obama administration thinks about public engagement, how it has attempted to reorganize the government to deliver on that vision, and how it has performed across a number of crucial issues (including Muslim engagement, Afghanistan and Pakistan, Iran, China, democracy promotion, and combating violent extremism).  

We argue that the administration has succeeded in its initial goal of "re-starting" America’s relations with global publics, taking advantage of the fresh start offered by the Presidential transition, and has effectively used President Obama’s particular gifts to focus attention and global debate on issues which he has identified as key American priorities. The administration has been less successful, however, at executing engagement campaigns in support of specific tactical objectives, at adapting to changing circumstances and at meeting the high expectations generated by those speeches. With a palpable sense of the Obama bubble deflating, and a pernicious consensus emerging of a "say-do" gap in which the U.S. fails to deliver on its highly public promises, we urge the administration to do more to prepare the ground and to follow through on its engagement.  

America’s Extended Hand goes into considerable detail about the administration’s philosophy, its efforts to reshape the inter-agency process and individual government agencies (from the Defense Department and State Department to the NSC and the BBG), and its efforts across a range of issue areas.  And it makes a number of specific recommendations for how to adapt to the emerging second phase of the administration’s foreign policy.  I’m not going to rehearse all of that detail here — if you’re interested in America’s public diplomacy and strategic communications, download the paper here from the CNAS website.   This report has been a long time in the making — I look forward to feedback and debate! 

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In the HINDU/ here

Russia has upped the United States in a diplomatic tug-of-war over Iran’s nuclear programme. While Washington was busy getting Moscow and Beijing on board for tougher sanctions against Teheran, the Kremlin quietly orchestrated a deal between Iran, Turkey and Brazil for swapping Iranian low-enriched uranium for fuel rods for use in a medical reactor. The deal has taken the wind out of the U.S. sails.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had set up the deal in the course of his recent interactions with the leaders of Brazil and Turkey. In April Mr. Medvedev discussed the proposal with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on the sidelines of a BRIC summit in Brazil. Shortly afterwards the Russian leader pursued the initiative in Ankara, where he travelled last week from Damascus, which is closely allied to Teheran. A day after Mr. Medvedev returned from Turkey he played host to Mr. da Silva who stopped over in Moscow on his way to Teheran to put final touches to the proposed fuel swap arrangement.

Speaking after his talks with the Brazilian President, Mr. Medvedev pointedly urged Iran to respond to the Brazilian-Turkish initiative, describing it as “the last chance before the U.N. Security Council takes its decision”. Predictably, the U.S. was quick to dismiss the Teheran swap deal as Iran’s delaying tactics that would not derail “strong” sanctions Washington claimed to have agreed upon both with Moscow and Beijing.

However, Moscow has declared that the fuel swap agreement does make a difference. Mr. Medvedev welcomed the Teheran accord as a step towards finding “a politico-diplomatic solution to the problem of Iran’s nuclear programme”.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday that while Moscow was still committed to “the understanding in principle” on the draft Security Council resolution on new sanctions, the swap agreement dictated the need to take a fresh look at the Iran problem. “It is necessary now to analyse in the most detailed way the situation that has shaped up in the wake of the Teheran declaration, above all, from the point of view of urgent action Iran must take to implement it, first of all, by making an official application to the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency],” Mr. Lavrov said.

Moscow has therefore told Washington that getting Teheran to honour the swap deal had a higher priority than adopting new sanctions and if the U.S. did not support the deal it could be held responsible for its possible failure. “An agreement on acceptable ways of implementing the initiative of Brazil and Turkey would help create a favourable atmosphere for resuming political-diplomatic efforts to resolve the Iranian nuclear problem in its totality,” Mr. Lavrov told Ms Clinton.

Mr. Lavrov also made it clear that U.S. plans to take unilateral sanctions against Iran could be an obstacle to the passing of the U.S.-pushed Security Council resolution. He voiced Moscow’s “concern” over U.S. planned sanctions describing them as “going against the principle of the supremacy of international law as laid down in the U.N. Charter.” In its push for more talks with Teheran, Russia has received support from China, which said on Wednesday that the efforts by Brazil and Turkey will “aid the process of peacefully resolving the Iran nuclear issue through dialogue and negotiations”. Washington will also have to factor in strong opposition to new sanctions from Brazil and Turkey, both non-permanent Security Council members.

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The Leveretts at RFI/ here

Two documents are driving the Iran-related news these days: the agreement announced Monday on refueling the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR) brokered by Brazil and Turkey and the draft “Elements” of a potential new Iran sanctions resolution agreed by the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and circulated yesterday to the Council’s 10 non-permanent members. Unfortunately, much of the media has misunderstood the relationship between these two documents.

Clearly, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton rushed to announce the text of the draft “elements” for a new sanctions resolution to push back against the Brazil-Turkey nuclear deal and show the Senate Foreign Relations Committee—before which she was committed to appear to discuss the new U.S.-Russia “START” agreement—that Washington was still “in control” of the Iranian nuclear issue. Her actions reflected considerable disregard, to say the least, for Brazilian and Turkish diplomatic efforts. As Tehran University professor Seyed Mohammad Marandi said, “The United States just slapped Turkey and Brazil in the face and spit on them afterwards”. (Mohammad went on to describe the United States as “throwing a tantrum”.)

Her actions may also have reflected a certain amount of dishonesty—we do not know what other word to use—on the Obama Administration’s part. In the wake of the Brazil-Turkey deal, the Administration is once again requiring Iran’s suspension of all activities related to uranium enrichment to avoid the imposition of new sanctions. As of Monday, the Administration’s position is that, even if Tehran carried out the steps specified in its agreement with Brazil and Turkey, new sanctions should be adopted unless Iran suspends enrichment activities.

But that had not been the Administration’s position since the Baradei proposal for refueling the TRR was first tabled in October. From that point until this Monday, the Administration repeatedly indicated that Iranian acceptance of the Baradei proposal would preclude the imposition of further sanctions, at least until there had been further negotiations about the broader range of issues associated with the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. At least in the near term, the avoidance of new sanctions was no longer linked to suspension. (Senior British officials told us last fall that this was why, as a matter of policy, Her Majesty’s Government did not want to see the TRR deal go through—because it would then be practically impossible to sanction Iran over its continued refusal to abide by Security Council resolutions calling for suspension.)

Now that Tehran has accepted the main elements of the Baradei proposal—the transfer of 1,200 kilos of low-enriched uranium out of Iran in exchange for new fuel for the TRR—the United States has unilaterally changed the game.

Most of the Western media bought into Secretary Clinton’s narrative before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday—that Washington has regained the diplomatic upper hand, and the P-5 are ready to go forward with new sanctions. We believe that the situation is much more complicated—and much riskier for the United States—than conventional wisdom currently allows. Getting P-5 agreement on a substantially watered-down and incomplete draft sanctions resolution (more on that below) is one thing. Getting P-5 agreement on scheduling that draft resolution for formal discussion and, ultimately, a vote in the Security Council is something else. Ensuring nine affirmative votes for the resolution—and avoiding deep divisions in the Council—is something else again.

Brazil and Turkey—both non-permanent members of the Security Council—are already indicating that they are not about to roll over in the face of Secretary Clinton’s bluster. Turkish Foreign Minister Davuto?lu says that Prime Minister Erdo?an will personally lobby his P-5 counterparts not to torpedo the Brazil-Turkey deal by prematurely passing a new sanctions resolution; Davuto?lu himself will work with the 10 non-permanent members. We expect that Brazil will also be intensively involved in efforts to slow the sanctions train. And, behind China’s statement of ongoing support for the two-track approach, Chinese sources are indicating that, while it may not be harmful to have the language of a new sanctions resolution ready to go in case the Brazil-Turkey deal falls apart, successful implementation of that deal could obviate the need for new sanctions.

With regard to a potential new sanctions resolution, the draft “elements” circulated to the full membership of the Security Council yesterday reflect—as we have been predicting for some time—major substantive concessions/surrenders by the Obama Administration.

–To win Russian and Chinese support, Washington had to give up on any idea of a ban on new investment or other measures that might have impeded Iran’s ability to produce and export hydrocarbons.

–The Administration had wanted a comprehensive embargo on arms sales to Iran, but had to settle for restrictions on transfers of a few specific categories of weapons systems.

–The Administration had wanted a comprehensive ban on financial dealings with the Revolutionary Guards and Revolutionary Guards-affiliated entities, but had to settle for the application of previously authorized asset freezes and travel restrictions to specified Revolutionary Guards elements, to be identified in one of the annexes to a new resolution. Tellingly, there is, at this point, no agreement among the Security Council’s permanent members regarding which Revolutionary Guards elements are to be included in the annex.

–Contrary to some media reports, the draft language would not authorize forcible boarding of Iranian vessels on the high seas.

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An interesting piece in The National datelined New Delhi and indicating that India and China are both looking at increasing their training presence in Afghanistan, looking towards the day the US withdraws.

India has, of course, long had an involvement in Afghanistan, usually either covert or at least mostly under-the-radar, since it clearly sees a need to offset Pakistani influence in the country. China is a bit less obvious, but it is certainly concerned with the role the Taliban and Al-Qa‘ida have played in encouraging radicalization of China’s Uighur (East Turkestani) separatists in Xinjiang.

It’s a reminder that the Great Game in Central Asia is still very much afoot, and will be when the US leaves as well.

Halford Mackinder, please call your office.

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