Arab News Blog

It’s Tom Friedman, at it once again in today’s NYT!

Here we are now, almost exactly fourteen Friedman Units (F.U.’s) after George W. Bush’s (heavily Friedman-supported) invasion of Iraq, and the arrogant and over-rated “Sage of Bethesda” is now telling us that the decidedly mixed, and violence-plagued picture of what happened on Sunday’s election day in Iraq was unequivocally “a very good day for Iraq.”

Friedman completely omits to mention the big role that his own writings (and those of many NYT colleagues) played in 2002, in building up the nationwide constituency for the war. Instead, he just notes archly that,

Some argue that nothing that happens in Iraq will ever justify the costs. Historians will sort that out.

That is, of course, also GWB’s own, famously self-exculpating line about the war.

And the Sage of Bethesda (SOB) doesn’t fail to give us one of his frequent little, faux-intimate verbal sparring matches with a world leader… In this case, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, to whom Tom addresses the following:

How are you feeling today? Yes, I am sure you have your proxies in Iraq. But I am also sure you know what some of your people are quietly saying: “How come we Iranian-Persian-Shiites — who always viewed ourselves as superior to Iraqi-Arab-Shiites — can only vote for a handful of pre-chewed, pre-digested, ‘approved’ candidates from the supreme leader, while those lowly Iraqi Shiites, who have been hanging around with America for seven years, get to vote for whomever they want?” Unlike in Tehran, Iraqis actually count the votes. This will subtly fuel the discontent in Iran…

Oh my goodness. Do you think the SOB ever actually reads the news from Iraq where, as we know, Ahmed Chalabi’s extremely anti-democratic “Justice and Accountability Commission” intervened on Saturday to suddenly, on the eve of the election, disqualify 55 candidates– additional to the hundreds it had already disqualified, earlier on during the election campaign?

Chalabi is far from being a neutral figure in the election, since he’s running as a member of the Iraqi National Alliance, the Iran-backed list of mainly Shiite politicians.

So those 55 suddenly banned candidates– all of whom were affiliated with other blocs, mainly the Iraqiyya bloc headed by Ayad Allawi– still had their names on the ballots on Sunday; and thus not only were they subjected to last-minute banning, but in addition everyone who voted for them suddenly had their votes rendered essentially meaningless.

As the WaPo’s Ernesto London and Leila Fadel report from Baghdad today,

If the votes for the newly barred candidates are annulled, it could give the Iraqiya coalition powerful ammunition to allege vote-rigging by rival politicians, including some in the Shiite-led camp of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

“It will be a very violent reaction,” Allawi said in an interview Tuesday. “A lot of violence will take place, and God knows how this will end. I will tell you there is already an existing feeling that there was widespread rigging and widespread intimidation.”

And it’s not just those 55 suddenly-banned candidates and those who voted for them who’re at risk of having their political rights suddenly stripped from them. Londono and Fadel report that,

Faraj al-Haidary, chairman of Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission, said Tuesday night that … under Iraqi law, the Justice and Accountability Commission could theoretically bar more candidates in the days ahead if it submits paperwork before the electoral board certifies them as lawmakers.

Ah, but my friend Tom, sitting in Bethesda, can assure us that Iraqis “get to vote for whomever they want”?

The WaPo journos also write about our friend the Iraq specialist Reidar Visser that he,

said the last-minute disqualification of candidates poses significant challenges for the electoral commission. Because Iraqis were able to choose individual candidates in the elections — as opposed to voting for slates that distribute the seats — disqualifying elected candidates could enrage voters.

“This could create a major problem for the whole process,” Visser said. “We have seen that there is no legal framework to deal with these eventualities, so they’re creating the framework as they proceed.”

So the post-election period in Iraq this time might well be– just as it was after the last national election, in December 2005– very messy, long-drawn-out and quite possibly even, as Allawi warned, violent.

So please let’s not sing any paens to the triumph of “democracy” in Iraq yet. (As Newsweek did last week, and as far too many other stalwarts of the US MSM seem to have been doing this week, too.)

George Bush’s hastily cobbled-together, back-up main “justification” for invading Iraq in 2003, remember, was– once he finally realized the “WMD justification” was a crock of nonsense– that the US occupation liberation of Iraq would usher in a new era of democratic, accountable, and successful government that would immediately become a model for the striving peoples of the whole of the rest of the region…

(Kind of like what the SOB was still arguing in his mendacious piece today.)

But in the aftermath of Iraq’s December 2005 election, the country was plunged into deeper sectarianism and social collapse than it had ever before experienced, and for roughly 18 months thereafter the violence and heartbreak continued unabated, sending streams of extremely distressed Iraqis fleeing for their lives.

Electoral “democracy”, it turned out, was not a “model” that anyone anywhere else in the region wanted to emulate, at all. (In the OPTs, interestingly, all the major political forces did continue with their plans to hold an OPTs-wide parliamentary election just six weeks after that Iraqi election, in January 2006. Washington’s ferocious response to the results of that election gave the lie to any lingering idea anyone might have had that George W. Bush really did have any gut sympathy for the norms and principles of democratic self-governance… )

And, contra to what the SOB is now telling us, I certainly don’t think anyone in the Middle East, whether Iranians, Arabs, Turks, Israelis, or anyone else, is sitting on the edge of their chairs thinking that the 2010 election in Iraq is going to usher in a fabulous period of successful, democratic self-governance in Iraq. The most that anyone is able to hope for, really, is that despite the machinations of Ahmed Chalabi and his gang– the ones who got us into the war and occupation in the first place, remember, along with Bush and Cheney– Iraq’s conflict-battered people may somehow find a governance system that works for them and allows them to rebuild a society that has been torn apart by two decades, now, of extremely vindictive, lethal, politicidal, and arrogant western policy toward their country.

How Iraq’s citizenry decide to govern themselves is completely up to them. For Tom Friedman or anyone else to claim they know what should happen is imperialist arrogance of the most outdated and destructive kind.

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“b”, previously of Moon of Alabama, flagged this story in the WSJ/ here

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Photo by Iranian Flickr user Leila

As someone who spent part of the late 1990s working on Iraq, I am adamantly against pervasive, population-centric economic sanctions (as opposed to sanctions directed at elites). Perhaps to a greater extent than the invasion of Iraq by the Bush administration, the UN sanctions regime pushed by the Clinton administration’s “dual containment” policy were criminally destructive, paving the way for the past decade’s civil war and the complete breakdown of Iraqi society. Charles Tripp, in his history of Iraq, wrote of the sanctions:

Food and medecines were theoretically exempt from the embargo. However, the import of fertilizers, agricultural machinery, pesticides and chemicals that might have a dual use, as well as parts for restoring Iraq’s ruined electricity and water purification systems, was forbidden. Within a relatively short time, the effects of these enforced shortages were being felt by the Iraqi population, as malnutrition and disease took their toll, causing infant mortality rates to rise to levels not seen in Iraq for over forty years. This had little impact on the regime’s priorities.

A more devastating assessment is made by Geoff Dwyer in his The Scourging of Iraq : Sanctions, Law and Natural Justice, which equates the sanctions with war crimes targeting civilian population. The type of sanctions carried out against Iraq were wrong, just as the current siege of Gaza is wrong, and similar sanctions against Iran would also be wrong.

Photo from Flickr user Iraqwar

So it’s somehow alarming to see move for generalized sanctions from the US Congress and energy companies already cutting their links with Iran:

Energy executives said Vitol, Glencore and Trafigura, which have hitherto sold Iran half of its petrol imports of 130,000 barrels a day, stopped supplying Tehran because of mounting political risk. “The political and public relations problems more than outweigh the business rewards,” said one executive.

The sale of petrol to Iran by non-US companies is legal as fuel imports have yet to be included in sanctions against the country. The companies declined to comment.

Vitol’s decision is particularly important as the company is by far the world’s largest oil trader. One executive familiar with Iran’s trade said “Vitol consciously decided not to participate in Iran’s tenders” at the start of the year. Trafigura, the Switzerland-based oil and metals trader, stopped selling to Iran about three months ago, an industry executive said. “They have concluded that there’s too much political and financial risk,” the executive said. Glencore stopped supply in late 2009, breaking a relationship with Iran of more than three decades.

The FT further analyzes where the Iran debate stands, and it’s scary to see this line of thinking:

Supporters, including US lawmakers, argue that cutting off supplies would bring the country’s economy to its knees. To cope, they say, Tehran would need to reduce subsidies to slash consumption, an unpopular measure that would also stoke inflation.

The imposition of petrol rationing in the summer of 2007 led to public anger, with protesters setting a dozen fuel stations on fire. Some opposition supporters hope the increase in energy prices or further economic pressure from sanctions may encourage poorer people finally to join the anti-regime Green Movement.

“If the regime faced damaging economic pressure from a significant reduction in gasoline supplies … it might decide that a nuclear bomb, instead of being the guarantor of the regime’s survival, could be the catalyst of its demise,” says Mark Dubowitz, of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which supports sanctions.

I’m not convinced that sanctions would really stop Iran’s nuclear program (some argue that they might accelerate it), but even worse is the idea that they would push people to join the Green Movement. We know from the Iraq experience that sanctions hurt more than helped any resistance to the Saddam regime, and gave it extra tools to pacify the population. 

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Go read the stirring op-ed that Avraham Burg, former Knesset speaker and former chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, published in Haaretz today.

The title is Once justice dwelled in Jerusalem, now settlers do.

Burg, who is an orthodox Jew (and the son of a key leader of the National religious Party), writes:

Yes, the capital of the Jewish people – the people that always swore not to do to others what it would not have done to it – has become a harlot. Morally wanton, emotionally sealed-off. It is manipulated by its shepherds for their benefit and is full of law – everyone is suing everyone else, hiding behind the laws of injustice. And the judges – as though forced – issue rulings in accordance with discriminatory laws, unique to the “chosen people.” Once justice dwelled here. Now the settlers do, murderers of the nation’s soul.

And no one utters a word, but for a few patriots. People of truth and morals who refuse to stand idly by while the state of Jewish refugees repeatedly throws Palestinian families into the street and hands their miserable homes over to bearded, blaspheming thugs.

These people of integrity are the leftists of Jerusalem… They know only too well the city’s ugly truth, its terrible teens, and will no longer look the other way. They are committed to stopping with their body the torch-bearing brutes who seek to set it on fire.

No one leads the city now, nor will salvation for it come from the country’s elected leader. Sheikh Jarrah is beyond the cognizance of Mayor Nir Barkat and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as though the commotion has nothing to do with them, as though it is happening in Sudan or Tehran. And in the absence of leadership of the state, and the peace bloc, our children have taken on the responsibility, shaken off indifference and despair and brought us here. The circle is expanding and it is full of life, rage and hope. Israeli humanism has been reborn in East Jerusalem. We are there in the summer heat and the winter rains, shouting and calling on others to gather round, seeking both Shabbat and peace. We will not recoil from violent police officers or hotheaded harassers. We stand and pledge: We shall not be silent when Ahmad and Aysha are sleeping in the street outside their home, which has become the settlers’ domain. Is that justice? Not ours! Is that law? No, it is iniquity.

… How long, Mr. Prime Minister and Mr. Mayor? And why do you, judges of Israel, cooperate with the evil that threatens to destroy us? Come with us, return to the Judaism of “Thou shalt not steal” and “Thou shalt not murder.” Leave Sheikh Jarrah now!

Wow. An amazingly powerful piece.

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Tehran, March 7 (IANS) Iran and China have signed a $143 million-deal which will allow a Chinese firm to drill oil and natural gas fields in the Persian Gulf.
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Newsmax/ here

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Key issues in Turkey will be government-military relations, foreign policy and economic recovery, while Tehran will brace itself for international sanctions. The aftermath of elections will dominate the next quarter in Iraq. Cairo will be concerned about inflation, political opposition and the Middle East peace process.

Strategic summary

• A direct clash between the Turkish government and military will probably be avoided, but polarisation will increase, increasing the risk of instability.
• Tehran will prepare for international sanctions, and leaders of the opposition may move towards a compromise with conservatives.
• Slow government formation in Iraq will ensure that few political decisions will be made in the second quarter, and state oil deals will slow and perhaps stall.
• In Egypt, Mohamed El Baradei’s campaign will increase local and international scrutiny of elections, and continued work on the Rafah wall may provoke border clashes with Hamas.

ANALYSIS: Turkey faces a number of key challenges in the second quarter:

1. Civil-military relations. The first quarter saw intensified political controversy leading to a confrontation between government supporters and the military:

• Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s relationship with Chief of the General Staff General Ilker Basbug was undermined by a series of judicial interrogations of army officers.
• The detention of senior commanders in connection with plots discussed and abandoned seven years ago will spur on the nationalist opposition, and another attempt may be made to ban the Islamist-rooted ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).
• The government would probably respond by dissolving parliament and seeking a fresh mandate……. the general elections expected in spring 2011, will intensify in the second quarter.

2. Key policies. Erdogan was unable in the first quarter to make progress in his Kurdish and Armenian initiatives, and on EU accession. Little progress can be expected in coming months on the Kurdish issue. The Turkish-Armenian protocol providing for the opening of the frontier and the establishment of full diplomatic relations will remain a dead letter.

On March 4, Turkey recalled its ambassador to the United States in protest against a congressional committee’s resolution declaring as genocide the killings of Armenians from Turkish Anatolia during the First World War. The Armenian lobby attempts each year to secure such a move from the full Congress, and if it succeeds, US-Turkish relations would come under further strain. There is a small chance of approval by the House of Representatives, but the resolution will almost certainly be rejected in the Senate. A signal of such a rejection will be necessary to prevent a more serious diplomatic fallout.

Presidential elections in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (recognised by Turkey alone) take place on April 18:

• Nationalist contender Dervis Eroglu looks set to defeat left-wing incumbent Mehmet Ali Talat, who is seeking to re-unify the island.
• Faced with the prospect of failure of inter-communal talks, the parties (including Turkey, as a guarantor power) are manoeuvring to gain the moral high ground.
• The second quarter is thus unlikely to witness any progress towards re-unification.

In the absence of progress on this issue, and in view of the likely inability of the AKP government to amend the Turkish constitution in line with EU standards, accession talks will mark time.

3. Economic recovery. The coming months will indicate more clearly the strength of the recovery that began in late 2009. GDP looks set to grow no more than 3-4% in 2010 after a 5-6% contraction in 2009. Risks to growth include weak export demand from Europe, the lingering impact of last year’s job and income losses, and quickening consumer price inflation. The Consumer Price Index reached 8.2% in January, with food and commodity prices leading the way, and it may temporarily surpass 10.0%. Interest rates cannot fall any further, and the Central Bank overnight borrowing rate may remain at 6.5% for several more months. Fixed investment will pick up only slowly.

4. IMF accord. The government has promised to introduce a fiscal rule by May 15, and its medium-term programme and fiscal plan are due to be updated in May and June respectively. If it can agree with the IMF on the details of these and other policy issues (eg taxation, labour market reforms and a privatisation schedule), a standby accord is likely to be signed:

• IMF lending would alleviate the burden of government debt on the domestic financial sector and expand private sector credit opportunities, improving economic activity. However, the government may be cautious about accepting IMF-style stringency ahead of the 2011 election. In January, it increased indirect taxes, contributing to the surge in inflation, but it also announced a one-off increase in pensions.
• A deal would dispel doubts about the sustainability of the current account deficit, expected to widen from just over 2% of GDP in 2009 to 3-4% in 2010. In addition to IMF credit, an accord would encourage foreign investment and lending at a time of low global capital flows, and the lira could strengthen noticeably. It slipped to a rate of 1.55 to the dollar in late February and another bout of weakness is likely in the absence of an IMF accord.

Iran. Tehran will be preoccupied with control at home and defiance abroad:

1. Tightening grip. While the 2009 protests against the contested presidential elections failed to topple President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, a new balance of power has emerged in Iran. Power lies with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Ahmadi-Nejad, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and their clerical and security allies — while the elected institutions have been marginalised and Khamenei’s legitimacy questioned. The momentum of popular protests had faltered by the February 11 Revolution Day rallies. While protests will continue, the reformist leadership of the opposition Green Movement may seek some form of compromise and reconciliation with the conservative establishment later this year.

2. IRGC and the rentier state. Iran’s political economy reinforces the power of the IRGC, as the population relies more than ever on public sector employment and payment from the bloated and inefficient welfare state, financed by oil exports. In the second quarter, the government will move forward in its efforts to cut fuel subsidies, in the face of possible US petrol sanctions, which will hurt ordinary Iranians already suffering from high inflation and unemployment. This will make the population even more fearful of instability that might disrupt their dwindling income, and thus more dependent on the state.

The power of the IRGC will continue to grow as it expands its commercial interests. It is unlikely that the opposition movement will be able to mobilise Iranians to take national action to destabilise the state sector, such as a national strike. Nor is it likely that the IRGC will break with the leadership in the face of public protests, given its economic stake in the status quo.

3. Nuclear programme. With its legitimacy under question at home, Tehran will seek to exploit the nuclear issue for prestige purposes, to demonstrate Iran’s strength as an international actor and Ahmad-Nejad’s confidence and nationalism in defending Iran’s ‘inalienable’ right to develop the full nuclear fuel cycle. There is no consensus in Tehran for a plausible nuclear fuel deal with the UN Security Council (UNSC) permanent members and Germany (P5+1). The second quarter will see intensified US efforts to achieve UNSC consensus on sanctions, although an agreement may not emerge until the third quarter. Iran is bracing itself for further UNSC, US and EU sanctions:

• Due to Chinese reservations, new UNSC sanctions are unlikely to go much further than those already imposed during the past four years. However, they will provide some legitimacy for unilateral US and EU moves.
• Washington is likely to impose sanctions on exports of refined fuel to Iran while the US Treasury will blacklist more Iranian banks, including Iran’s Central Bank, and companies associated with the IRGC, such as the Khatam al-Anbiya engineering and construction firm.
• The EU will probably take parallel measures against the same entities and will also make it harder for European firms to do business with Iran by further limiting commercial credits for such trade.

These sanctions will hurt Iranian consumers by raising fuel prices. However, as long as Iran is able to continue with its oil and gas exports, the economy will remain largely unscathed. Thus, sanctions will antagonise the Iranian regime, without inducing any significant concessions from them on the nuclear programme.

Iraq. March 7 elections will set the landscape for politics and the oil sector in the second quarter:

1. Government formation. Despite tensions, the elections are likely to be relatively peaceful, and to take place on time, with the results accepted by most groups. At least three major coalitions will be needed to form a majority voting bloc in parliament. The Kurds’ ability to deliver 50 or more seats and to marshal their legislators mean that they are likely to be among those forces forming the government. This does not imply an imminent breakthrough in the federal-Kurdish dispute, but it makes a major breakdown in relations in 2010 unlikely — a strained alliance will ensue.

Formation of the new government will be slow, though perhaps not as slow as in 2005. Election results will probably be certified by the end of March, with very small numbers of appeals still outstanding. Parliament is likely to continue struggling to achieve quorum, particularly during summer and early autumn, during parliament’s recess and Ramadan.

Executive branch formation will probably take around three months:

• A package deal will eventually be agreed by four or five major factions, allowing the ratification of a prime minister, president and council of ministers.
• The branch will only begin to operate in mid-summer and will take some time to develop effective capacity.
• Many experienced individuals will be edged out of their positions as new ministers take over their portfolios, resulting in a period of administrative churn.
• For foreign companies aiming to position themselves with new ministers, the first opportunities for engagement will probably come in late summer or early autumn.

2. Investment, oil and gas. With the federal government paralysed for much of the year, few new deals will be negotiated and many current prospective investment deals will become mired and may stall:

• Some oil and gas deals will not survive 2010, particularly the direct negotiation deals for oilfields such as Nassiriya, Nahr bin Umar and Tuba. The federal government has little ability to push forward such deals this year due to the large number of oil deals signed in the licensing rounds. As Iraq’s recovering Oil Ministry has insufficient capacity to service even the licence round deals, new direct negotiation deals are unlikely to materialise this year.
• Moreover, a new government may seek to boost its nationalist credentials by being tough with foreign oil companies. It could require them to commit to terms that are commercially untenable, and that mirror those that Iraq secured for the more mature fields in earlier rounds.

As 2010 will mostly be a ‘waiting year’ for the deals involving the federal government, a more profitable environment for investment may be found among the increasingly well-funded provincial councils, who have ambitious local plans and will continue functioning until elections in 2013.

Egypt. Cairo has a full agenda in the second quarter and beyond:

1. Domestic politics. The Muslim Brotherhood elected a new leader in January following the election of a new Guidance Council, and has taken a sharp conservative turn. The new leader, Mohammed Badie, has not yet signalled major policy changes, but the removal of several key reformist leaders and controversy over internal elections reflect rifts within the group. However, with several senior members arrested in January and February and the Muslim Brotherhood under severe security pressure ahead of May and October elections, the need for unity may trump internal differences.

Former IAEA chief Mohamed El Baradei’s frank criticism of the Mubarak regime represents the regime’s most serious challenge to date:

• El Baradei wants to change the constitution — which restricts political activity and eligibility for the presidency — and has created a National Front for Change to carry out this campaign.
• Although such change is unlikely, El Baradei is popular and his activism has introduced a wildcard into Egyptian politics.

Key questions are whether the movement behind El Baradei — for now largely online — will move to the streets, and whether his credentials will allow him to attract other prominent figures to his cause and repair divisions within Egypt’s opposition. The campaign to change the constitution depends largely on his ability to gather mass support and build a grassroots organisation.

Elections will be held for the upper parliamentary house, the Shura Council, in early May, with little competition. Continuing arrests of Muslim Brothers suggest the regime is ensuring it faces no serious challenge. However, in light of El Baradei’s call for free and fair elections, this poll will be under greater domestic and international scrutiny. It will also be an opportunity to examine how a new electoral commission, created by constitutional amendment in 2007 to replace judicial supervision of elections, will work.

2. Foreign policy. The situation in Gaza and the Middle East peace process will remain Egypt’s foreign policy priorities. Facing mounting domestic opposition to its Gaza policy — notably its efforts to curb smuggling at the border — and a deadlock in Palestinian reconciliation and Israeli-Palestinian talks, Egypt will need some sign of progress to deflect criticism. Its relationship with Hamas has rapidly deteriorated in recent months and the construction of a tunnel-blocking wall at the Rafah border could be a flashpoint between Hamas and Egyptian border guards.

3. Economy. The government recently announced initiatives to increase exports and create public-private partnerships for investment in public infrastructure. A law governing such partnerships is expected by June, creating new financial vehicles for investment in infrastructure.

Controlling inflation remains the main objective; expectations that it will fall to single digits after 18 months of double-digit inflation have yet to materialise. Instead, it moved from 13.2% to 13.6% during the first two months of the year.

The Ministry of Finance postponed to 2015 its 2012 target for reducing the fiscal deficit to 3% GDP. The main medium-term challenge is controlling spending while stimulating economic activity, particularly as efforts to implement a new real estate tax and expand sales taxes to increase government revenue are meeting strong opposition and currently are being delayed.

CONCLUSION: In the second quarter, Turkey will face a slow economic recovery, amid continued tensions between government and military. EU accession will make no progress. The Iranian regime will consolidate power at home, while finding itself increasingly isolated abroad. Iraq faces a hiatus in government as post-election wrangling takes place; state oil deals will make less progress than those with provincial councils. Egyptian Shura Council elections will face greater scrutiny than previously, while the Rafah crossing into Gaza may be the scene of violent clashes. Stimulating economic activity will remain a key challenge.

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Roger Cohen in the NYTimes/ here

“… the 31-year gridlock in Iranian-American relations endures. Sarah Palin, no less, is now urging Obama to “declare war on Iran” to save his presidency. She’s not alone. Daniel Pipes, the conservative commentator, called a recent National Review column: “How to save the Obama Presidency: Bomb Iran.”

There’s nothing new in U.S. hawks reducing Iran to a nuclear abstraction, its 70 million citizens subsumed into a putative warhead, its civilization ignored and its historical grievances against the United States glossed over — all in the name of making Persia a U.S. electoral pawn and a threat that demands bombs.

But the war option remains unthinkable, a potential disaster for the United States and Israel. It’s therefore worth outlining, before the drumbeat intensifies in the run-up to the mid-term U.S. elections, 10 truths about Iran.

1.Iran’s hardliners thrive on isolation. The game-changing pursuit of dialogue with Iran is not incompatible with support of the Green movement; rather it complements that backing…..

2. The Iranian response to Obama has been erratic, not least in the aborted Geneva deal of Oct. 1, 2009, that would have seen Iran’s low enriched uranium (L.E.U.) shipped out the country and the eventual return of uranium enriched to 20 percent (well below weapons grade) for use in a Tehran medical research reactor. The crumbling of this accord, victim of Iran’s political divisions, left Obama and his top Iran aides bitterly frustrated. They are to this day. It would have created breathing space for broader talks.

But Iran says the idea is alive: “We think all parties have shown their political will to fulfill this exchange” (Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, Feb. 5). ….This deal is still a door opener. Sanctions are a cul-de-sac.

3. Deterrence is powerful. The United States should, as Hillary Clinton has suggested, be building a “defense umbrella” for friendly gulf states alarmed by Iran’s nuclear program. The cleverest remark of Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Iran was: “The only way you end up not having a nuclear-capable Iran is for the Iranian government to decide that their security is diminished by having those weapons.”…..

4.Sanctions will not alter Iran’s policy, and will further enrich the Revolutionary Guards who control sanction-circumventing channels from Dubai, but they will buy some time for further probing of engagement.

I’m told that’s how Obama, who remains intellectually committed to the idea of an Iran breakthrough, views them: a necessity in the light of Congressional and Israeli pressure, (any difference?) but not a likely means to get sanctions-inured Iran to change course….

5.Attacking Iran has known consequences. Saddam Hussein did so in 1980 — and thereby cemented Ayatollah Khomeini’s theocratic revolution by uniting diverse factions (socialist, liberal and others) in national defense.

Because the United States and Europe armed Iraq in that war, and Saddam then gassed the Iranians, resentment runs deep: I’ve often been shown war wounds in Tehran on arms and legs as a single word is uttered, “America.” The generation of young officers in that war, like Ahmadinejad, now runs Iran and constitutes the New Right. (Blowback is not limited to Afghanistan.) But most Iranians are under 35 and drawn to the United States.

The one sure way to defeat the Green movement, frustrate Iranian youth, unite Iranians in patriotic defiance, reinforce the New Right, put Iran on a crash course to a bomb, and buttress the regime — as in 1980 — is to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. As Gates has said, “There is no military option that does anything more than buy time” — and not much, at that.

6.Iran’s defiance of U.N. resolutions… Still, I.A.E.A. inspectors are in Iran, …… it is clear that there is still time — at least a couple of years — for a bargain that would persuade Iran to do what Brazil, Argentina and South Africa did before it.

7. The shifts since the June 12 elections are seismic. ….. Iran is far more volatile than a year ago. I doubt that it could manage a peaceful transition were Khamenei, 70, to die…..

8.Israel and Iran are not neighbors. Both are strangers — one Jewish, the other Shiite — in the Sunni Arab sea that is the Middle East. They have never fought a war. They enjoyed everything short of diplomatic relations under the shah and productive relations for a decade after the revolution, when Israel sided with Iran against Iraq. Their enmity is fierce but not inevitable. For Israel, already at war with Arabs, opening a new war front against Persia would be disastrous: Muslim anger would overflow…. U.S. security and the American quest for stability in Iraq and Afghanistan would be compromised. Israel can prevent an Iranian bomb through working with America on measures short of war. Its own large nuclear arsenal and second strike capacity gives it the assurances it needs to pursue that course.

9.A peaceful Iraq, a quieter Afghanistan and any Israeli-Palestinian rapprochement demand Iranian involvement. Outside the tent Iran is a disruptive force. Inside the tent it can help America on multiple fronts and outgrow its violent revolutionary impetuosity. That’s still a game-changing proposition, as radical as the U.S.-China breakthrough of 1972 that changed the world. Obama must shut out the baying crowds and focus on the prize.

10.Iran is the original Heartbreak Hotel. It crushes people with its tragedy. Since at least the 1930s it has veered between forced westernization (“westoxification” to its critics) and theocratic imposition, banning the hijab and then making it compulsory, reaching for pluralism and then crushing it, opening its society and then slamming it shut.

….. It is time for Iran to find the balance between faith and pluralism that has eluded it for a century. It is time for the United States to help Iran’s emergence from isolation — not with Palin’s jingoism, nor empty punishments, nor bombs — but through firmness allied to creative diplomacy and sustained involvement.

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Xinhua/ here via WPR

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“….. Two years after Hizballah military commander Imad Mughniyah was assassinated in Damascus — prompting Nasrallah to declare an “open war” on Israel, the presumed perpetrator — the group has yet to successfully retaliate….

During his February 16, 2010 speech marking the martyrdom of Mughniyah and other Hizballah heroes, Nasrallah rationalized the conspicuous lack of significant retaliation: “Our options are open and we have all the time in the world….[W]e are the ones to choose the time and place and target.” He also suggested that Hizballah had not yet found a target that “rises to the level” of Mughniyah.

Meanwhile, the group has been preparing for a conventional fight against Israel by stockpiling weapons in the south in violation of UN Security Council resolutions……

These discoveries represent only a fraction of the weapons Hizballah has procured during its most recent massive military buildup. Since the 2006 war with Israel, the group has acquired an estimated 40,000 rockets and — with Syria’s help — reportedly improved the quality of its arsenal. In addition to boosting the range of this stockpile, Syria may have provided the organization with the Russian-made shoulder-fired Igla-S antiaircraft system, which is capable of downing Israeli F-16s. ….. U.S. officials have already confirmed in the Arab press that Hizballah is training with Syria on the antiquated SA-2 antiaircraft system.

To complement its upgraded arsenal, Hizballah recently spelled out a new, more aggressive military posture toward Israel. Since the 2006 war, rumors (Schenker & Lewitt read DEBKA!) have persisted that the group would cross the border and “take the fighting to Israel” in the next conflict. During his February 16, speech, Nasrallah offered a new vision of strategic parity with Israel, if not an advanced conception of the organization’s longstanding “balance of terror” strategy.

Deriding Israel’s “Iron Dome” missile defense system as a “science fiction movie,” Nasrallah upped the ante by pledging to go toe to toe with Israel in the next campaign….

If Hizballah succeeds in avenging Mughniyah by striking an Israeli target — whether on the border or abroad — it could set off another round of fighting similar to that of 2006. This time, however, other actors could well enter the fray. If one takes Damascus at its word, Syria may decide to participate in the next Israeli-Hizballah war, a development that could spark a region-wide conflagration. At the moment, Hizballah may be keeping its powder dry on orders from Tehran, in anticipation of an Israeli strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. Still, avenging Mughniyah is a key priority for the group, and its success or failure in meeting this goal could be the difference between the current status quo and a regional war.”

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