There are days when I sincerely believe Iran’s hardliners and the Bush Neocons are in league together to preserve each other’s hold on power. This is one of those days:
Iran test-fired a long-range missile from a submarine in the Gulf yesterday as part of an orchestrated show of defiance ahead of the United Nations security council’s Thursday deadline to suspend part of its nuclear programme.[…]
The missile launch underlines Iran’s ability to create havoc in the Gulf by closing off the Straits of Hormuz to oil tankers, a move that would create serious shortages and send prices soaring.
More below the fold …
The UN has given Iran until Thursday to suspend its uranium enrichment programme, which Tehran claims is for purely civilian purposes but which the US and others in the west view as a step towards achieving a nuclear weapons capability. If Iran fails to comply, the US favours imposing sanctions but Russia and China, which both have a veto on the security council, have shown little enthusiasm for such a move.
Tehran disclosed yesterday that the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, is to go to Iran on Saturday for a two-day visit to see if there is a way out of the crisis.
Iran on Tuesday set out its counter-proposals to the security council in a 23-page memorandum but there has been no official response yet from the US or Europe. The crisis seems likely to escalate as Iran is refusing to suspend uranium enrichment as a precondition for talks.
Expect to see warnings about the Great Evildoer Iran (and why a Democratic victory this Fall will result in Iranian nukes sprouting mushroom clouds over our heads) in every GOP advert, and spouting from the lips of every neocon pundit belaboring Rove’s daily talking points on every cable news show at every hour of the day or night. Iran’s belligerent attitude, calculated or not, bluff or not (and I believe it to be both calculated and a bluff) is a gift to Bush and Republican candidates for Congress. Coming so soon before the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks we can expect to see the inevitable comparisons between the War on Terror and another Middle Eastern country, this time Iran.
Iran’s “tickling the tail of the dragon” approach to diplomacy may be a successful tactic with respect to preventing the imposition of sanctions by the UN’s Security Council. The real question is whether it will forestall another military adventure by Bush & Cheney, LLC? To that end, I continue to believe it will fail and fail spectacularly, to our detriment and to the detriment of the Iranian people.
…as part of an orchestrated show of defiance ahead of the United Nations security council’s Thursday deadline to suspend part of its nuclear programme.[…]
Who said that this was their purpose? Does the reporter have a quote from the Iranian government attesting to this? Or is the reporter just assuming?
If I were the Iranians (which I’m not, of course) I’d put on that power-show to give the US and the world a taste of what will happen if the US invades. I’ve long suspected that, if Cheney invades, the first thing the Iranians would do is close the Strait, by mines or missiles or just by sinking a bunch of tankers so that no one can get in or out.
I honestly think that the neocons have given no thought to the consequences of invasion.
Your assessment of the likely Iranian response in the event of an attack corresponds with mine. The Iranians will not sit and wait while the Saudis and Kuwaitis reap the rich reward from skyrocketing crude oil prices. They’ll close the Straits, also as a reminder to their erstwhile protectors Russia and China that they expected more than their just rolling over for the US.
None of these reporters seems to be able to comprehend that Iran has a treaty right to do the research in which they’re engaged. The US wants Iran to surrender that right, but I haven’t seen any package put forward which offers anything substantial for Iran’s surrendering that right. Dubya’s posse keeps talkig about the EU package, but that package is so nebulous as to be worthless. Somebody will need to talk big $$$ to get the Iranians attention and neither the US nor the EU nor China nor Japan have had the courage to cough up the wad it will take, not to mention the third-party guarantee for future nuclear fuel supplies.
They’re called Persian rugs, guys, and the folks in Teheran virutally invented negotiating. Our children playing in the sand in the Oval Office don’t seem to have grasped that fact yet.
If I were the Iranians (which I’m not, of course) I’d put on that power-show to give the US and the world a taste of what will happen if the US invades
This is certainly fair warning. By showing they have the means to resist, they are suggesting they might actually do it.
Further, this is actually evidence they do NOT want war–that they are trying to dissuade us, rather than sucker us into it (the way we suckered Saddam into the first Gulf War).
As for negotiations, there is really nothing to discuss. The US style of negotiations is to demand complete capitulation before talks begin. Even Kaiser Wilhelm was more flexible.
there’s no limited liability in this corporation.
Its actually the IsraelNeoCons and Al-Qaeda who both want to spark a US-Iran war: