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.