by Peter Jenkins
Last week the BBC’s “Today” programme carried an interview with Dr. Akbar Etemad, who was in charge of Iran’s fledgling nuclear program between 1974 and 1978 and who has lived outside Iran since the Revolution.
Dr. Etemad spoke frankly of the instructions he received from Shah [...]]]>
by Peter Jenkins
Last week the BBC’s “Today” programme carried an interview with Dr. Akbar Etemad, who was in charge of Iran’s fledgling nuclear program between 1974 and 1978 and who has lived outside Iran since the Revolution.
Dr. Etemad spoke frankly of the instructions he received from Shah Mohamed Reza Pahlavi, a valued ally of the West. Dr. Etemad’s mission was “to go for all the technologies imaginable in the field of nuclear technology”.
The Shah wanted Iran to be capable of meeting a large proportion of its electricity needs without running down oil and gas reserves that were better used to earn foreign exchange.
He also wanted Iran to have a nuclear weapons option, to become capable of making nuclear devices should he perceive a need for them. Dr. Etemad is frank about this: “The Shah had the idea at the time that he’s strong enough in the region and he can defend our interests in the region [and] he didn’t want nuclear weapons. But he told me that if this changes we would have to ‘go for nuclear’. He had that in mind.”
What’s striking about this summary of the Shah’s thinking is the close resemblance it bears to post-2006 US national intelligence estimates (NIEs) of the Islamic Republic’s intentions. “We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003 Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program; we also assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons” was the opening sentence of a 2007 NIE. A month ago the opening sentence of the Iran and North Korea section of a Worldwide Threat Assessment read: “We assess Iran is developing nuclear capabilities to enhance its security, prestige and regional influence and give it the ability to develop nuclear weapons, should a decision be made to do so.”
This kind of continuity of intent should come as no surprise. History abounds with examples of revolutionary regimes that soon adopted many of the external goals of the regimes they had overthrown.
It does not follow logically from this resemblance that the NIEs must be right. But the resemblance boosts the probability that they are right.
Dr. Etemad also gives us a clue as to what is likely to be the Islamic Republic’s fundamental motive in seeking the “threshold” capability sought by the Shah. The Shah wanted a capability on which he could fall back if he no longer felt able to defend Iran’s interests by conventional means. The key word in that sentence is “defend”; it is a word that is usually seen as devoid of aggressive connotations.
Dr. Etemad also implies that the Shah saw no inconsistency between the aspiration for a threshold capability and Iran’s international obligations. The Shah was fully aware of what the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), negotiated under his authority in 1967-68, required of Iran. He would have been loath to jeopardise his strategic Cold War relationship with the US and his close relationships with the UK, France, and Germany by violating those obligations.
The Shah will have known that Article X of the NPT reads: “Each Party shall in exercising its national sovereignty have the right to withdraw from the Treaty if it decides that extraordinary events, related to the subject matter of this Treaty, have jeopardised the supreme interests of its country”.
This provision is naturally interpreted as meaning that if a Party feels threatened by another state which is nuclear-armed, it may withdraw in order to defend itself by acquiring nuclear weapons. It implies, on this reading, that as well as having a right to withdraw, Parties have a right to attain a threshold from which they can acquire the means to defend themselves before the threat to their supreme interests materialises.
One final point of particular interest in Dr. Etemad’s historical testimony is his reference to US pressure on him to refrain from developing dual-use nuclear technologies such as uranium enrichment and spent fuel reprocessing. “The Americans” told him, he says, that “Iran is not a problem for us but the conditions we impose on Iran are those that we want to impose on other countries”.
That can be interpreted as meaning that as long as the Shah was on his throne, the US would have been relaxed about Iran acquiring the dual-use technologies that underpin a threshold capability but for the fact that this would constitute a precedent. We still hear echoes of the precedent argument now in reference to the Islamic Republic’s programme.
However, the global nuclear landscape has changed since 1975. All but nine states that are nuclear-armed have made an NPT vow not to acquire nuclear weapons. Many of these states have made the same pledge to their regional partners in nuclear-weapon-free zone arrangements. Punishing Iran for acquiring a threshold capability is not the only means available to the US for discouraging the spread of dual-use technologies. It was only the British who used to hang an admiral “to encourage the others”.
Photo: U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower (left) and Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran pose in December 1959 at the Marble Palace in Tehran, Iran.
]]>The findings of the BBC World Service’s 2011 Country Rating Poll reveal that an average of only 16% of nearly 29,000 respondents in 27 countries queried regard the Islamic Republic’s global influence as being “mainly positive,” while 59% consider it to be “mainly negative.” That’s lower than North Korea, Pakistan and Israel, who are also among the bottom feeders in public popularity. (North Korea’s approval/disapproval ratings were 16%/55%; Pakistan’s 17%/56% and Israel’s 21%/49%.)
The methodology of the pollsters doesn’t presume respondents have any basic knowledge, let alone expertise, about current world affairs. It’s more of an instantaneous free association quiz: the pollster names a country, and the respondent offers his or her gut reaction. South Africa’s hosting the 2010 World Cup, for example, was presumably responsible for a 7-point surge in its popularity rating, according to the BBC World Service.
Not surprisingly, the sums of the positives and negatives for nearly all the countries on the list fall far short of 100, with “don’t know,” “not sure,” and “it depends” responses (not offered as an option by pollsters, but accepted nonetheless) making up the difference. Nor were respondents queried as to why they view any given country’s influence as positive or negative.
Germany ranked at the top of the 16 countries about which respondents were asked. The survey was conducted by Globescan/PIPA between late December 2010 and early February 2011. Germany’s favorable rating was 62%, with an unfavorable average of only 15%–a lower disapproval rate than any other country except Canada (12% disapproval). Forty-nine percent of respondents rated U.S. influence positively, while 31% viewed it negatively. (See Jim Lobe’s analysis, Views of U.S. Influence Steadily Climb Under Obama.)
Iranian influence is regarded more favorably in the Middle East and Asia, however, than the average positive/negative figures would seem to imply, weighted as they are by the overwhelmingly negative views expressed by respondents in North America, South America and Europe. A BBC press release noted that “There was a significant increase in negative views of Iran in key Western countries including the United Kingdom (up 20 points), Canada (up 19 points), the USA (up 18 points), and Australia (up 15 points).”
Nonetheless, digging through the data, Iran doesn’t fare quite as badly closer to home. Iran’s most positive ratings draw from Pakistan (41%), China (38%), Turkey (36%) and Indonesia (35%). Negative views of Iran expressed in these four countries countries range from a low of 13% in Pakistan to a high of 48% in China, and are shared by 35% of Indonesians and 36% of Turks. Despite the Islamic Republic’s apparent popularity in Pakistan, it polled relatively well in India too, attracting 27% favorable, 28% unfavorable ratings.
Although western media sources tend to emphasize the longstanding rivalry between Iran and Egypt for regional hegemony, as well as the reportedly irreconcilable differences between Sunnis and Shiites, Persians and Arabs, BBC poll data indicates that 25% percent of Egyptian respondents view Iran favorably, nearly the same number as view U.S. influence as positive (26%). (The Egypt data was collected Dec. 5-12, 2010, before the popular uprising that led to the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak.) Nearly equal numbers of Turkish respondents approve of the influence of the U.S. (35%) and Iran (36%).
However, half of those polled, in countries long regarded as the staunchest Middle East allies of both the U.S. and of Israel–50% in Egypt, 49% in Turkey– expressed negative views about U.S. influence, with only 32% of Egyptians and 45% of Turks worried about Iran. Turkey saw its own averages improve dramatically in this year’s BBC poll, with its positive ratings up by 22 percentage points and its negatives dropping by 21%.
In contrast, only 5% of Egyptians and 9% of Turks said they view Israeli influence as positive, while more than three quarters (78% in Egypt; 77% in Turkey) expressed negativity about Israel, Iran’s nuclear nemesis. Israel also drew fewer favorable ratings than Iran in India (21%) and China (32%)–two countries with which it has attempted to cultivate trade and security relationships–Iran garnering 27% and 38% approval ratings, as noted above. In China, 48% of respondents were negative about Israeli influence, a view shared by only 18% of those polled in India.
Iran may not be loved, but it isn’t isolated either.
For the full text of the BBC 2011 Country Rating Poll, click here.
]]>The blog, which falls under the “news and events” tab, seems to promote news and views about Iran, with a particular focus on human rights issues inside the country. There’s also an occasional perfunctory right-wing pro-Israel talking point – with little connection to Iran — thrown in for good measure. Entries so far are few, all written by someone named “Emily.”
One post in particular caught my eye: an item warning of an Iranian ‘electro-magnetic pulse’ or EMP attack on the U.S.
This one small blog post is a shining example of what independent journalist Max Blumenthal wrote about in his latest piece for Tom Dispatch: the recent uptick in Islamophobia is not some spontaneous eruption, but the “fruit of an organized, long-term campaign by a tight confederation of right-wing activists and operatives who first focused on Islamophobia soon after the September 11th attacks, but only attained critical mass during the Obama era.”
Following up on Blumenthal’s post, Matt Duss at the Wonk Room notes a Washington Post story on Islamophobic actors giving lectures to law enforcement. One of the totally expected cast of characters is Frank Gaffney, the head of the rightist Center for Security Policy (and, as Duss notes, Obama truther, birther, and other Obama-Muslim wacky conspiracy-theorist).
Gaffney, of course, was recently named to Clarion’s advisory board.
I tried to contact “Emily” to ask her some questions, but Alex Traiman — director of “Iranium” as well as Clarion’s Associate Director and media handler — apologized that he couldn’t furnish an e-mail contact because he was “really pretty busy.”
What’s most troubling about the fear-mongering inherent in “Emily”‘s posting is the many issues it conflates, especially with regard to the author’s characterization of comments made over the weekend by Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Just before some scare-mongering about an EMP attack, Clarion blogger “Emily” sums up Mullen’s comments in the Persian Gulf region like this:
The United States announced over the weekend that it is “very ready” to counter Iran should the regime try to start a war.
Enter the “looming” threat of an Iranian EMP weapon:
But what if Iran attacks with an EMP and renders all of America’s society and infrastructure out of commission? Then how ready will we be? Maybe we should have more of a plan.
That there is the entirety of the post. Leave aside the staggering absence of depth (the hollow recommendation for “more of a plan”), the short piece is based on innuendo designed to stoke fears of a threat-that-isn’t.
An Iranian attack against U.S. soil was not what Mullen was talking about in Bahrain. A quick click on the link to a BBC article provided by “Emily” or me readily proves this. The headline unequivocally states as much (“…Mullen Reassures Gulf States on Iran”) as do Mullen’s quotes in the body of the BBC story (my emphasis):
The US was “very ready” to meet any challenge from Iran, he said. “There are real threats to peace and stability here, and we’ve made no secrets of our concerns about Iran.”
Does it sound like Mullen should have then espoused that the United States, in addition to already stated “concerns about Iran,” develop policy to address a tinfoil-hat conspiracy theory?
So this is exactly the EMP ruse.
Think Progress analyst Matt Duss made light of the obsession with EMP among advocates of far right foreign policy positions:
As a practical matter… it’s probably worth pointing out here that the likelihood of Iran, or anyone, actually pulling off such an attack is roughly the same as Iran building an enormous, space-bound vacuum cleaner and sucking up all of America’s oxygen. But Gaffney and other EMP threat promoters like Newt Gingrich are betting that most Americans aren’t going to invest the amount of time it would require to learn this.
Although Clarion thus far isn’t providing a “plan” to counter the EMP threat, many EMP fear-mongerers have: Missile defense systems. In a piece on an EMP conference, Right Web‘s Robert Farley wrote:
The central political purpose of the EMP awareness movement appears to be advancement of the cause of missile defense.
It’s no surprise, again, that Gaffney’s think tank receives much funding from the same groups — defense contractors (Boeing, General Atomics, General Dynamics, Litton, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Thiokol, and TRW) – that would profit massively from the creation of the robust systems (including space-based missile defense) that these EMP scare-mongers are pushing.
]]>The BBC reports [...]]]>
The BBC reports that Obama’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan welcomed their attendance:
“We recognise that Iran, with its long, almost completely open border with Afghanistan and with a huge drug problem… has a role to play in the peaceful settlement of this situation in Afghanistan,” Richard Holbrooke – the US special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan – told a news conference.
“So for the United States there is no problem with their presence.”
It’s worth mentioning that U.S.-Iran cooperation on Afghanistan is not new. As Eli wrote last year, Ambassador James Dobbins has spoken extensively about U.S.-Iran cooperation in the early days of the war. Iran’s help in mobilizing its ally, the Northern Alliance, was instrumental in overcoming the Taliban regime. The Islamic Republic also participated heavily in the Bonn Conference that decided what sort of government would be installed in Afghanistan following the Taliban’s fall. All this, of course, came just before Israel persuaded the Bush Administration to lump Iran into its ‘Axis of Evil.’
The New York Times notes that Iran’s first day at the ‘contact group’ meetings, with this round being held in Rome, saw a high level Iranian diplomat sitting in with one of the U.S.’s top military commanders who has run operations in Iraq, the whole of the Middle East, and today is in charge of Afghanistan:
The Iranian, a high-ranking diplomat, even attended an in-depth briefing Monday morning by the American military commander, Gen.David H. Petraeus, on NATO’s strategy for transition in Afghanistan. [...]
The Iranian delegate listened to Gen. Petraeus’s PowerPoint presentation “very attentively,” [German Ambassador to Afghanistan and Pakistan Michael] Steiner said. “I had the impression that he appreciated the transparency displayed.”
A senior Western official said: “This is one area where Iran and the West have similar overlapping strategic interests. They see us entering a new phase, and they want to be part of it.”
At the Washington Post, Karen de Young astutely provides some important background:
]]>U.S. military and civilian officials have offered differing assessments of the role Iran has played in the [Afghanistan] war, at times accusing Tehran of providing weapons and training for insurgents there and promoting continuation of the conflict as a way of tying down U.S. troops and resources.
More often, officials have discounted any significant malign Iranian influence, emphasizing a shared interest in Afghan stability and sympathizing with Shiite Iran’s concerns about drug trafficking and refugee flows across its lengthy border with Sunni Afghanistan.
Regional cooperation was a major pillar of the goals Obama outlined for Afghanistan even before taking office, when political aides said he would reach out to all players in Afghanistan’s neighborhood, including Iran. In addition to preventing Iranian mischief-making, some officials saw it as a way to begin a cooperative dialogue on a subject of mutual concern that could lead to broader collaboration.
But early efforts to involve Iran were quickly overshadowed by U.S.-Iranian enmity over the nuclear issue and by conflicting policy voices within Iran’s political structure, according to administration officials.
