by Farideh Farhi

Speaking to CNN during the World Economic Forum in Davos this week Foreign Minister Javad Zarif got personal.

He chided the US president, though he only named the “the White House”, for playing fast and loose with facts.

The White House version of the first-phase deal reached [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Farideh Farhi

Speaking to CNN during the World Economic Forum in Davos this week Foreign Minister Javad Zarif got personal.

He chided the US president, though he only named the “the White House”, for playing fast and loose with facts.

The White House version of the first-phase deal reached between Iran and the P5+1 in November both “underplays concessions” to Iran and “overplays Iranian commitments,” he said.

Zarif also subtly reminded viewers that it was only the White House that produced an English and Persian rendition of the accord, which it called a “Fact Sheet,” and immediately distributed it after the deal was signed rather than the text of the Joint Agreement.

“Why don’t we stick to what we agreed? Why do we need to produce different texts?” he asked.

Prodded to give a specific example of the differing interpretations Zarif referred to the term “dismantling,” which he said has become part of US “terminology” on the deal.

“The White House is trying to portray [the deal] as basically the dismantling of Iran’s nuclear program,” but nothing even resembling dismantling is in text, he said. He challenged, “show me” a single word that even resembles dismantling or could be identified as such.

The Iranian negotiators and most Iranian politicians have been rather patient with the narrative that both President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have been using to frame the interim accord.

A couple of politicians, such as conservative MP Ahmad Tavakoli, who runs the influential Alef website, initially even reasoned that the narrative is for US domestic consumption. A similar argument was made by the Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman, Marzieh Afkham, which is an interesting inversion of US discourse regarding Iranian domestic politics; suddenly it was the US President who had to play loose with facts in order to placate the hardliners in his country while maintaining the support of his flank.

But the repeated assertions and renditions of how little Iranians are getting in exchange for the “dismantling” of their nuclear program is turning into a headache for the Foreign Ministry.

While the hardline cries of surrender and “nuclear holocaust” can be ignored, the notion that the Iranian negotiators may be hiding extra concessions that they have not revealed to the Iranian public and the Parliament cannot.

On Wednesday, there were reports that 150 MPs had written a letter to Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani objecting to the “lack of detailed information” regarding the Joint Agreement. Ruhollah Hosseinian, a hardliner opposed to any kind of deal with the US, took the lack of information tack and objected to the negotiation team’s “hiding of facts.” He added that the implementation of the Joint Plan of Action does not serve Iran’s interest and will lead to the suspension of Iran’s nuclear program in its entirety.

Meanwhile, Iran’s senior negotiator Abbas Araghchi has been spending quite a bit of his time in Parliament arguing otherwise — to no avail. A few MPs keep saying that they are not satisfied with the Foreign Ministry’s explanations, probably causing him further trips to the legislative body.

In response, government spokesman Mohammad-Baqer Nobakht made clear that the Foreign Ministry remains fully in charge of the nuclear negotiations and rejected pretenses by various hardliners that some sort of oversight committee has been created because certain elements of the agreements are even worrisome to Leader Ali Khamenei — an assertion that prompted Afkham to demand “substantiation.” In fact, the critical MPs have so far been unable to create an oversight committee even within the Parliament. Still, this hasn’t stopped the many speculations and declarations regarding the hidden aspects of the Joint Agreement that fit better with the White House narrative. Araghchi and Zarif will undoubtedly have to keep explaining.

This headache is shared by the chief of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization, Ali Akbar Salehi, who entered the fray last week by explaining that 20 percent enrichment is no longer needed, no facility has been closed, research on centrifuges continues and so does some construction at the Arak nuclear plant. On Wednesday he also had to deny publicly that he had written a letter to Khamenei criticizing aspects of the agreement.

One could argue that Zarif’s statements to CNN regarding Iran’s commitment — merely stopping the enrichment of uranium beyond 5% and zero dismantling — is payback; he is simply doing to Obama and Kerry what they are doing to him. Of course, he is also well aware of the way Iranian domestic politics impact pronouncements by Iranian politicians. After months of talking about the need for a “win-win scenario” for the resolution of the nuclear imbroglio, Zarif must have cringed when he heard President Hassan Rouhani declare the surrender of Iran’s negotiating partners last week. Regardless, Zarif’s approach to political haggling remains more understated and less pretentious.

Rightly or wrongly, Zarif is a believer in the power of international law and signed agreements; that’s why wrangling over a few words seriously endangered the success of the Geneva deal. His call for the Obama administration to avoid fact sheets and rely on the text of the Joint Plan of Action derives from this belief.

He can accordingly be seen as naïve or not cognizant of the privilege US politicians assume in only considering their own politics and being oblivious to the impact their words have on other countries. Or, he could just be displaying his ability to play the same game if the other side continues to ignore the Rouhani administration’s domestic predicament.

Zarif wants US officials to stop talking as though the Iranian side of the Geneva deal is not in the room. After all, the US government has invested sufficiently in Persian-language broadcasting to ensure that every single word uttered by US officials also reaches Iranian ears. Of course, getting what he wants is highly unlikely.

Photo Credit: ISNA/Mohsen Ghaemi

by Jasmin Ramsey

Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif speaking to CNN’s Fareed Zakaria during an interview in New York last week:

ZAKARIA:  Tell me first, do you still continue to hold that optimism on the basis of the – the discussions you had?

ZARIF:  Well, the first [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Jasmin Ramsey

Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif speaking to CNN’s Fareed Zakaria during an interview in New York last week:

ZAKARIA:  Tell me first, do you still continue to hold that optimism on the basis of the – the discussions you had?

ZARIF:  Well, the first meeting that we had was positive.  But we didn’t get into the details. And usually it’s more difficult to negotiate the details. But I think it’s a good beginning.  It’s a good political jump to the process. And we can start with this, what I hope to be a political will and political desire on the part of the members of E3-plus-3 and Iran to move forward and resolve this issue, because what we have done in the past 10 years has not benefited the P5-plus-1.  It hasn’t benefitted Iran.  We have very serious sanctions that are hurting the Iranian people. And at the same time, instead of a few hundred centrifuges that we had 10 years ago or eight years ago, now we have 18,000. So nobody has benefitted from this pattern of relations that we’ve had over the last eight years. There is a need for change.  And I hope that everybody realizes that we need to change that process, put an end to something that was a lose-lose situation and hopefully begin something that will be to the benefit of everybody.

by Jasmin Ramsey

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, LobeLog

by Jasmin Ramsey

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Amazing things have been happening on the US-Iran front, which began to defrost following Hassan Rouhani’s presidential inauguration this summer. I’ve listed some of them in my last two reports for IPS News (here and here) but today’s news is monumental.

You’ve probably heard something about a letter exchange between Presidents Obama and Rouhani. Well, this has not only been confirmed by both administrations, we’re also learning some of the details now, which I touch on below. Before I do so it’s worth noting that after news of the letter exchange and ahead of the United Nations General Assembly next week where Rouhani will give a speech, Iran released today a group of political prisoners, including lawyer and human rights advocate Nasrin Sotoudeh, who ended a 49-day hunger strike in December 2012 after Iran’s authorities lifted a travel ban on her 12-year-old daughter. Here is Sotoudeh’s interview in English with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour and some truly heart-warming photographs of her reunion with her family.

As shown in the clip above, Ann Curry has also conducted Rouhani’s first interview with an American news outlet as Iran’s president, which will air on NBC’s Nightly News tonight at 6:30 EST. (I think Curry hasn’t been to Iran since 2011 when she interviewed former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.) Only bits of the interview have been released so far, and while Rouhani won’t likely say anything earth-shattering so early on, he did describe the “tone” of Obama’s letter as “positive and constructive“. Of course, yesterday Obama also described Rouhani in a positive light. ”There are indications that Rouhani, the new president, is somebody who is looking to open dialogue with the West and with the United States, in a way that we haven’t seen in the past. And so we should test it,” Obama told Telemundo. That’s a dramatic change in tone from White House statements marking Rouhani’s inauguration.

All this is good news and there’s going to be a lot of expert analysis on what it all means, but I can’t get into it now as I’m getting ready to travel to New York where I will be reporting on Obama’s and Rouhani’s speeches from the UN, among other things. For now, here’s an excerpt from Paul Pillar’s “The Stars Align In Tehran” (written before today’s exciting news), to keep in mind as these developments unfold:

The late Abba Eban, the silver-tongued Israeli foreign minister, once famously said that the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. The circumstances, and Palestinian preferences and policies, that underlay his remark changed greatly long ago. But his apothegm might apply to much of the history of the U.S.-Iranian relationship. It would, tragically, apply all the more if the current opportunity is missed, either because of the ammunition being supplied to Iranian hardliners or because the side led by the United States simply does not put on the negotiating table the sanctions relief necessary to strike a deal.

Photo Credit: ISNA/Abdolvahed Mirzazadeh

by Jasmin Ramsey

Mohammad Javad Larijani, a top adviser to Iran’s Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, seems like a reasonable fellow with respect to Iran’s nuclear stance in this March 12th interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.

On the West’s issue with Iranian enrichment of uranium to 20%, Mr. Larijani says we simply need [...]]]> via Lobe Log

by Jasmin Ramsey

Mohammad Javad Larijani, a top adviser to Iran’s Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, seems like a reasonable fellow with respect to Iran’s nuclear stance in this March 12th interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.

On the West’s issue with Iranian enrichment of uranium to 20%, Mr. Larijani says we simply need to go back to the era when Iran was able to buy the fuel it needs for its Tehran Research Reactor (TRR). “The minute they sell it to us, the amount we need for the Tehran reactor, there is definitely no need to produce it,” he said.

On the issue of Iran’s slow but steady advancement of is nuclear program, Mr. Larijani argues that Iran’s enrichment of uranium is an “honest to God right” that’s also covered by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and “we are a moving nation, we are going to capture higher levels of scientific achievement” regardless of Western demands. Then the reasonable part kicks in full-swing: however, if concerns about Iran’s nuclear program are related to the issue of nuclear armament, Iran understands and shares that concern, claims Mr. Larijani, adding that Iran is “willing to accept all mechanisms under the NPT” to safeguard against such development.

And with respect to the possibility of bilateral talks between Iran and the US (which already occurred back in October 2009), Mr. Larijani is less direct. He doesn’t confirm or reject the possibility, but does offer a “recommendation” that a “new model” be designed for relations between Iran and the United States which acknowledges that Iran does not want to be more than “what we are” and ends US hostility toward Iran.

Excluding Mr. Larijani’s comments about the political battle between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Iran’s ruling elite, which Mr. Larijani describes as part of Iran’s “democratic structure”, all this raises the question of why Iran isn’t perceived as reasonable during negotiations or can’t be as reasonable as Mr. Larijani seems to be here with Amanpour on CNN, and why progress on the diplomatic front remains slow at best or simply nil. Deep mutual mistrust, acknowledged by the most knowledgeable US-Iran analysts, is perhaps the main reason for the lack of substantial results, as are those pesky details that need to be agreed upon by both sides before a deal can be reached.

Then there’s that lingering issue of whether progress can even be hoped for before Iran’s 2013 Presidential election, and for that I turn to the experts. I’ll have an interview that touches on that issue and the nuclear negotiations as a whole with Farideh Farhi up next week.

By William J. Astore

via Tom Dispatch

Few things have characterized the post-9/11 American world more than our worshipful embrace of our generals. They’ve become our heroes, our sports stars, and our celebrities all rolled into one. We can’t [...]]]> Generals Who Run Amuck, Politicians Who Could Care Less, an “Embedded” Media… And Us

By William J. Astore

via Tom Dispatch

Few things have characterized the post-9/11 American world more than our worshipful embrace of our generals. They’ve become our heroes, our sports stars, and our celebrities all rolled into one. We can’t stop gushing about them. Even after his recent fall from grace, General David Petraeus was still being celebrated by CNN as the best American general since Dwight D. Eisenhower (and let’s not forget that Ike commanded the largest amphibious invasion in history and held a fractious coalition together in a total war against Nazi Germany). Before his fall from grace, Afghan War Commander General Stanley McChrystal was similarly lauded as one tough customer, a sort of superman-saint.

Petraeus and McChrystal crashed and burned for the same underlying reason: hubris. McChrystal became cocky and his staff contemptuous of civilian authority; Petraeus came to think he really could have it all, the super-secret job and the super-sexy mistress. An ideal of selfless service devolved into self-indulgent preening in a wider American culture all-too-eager to raise its star generals into the pantheon of Caesars and Napoleons, and its troops into the halls of Valhalla.

The English used to say of American troops in World War II that they were “overpaid, over-sexed, and over here.” Now we’re overhyped, oversold, and over there, wherever “there” might happen to be in a constantly shifting, perpetual war on terror.

In our particular drama, generals may well be the actors who strut and fret their hour upon the stage, but their directors are the national security complex and associated politicians, their producers the military-industrial complex’s corporate handlers, and their agents a war-junky media. And we, the audience in the cheap seats, must take some responsibility as well. Even when our military adventures spiral down after a promising opening week, the enthusiastic applause the American public has offered to our celebrity military adventurers and the lack of pressure on the politicians who choose to fund them only serve to keep bullets flying and troops dying.

It’s Not That Generals Suck, It’s That We Suck Up to Them

Recent scandals involving some of our top brass have one virtue: they’ve encouraged a smidgeon of debate on things military.  The main problem isn’t that our generals suck, though one might indeed come to that conclusion after reading two recent high-profile articles. In the New York Times, Lucian Truscott IV dismissed General Petraeus and similar “strutting military peacocks” as phony heroes in phony wars. What we need, he suggested, is not “imitation generals” like Petraeus, but ruthless nail-spitters like his grandfather, General Lucian K. Truscott Jr., of World War II fame.

Tom Ricks, formerly the Washington Post’s chief military columnist and himself a fan of Petraeus, was more circumspect if no less critical. In a probing article in theAtlantic, based on his new book, The Generals, he argued that the U.S. military has failed to reward virtuosity and punish deficiency.  Combine an undiscriminating command structure that gives every general a gold star with their constant rotation in and out of command billets and you have a recipe for “a shocking degree of mediocrity” among the Army’s top leaders.

Such criticism comes as welcome relief after nearly a decade worth of hagiography that marched into our lives alongside Petraeus (once known sardonically among some Army colleagues as “King David” or in the media as the one man who could “save” Iraq) and McChrystal (a “one of a kind,” “battle-hardened” Spartan ascetic, according to a glowing 60 Minutesprofile in September 2009). But it doesn’t go nearly far enough.

Generals behaving badly aren’t the heart of the problem, only a symptom of the rot. The recent peccadilloes of Petraeus et al. are a reminder that these men never were the unbesmirched “heroes” so many imagined them to be. They were always the product of a military-industrial complex deeply invested in war, abetted by a media as in bed with them as Paula Broadwell, and a cheerleading citizenry that came to worship all things military even as it went about its otherwise unwarlike business.

Pruning a few bad apples from the upper branches of the military tree is going to do little enough when the rot extends to root and branch. Required is more radical surgery if America is to avoid ongoing debilitating conflicts and the disintegration of our democracy.

Too Many Generals Spoil the Democracy

A simple first step toward radical surgery would certainly involve cutting the number of generals and admirals at least in half.

America’s military is astonishingly top heavy, with 945 generals and admirals on active duty as of March 2012. That’s one flag-rank officer for every 1,500 officers and enlisted personnel. With one general for every 1,000 airmen, the Air Force is the worst offender, but the Navy and Army aren’t far behind. For example, the Army has 10 active-duty divisions — and 109 major generals to command them. Between September 2001 and April 2011, the military actually added another 93 generals and admirals to its ranks (including 37 of the three- or four-star variety). The glut extends to the ranks of full colonel (or, in the Navy, captain). The Air Force has roughly 100 active-duty combat wings — and 3,712 colonels to command them. The Navy has 285 ships — and 3,335 captains to command them. Indeed, today’s Navy has nearly as many admirals (245 as of March 2012) as ships.

Any high-ranking officer worth his or her salt wants to command, but this glut has contributed to their rapid rotation in and out of command — five Afghan war commanders in five years, for instance — disrupting any hopes for command continuity. The situation also breeds cutthroat competition for prestige slots and allows patterns of me-first careerism to flourish.

Such a dynamic leads to mediocrity rather than excellence. Yet one area in which the brass does excel is fighting to preserve their bloated slots, despite regular efforts by civilian secretaries of defense to trim them.

Still, such pruning isn’t faintly enough. A 50% cut may seem unkind, but don’t spend your time worrying about demobbed generals queuing up for unemployment checks.  Clutching their six-figure pensions, most of them would undoubtedly speed through the Pentagon’s golden revolving door onto the corporate boards of, or into consultancies with, various armaments manufacturers and influence peddlers, as 70% of three- and four-star retirees have in fact done in recent years.

Even a 50% cut would still leave approximately 470 active-duty generals and admirals to cheer on. Perhaps they should be formed into their own beribboned battalion and sent to war. Heck, the Spartans held the Persians off at Thermopylae with a mere 300 fighters. Nearly 500 pissed-off generals and admirals might just be the shock troops needed to “surge” again in Afghanistan.

Of Proconsuls, Imperators, and the End of Democracy

In Roman times, a proconsul was a military ruler of imperial territories, a man with privileges as sweeping as his powers. Today’s four-star generals and admirals — there are 38 of them — often have equivalent powers, and the perksto go with them. Executive jets on call. Large retinues. Personal servants. Private chefs.

Such power and privilege corrupts. It leads to General Petraeus, then head of Central Command, being escorted to a private party in Florida by a 28-cop motorcade. It leads to General William Ward, the head of U.S. Africa Command, spending lavishly and so abusing his position that he was demoted and forced into retirement. It leads to generals being so disconnected from their troops that they think nothing of sending a trove of flirtatious emails to a starry-eyed socialite.

Disturbing as their personal behavior may be, the real problem is that America’s four-star proconsuls are far more powerful than our civilian ambassadors and foreign service members. Whether in Afghanistan, Africa, or Washington, the military controls the lion’s share of the money and resources. That, in turn, means its proconsuls end up dictating foreign policy based on a timeless golden rule: “he who has the gold makes the rules.”

Think of those proconsuls as the prodigal sons of a sprawling American empire. In their fiefdoms, vast sums of money can be squandered or simply go missing, as can vast quantities of weapons. Recall those pallets of hundred dollar bills that magically disappeared in Iraq (to the tune of $18 billion).  Or the magical disappearance of 190,000 AK-47s and pistols in Iraq in 2004 and 2005, representing 30% of the weapons the U.S. provided to Iraqi security forces. Or the tens of thousands of assault rifles, machine guns, and rocket launchers provided to Afghan security forces that magically disappeared in 2009 and 2010.

Such scandals in U.S. war zones should surprise no one. After all, noting that the Pentagon couldn’t account for $2.3 trillion (yes — that’s trillion) in spending, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld declared a war on waste.  Good intentions, bad timing. The declaration came on September 10, 2001. A global war on terror followed, further engorging the military-industrial-homeland-security-intelligence complex with nearly a trillion dollars a year for the next decade, while it morphed into the blob that ate Washington.

Whether in money, personnel, or the prestige and power it commands, the Pentagon simply blows away the State Department and similar government agencies. Sheltered within cocoons of compliance (due to the constant stoking of America’s fears) and adulation (due to the widespread militarization of American culture), our proconsuls go unchallenged unless they behave very badly indeed.

Put simply, Americans need to stop genuflecting to our paper Caesars before we actually produce a real one, a man ruthless enough to cross the Rubicon (or the Potomac) and parlay total military adulation into the five stars of absolute political authority.

Unless we wish to salute our very own Imperator, we need to regain a healthy dose of skepticism, shared famously by our Founders, when it comes to evaluating our generals and our wars. Such skepticism may not stop generals and admirals from behaving badly, but it just might help us radically downsize an ever more militarized global mission and hew more closely to our democratic ideals.

William J. Astore is a TomDispatch regular.  A retired lieutenant colonel (USAF), he welcomes reader comments at wjastore@gmail.com.

Follow TomDispatch on Twitter @TomDispatch and join us on Facebook.  Check out the newest Dispatch book, Nick Turse’s The Changing Face of Empire: Special Ops, Drones, Proxy Fighters, Secret Bases, and Cyberwarfare.

Copyright 2012 William J. Astore

Okay, it seems I spoke too soon. Hamas is now back in the “Iranian-supported” camp according to this editorial in the New York Times, which identifies Hamas as both “backed by Iran” and pathologically “consumed with hatred for Israel.”

President Shimon Peres has also refocused on Iran, as [...]]]> via Lobe Log

Okay, it seems I spoke too soon. Hamas is now back in the “Iranian-supported” camp according to this editorial in the New York Times, which identifies Hamas as both “backed by Iran” and pathologically “consumed with hatred for Israel.”

President Shimon Peres has also refocused on Iran, as shown by his response to a prompt by Piers Morgan of CNN. Morgan doesn’t beat around the bush and without displaying a modicum of impartiality asks: “If you believe Mr. President, that Iran is behind a lot of the Hamas terror activity, as you put it, then what action do you intend to take against Iran?”

Peres’ response?

Not that I guess so, I know that is the case. And we are not going to make a war with Iran but we are trying to prevent the shipping of long range missiles which Iran is sending to Hamas. And they are urge to Hamas to fire ….Iran is a problem, world problem. Not only from the point of view of building a nuclear danger, but also from the point of being a center of world terror. They finance, they train, they send arms, they urge, no responsibility, nor any moral consideration. It’s a world problem and you know it.

And what of the closure of the Hamas headquarters in Damascus, which according to many commentators supposedly created enormous strains with Iran and resulted in much less funding and material to Hamas than in the past? What of the recent visits by high profile non-Iranian regional leaders? Not much.

The Gaza problem, in the minds of the Netenyahu-Barak duo, is caused by Iran, according to Salam Masalha, writing in Haaretz: “[t]he current operation can be called “the little southern Iranian operation,” since it’s designed to paralyze Iran’s southern wing. The next operation will be “the little northern Iranian operation “: It will try to destroy Iran’s Lebanon wing.”

Israeli officials must be feeling like they’re losing their public relations war on Gaza. The meme of Hamas, the terrorist group, no longer seems sufficient. Hence “Hamas, the terrorist group supported by Iran” comes to the rescue.

Even the New York Times is noticing this problem and wants the “Arab leaders to speak the truth and stop ignoring the culpability of Hamas.” The unhappiness with the changed region and the difficulty it poses for the usual conceptualization of the disproportionate Israeli attacks on Gaza as self-defense and a fight against terrorism, is palpable. After all, it is not Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who is calling Israel a “terrorist state” these days, but Prime Minister Recept Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey.

The reality is that even the re-attachment of Hamas to Iran will neither resolve Israel’s occupation problem nor its public relations predicament. Israel is deemed the aggressor and out of control in the region not because it is unable to tell and re-tell its anti-terrorism narrative loudly enough, but because it cannot convince most of the world that its reckless bombing of a civilian population is a fight against terrorism (and its presumed chief sponsor, Iran).

As Sherine Tadros points out in her discussion of why reporting on Gaza is hard: “Hamas is not Gaza.” The reason Israel, after a few days of bombing, invariably loses its ability to sell the Iranian-backed terrorism meme in the court of regional public opinion — although not to US policy-makers who are its chief concern —  is because most people know that no society and its livelihood can be reduced to its government, no matter how bad that government is.

To be sure, the current Israeli government can take the honest route and call for the punishing of the entire society in the way Gilad Sharon, son of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, did when he said that “We need to flatten entire neighborhoods in Gaza. Flatten all of Gaza… The residents of Gaza are not innocent, they elected Hamas. The Gazans aren’t hostages; they chose this freely, and must live with the consequences.”

But this is not the route most Israeli leaders (excepting Interior Minister Eli Yishai who posited the goal of Pillar of Defense Operation as “sending Gaza back to the Middle Ages”) have taken. The route taken is to say that Israel had no choice but to respond disproportionately because of Hamas terrorism (now, again, supported by outside terrorists).

This is not a credible argument given the impact of Israeli actions — including the almost 6-year old embargo — on Gaza and not Hamas. And blaming or even militarily attacking Iran will not make Gaza go away.

- Farideh Farhi is an independent researcher and an affiliate graduate faculty member in political science and international relations at the University of Hawaii-Manoa.

Mark Perry — who recently explained that the “chance for calm” has been assassinated by Israel in the past – on the current potential for a ceasefire (via CNN’s transcript):

MARK PERRY, MIDDLE EAST EXPERT: I would have said six hours ago if you had asked me that I [...]]]> via Lobe Log

Mark Perry — who recently explained that the “chance for calm” has been assassinated by Israel in the past – on the current potential for a ceasefire (via CNN’s transcript):

MARK PERRY, MIDDLE EAST EXPERT: I would have said six hours ago if you had asked me that I thought that a cease-fire was quite possible and that the principles were in place for a cease-fire. But as Arwa Damon said at the top of your broadcast that the two sides now seem to be drifting apart.

Listen, I think the principles for a cease-fire are in place. An end to the siege, that’s what Hamas wants. An end to the siege of the targeting of their leadership. What does Israel want? Israel wants Hamas to stop firing rockets, especially the Fajr-5 and the Fajr-3 long-range rockets, at their populations.

Certainly there’s a good exchange there. But what it’s going to take is Egyptians or somebody, Egyptians are going to be it, providing the security and the guarantees on such — on such an agreement. That’s very hard for the Egyptians to do. They don’t want to be responsible for Gaza. So we’re going to have to provide — somebody is going to have to provide inducement for them to do so. I think that’s the broad outlines of a cease-fire. A long-term cease-fire. And I think it’s very doable.

Former Iran-desk State Department staffer Reza Marashi and journalist Sahar Namazikhah remind us that Iran’s influnetial Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) has publicly recognized the benefits of negotiating with the US to avert a military conflict through a report that’s available on their website. “To that end, the Intelligence Ministry [...]]]> via Lobe Log

Former Iran-desk State Department staffer Reza Marashi and journalist Sahar Namazikhah remind us that Iran’s influnetial Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) has publicly recognized the benefits of negotiating with the US to avert a military conflict through a report that’s available on their website. “To that end, the Intelligence Ministry can play a role in planting ideas within the minds of Iran’s top decision-makers,” write Marashi and Namazikhah, adding that the MOIS report directly “articulates why President Obama is different than Israel”:

The primary obstacle? According to the MOIS, it is Israel – but not for the reasons many might assume. Rather than ideology, Iran’s Intelligence Ministry sees geopolitics as the driving force: “[Israel is concerned that] the balance of power in the region will be against the Zionist regime” and it therefore “considers enrichment a threat to its national security and wants to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities”.

The way that Iran’s Intelligence Ministry distinguishes between Obama and Israel is important. As a key source of information in the Iranian system, the MOIS has said that Obama shows he is not willing to rush into war – and it has given him de facto credit for it. To that end, policymakers in Washington should carefully study this publication as a potential opening from Iran.

Gary Sick, an acute observer of US-Iranian relations for more than three decades who served on the National Security Council staff under president Ford, Carter and Reagan, meanwhile argues that the path to middle east peace goes through Tehran. But even if conditions are ripe for a serious attempt at reaching a deal — which President Obama seems interested in – both sides will need to make concessions:

The United States and its allies will have to accept a measure of Iranian domestic enrichment of uranium. Iran will have to accept limits on its entire nuclear infrastructure, subject to intrusive inspections and monitoring. Iran will need to document the history of its nuclear program, and the West will need to remove sanctions. All of this must happen in a step-by-step process with safeguards and verifications at each stage.

Writing in Al-Monitor, Banafsheh Keynoush argues that Iran’s hardliners are ready to engage, but won’t submit without serious incentives. Indeed, as Iran scholar Farideh Farhi points out, the key to moving the diplomatic process forward and avoiding a military conflict is flexibility on both sides:

Unless Khamenei and company are given a way out of the mess they have taken Iran into (with some help from the US and company), chances are that we are heading into a war in the same way we headed to war in Iraq. A recent Foreign Affairs article by Ralf Ekeus, the former executive chairman of the UN special Commission on Iraq, and Malfrid-Braut hegghammer, is a good primer on how this could happen.

The reality is that the current sanctions regime does not constitute a stable situation. First, the instability (and instability is different from regime change as we are sadly learning in Syria) it might beget is a constant force for policy re-evaluation on all sides (other members of the P5+1 included). Second, maintaining sanctions require vigilance while egging on the sanctioned regime to become more risk-taking in trying to get around them. This is a formula for war and it will happen if a real effort at compromise is not made. Inflexibility will beget inflexibility.

The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has updated its Iran Sanctions page to include more individuals and entities, including Iran’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance (Ershad), its Press Supervisory Board and several Iranian universities and related institutions. No reasoning is provided in the official US via Lobe Log

The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has updated its Iran Sanctions page to include more individuals and entities, including Iran’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance (Ershad), its Press Supervisory Board and several Iranian universities and related institutions. No reasoning is provided in the official US explanation as to why the universities were sanctioned — odd even if the sanctions regime hardly makes sense anyway.

Meanwhile, Columbia University Professor Gary Sick, who served on the National Security Council staff under Presidents Ford, Carter and Reagan, argues in CNN that the US’s Iran strategy has become tantamount to a war which may explode into a full-scale military conflict:

Yet today, the sanctions regime in Iran is resembling, more and more, the Iraqi and Cuban cases. We have arrived by a very different route. Instead of controlling all goods going into the country, we have ingeniously found ways of manipulating Iran’s banking system. That, together with regional boycotts, has the prospect of blocking a large proportion of Iran’s oil sales.

In Iran there has been a run on the currency, food prices are soaring, and every single person is beginning to experience some form of economic pain. That has been the source of considerable public satisfaction in Washington and elsewhere. It is also reminiscent of the early stages of the Iraqi experience. Add to that the serial murders of civilian scientists, cybertampering with Iran’s centrifuges, flyovers of U.S. drones, and covert assistance to Iranian separatist groups.

Forget the euphemisms. What would we think if a nation were doing all of this to us? The benign image of sanctions as graduated pressure has been transformed. In reality, it is war with Iran in all but name.