Once upon a time, it seemed that the Obama administration had held off opponents in Congress as well as pressure from Israel in order to press forward with negotiations with Iran. It seemed that President Barack Obama’s penchant for diplomacy was finally bearing fruit and that the United States and Iran were coming to the table with a sense of determination and an understanding that a compromise needed to be reached over Iran’s nuclear program.
These days, the story is different. Almost halfway through the four-month extension period the parties agreed to in July, the possibility of failure is more prominently on people’s minds, despite the fact that significant progress has been made in the talks. Right now, both sides have dug in their heels over the question of Iran’s nuclear enrichment capabilities. Iran wants sufficient latitude to build and power more nuclear reactors on their own, while the United States wants a much more restrictive regime.
Part of the calculus on each side is the cost to the other of the failure of talks. Iran is certainly aware that, along with escalating tensions with Russia, the U.S. is heading into what is sure to be a drawn-out conflict with the Islamic State (IS). The U.S. and its partners would clearly prefer to avoid a new crisis with the Islamic Republic, especially when the they need to work with Iran on battling IS forces, however independently and/or covertly they may do it.
The U.S. certainly recognizes that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani staked a good deal of his political life on eliminating the sanctions that have been crippling the Iranian economy. But both sides would be wise to avoid a game of chicken here, where they are gambling that the other side will ultimately be forced to blink first.
On the U.S. side, there are many in Washington who would not be satisfied with anything less than a total Iranian surrender, something the Obama administration is not seeking. Those forces are present in both parties, and, indeed, even if Democrats hold the Senate and win the White House in 2016, those voices are likely to become more prominent as time goes on.
But many believe that on the Iranian side, this is a life-or-death issue politically for the reform-minded Rouhani, and that may not be the case. It is certainly true that conservative forces in Iran, which had been ascendant under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, are lying in wait to pounce on Rouhani if he doesn’t manage to work out a deal that removes U.S.-led sanctions against Iran. It is also true that Rouhani deals with a Supreme Leader who is highly skeptical not only of Washington’s sincerity, but of the kind program Rouhani’s reform-minded allies wish to pursue on the domestic front. Rouhani’s support derives most reliably from an Iranian public fed up with the failure of the conservatives to improve their lives. He dare not disappoint them.
But if Washington policy-makers believe that this amounts to a political gun to Rouhani’s head, they are mistaken. In a just-released paper published by the Wilson Center. Farideh Farhi, the widely quoted Iran expert at the University of Hawaii Manoa (and LobeLog contributor), points out that Rouhani does have options if the negotiations fall apart.
“To be sure, Rouhani will be weakened, in similar ways presidents in other countries with contested political terrains suffer when unable to deliver on key promised policies,” according to Farhi.
But he will continue to be president for at least another three, if not seven, years. The hardliners will still not have their men at the helm of the executive branch and key cabinet ministries. Given their limited political base for electoral purposes, they will still have to find a way to organize and form coalitions to face a determined alliance of centrists, reformists, and moderate conservatives—the same alliance that helped bring Rouhani to power—in the parliamentary election slotted for early 2016. And, most importantly, Rouhani will still have the vast resources of the Iranian state at his disposal to make economic and social policy and will work with allies to make sure that the next parliament will be more approving of his policies.
Farhi’s point is important. Rouhani has options and he need not accept a deal that can be easily depicted by conservatives as surrendering Iran’s independent nuclear program. As pointed out in a recent survey of Iranian public opinion we covered earlier in the week, this issue is particularly fraught in Iran. It has been a point of national pride that Iran has refused to bend to Western diktats on its nuclear program, diktats that are seen as hypocritical and biased by most Iranians. That estimate is not an unfair one, given previous demands by the U.S. (and one still insisted upon by Israel and its U.S. supporters) that Iran forgo all uranium enrichment. Such a position would force Iran to depend on the goodwill and cooperation of other countries — Russia, in the first instance — whose reliability in fulfilling commitments may depend on how they perceive their national interest at any given moment. Other countries are not held to such a standard, a source of considerable resentment across the Iranian political spectrum.
Rouhani has wisely chosen not to challenge the public on this point, but rather commit himself to finding an agreement that would end sanctions while maintaining Iran’s nuclear independence, albeit under a strict international inspection regime. This is far from an impossible dream. The Arms Control Association published a policy brief last month with a very reasonable outline for how just such a plan which would satisfy the needs of both Iran and the P5+1.
In principle, both sides could live with such an outcome if they can put domestic politics aside. But of course, they cannot.
Still, the consequences of failure must not be ignored. With Barack Obama heading into his final two years as President, it is quite possible, if not probable, that his successor — regardless of party affiliation — will be much less favorable toward a deal with Iran. In that case, we go back to Israeli pressure for a direct confrontation between the United States and Iran and escalating tensions as Iran feels more and more besieged by the Washington and its western allies.
Rouhani, for his part, may be able to continue his path of reform and re-engagement with the West, but the failure of these talks would be an unwelcome obstacle, according to Farhi.
Rouhani and his nuclear team have had sufficient domestic support to conduct serious negotiations within the frame of P5+1. But as the nuclear negotiations have made clear, the tortured history of U.S.-Iran relations as well as the history of progress in Iran’s nuclear program itself will not allow the acceptance of just any deal. Failure of talks will kill neither Rouhani’s presidency nor the ‘moderation and prudence’ path he has promised. But it will make his path much more difficult to navigate.
All of this seems to amount to sufficient incentive for the two sides to bring themselves toward the reasonable compromise that both can surely envision. At least, one hopes so.
]]>by Djavad Salehi-Isfahani
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was elected to office largely on his promise to lift the economy out if its deepest recession since the Iran-Iraq war. One year later, evidence of a recovery is hard to find, but he has achieved a few significant accomplishments.
Rouhani’s most visible accomplishment [...]]]>
by Djavad Salehi-Isfahani
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was elected to office largely on his promise to lift the economy out if its deepest recession since the Iran-Iraq war. One year later, evidence of a recovery is hard to find, but he has achieved a few significant accomplishments.
Rouhani’s most visible accomplishment is lower inflation, down by more than half from over 40 percent a year ago. The runaway inflation of the last three years that alienated the middle class and even many conservatives from former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is now back to a level that Iranians consider normal.
Containing inflation was achieved at considerable cost, though, by keeping government expenditures to a minimum and forgoing any kind of fiscal or monetary stimulus. Rouhani even managed to increase energy prices last April without any protest, indicating that his popularity has so far survived austerity. The energy price hikes were substantial enough to close the budget gap left by Ahmadinejad’s generous — some would say irresponsible — cash transfers. The price of gasoline was increased by 75 percent, diesel by 67 percent, and other energy prices by about 30 percent.
Rouhani’s second economic achievement was restoring the business confidence lost to the erratic economic management of the Ahmadinejad years. He did this by simply getting elected and by appointing a competent team. His election stopped or at least slowed down the hemorrhaging of Iran’s economy, which has been hit by draconian international sanctions and bad domestic policies.
Rouhani’s greatest economic success came in the form of a political victory. He overcame substantial domestic opposition to rapprochement with the West to sign the Joint Plan of Action (JPA) with world powers last November. The economic impact of the JPA has been underwhelming, but without it the economy would have continued to slide.
The agreement can be credited with the strengthening of Iran’s currency, the rial, which is a good indication of rising business confidence. Since November, Iran’s oil exports have also increased by 30 percent, about $7 billion of Iran’s frozen funds have been released, and petrochemical exports, which received specific sanctions relief, have increased.
This spring, auto production (also marked for sanctions relief in the JPA) was up by a whopping 90 percent compared to a year ago according to Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh, the minister for industry, mines and commerce. He also mentioned increases in petrochemicals production by 9 percent and durable goods by 30 percent.
These improvements are most likely lost on the average Iranian, whose job prospects and income has not increased since Rouhani took office. The obvious culprit is, of course, the financial and shipping sanctions that limit Iran’s access to its foreign exchange earnings and continue to choke large sections of its industries. Manufacturers are still using cumbersome and costly channels to procure their raw materials and parts. For them, the optimistic official statements and newspaper headlines proclaiming the imminent “collapse of the sanctions regime,” is just talk. Indeed, while Western critics of Iran’s limited sanctions relief, particularly in Washington, point to the flood of foreign business missions to Tehran, no actual investment has occurred due to the continued uncertainty about the future of the sanctions.
The latest disappointing jobs report shows the limited impact of the JPA so far. Industry as a whole continued to lose jobs last spring, more than 6 months after the signing of the agreement.
There were 700,000 fewer industry workers employed in spring 2014 than when Rouhani took office. These numbers cast doubt on the claim made in a recent report published by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and Roubini Global Economics that the economic benefit of the JPA “is reflected in increased economic output and improvements in employment within Iran.” National accounts data published last week shows that industrial output for 2013/14 as a whole was down by 4.5 percent and industrial employment has been falling through spring 2014.
Data on personal incomes and consumption published by the Statistical Center of Iran also indicates that economic recovery is yet to come. For the Iranian year that ended on March 20, 2014, real household consumption fell by 5 percent for urban households and 12 percent for rural ones. Their real food expenditures meanwhile fell by 14 percent.
So does the anemic economic recovery weaken Rouhani’s hand in the nuclear negotiations and should the West therefore toughen its position now in order to extract further concessions from Iran?
Sanctions have no doubt increased Iran’s willingness to negotiate, but it would be a mistake to think that more sanctions always brings more concessions. Most Iranians believe their government has held its part of the bargain since last November, so they would see more sanctions now as bad faith on the part of the P5+1 (US, UK, France, Russia, China plus Germany) and blame the failure of the negotiations on them. This would reduce pressure on Rouhani to make further concessions.
Furthermore, the Iranian middle class, after having survived eight years of Ahmadinejad, still regards Rouhani as the best leader to champion its interests. The poor, who, despite years of sanctions are decreasing as a proportion of the total population, are meanwhile relatively well protected. Thanks to the cash assistance program instituted by Ahmadinejad (about $40 per person per month in international dollars) in 2012/13, when average real incomes and expenditures were falling, poverty rates actually fell. At the time, only 5 percent of the population was counted as poor, based on a $5 per day poverty line (in international dollars). Iran’s effective income assistance programs can be adjusted to protect them against further economic deterioration.
The more interesting question is how the course of the talks could affect Rouhani’s presidency beyond its first year.
As they stand now, Rouhani’s plans are helping the private sector lead the economic recovery and letting markets form the basis of economic life in the Islamic Republic. If the talks succeed in the next four months and sanctions are gradually lifted, Iranian businesses are sure to spring into action, as they do when oil money starts to flow. Rouhani will be then be well on his way to a second term.
But Rouhani has reservations about this scenario. In the past, oil-induced booms have deepened Iran’s dependence on the outside world, something that runs counter to the vision of a “Resistance Economy” identified with the Supreme Leader.
If the talks fail, as the Washington hawks seem to wish, Rouhani would have to reverse course; instead of re-integrating Iran into the global economy with the private sector in the lead, he would promote economic self-reliance and resistance to outside pressures, a strategy that fits much better with the state and its para-statals at the helm.
In the narrow, security-focused discussion of Iran that passes for analysis these days in the US, the broader issues of importance to Western leaders are easily lost. But for those interested in longer-term relations with Iran, it helps to bear in mind that the current negotiations are not just about Iran’s nuclear activities; they are also about the direction that Iran’s economy will take in the coming decade, and who could benefit from it.
Photo: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani visits the Shahid Rajai Port Complex port in Hormozgan Province on Feb. 25, 2014.
]]>by Shawn Amoei
In the latest sign of increasing press freedom and Iranian receptivity towards a thaw in relations with the United States, one of Iran’s leading dailies published on Monday an interview with the State Department’s Persian-language spokesman, Alan Eyre. With his photograph emblazoned on the front page [...]]]>
by Shawn Amoei
In the latest sign of increasing press freedom and Iranian receptivity towards a thaw in relations with the United States, one of Iran’s leading dailies published on Monday an interview with the State Department’s Persian-language spokesman, Alan Eyre. With his photograph emblazoned on the front page of Shargh, Eyre’s interview represents the first instance in which a US official has been given such a platform in the Iranian press since the Islamic Republic’s founding 34 years ago.
The unprecedented move appears to be part of a shift in Iran’s political atmosphere, which saw heavy media restrictions during the term of President Hassan Rouhani’s predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. While Eyre presented the official US line on Iran, the feature was clearly depicted in a positive light with the headline, “Alan Eyre: We Seek the Lifting of Sanctions” alongside a rather sympathetic image of the spokesman. This could be representative of a broader attempt by Iranian media, sanctioned by Iranian officials, to warm up the political mood in Iran toward the possibility of a detente with the United States.
Following is an excerpt from the interview as translated by the Washington Post’s Tehran bureau:
]]>Shargh: How can closer ties between Iran and the U.S. help to resolve the nuclear issue?
Alan Eyre: As Obama and Rouhani remarked, the opposite is correct, that it is solving the nuclear issue that can be an important solution to mending the relations between two countries.
Shargh: What is the U.S. view on the diplomatic approach of the new president?
Alan Eyre: Both the president and Secretary of State strongly believe that there is an opportunity for diplomacy and we hope that the Iranian government uses it. We welcome the change in tone, but as always we say there is a big difference between words and action.
Shargh: To what extent is the U.S. side ready to take trust building steps?
Alan Eyre: The U.S. and P5+1 are ready to answer Iran’s trust-building actions with the same actions. Our suggestions in Almaty, which were not answered, had the same features and we hope that the new government gives a conceptual reply to it.
by Mitchell Plitnick
The real Iranian nuclear threat has apparently already taken hold. New Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s so-called “charm offensive” has sent the war hawks scurrying as if the bomb had really gone off.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been relentless in his increasingly desperate efforts to cast Rouhani in [...]]]>
by Mitchell Plitnick
The real Iranian nuclear threat has apparently already taken hold. New Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s so-called “charm offensive” has sent the war hawks scurrying as if the bomb had really gone off.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been relentless in his increasingly desperate efforts to cast Rouhani in the same mould as his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. As Marsha Cohen points out, however, his tones are ringing hollow. Ahmadinejad provided Netanyahu with the almost cartoonish foil he needed, but Rouhani strikes a much more reasonable pose.
In the US, the counter to the charm offensive is kicking into high gear. Representative Eliot Engel (D-NY), the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, was thoroughly dismissive of Rouhani’s speech at the UN General Assembly, which most observers considered conciliatory and matching a similar tone by US President Barack Obama. Engel, by contrast, said: “Far from engaging in a ‘charm offensive,’ he repeated too many of the same old talking points blaming the United States and our allies for all of the world’s ills.”
Even before Rouhani’s speech, the neoconservative Emergency Committee for Israel launched a web site attacking Rouhani. The site, dubbed “The Real Rouhani,” pieces together some legitimate and some questionable news reports on the Iranian president, most of which are quotes and citations taken out of context to sound more sinister than they are. They sum it all up by calling Rouhani a Holocaust denier, something Netanyahu has also done.
It’s fair to be dissatisfied with Rouhani’s evasion of questions on the Holocaust, which becomes an issue for outsiders largely because Ahmadinejad made such a spectacle of it during his time, a very real and despicable spectacle which was naturally magnified by the Western press. Rouhani initially ducked the question by saying he was not a historian. While in New York, and probably realizing that this response was not having the desired effect, Rouhani told CNN “…in general I can tell you that any crime that happens in history against humanity, including the crime the Nazis created towards the Jews, is reprehensible and condemnable…Whatever criminality they committed against the Jews we condemn.”
That’s better, but it probably leaves the Holocaust denial bullet in Netanyahu and the neocons’ gun. Doubtless, Rouhani is trying not to raise more hackles among the Iranian conservatives that Ahmadinejad represents than he has to, but this is probably one he can and should go farther with. Still, even before Rouhani’s clarification, the Holocaust denier trope didn’t seem to be getting much play, certainly nothing like it did with Ahmadinejad. But right now, people are looking with hope to Rouhani; if that should change, his weak response to this question will certainly come back to haunt him.
Some have expressed disappointment with Rouhani’s UN speech, having hoped for a bolder step forward toward the U.S. This is reinforced by the White House claim that they proposed a brief meeting on the margins of the UN but were rebuffed by the Iranians, who said it was too complicated at this time.
The naysayers are wrong. A meeting with Obama, however brief, would certainly have pleased Western peace supporters, but in Iran, where crippling sanctions are hammering people every day and where, despite Obama’s conciliatory words, people are understandably skeptical of U.S. intentions, such a meeting would have been premature. It could easily be used by conservatives to demonstrate weakness on Rouhani’s part, portraying it as a warm gesture to a government that is strangling Iranians with no promise, or even indication that an easing of the sanctions regime is on the horizon.
Even in the West, it is probably better that no chance encounter took place. Although the U.S. tactic of refusing to talk is a dead end that produces no tangible benefits for anyone (as Stephen Walt aptly points out), since we have pursued it, raising hopes for a quick breakthrough is probably unwise. Expectations need to be managed.
The U.S.-Iranian impasse is much deeper than the nuclear issue and the mutual antipathy between Israel and the Islamic Republic. Many more issues are involved, and they mount on top of a long history of problems between the U.S. and Iran, of which the 1953 CIA-backed coup and the 1979-80 hostage crisis are only the best known.
Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies offers a good rundown of the various issues and complications facing the two countries in any attempt to thaw relations. The major flaw, though, in Cordesman’s piece is that he frames the current issue within the notion of a relentless Iranian march toward a nuclear weapon. This doesn’t mesh with the facts, as intelligence estimates for the past six years, including those of the U.S. and Israel, agree that Iran has halted its pursuit of a nuclear weapon, while retaining the ability to start the process again. An Iranian weapons program only seems to have existed in the early years of the century, when U.S. ambitions for regime change were at their height.
Beyond that point, Cordesman gives a good description of the complexities inherent in trying to turn back years of U.S.-Iranian enmity. But he does an even better job of laying out the case for why the status quo serves neither country well and why a warming of relations can bring great benefits to both countries and the entire Middle East.
One major issue that divides the two countries is, indeed, Israel. If Iran and the U.S. wanted to try to patch things up, even if the nuclear issue was resolved to mutual satisfaction (something that is complicated but far from impossible in and of itself), the Israel-Palestine question moves to center stage. What becomes of Iranian support for the Palestinian cause, for Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the more meager support it offers to Hamas?
More than likely, this is why Obama, in his speech, put the two issues so closely together. While he didn’t specifically link the two, their proximity in the text was suggestive, and explained a bit of why he and Secretary of State John Kerry have put so much effort into rekindling talks between the two peoples. Obama understands, and he’s subtly communicating to Israel, that he needs to see a Palestinian state created, one which Iran can support, if there is to be sufficient warming of U.S.-Iran relations to enable a reasonable chance of resolving the nuclear issue.
This is precisely why Netanyahu is so alarmed by the prospect of a negotiated deal, as opposed to an Iranian surrender, on the nuclear issue. The prospect of a viable deal on Iran’s nuclear program will allow and encourage domestic and international pressure on Israel to make a deal, and, even if it is a deal remarkably favorable to Israel, Netanyahu does not want to engage in that political fight with his own party and the rest of his right-wing coalition. Much better to see Iran be forced, whether by sanctions or firepower, to give in to international demands. Moreover, those demands will be very different in the context of negotiations.
Obama, in his speech, recognized Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear power. That affirmation, though self-evident, indicates a willingness to allow enrichment on Iranian soil, something Netanyahu adamantly opposes, but which, with sufficient transparency, will satisfy every other country in the world if the United States gives the program its blessing. In the context of an Iranian surrender, it is much more likely that enrichment programs could be transferred to a third country, like Russia.
So, Netanyahu has gone on an anti-Rouhani crusade. With the most extreme of neocon groups joining him, it is likely — if Netanyahu persists and if Rouhani does not sufficiently influence Western hearts and minds fast enough (which he likely can’t do without agitating his own right flank) — that other right-wing groups, followed by more centrist hawks, will soon add their voices to the anti-Rouhani chorus.
Pro-dialogue forces will have a tough task. The process simply can’t move too fast or it will careen off the tracks. But a slow process gives more opportunity for the hawks. Persistence in support of a rational approach will not be easy, but standing fast to support dialogue and the gradual easing of sanctions in exchange for gradually increasing transparency in Iran is the best and wisest option.
]]>by Marsha B. Cohen
The ubiquitous smiling visage of Hassan Rouhani and his seemingly reasonable iterations of Iranian intentions are infuriating some Israelis.
Zvi Bar’el of Haaretz explains that “Israel’s fear of losing its justification for an attack on Iran and the fear that the United States may yet “fall into the [...]]]>
by Marsha B. Cohen
The ubiquitous smiling visage of Hassan Rouhani and his seemingly reasonable iterations of Iranian intentions are infuriating some Israelis.
Zvi Bar’el of Haaretz explains that “Israel’s fear of losing its justification for an attack on Iran and the fear that the United States may yet “fall into the trap” set by the “smooth language” of the Iranian president is driving it crazy.”
“Where is Ahmadinejad when we really need him?” asks Chemi Shalev in Haaretz.
The attention, some of it fawning, that is already being bestowed on the so-called “moderate” Iranian president has confirmed the widespread assumption of most analysts following Rohani’s election in August as Iran’s 7th president: that it wouldn’t take long for Israel and other critics of Iran to sorely miss his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
After all, for the past 8 years, Israel’s efforts to convince the world and especially the U.S. to tackle Iran’s nuclear designs head on relied on two main figures: the relentless Netanyahu and the equally adamant, Holocaust-denying Ahmadinejad. And with all due respect to Netanyahu’s formidable public relations prowess, it was Ahmadinejad who served as Israel’s number one talking point, its strategic propaganda asset, a poster boy who self-explained Tehran’s sinister designs.
And Y-Net‘s Ron Ben Yishai lays out the four conditions that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says should be met in order for the U.S. to ease sanctions against Iran:
Netanyahu specified them as “Halting all uranium enrichment; removing all enriched uranium; closing (the uranium enrichment facility at) Qom; and stopping the plutonium track,” which is being pursued at the Arak reactor. Netanyahu said that “until all four of these measures are achieved, the pressure on Iran must be increased and not relaxed.”
Netanyahu’s words were most likely meant for the ears of the members of Congress, so they will not let Obama get carried away by Rohani’s overtures and urge the president to increase the economic pressure on Iran and impose additional, more severe sanctions. The Israelis are also telling their American counterparts that just like in the case of the Syrian crisis, a credible military threat is needed in order to get results on the diplomatic track.
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, chair of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa, characterized Rouhani on Friday as “a master of deceit who has been putting on an all-out charm offensive since he took office, replacing Ahmadinejad” and said any talks with Rouhani was “a fool’s errand.” The staunchly pro-Israel (and defender of the mujahadeen-e-khalq (MEK), even while it was on the State Dept. list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations) also shared Israeli nostalgia for Rouhani’s predecessor in a statement that was given prominent coverage by Haviv Rettig Gur in the Times of Israel: “In many ways Rouhani is much more dangerous than [former Iranian president Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad. At least with Ahmadinejad you get what you see – his hatred for Israel and the United States is not disguised with rhetoric or spurious gestures of goodwill.”
Members of Congress notwithstanding, Raphael Ahrens, the diplomatic correspondent for the Times of Israel, opines that “right now Rouhani is singing a new tune, and Netanyahu risks sounding like a broken record, repeating a song people would much rather not listen to anymore.”
Meanwhile, Yuval Steinitz, a member of Israel’s parliament (Knesset) and of Netanyahu’s cabinet, has scored big time in laying claim to the meme that derisively characterizes Rouhani’s efforts to improve US-Iran relations as a “charm offensive,” which has gone viral since Sept. 8, when Yaakov Lappin of the Jerusalem Post reported:
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is about to launch a charm offensive aimed at calming Western fears over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program and hopes to “laugh all the way to the bomb,” Yuval Steinitz, the international relations, intelligence and strategic affairs minister, said on Sunday.
Speaking at the Institute for Counter-terrorism’s 13th annual international conference, Steinitz said, “If I read Rouhani correctly, I predict that in [the] near future, maybe at the start of [the] UN General Assembly session next week, we’ll see an offensive of friendliness and moderation toward the West, to influence Western media, public opinion and leadership in Europe and the US and to calm fears over a nuclear Iran.”
Describing Rouhani as “more sophisticated and smarter than his predecessor [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad,” Steinitz warned that the Iranian president plans to deceive the international community to buy his country more time to develop its military nuclear program.
In a recent interview with the Sheldon Adelson-owned daily Israel Hayom, Steinitz reiterated, “Rouhani has launched a charm offensive on the West, but he plans to charm his way to a nuclear weapon.”
But it was Iranian-American Professor Mohsen Milani, writing in Foreign Policy way back in June, who casually used the phrase “charm offensive” in the body of a thoughtful article arguing that Iran’s foreign policy would likely start with a charm offensive toward all of Iran’s neighbors, particularly the Arab states of the Persian Gulf. Describing Rouhani as “someone with whom one could do business,” Milani offered numerous policy recommendations, among them that the U.S. invite Iranian engagement on Syria and Afghanistan, and “help the forces of moderation in Iran by trying to work with the new president.”
The next day, the hawkish news aggregation site Real Clear World emblazoned the headline “Get Ready for Rouhani’s Charm Offensive.”
“In my articles and in a number of interviews I have done since June, I have consistently talked about the “charm offensive” by the IRI [Islamic Republic of Iran] in the context of Iran’s strategic decision to settle its nuclear dispute with the West and explore the possibility of normalizing its relations with the US,” Milani explained in an e-mail to Lobe Log. “If we only emphasize the ‘charm offensive’ without talking about the key strategic decision Iran seems to have made, then we could create the impression that what has been taking place is devoid of any substance and is but a sophisticated and sinister public relations scheme.”
In the past two weeks and particularly in the past few days, the meme of Rouhani’s “charm offensive” has been dominating many U.S. news sources. With some exceptions, these pieces have mostly ignored the possibility that the U.S. and Iran have shared interests, and approached the “Rouhani charm offensive” as a tactic for evading progress rather than evidence of a strategic decision made and supported by major players within the Iranian government. Here’s a sampling of major and minor sites: Associated Press; CBS; Center for Security Policy; Christian Science Monitor; CNN; Financial Times; Fiscal Times; Front Page Magazine; Fox News; France 24; Guardian; National Public Radio; PBS News Hour; Time; Washington Free Beacon and the Washington Post.
Rouhani, who left Iran for New York on Sunday, will attend the opening session of the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 24, and deliver a speech before the UNGA that afternoon. The following day he is scheduled to address the special session of the Nuclear Disarmament Conference as the current chairman of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), of which nearly two thirds of the members of the UN are members. Rouhani will also address foreign ministers of the NAM, and is expected to meet and hold talks with world leaders on the sidelines of the UNGA. He has “not ruled out” the possibility of meeting with President Obama.
According to the Times of Israel, Israel’s Channel 2 reported on Friday night that “administration officials have had several conversations with their Israeli counterparts recently to assure them that Rouhani’s outreach — which has seen the new Iranian president give a US TV interview, pen an op-ed in the Washington Post, and send other conciliatory messages to the US — will not prompt a reduction in sanctions pressure designed to thwart Iran’s nuclear drive.”
If that is all that comes of Rouhani’s so-called “charm offensive,” somewhere in Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be smiling.
]]>by Marsha B. Cohen
For most Israeli politicians, the news of the election of moderate cleric Hassan Rouhani as president of Iran, is not good. That it is considered good news by anyone else makes it that much worse.
In Poland last Wednesday, two days before Iranians went to [...]]]>
by Marsha B. Cohen
For most Israeli politicians, the news of the election of moderate cleric Hassan Rouhani as president of Iran, is not good. That it is considered good news by anyone else makes it that much worse.
In Poland last Wednesday, two days before Iranians went to the polls, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu declared that the results would bring about no meaningful change in Iran. Hours before reports of the election’s outcome began to be announced, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon told the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), a pro-Israel think tank, that Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, would decide who the next Iranian president would be. The imminent Iranian election would change nothing.
As news of Rouhani’s garnering more than half the votes cast in Iran began to emerge, Israel’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Yigal Palmor, echoed the widespread view that it is Khamenei who makes all the decisions concerning the Iranian nuclear program, not the Iranian president. “After the elections, Iran will continue to be judged by its actions, in the nuclear sphere as well as on the issue of terror,” Palmor said in a statement.” Iran must abide by the demands of the international community to stop its nuclear program and cease the dissemination of terror throughout the world.”
In a cabinet meeting on Sunday morning, Netanyahu derided not only the possible impact of a Rouhani-presidency on Iran’s policies, but also whether Rouhani even deserved to be considered a moderate since Khamenei had allowed him to run:
“Let us not delude ourselves,” Netanyahu said. “The international community must not become caught up in wishes and be tempted to relax the pressure on Iran to stop its nuclear program. It must be remembered that the Iranian ruler, at the outset, disqualified candidates who did not fit his extremist outlook and from among those whose candidacies he allowed was elected the candidate who was seen as less identified with the regime, who still defines the State of Israel [in an address last year] as ‘the great Zionist Satan.’”
Referring to the unexpected election of Mohammed Khatami as Iran’s president in 1997, the Israeli Prime Minister reminded his cabinet that “Fifteen years ago, the election of another president, also considered a moderate by the West, led to no change in these aggressive policies.”
Perhaps Netanyahu should be reminded that in 1992, he claimed Iran was “3 to 5 years” from having a nuclear weapon. That same year, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres (Israel’s current president) told French TV that Iran would have a nuclear warhead by 1999. This contention, shared by Netanyahu’s political rival, Yitzhak Rabin and echoed here by the Israel lobby, provided much of the impetus to push harder for the anti-Iran sanctions that were a major factor in constraining the ability of the last reformist president, Mohammad Khatami, to improve the economy and gain political capital against regime hard-liners.
In an interview with AP and Reuters, Peres made the opposite argument, praising the election results as a blow to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, “who was sure that the people would vote according to his decision.” According to Peres, Rouhani will now have to be judged by his actions, rather than his words.
(Now what would happen if the U.S. were to judge Israeli leaders by their actions rather than their words, with regard to resolving the Israel-Palestinian conflict or coming clean about Israel’s nuclear weapons program?)
Knesset Foreign Relations Chair Avigdor Lieberman of the hardline Israel is Our Home party, barred from assuming the post of Foreign Minister until the pending corruption charges against him are resolved, sized up Iran’s president-elect as being “not more moderate, but more sophisticated” than his predecessor. “We have not heard from [Rouhani] any announcements that he plans to stop the nuclear program.”
Minister of International Relations Yuval Steinitz, whose ministerial duties include “Israel’s intelligence efforts on Iran,” told Army Radio on Sunday morning that “the results are a credit to the Iranian people,” but expressed doubts as to whether Supreme Leader Khamenei, who “actually manages foreign affairs, national security and Iran’s nuclear program,” would alter Iran’s “path and behavior.” Steinitz asserted that the election results would have no effect on Iran’s nuclear progress, which he claimed is ever-closer to crossing the nuclear “red line.” Were any changes in to occur, he opined they would come about solely as a consequence of “increased pressure” by the international community. Steinitz therefore insisted that international sanctions against Iran “must continue, regardless of the desire of the Iranian people for progress.”
Justice Minister Tzipi Livni – praised by J-Street last year when she resigned from the Knesset for defining “the ideal of public service in Israel, pursuing her vision of the best interests of Israel with passion, dignity and integrity,” but who immediately jockeyed for and won a cabinet position in the right-wing Netanyahu government elected in January — also told Army Radio that Rouhani’s election would test the West’s determination to keep Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. While Rouhani might seem like a more moderate face for Iranians, Livni was in agreement with her Likud colleagues that it would be “wise” to continue pressuring Iran. “The test will be that of action,” Livni said, parroting the official Israel position that Iran’s new president should be judged by actions instead of words.
MK Zahava Gal-on of Israel’s pro-peace and progressive Meretz party, which is in opposition to Netanyahu’s government, issued a sardonic statement of condolence to Israel’s political leadership on the departure of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who for the past eight years has provided a treasure trove of anti-Israel invective that Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders have been able to quote when making their case that Iran is an imminent threat to Israel:
I extend my sympathy to the Israeli government that, with heavy heart and head hung low, must bid farewell to Ahmadinejad, who served as propaganda card and as an excellent source of excuses to avoid dealing with Israel’s real problems,” she said in a statement.
Where will the prime minister turn to now, when someone asks him about the Palestinian conflict? What about the out-of-control budget deficit for which he was responsible?… What about the racism that exists within Israeli society?… What will he do?”
I fear that the election of the moderate Rouhani is not just a blow to the extremists in Tehran, but also to the extremist leadership in Israel, which will now have to replace intimidation with actions.”
Gal-On’s sarcasm is closer to reality than it might sound. After Ahmadinejad was declared the winner of the contentious 2009 runoff presidential election, despite charges that his opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, had received more votes, the pro-settler, nationalist news site Arutz Sheva included some quotes reflecting the attitudes of many Israeli politicians and pundits about the 2009 victory of the outgoing Iranian president who Israeli leaders have delighted in comparing to Haman and Hitler, among them:
- Mossad director Meir Dagan told the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that “if the reformist candidate Mousavi had won, Israel would have had a more serious problem because it would need to explain to the world the danger of the Iranian threat.”
- Ephraim Inbar, director of the Begin Sadat Center at Bar-Ilan University, explained to CBS News, “If we have Ahmadinejad, we know where we stand. If we have Mousavi we have a serpent with a nice image.”
- Political commentator Ron Ben Yishai declared Ahmadinejad “a diplomatic asset for the West in general and for Israel in particular. His Shi’ite fanaticism and Holocaust denial have frightened Arab and Western countries and assisted in creation of a global anti-Iranian front.”
So it’s not surprising that, as the results of the 2013 Iranian election became known on Saturday, Deputy Defense Minister Gilad Erdan expressed concern that Rouhani’s reputation as a centrist and the support he received from Iran’s reformists might tempt the West to give Iran “more leeway in diplomatic contacts over its rogue nuclear drive,” agreeing to more talks, and then more talks.
Regardless of the outcome of any Iranian election offering the possibility of change — admittedly not the prospect or an outright promise — Israeli politicos will be displeased, and for the wrong reasons. Expect to hear more from them in the days and weeks ahead in the media, and from the Israel Lobby in the United States.
]]>via IPS News
Amid growing and increasingly harsh criticism of his handling of the economy, talk of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s removal has regained momentum in Iran in recent weeks.
But, according to most observers, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is unlikely to back any move to shorten Ahmadinejad’s term, [...]]]>
via IPS News
Amid growing and increasingly harsh criticism of his handling of the economy, talk of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s removal has regained momentum in Iran in recent weeks.
But, according to most observers, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is unlikely to back any move to shorten Ahmadinejad’s term, which runs out in mid-2013, for fear that impeaching him will only wreak greater havoc on a political environment that is already highly polarised and contentious.
Over 100 members of the parliament, or Majlis, have signed on to a demand that the president be summoned to answer questions about the recent drastic devaluation of the currency. Runaway inflation, combined with rising unemployment, has rattled many MPs concerned with the devaluation’s impact both on the price of key imports and the cost of operating factories and agricultural enterprises.
If the president either refuses to appear or fails to explain his policies to parliament’s satisfaction, the issue may eventually be referred to the judiciary, which, would, in turn, clear the way to his removal before the presidential election scheduled to take place next June.
But even the MPs who have called for Ahmadinejad to testify are not optimistic that such a scenario is realistic. “Neither MPs have hope that such questioning will lead anywhere, nor the representatives of the government are trying to stop the process,” according to Etemaad Daily.
Calls for Ahamdinejad’s removal are not new. In mid-summer there were reports that two former members of Ahmadinejad’s cabinet – former foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki and former interior minister Mostafa Pourmohammadi – had written a letter to Khamenei calling for the president’s removal.
Khamenei, however, has proved reluctant to criticise the president or acknowledge the severe economic woes the country faces. In the two weeks of intense volatility in the currency market, he even denied during a provincial visit the existence of an economic crisis.
He acknowledged that problems such as unemployment and inflation exist “like everywhere else”, but insisted that these problems can be overcome. “Nothing exists that the nation and officials cannot solve,” he said.
Khamenei’s positive take on the state of the Iranian economy is received with quite a lot of scepticism among the population. Many people see Khamenei as oblivious to the crushing burden of economic difficulties that increasingly dominate conversations at dinner tables, in cafes, and in the street.
Khamenei’s continued support for Ahmadinejad is also much discussed. Some prominent politicians, such as Deputy Speaker Mohammadreza Bahaonar, have publicly said that the Leader wants the government to finish its legal terms. “The cost of removing the president is more than us doing nothing for another year,” he said recently.
This is not a view shared by Ahmad Tavakoli, another prominent MP from Tehran. “Ahmadinejad’s period is over, and the continuation of his presidency is not positive,” he said this week, suggesting that he disagrees with Khamenei’s decision to tolerate Ahmadinejad until the end of his term.
There are other theories why Khamenei will continue to support Ahmadinejad. According to Ali, a journalist who asked only that his first name be used, Khamenei cannot back down from the support because he is unable to explain the costs his support of Ahmadinejad in the disputed 2009 election have imposed on the people and the country. “Khamenei prefers the current situation to acknowledging that he made a mistake,” Ali insists.
Reza, a 58-year-old political activist, sees fear as the explanation for Khamenei’s support for Ahmadinejad. He believes that Ahmadineajd’s penchant for creating “corruption dossiers” on key political actors “will eventually be directed at Khamenei’s family whose financial record is not without blemish.”
According to Reza, if pushed, “Ahmadinejad will reveal the information he has and this scares the Ayatollah. Through his support Khamenei is in effect paying for Ahamdinejad’s silence.”
In reality, Khamenei faces a complex situation. On the one hand, he must deal with the more public and harsher criticism of Ahmadinejad’s economic policies, and, on the other, the potentially destabilising impact of the president’s removal.
So far, Khamenei’s approach in balancing these two concerns seeks a third path, which, according to one political commentator, is “to take effective control of executive affairs and transform Ahmadinejad into a show president whose time is spent traveling abroad.”
The result can be seen in Khamenei’s conduct in the past few years. Until recently, Khamenei was always considered to be a “sitting Leader” whose annual trips to a designated province or public appearances were mostly limited to official events, such as the anniversary of the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Islamic Republic’s founder.
Since the end of the post- 2009 election protests, however, Khamenei has taken many more short trips. Earlier this year, for example, he comforted the family of an assassinated nuclear scientist at their home. He also took a quick trip to East Azerbaijan after the August earthquake while the president was in Saudi Arabia.
More significantly, he has been meeting with economic actors and their representatives in the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, eliciting their views and promising redress. One recently elected MP who did not want to be identified told IPS, “I send requests regarding my district’s needs directly to the Leader and not the president.”
A University of Tehran professor says that the roots of Khamenei’s increased activism can be found in Ahmadinejad’s extensive use of executive privilege and extra-legal powers to circumvent and marginalise other branches of the government, particularly the parliament.
According to the professor, however, Khamenei may also be engaged in unconstitutional conduct by interfering in the affairs of the executive branch. “Khamenei is as blameworthy as Ahmadinejad in weakening the rule of law and preventing other institutions from performing their supervisory task in relation to the executive branch,” he says.
Khamenei rejects these criticisms and said in April 2011, after he prevented Ahmadinejad from firing the intelligence minister, Heydar Moslehi, that “the office of the Leader has no intention of interfering in the decisions and activities of the government, unless it feels that an interest of the state has been ignored.”
These days, however, his words are received with scepticism. Maryam, a retired teacher, sees in Khamenei’s performance a desire to centralise power in his office. “He wants a weak president so that he can be in control and be in charge, and now he is in charge of everything. Why should he change the situation?”
]]>With the widely touted shift in the public opinion polls after the first presidential debate, Mitt Romney is no longer an underdog. That being the case, his pronouncements are attracting some well-deserved scrutiny from mainstream media sources. Romney’s major foreign policy speech at the Virginia Military Institute on Oct. 8 [...]]]>
With the widely touted shift in the public opinion polls after the first presidential debate, Mitt Romney is no longer an underdog. That being the case, his pronouncements are attracting some well-deserved scrutiny from mainstream media sources. Romney’s major foreign policy speech at the Virginia Military Institute on Oct. 8 is being fact-checked — and castigated — by the Associated Press, CNN, and even by Fox News.
Among the more egregious calumnies in the speech is Romney’s mischaracterization of Obama’s response to the 2009 election in Iran.
… when millions of Iranians took to the streets in June of 2009, when they demanded freedom from a cruel regime that threatens the world, when they cried out, “Are you with us, or are you with them?”—the American President was silent.
CNN has done a remarkably good job of laying out and scrutinizing Romney’s accusations, and the harsh Republican and neoconservative criticism of President Obama’s response to the Iranian election in mid-June 2009. Are Romney’s accusations factual? No, according to CNN: “During the first couple of days of the protests and violence, Obama did not weigh in publicly, but by a few days in, he was not “silent”– and a week later, took a tougher stance.”
As Glenn Kessler pointed out in a Washington Post article from June 19, 2009, “President Obama and his advisers have struggled to strike the right tone, carefully calibrating positive messages about the protests in an effort to avoid giving the government in Tehran an excuse to portray the demonstrators as pro-American.” Iranian human rights activist Shirin Ebadi told Kessler in a telephone interview that she had no complaints about Obama’s response. “What happens in Iran regards the people themselves, and it is up to them to make their voices heard,” she said.
This past January, former GOP-nomination contender Rick Santorum also assailed Obama’s response to the post-election protests in Iran, as 2008 presidential rival John McCain had. Santorum’s Jan. 1, 2012 exchange with David Gregory on Meet the Press provides the blueprint for the charges Romney hurled at Obama at VMI. Whoever is prepping the President for the upcoming foreign policy debate might find Gregory’s tough, pointed and well-informed questions a useful model for dealing with Romney’s dissembling:
MR. GREGORY: Before you go, I want to ask you about foreign policy. You’ve been very critical of the president, particularly on the issue of Iran, which has been a big issue of debate here in Iowa. Let me play a portion of that.
(Videotape, December 7, 2011)
FMR. SEN. SANTORUM: And this president, for every thug and hooligan, for every radical Islamist, he has had nothing but appeasement. We saw that during the lead up to World War II. Appeasement.
(End videotape)
MR. GREGORY: How can that possibly be accurate, if you’ve taken an objective look at the foreign policy of this administration? What on Iran specifically separates the approach that President Obama has taken and that of President Bush?
FMR. SEN. SANTORUM: Number one, he didn’t support the pro-democracy movement in Iran in 2009 during the Green Revolution. Almost immediately after the election, I mean, excuse me, like with hours after the, the polls closed, Ahmadinejad announced that he won with 62 percent of the vote. Within a few days, President Obama basically said that that was–election was a legitimate one.
MR. GREGORY: But what would that have done specifically to disarm Iran?
FMR. SEN. SANTORUM: Well, well, I understand why the president would, would understand that, you know, someone announcing the minute after the polls closed that he won, I mean, he comes from Chicago, so I get it. But the problem is that this was an illegitimate election. The people in the streets were rioting saying, please support us, President Obama. We are the prodemocracy movement. We want to turn this theocracy that has been at war with the United States, that’s developing a nuclear weapon, that’s, that’s killing our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq with IEDS. And the president of the United States turned his back on them. At the same time, a few years–a year later, we have the same situation where Muslim Brotherhood and Islamists are in the streets of, of Egypt opposing an ally of ours, not a sworn enemy like Iran, but an ally of ours in Mubarak…
MR. GREGORY: I’m sorry. The question I asked you…
MR. SEN. SANTORUM: …and he joins the radicals instead of…
MR. GREGORY: Wait a second.
FMR. SEN. SANTORUM: …standing with our friends.
MR. GREGORY: The–first of all, that’s patently contradictory. If you say you support democracy, there was a democratic movement in Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood got elected. So how could you be for democracy in some countries and not others?
FMR. SEN. SANTORUM: I don’t, because, because…
MR. GREGORY: Which is inconsistent.
FMR. SEN. SANTORUM: No. The Muslim Brotherhood is not–is not about democracy. The Muslim Brotherhood are Islamists. The Muslim Brotherhood are going to impose Sharia law.
MR. GREGORY: They were popularly elected, I think. Isn’t that what democracy is about?
FMR. SEN. SANTORUM: No. No.
The day after Santorum’s appearance on Meet the Press, FactCheck critiqued his claims:
Iran’s presidential election was June 12, 2009, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared victory — triggering protests in Tehran. On June 15, Obama said at a press conference: “We weren’t on the ground, we did not have observers there, we did not have international observers on hand, so I can’t state definitively one way or another what happened with respect to the election. But what I can say is that there appears to be a sense on the part of people who were so hopeful and so engaged and so committed to democracy who now feel betrayed. And I think it’s important that, moving forward, whatever investigations take place are done in a way that is not resulting in bloodshed and is not resulting in people being stifled in expressing their views.”
Obama issued a statement five days later again condemning Iran’s post-election “violent and unjust actions against its own people” and asserting that the U.S. “stands with all who … exercise” the “universal rights to assembly and free speech.” It was one of many such statements.
FactCheck also noted that the Washington Times had reported on June 27, 2009 that Obama was being cautious in what he said about the election results because he didn’t want to be accused of interfering and providing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with a propaganda “tool.”
While other leaders have been more out front in their criticism, Mr. Obama has taken pains not to appear to meddle in the debate on the actual election results, arguing he doesn’t want his words to become propaganda for the Iranian regime. “Only I’m the president of the United States, and I’ve got responsibilities in making certain that we are continually advancing our national security interests and that we are not used as a tool to be exploited by other countries,” he said at a press conference Tuesday.
Fact checkers Brooks Jackson and Eugene Kiely concluded that, in comparing Obama’s handling of the elections in Iran and Egypt, “Obama treated both cases similarly: condemning the governments’ use of violence against their own citizens and supporting the protesters right to protest.”
Progressives and conservatives can find many faults with the Obama’s administration’s handling of foreign policy in general and dealings with Iran in particular. The question in the upcoming election is whether Mitt Romney could or would do any better. Daniel Larison, a staunch conservative, doesn’t seem to think so. In “Mitt Romney’s Vapid, Misleading Foreign Policy Speech” Larison writes:
The failings of Romney’s foreign policy arguments are not entirely his. Boxed in by his party’s hawks and most Republicans’ unwillingness to acknowledge Bush administration blunders, Romney’s script was to some extent written for him before he became a candidate. Not being in a position to lead his party in a new direction on this or any other issue, he had already embraced the worldview that he found among Republican hawks in an effort to become acceptable to them. Unfortunately for the country, Americans could have used a credible opposition party and presidential candidate to hold the administration accountable for its real mistakes.
Amen.
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David E. Sanger reports for the New York Times that Iran sought to use its UN venue last week to “drum up support” for a negotiating strategy of lifting sanctions in tandem with a “nine-step plan” for “gradually suspending” uranium enrichment:
The Iranian plan is based on a proposal made [...]]]>
David E. Sanger reports for the New York Times that Iran sought to use its UN venue last week to “drum up support” for a negotiating strategy of lifting sanctions in tandem with a “nine-step plan” for “gradually suspending” uranium enrichment:
The Iranian plan is based on a proposal made to European officials in July. It essentially calls for a step-by-step dismantling of the sanctions while the Iranians end work at one of two sites where they are enriching what is known as “20 percent uranium.” Only when the Iranians reach step No. 9 — after all the sanctions are gone and badly depressed oil revenues have begun to flow again — would there be a “suspension” of the medium-enriched uranium production at the deep underground site called Fordow.
US officials, though, are not having it, claiming that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is merely stalling for time and hoping to break apart international support for sanctions:
]]>…. Obama administration officials say the deal is intended to generate headlines, but would not guarantee that Iran cannot produce a weapon. “The way they have structured it, you can move the fuel around, and it stays inside the country,” a senior Obama administration official said. “They could restart the program in a nanosecond. They don’t have to answer any questions from the inspectors” about evidence that they conducted research on nuclear weapons technology, but nonetheless would insist on a statement from the agency that all issues have been resolved.
…. On Wednesday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton made it clear that the United States had no intention of relaxing the sanctions — particularly now, just as they show the first sign of forcing Iran’s leaders to rethink the costs of their nuclear program.
This weekend brought news of the latest set of inflammatory comments by Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, spiritual leader of Shas — the ultra-Orthodox party that is currently the fourth largest party in Israel’s Knesset. Yosef — whose previous statements regarding Arabs and Gentiles have drawn similar controversy — said [...]]]>
This weekend brought news of the latest set of inflammatory comments by Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, spiritual leader of Shas — the ultra-Orthodox party that is currently the fourth largest party in Israel’s Knesset. Yosef — whose previous statements regarding Arabs and Gentiles have drawn similar controversy — said the following during his sermon on Saturday, according to the Jerusalem Post:
“When we make the blessing on the dates that ‘our enemies and haters should be ended’ we should have in mind the Iranian regime, those evil people who threaten Israel,” the rabbi said.
“Do good, God, wipe them out, kill them,” he entreated, to which the assembled crowd answered “amen.”
“When eating the leek,” also traditionally eaten as part of the symbolic service for a good coming year, “and when we say that our enemies, foes and anyone who desires to do evil to us should be cut off, we should have in mind Hezbollah and Iran,” Yosef said.
“Destroy them God, obliterate them from the face of the earth,” he said… [emphasis added]
At +972, Ami Kaufman has more on the political implications of Yosef’s statement. Shas’s political leader, Interior Minister Eli Yishai, had been considered one of several members of Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet who are skeptical of an attack on Iran, but the Netanyahu government has been wooing Yosef to try to bring Shas (and thus Yishai) over into the war hawk camp. Last week, Yosef received a briefing on the Iran issue from Yaakov Amidror, head of Netanyahu’s National Security Council. The Shas leader’s recent comments may be a sign that he and his party have been persuaded to support an attack on Iran.
As for the comments themselves, I suspect that few will dispute the grotesqueness of Yosef’s call to “obliterate them [Iran and Hezbollah] from the face of the earth.” It’s worth noting that this is not the first time that Yosef has appeared to call for genocide: in 2001 he was quoted as saying of Arabs that ”it is forbidden to be merciful to them. You must send missiles to them and annihilate them. They are evil and damnable.”
As he did in 2001, Yosef’s supporters are arguing that his comments are being misinterpreted — that he is simply arguing for the obliteration of the Iranian regime, not Iran itself. Such a distinction provides scant consolation to Iranian civilians, large numbers of whom would most likely be killed in any attack on Iran.
More to the point, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad similarly specified that he was talking about the “occupying regime” when he made his notorious comments suggesting that Israel must “vanish from the pages of time” — the phrase more frequently, albeit inaccurately, translated as “wiped off the map”. Of course, few Israelis felt greatly comforted by this qualification, for understandable reasons.
As I wrote several years ago during the Netanyahu “Amalek” controversy, it’s striking how differently the Western media treat these sorts of comments when they come from Israelis as opposed to Iranians. If a prominent Iranian cleric made similar statements to Yosef’s, they would be held up in the press as evidence of the regime’s genocidal fanaticism. When Yosef does it, suddenly pundits feel comfortable invoking context to explain away what on any reading is a call for blood.
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