Oh, Russians...

It’s been awhile since I’ve last posted, and even longer since I wrote a serious international affairs piece. A spate of disconcerting events and new comments from the Russians today prompted me push aside the LSAT studying for a bit to write down a few thoughts on how this new information now makes war more likely than not.

The comments today were those of Vladimir Putin, delivered via a spokesman, that Russia has no evidence to cast any doubt on Iran’s claim that its nuclear development is for anything other than peaceful ends, and therefore will continue to fight against sanctions.

Meanwhile, today’s news also reports that Iran now has enough material to produce a nuclear bomb. A week or so ago, there were reports that a boat full of Russian-made S300 missile systems destined for Iran was hijacked and then rescued by Russian forces. The theory goes that the S300 systems were being sold without government authorization to Iran by disgruntled current and/or former Russian generals. Israel’s Mossad, learning of this, hired mercenaries to hijack the boat, and then tipped off the Russian government so that the Russians could prevent the delivery and safe face. Israeli and Russian officials both denied this, though were S300 missiles on board, I’d bet money that this is more or less what happened.

Another bit of breaking news is the revelation of an alleged clandestine trip to Russia by Israel’s Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu. Reports vary on details, but the just is that Bibi went to discuss the S300 matter.

The Iranian Defense Minister has led Europe to pay closer attention to the situation with recent comments that suggest Iran is now pursuing a missile system with a range of over 2,000 kilometers, making Iranian nuclear weapons a threat to the European continent. We now see France and Germany taking much stronger stands against Iran.

Iran, with the requisite material to produce nuclear weapons, a missile system capable of taking down Israel’s most advanced planes, another missle system with the reach to strike Europe, and the influence on the region Iran would attain from all this, along with Russia’s continuing to fight against sanctions, means war is on the horizon.

War is now likely to happen, with perhaps some variation, along these lines:

1. Israel obtains hard intelligence that Russia will sell Iran the S300 system, which makes an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities nearly impossible
2. Israel pre-empts the full operational capability of the S300s with attacks, pushing Iran a few years back down the nuclear time line
3. Iran responds by strengthening Hizbollah and Hamas, likely inciting them to launch attacks on Israel
4. Iran mines, or at least monitors, the Strait of Hormuz, through which 40% of the world’s oil is transported, causing a worldwide oil supply crisis
5. The U.S. and Europe are forced into the meat of the situation (when either they are unable or unwilling to enter another field of combat), testing the tenuous and slight diplomatic gains made between the U.S. and Syria through the pressure Iran will put on Syria to stir things up in Iraq
6. Instability in the Arab arc will be set lose, putting the United Arab Emirates, an ally of rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran as well as the U.S., in an extremely difficult position. The UAE will, with good reason, fear foreign attempts at occupation, whether politically or militarily, by any of their three “allies”
7. Iran will put pressure on Bahrain, a key ally of both Iran and the U.S., the later of whom has their Fifth Flee/t headquartered there, to force the Americans to leave, which would be catastrophic for the U.S. in its Near East operations (including the current war in Afghanistan). To keep their the base, the Americans will have to pledge military support - to keep Iran at bay when it comes to Bahrain’s territorial concerns – that it can’t logisitically provide

The instability and havoc this scenario creates is really only put into motion at step 7. It would likely expand beyond step 7 and could even reach South and North America via Venezuela and Bolvia and the growing al Qaeda cells operating in Central America, but that’s much harder to assess.

Here may be the most worring part of this scenario: from the perspective of the most likely country to act, Israel, this is, if you eliminate the sanctions options - the only responsible thing to do at this point - probably the best scenario. This is because Israel is more likely to receive international intervention with a war. If Israel does not attack and Iran secures the S300, it gives Israel’s enemies, near and far, the protection of a nuclear umbrella. This is the worst scenario for Israel, because it creates an Israel beholden to Iran’s whims. Iran could attack Israel with support from Hizbollah, Hamas, and Syria. More likely, though, is that Iran seriously arms its allies and gives them the green light to stage attacks against Israel. Once Israel responds, Iran can tell them to back off or receive the wrath of Iranian missiles. This is the Israeli nightmare.

From the American perspective, there isn’t an attractive option. At this point, we only enjoy support from 2 of the remaining 4 Security Council members. Neither China nor Russia are committed to the Iranian threat. For Russia, it is both economic and geopolitical, and arming Iran helps them achieve both those goals. For China, their motivations are less discernable. I’m not going to go into China much other than to say they share some of Russia’s motivations. Given that international sanctions are no longer feasible and that Russia is likely to eventually sell Iran the missile systems that will destabilize the Middle East, and that the scenario I outlined above guarantees terrible consequences, it is time for the Obama Administration to take a stand. There are unilateral sanctions that can harness the Iranian public’s discontent with its government should the U.S. levy heavy economic burdens on the country in ways that expose the poor governance of the Iranian regime.

These include oil and financial considerations. The first sanction would be to deny the right of any person, company, and nation to the ability to conduct transactions with any Iranian person, company, and government in U.S. dollars. The second sanction would be to levy debilitating actions against people, companies, and governments who supply Iran with oil or buy oil from them (Iran imports over 150,000 barrels of oil per day for domestic consumption because the Iranian government highly subsidizes petrol pump prices. Forcing Iran to function on only domestic oil would drive the price beyond what Iranians could afford, and force the regime to make a decision whether or not to divert oil from its oil-dependent military complex. However, 40% of Iran’s oil imports come from India, a U.S. ally, making this a politically difficult maneuver to make, however necessary it would be). Between these two sanctions, the Iranian economy and way of life would crumble within days. This might begin to turn the attitude of the Iranian government, which is exactly what needs to be done.

To caveat all this, I am aware that the U.S. is trying to work out a deal with Russia that would lead to Russia supporting sanctions. Putin’s comments are likely due to one of two things: they won’t make a deal, or they want more than the U.S. has been willing to offer thus far. Depending on how this plays out, the above scenario could change considerably.
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Israelis Support Protesters in Iran

Despite the media hoopla around Michael Jackson's death, people are continuing to die in Iran.

Israel and the US have been very careful not to give the Iranian theocracy any additional reasons to blame them for the protests, but I thought this video, showing Israelis demonstrating on behalf of the Iranian protesters was really interesting.



If you haven't yet, check out TwitterFall and search for #IranElection Read More......

Twitter and Iran

This has been getting quite a bit of media attention, but it is interesting to note that the best coverage of the protests and the civil unrest following the elections (or approximation thereof) in Iran has been on sites like Twitter.

Twitter, the microblogging phenomenon, which sacrifices length and depth for near instantaneous publication, has almost single-handedly kept the Iranian protests (some may say revolution) in the consciousness of Americans.

First, Iran shut down mobile phone and text messaging services, then they closed off access to sites like Gmail and Yahoo. Today, Iran barred foreign journalists from covering the protests. But they can't seem to totally shut down access to Twitter.

Over the course of the day, Iranians updating their 'statuses' from Iran have brought critical information to light about how paramilitary forces are repressing their protests. As Iranian government cyber-warfare shuts down access to proxy after proxy, other Twitter users around the world are opening new ones, and changing their profile information to make it look as if they, too are living in Iran, thereby making it harder for the security forces to track the anti-government protesters.

The whole landscape is fascinating, because this may be the first time that people driven, so-called 'social' media, is significantly contributing to the coverage (and potentially the outcome) of a major world event.

There has been an outpour of support from Americans on Twitter, encouraging these protesters to continue to fight to have their votes counted.

To keep up with the latest, use a site like Twitterfall or Twitter Search and search for the term #iranelection or #gr88
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A New Strategy?

A new IAEA report says Iran is closing in on its nuclear goals and may be only 8 months away from a deliverable nuclear bomb, yet we're sticking to a "wait and see" attitiude. Here's how to kick it up.

The American administration has said that this is not the time to really press Iran on the nuclear issue because the upcoming elections could reshape Iran's attitude. In fact, this is exactly the wrong tactic to take. The Iranians need understand the cost of their actions, and the US and its allies have yet to provide them with an estimate.

The Iranian regime is in the perfect situation. They have green lighted certain talks, just enough to entice the West into waiting, but have not gone far enough to threaten their domestic popularity and regional influence. They hold the veto cards and have already played one when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last week ruled out all future talks on its nuclear program. Western inaction has allowed them to wait the diplomatic track out, all the while continuing to work on its nuclear capabilities unabated. Without a significant effort from the US and its allies to force the Iranians into recalculating their actions, the Iranians have no reason to change course.

They know what their goal is and have a plan to achieve it and are deep enough into it that, given the current circumstances, they will not have to turn back. This necessitates a change in our policy. Although President Bush dialogued with the Iranians on a number of issues, and President Obama has said he is interested in having tea, the Iranians are not interested in talking, at least not on nuclear issues, as made clear by the Supreme Ayatollah and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Tthe importance of the issue of legitimacy to the current Iranian regime cannot be downplayed either. The Supreme Ayatollah has instructed the Iranian people not to vote for anyone who appears to be open to rapprochement with the West, and now the "reformist" and "moderate" candidates are stumping on increasing support for Hamas and the elimination of Western influence in the Middle East. Normalization of relations is a danger for the Iranians because their popularity relies on their ability to demonize the West.

Of the many uninspiring options on how to deal with Iran, two appear to be more promising than the others, although they would need to work in tandem to be successful. First, because the diplomatic track appears to have stalled before it has even started, crippling action must be applied to change the status quo.

For sanctions to be effective, President Obama needs European Union support. However, EU rhetoric has not been strong enough to persuade American diplomats that the EU is ready to engage in the kind of sanctions needed to get out of this crisis. The EU does not make decisions in a timely fashion; to get them to agree on sanctions is a business too time consuming to be a game changer. Some European countries, including Germany and Italy, appear to have little interest in stopping the Iranian bomb. Rather, it appears they have accepted one and are working on how to deal with that reality.

Therefore, President Obama could employ the unilateral tactic of instructing the US Treasury to end Iran's ability to conduct international transactions in US dollars, sending the Iranian economy tanking overnight. This would send a message infinitely stronger than any he has sent before that Iran's actions will not be tolerated.

Second, the Iranians must believe that at the end of the day, the US will use military action. In fact, senior EU negotiators have been pressing this with their American counterparts behind closed doors. The US has done nothing demonstrable to ensure Iran that should current efforts fail, our military will be used. An American President, whose actions in Iraq are understood by the Iranians that he would rather run from a tough fight than win outright, cannot sell this idea to the Iranians. Showing public support for an Israeli strike, and undertaking meetings with NATO allies, Russia, and China to develop a deployable military campaign, would be two demonstrable steps.

The fact is that we have allowed too much time to pass, and too much Iranian progress to be made, to woo them away from their path with words, and certainly not from a lack of effort on our part. The time has come to speak with actions and see if we can bring them to the table that way.
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This is how we survive

Israel's top left leaning newspaper, Ha'aretz (lit. The Land) posted as story on their website about a satellite company's commercial which incorporates Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian President who repeatedly calls for either the destruction of Israel or regime change depending on your news sources and translator.



From the site: "My brothers," says the mock Iranian president in a speech broadcast through loudspeakers across the country, "the uranium is in our hands and after Monday it will be goodbye to Israel."

Unexpectedly, the Iranian leader's supporters - dressed in Shiite religious garb - take exception to the speech, dismayed at the prospect of missing their favorite Israeli television series.

"What are you talking about?" asks one of his followers. "It's the last episode of Danny Hollywood on Monday."

The declaration of Iranian president's intent to destroy Israel is met with riots and the police are deployed to control protests which suddenly take the form of a big budget musical.

The commercial, produced by advertising company McCann Erickson, is entirely a parody of "Cazablan," a hit Israeli musical of the 1960s.--

Never underestimate the power of humor. Read More......