TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran will never scrap its nuclear program, and talks with Europeans are intended to protect the country's nuclear achievements, not negotiate an end to them, an Iranian official said Wednesday.The remarks by Ali Agha Mohammadi, spokesman of Iran's powerful Supreme National Security Council, are the latest in a hardening of his country's stance amid ongoing talks with European negotiators. They also reflect Tehran's possible frustration at the lack of progress.
Europe is pressing Iran for concessions on its nuclear program, which the United States claims is aimed at producing atomic weapons. In exchange for nuclear guarantees, the Europeans are offering Iran technological and financial support and talks on a trade deal.
"We have the power to negotiate because we keep our (nuclear) achievements in our hands and we are negotiating to protect them," Mohammadi said Wednesday. "It's definite that we will protect our scientific achievements as a basic pillar, whether talks make progress or not."The biggest failure in the unraveling Iranian nuclear gambit is the West's inability to put transatlantic politics aside and face the Devil in the eye. In Iraq, Europe and America had a powerful opportunity to play good cop/bad cop -- with America providing the stick, and Europe the carrot. The combination of American hard power and European soft power could have been a far more formidable force for democracy than Anglo-American power alone....Aghazadeh, who also serves as head of Iran's atomic energy organization, suggested Iran was not happy with the progress of the talks, telling reporters: "We have to take the negotiations seriously and accelerate them."
European officials acknowledged the complexity of the negotiations, but said talks were going at a good pace and a diplomatic solution remained on track.
The talks have been carried out against a backdrop of U.S. warnings. In January, President Bush reaffirmed his support for a diplomatic settlement, but said he would not take any option off the table, including a possible military strike.
Instead, Europe became enmeshed in the corrupting influences of seeing America primarily as a competitor, even adversary. Imagine the Iranian problem in the context of an Iraq where the transition to Democracy was truly the fruit of a combined Western effort. Instead, that effort was handicapped, with half of the West catcalling Iraq's liberation from tyranny. The American military is mighty, but stretched. If America is 'going it alone,' then so are the Europeans. Iran knows this.
It took two parties for America to 'go it alone:' it took America to push ahead on its own; and it took Europe to not participate, remaining on the sidelines or working against the Americans. The obvious fracture within the West over world power is a leveraging point for the Mullahs. Our greatest weakness is Iran's greatest asset.
It is difficult to envisage a credible, viable plan to keep the Mullahs from getting their isotopes. And time is running short.
The simplest plan to bring the Atlantic together is a black ops heist of nuclear material traceable to Iran which then gets used in either France or Germany. Thankfully, this is not very likely.
Cicero, et al.
The challenge is to name one action that the Europeans have executed in the last 2 decades that was aimed toward increasing global security and thwarting international nuclear proliferation. I cannot.
Did the Europeans work to slow down Pakistan's nuclear development, in that era when America wasn't really Pakistan's friend, and when Afghanistan was going to the birds under Soviet influence? [The rhetoric here is honost: they may well have, unbeknownst to the West. Yet, the Paks are now nuclear.] Did they work to unseat despotry across their back fence, in Eastern Europe? I don't recall much except stern U.N. warnings and curiously limpid finger pointing. In point of fact, have they done one damned thing anywhere in the world to thwart nuclear proliferation? Not that I have heard.
It really isn't then a case of Europe and America missing a unique chance to play Good Cop, Bad Cop with the Iranians. It is really more of a case where Europe continues to see markets and opportunities for its megacorporations in rising third-world nations wishing to become regional powers [rather like Europe's states]. Their view strikes me as post-colonial: let's sell 'em nuclear reactors, since we can then corner yet another profitable annuity business (the selling of fuel, the vending of operational consulting services, the sundry beaurocratic infrastructure that more or less acts as a toothless watchdog over their plants.)
And on one level, maybe they're right! It is not likely that as Europe fills up with Muslims from the Middle East, and its complexion grows inevitably more ruddy -- AND that it has a long and comfy backlog of good-for-the-Imam insider deals, that they would unreasonably become the target of the neonuclear nations' target practice. After all ... they certainly have a gazillion French "roman candles from hell" that could be unleashed on any power so impolite as to lob nukes at say Germany. It is clear that they don't really think they need American or British involvement at all.
And you know -- they don't.
I'm afraid the Fire Ants are really "winning the War". Not the War on Terror, but the demographic Islamic war on civilisation itself. Just as by most accounts the gargantuan tidal wave that swept Bandah Aceh into the sea almost gracefully rose, kept rising, pushing relentlessly, filling all with turbid detritus, without challenge by any human structure, so to is Europe being slowly and relentlessly 'invaded' by the Middle East. Imperceptably slow, the gates wide open in deference to extraordinarily liberal immigration laws, Europes entire constitution is and will slowly change to something entirely different.
Here's the "money quote" idea that is if not encouraging it, is at least allowing it without visible restraint: Europe has fully embraced moral relativism at all levels. From the man-on-the-street to the civil servants at top, Europe cannot argue that her principles -- or any principles! -- stand above any others. It is that simple, and that sad.
In the era of the Crusades, there were tangible 'calls to defend' the Holy Land, to keep the homeland of Christianity at least somewhat free from being overrun by the Muslim. In the end, through much bloodshed and incredibly misplaced judgement, a kind of gelatinous truce was reached. Christians in Europe knew and understood what was being fought for: a philosophy that recognized the individual as 'station-less', that ultimately contained the humus and seeds of the post-monarchical governance of-and-by the people. A Christian Europe had "what it needed" in a multicultural wealth to nuture a Bach, Mozart, a da Vinci, Lavoisier, Pasteur, a Karl Marx, a Hitler and a Churchill.
I don't wish to be harsh unnecessarily, but what has come from any country of the middle east that is worth anything at all? Don't say "oil", for that is not the product of man, but of nature. The fig, olive, grape leave, the brick? If you have read Guns, Germs & Steel, it is clear that not all of Europe's extraordinary fecund renaissance is due to their 'European-ness', but rather at least as much to a confluence of technologies, resources, prior art and agrarian wealth ... but I would argue that the same factors were, and are still today "there" to the same extent through the Middle East. Certainly they mastered steel (and today still have enormous ore resources) well beyond even what the Japanese masters produced. They had math, they had vast floodplains that were effortlessly productive. Yet their 1400 year experiment with religious totalitarianism has produced ... ... a mouse.
The same author has produced Collapse which points more toward the end of civilisation, and not its rise. I confess not having read it, though it sits on my shelf waiting. Yet, from its reviews, it is apparant that it is very apropro: the basic tenent is that civilisation will fall through nominalism, through the creeping decrepitude of relative political and ideological stasis.
And therein is my thesis: Europe for all intensive purposes has become geopolitically static. Her "bridge" is chock-full of slowly walking people, the creakings of its spars and girders has so long been heard that it is assumed to be normal. Coming in both ends is a wave of people -- not bad in their own right, by the way -- that culturally haven't produced significant 'anything' in 1400 years [except more people]. I do wonder how the moral-relativism bridge is going to hold up? Through most of continental Europe, Christianity is truely dead. In Germany, a young woman's welfare check was denied due to the fact that she refused to work at a state-sanctioned brothel. See what I mean?
GoatGuy
I've said this before, but I still think we would have been better off not stretching our military in Iraq so that we would have our hard power available -- at least as leverage -- to be able to do something about Iran, even if it meant going alone.
My impression is that the neocons thought Iraq would be easier than this, so best to handle the lowest-hanging fruit and then move onto Iran, now with a large border that we can access. But this assumes we'd be done and have more military resources free by now, and as far as I can tell, our past experience with occupations didn't suggest anywhere near this timetable.
Am I missing something? Oversimplifying?
Fling... I do think you're oversimplifying.
To wit:
Having our troops positioned, not just on a raft of carriers in the local sea, not just on bases in Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Middle East, but very pointedly across that long border between Iran and Iraq, and simultaneously across that long border between Afghanistan and Iran ... would be nearly the perfect positioning for a classic pincer movement. Iran is a wingless, lame, sitting duck.
The concept of our troops being spread "too thin" really depends more on whether you admit that the word "too" is an opinion than to some widely regarded military fact. I dare say, that were our force there twice as deep, the media would still be dubbing it "too thin". And this is because the media truely has an aggregate IQ of 100. The "average" opinion bases its rationale on past wars, past occupations, past victories and defeats.
Yet by so doing, and in the context of ignoring the fact that we with less than 70,000 troops, in less than 30 days, took over a country as populus and widely flung as Italy ... is truely unprecedented in the entire history of war. One needs to view at any time in history the effectiveness quotient of the military if you will -- by person. Today we have some 157,000 troops and supporting personnel in the area, and realistically it is accomplishing ends at least as significant as the 500,000 man American force in France in WW2, after D-Day.
No, Iran is quavering, has had to resort to proud sounding rhetoric about its superiority, its invulnerability, its tricks and subtle gotchas. Truth is harder to swallow for the average person in the Middle East: Iran is only 35% "bigger" than the Iraq we took down in a month.
If I were them, I too would be frothing vapid maxims in public. Anything else would look like fear.
GoatGuy
GoatGuy: The concept of our troops being spread "too thin" really depends more on whether you admit that the word "too" is an opinion than to some widely regarded military fact. I dare say, that were our force there twice as deep, the media would still be dubbing it "too thin". And this is because the media truely has an aggregate IQ of 100.
Not talking about the stupid media types, but the opinion of folks like Phil Carter and James Dobbins and Greg Djerejian, all of whom are pretty smart and have always thought we've too few troops in the occupation, judging from examples as recent as Bosnia.
Meanwhile, the only argument I've found that we didn't need that many occupation troops is Wolfowitz's overly simplistic assessment that it's "not logical" for the occupation to take more troops than the invasion. Perhaps that might have been true for past invasion forces, but as you observed, this invasion was unprecedented -- but much of the technological advances that were so useful during the invasion aren't nearly as helpful in occupations.
GoatGuy: Iran is quavering, has had to resort to proud sounding rhetoric about its superiority, its invulnerability, its tricks and subtle gotchas.
I hope you're right, but from what I can tell, a lot of very smart people don't seem too optimistic on our being able to prevent Iran from getting the nuke now.
Our military is built to overthrow conventional powers by crushing them so their forces no longer exist. They did that job very well. Our forces are not built for occupations, and they do not function very well as occupation police.
That being said Goat Guy, I think Diamond is wrong. Culturally, the Europeans have advantages that make them very efficient killers. As Hanson in Culture and Carnage point out. Other societies have had the same geographic advantages of the Europeans but never got quite so good at killing. I imagine a poor country like Morocco or Libya or Algeria will have some abitious Colonel or Major who seizes power and provokes a war with a soft, tempting target like Spain or Italy (Sicily). Booty, plunder, LAND to offer a divided military and populace. They'd probably be successful for a while. Then the usual European killer instinct would kick in, the Welfare state overthrown, likely the existing un-assimilated Muslim immigrants dealt with very harshly and bloodily, and the usual European killing machine move into action.
The current situation (the US holding a security umbrella over Europe) is a historical anomaly. Much of Europe's pacifism is tied to free-riding on Uncle Sam to spend money on Social Welfare, plus the memories that live on in photos, films, etc of both World Wars and the European on European slaughter. However, history shows that no one matches the Europeans for organized, massive killing to destroy their enemies.
Iran wants the US out of the Gulf. They mean to have nukes to achieve this, having failed in their guerilla attacks on the US Navy (guerilla warfare not working too well on the Ocean). Hezbollah will doubtless get a nuke or two, and set them off in our cities, issueing "deniable" demands for the US out of the Gulf. What then? Likely a massive nuclear attack that simply eliminates the Persian nation (sadly). It may come to that, however hopefully we can stage a campaign against the Iranians to eliminate their nukes. We don't have to hold the country just destroy their nuke facilities, which they can't just load up into trucks. We may have to make ugly deals with Putin to get this done, but if so then that's life.
Note that if Hussein was still in business, we'd still have a massive military commitment spread all over the region required to 'contain' him. He would also be a major threat to our flank if we did indeed get into it with Iran. You take your enemies one at a time when you can.
All the comments seem to be as inconclusive as my essay, or most anything else I've read. Apparently, we will be dealing with a nuclear Iran soon.
Iranians may be many things, but it is disputable as to whether or not they're quavering. They might be palpitating with the US next door in Iraq and Afghanistan; or they also might be emboldened, thinking that the West is divided, the the US is overstretched---which is not necessarily untrue. If there's anything that the plethora of left/right-Euro/American-Arab/Israeli-Antiwar/Prowar opinion has made clear, it's that maniacs like Iranian mullahs might be (a) emboldened by the 'Iraqi quagmire, or (b) 'quavering' in fear of being surrounded because of American military potency.
Or maybe both, depending on the mullah in question.
Perhaps I am merely stating the obvious when I say the clock is ticking, and nothing substantive seems to be in the offing with respect to Mullah nukes. It would be nice if the long-suffering Iranian people, who clearly have fresh credentials for inciting revolution, take back their country from their clerical masters in the same manner as they did in 1979. That doesn't seem to be on the table, however. So far, the democratic revolution next door in Iraq seems to be inspiring little of the same in Persian affairs.
OK, I'll buy it [all the above arguments]. I don't see how they invalidate the underlying premise: that Europe really doesn't feel threatened by even a nuclear-tipped Iran.
Russia certainly doesn't, and is encouraging Iran to buy its nuclear reactor technology -- damn them of course, if the mullahs should decide to chemically extract all that plutonium that's a byproduct, and turn it into a nice roman candle of large caliber.
And that's the gig. The Europeans, the Russians, aren't seeing either Victor Hanson's or Berman's vision of the next era of war: headless smuggling of weapons into weakly protected enclaves, their detonation and subsequent silence, lack of authorship. Who exactly is to be bombed, if another Beslan massacre of innocents takes place at the hands of immoral jihadis who have no face, no land, no fortress, citadel, redoubt? The asshat that masterminded Beslan is today claiming that they intend more displays of their wrath.
As has been pointed out to me on many occasion, it isn't Iran's nuclear tipped missiles that really threaten anything. They're "population control devices", to be paraded down Main Street to cheering masses. Bagdad Bob couldn't do a better job, than that. "We're winning, and pushing the aggressor into the sea!" as behind him, on video, are dozens of American tanks rushing into Bagdad, people running amok.
No, the nuclear weapons of Pakistan, Iran, North Korea, and who knows, Egypt possibly, Syria improbably, and Russia very probably ... will most likely not tip missles, but be smuggled like hashish to the Hezbullah, or the al Queda, or other faceless arbitor of international terror.
The premise stands: Europe feels no threat, simultaneously due to its burgeoning Islamic population, its open-door immigration policies, its certainty of having an accomodating polity and secularity that removes them from being a target. For the next 20, 30 years ... they're probably right. The harder times will come when [to address Jim Rockford] they decide that the Iberian Peninsula looks mighty "available", and relief to their boredom, their poverty, their hunger, their squalor and their monoculturalism(!). Unlike 200, 500 or 750 years ago, the whole of Europe will be almost entirely enraptured in Islam, and the likelyhood of being able to muster Europes unique and extraordinary facility to kill people will be found, like the emergency flashlight I keep in the basement ... with dead batteries. Islam's people will not wage jihad (which is the only way Europe could sell it) against Islam's other people waging jihad, against Iberian Apostates and Infidels who once tossed them back across the Gibralter.
Or so I think.
GoatGuy
Cox and Forkum 'Sterling St. George'
If there ever were a picture worth a thousand words...
GoatGuy
"If there's anything that the plethora of left/right-Euro/American-Arab/Israeli-Antiwar/Prowar opinion has made clear, it's that maniacs like Iranian mullahs might be (a) emboldened by the 'Iraqi quagmire, or (b) 'quavering' in fear of being surrounded because of American military potency."
I think the only safe bet is that whatever 5 things we guess they may be thinking, they will be thinking a 6th. Its difficult to think like an autocrat, particularly a religious zealot. All I can say for certain is they should not be underestimated, and should not be automatically assumed to be what we would call rational. It is entirely possible that they feel threatened and emboldened at the same time. Their situation is not going to improve in the near or distant future without nukes. Keep that in mind with all the talk of negotiations. There is nothing we can offer them more valuable than a nuclear arsenal. Even Monty Hall cant make a deal when that is the case.
Mark,
I see your point, in truth. "Whatever we're thinking, they're thinking of something else"
Yet, the bald and I think incontravertable fact is that The Iranians are lusting to become the power of the Middle East. They undoubtedly see an opportunity to enlarge their sphere of Sh'ite Islamic influence over the region, in the way that Saudi Arabia naturally has come to hold, but by a different path. Iranians remember the ancient and impressively powerful Persian Empire, they remember the pan-Arabic Ottoman Caliphate, they see that little stands in the way of it happening again except the lack of compelling military, philosophical, economic, pragmatic, academic and theocratic unity.
The Persian must therefore be connecting the dots, and recognizes that the compelling military angle is the first checkpoint to attain. Economically, Iran is one of the (if not the) economic powerhouse in the region (exclusive of oil): their country is as varied, or more so than the universally regarded Turkish conglomerate. They're replete with resources, they have long been the seat of intellectual attainment in the Middle East. The Universities of the world [America especially] are chock-full of mild mannered, bright, determined scientists and intellectual lions. Theocratically, they have literally "single-handedly" introduced, refined and are possibly profiting from an even-handed Shari'a law based theocracy.
So, they need a compelling military, they need to engage an enemy, to carry out their jihad and ijtihad on a sovereign regional scale. The Bomb is critical to that vision: it places them in the minds of the peoples of the Middle East on the same playing field as France, England, India, Pakistan and Israel. I do not doubt that they also fully realize that -- like France -- having the Bomb, and being able to use the Bomb are two completely different animals. But, as a meme, possession of the weapon of terrible portent is very powerful indeed. Especially among the honor laden muslims.
I often muse with the theory that
The Iranian Bomb is inevitable
It will act as a stabilizer
The Iranians will push Israel into some sort of peace accord
The Europeans will 'get on board', rather gracelessly
Russia wants to be the Godfather of the Plan
The Caliphate could well begin again
I mean, let's just do a 360: fractured Europe has been reinvented as a powerful European Union. The Organization of Islamic States could be an equally powerful world-economic/military force. China is so fast that it already is 'super'. Central and South America are quietly working to 'hyper' their economies into a greater whole. Is it really so odd that the greater plan of Islamic unity (under a Persian-lead roof) is so unthinkable?
Only Israel has much to lose [and America, but not by an obvious path]. Yet, all Persia's rhetoric aside, in the end I think they would be no less likely to grant Israel's Jews their own spit of land -- including parts of historically held and important Jerusalem -- as the Europeans did not but 100 years ago. This is the ideal of pragmatics that the Persian mind is keenly attuned to. (Pragmatics has led them through the totalitarian and recitivist Khomeni era, where women fell back 200 years, to the Khameini era, where women can again participate moderately freely in business, medicine, professional domains, etc.)
If the Bomb is inevitably in Iran's future, then I easily think that the most workable plan is to encourage them to simply become a partner in World Affairs to the same level as France, Germany and Brazil. Take them on their word, yet hold them to it as well: offer to buy as much of their power-plant enriched uranium as they can produce. Sock it away [we'll eventually need it, and the world's producers aren't producing even what's needed any more]. Offer to reprocess their fuel-rods, so as to allay fear of plutonium extraction, and so on. It will be a hell of a lot cheaper to simply tax them until their resource dries up, than to try to keep the lid on their simmering pot. Treated as a First World power, I'd bet the farm that they'll actually warm substantially and eventually embrace the kind of 'whole earth' ecumenicalism that is at the core of both Shi'ite and Sufi wisdom.
Then about this time, I usually wake up and wonder how I could have slept so fitfully.
GoatGuy
GoatGuy,
The devil's always in the details, no?
Thanks for your clear-eyed summary. Going back a post to #9, you described the reconquest of al-Andaluz. As has been pointed out, such drama is not necessary. Once Islamic/Islamist parties appeal to circa 15%-20% of the electorate, they'll be forces that can't be ignored in French/Dutch/German etc. politics. In coalition, you don't have to get everything to get what you most want, and the Islamists could be, often, in the deal-making position. Per your fitful sleep, this could cut both ways, and might tempt Islamists away from the path of jihad. I suspect we'll be seeing.
Indeed 'Europe' does not seem to feel particularly threatened by recent events, Theo van Gogh et al.; and indeed they may have no reason to, depending on what they are willing to give up.
Would that your obvious remark about negotiations be the starting point for the op-ed discussions on Iran. As seen from the mullahs' point of view, there is nothing that the West can offer that beats an arsenal of bombs. Nothing. This is hard to swallow, but not hard to understand. One would think.
On a slightly different subject, how would people feel if a democratic Iraq decided to become a nuclear power? The Americans could hardly invade the place again.
I think they will have the groundbreaking for the "purely for civilian use" nuclear industry while the US is still in Iraq. Which means that the Iraqi's will have to work very quick
The one thing to come out of the Mid-East: the number and numeral zero. All modern mathematical constructs require it.
I accept the idea and fact that the Iranians have nukes. Taking nukes from them in any meaningful way is not possible without a full scale invasion to occupy the country. My assessment is we are not there now and a call up of that nature would signal the Iranians to act preemptively. Airpower as a first strike and its use to destroy the economic infrastructure as an disincentive would not prevent them from being smuggled out.
We have to engage with them. Pre-Shah, Shah and the current theocracy have never moved from the idea of Persian nationalism. We actively encouraged it under the Shah assigning them the responsibility of guardians of the oil region. The great dilemna is accepting another member to the nuke club is ascertaining their intentions.
In the post Sept 11 2001 environment would we have this discussion if the government of Iran was not a theocracy? Are Iranian desires a function of realpolitik given they are next door to Pakistan?
The zero is from India. Distilling is from the Middle East. Also western culture was born in Iraq.
a - I partly agree.
re: zero - The key factor was the idea of numerals having value due to their place, i.e. '1' means different things if it's in 12 or 123. The Hindus did indeed use this way of organizing numbers and did add a placeholder for each column, as needed, which solved an ambiguity in earlier notations.
The idea that zero is, itself, a number rather than an indicator of an empty place came from western europe much later, however, as algebra and the Cartesian coordinate system developed. It took its mature form in the 19th century with the development of axiomatics and set theory.
The Middle East for distilling? Yes, that's my understanding as well.
Western culture started in Iraq? That's a stretch, unless 'Western' is taken to mean 'not India or China'. Of course, it's a question of how far back you look for contributions.
Certainly Iraq was at the center of the Fertile Crescent cultures of the 1st and 2nd millenia BC. Jericho is almost 3000 years older, though, offering just about the oldest evidence we have of a town with agriculture near by - it predates even what we have in Egypt and I think also in China (but don't hold me to that). It's also true that codified law, cuneiform writing and some other inventions show up very early in Iraq. But it's less clear whether and how those might have affected what emerged around the Mediterranean later.
For Western culture per se, I think I'd vote for the Hellenes, starting with the Mycenean era and flowering in the classical city-state period. There were the Mesolithic cultures such as the one that produced the shrine at Ηatal Huyuk in Anatolia, but I believe the usual consensus is that there is little at the cultural level that survived the waves of change on the Anatolian plateau to effect the West, other than perhaps some echoes in the Greek myths.
Regardless of whether Europe feels no threat, or whether Europe is so averse to war that it will never resort to it, Europe was never going to do very much about Iran. But we've known that from the start, so how does this change anything?
Mark Buehner: Note that if Hussein was still in business, we'd still have a massive military commitment spread all over the region required to 'contain' him. He would also be a major threat to our flank if we did indeed get into it with Iran. You take your enemies one at a time when you can.
One at a time, yes. From lower threat priority to higher, no. Especially the higher threat is close to developing nukes.
Firstly, the massive military commitment spread all over the region was still far less than our occupation commitment. Secondly, that spread-out military could serve double duty as military leverage over both Iraq and Iran. Thirdly, the threat to flank exists either way. Indeed, Iran is a threat to our flank right now, as they are most likely taking advantage of the current situation to make our lives harder in Iraq by supporting the insurgency.
Western == Wheat based culture, everything north of Sahara and west of indus. Started out AFAIK somewhere in Syria and agroculture spread from there. After that a lot of trade, war and other contacts.