The lengthening list of Iran sanctions

CFR has an article about the lengthening list of Iran sanctions.

September 2013: Who Is Ali Khamenei?: Khamenei bases such arguments partly on what he sees as two failed attempts by Iran to compromise with the United States. The first was during Khatami’s term as president, when the government suspended its uranium enrichment for two years as a trust-building measure. Khamenei believes the Western governments were not interested in trust building, only in making the pause in enrichment permanent. The two-year suspension resulted in no achievements for Iran -- not the lifting of sanctions, nor the release of frozen Iranian assets in the United States, nor any other reward. In a speech in January 2008, Khamenei noted,

Today, to whomever comes to us and says, “Sir, suspend temporarily,” we say, “We have already had a temporary suspension, for two years!” We had a two-year temporary suspension. How did it benefit us? . . . We, for our part, imagined that it was temporary and imagined that it was voluntary. Then, when we talked of resuming work, they started this media frenzy and tumult in political circles, saying, “Woe! Iran wants to end the suspension!” The suspension became a sacred issue that Iran had absolutely no right to approach. . . . Finally, they said, “This temporary suspension isn’t enough; you must completely pack the whole atomic project in.” This was a setback for us. [The Khatami government] accepted the retreat. But this retreat had a positive effect for us. We learned a lesson from that experience. World public opinion learned from the experience, too. . . . I said if this process of adding new demands is to go on, I will intervene. And I did. I said . . . we should go on the offensive [and resume enrichment].

Khamenei then went on to remind his audience that despite Khatami’s willingness to compromise, his kind words for Americans, his cooperation in toppling the Taliban and in the subsequent Bonn negotiations to install a pro-American government in Afghanistan, U.S. President George W. Bush had still included Iran in his “axis of evil.”

The second experience he draws on is Libya’s 2003 decision to give up its nuclear ambitions, which nevertheless did not prevent Muammar al-Qaddafi’s violent removal through NATO military involvement. “In Libya,” Khamenei said in his annual Iranian New Year speech in March 2011, “although Qaddafi had shown an anti-Western tendency during his first years in power, in later years, he performed a great service to the West. . . . This gentleman gathered up his nuclear program, . . . gave it to the Westerners, and said, ‘Take it away!’ . . . [Yet he was overthrown.]” Khamenei suspects that even if all of Iran’s nuclear facilities were closed down, or opened up to inspections and monitoring, Western governments would simply pocket the concessions and raise other issues -- such as terrorism, human rights, or Israel -- as excuses for maintaining their pressure and pursuing regime change. To Khamenei, when it comes to nuclear weapons, the Iraqi and Libyan cases teach the same lesson. Saddam and Qaddafi opened their facilities up to inspections by the West, ended up having no nuclear weapons, and were eventually attacked, deposed, and killed. Major compromises by Iran on the nuclear front without significant concessions by the West, he believes, could end up leading to similar consequences for the Iranian regime.

23 August 2013: The Realist Prism: Russia Sends Trial Balloons on Iran Sanctions Regime: Russia may become less cooperating in maintaining US sanctions.

20 August 2013: Obama Administration Has Options For Iran Sanctions Relief

Blocking medicine to Iran discusses how due to the US sanctions and the draconian fines for banks that ignore them only one (Turkish) bank is still prepared to facilitate the dollar payment of medicine imports in Iran - meaning that many transactions are blocked. Iran still has barter trade with mainly China and India but that allows it only to import medicine from those countries - what severely restricts the choices.

25 February 2013: The tail instructs the dog by Franklin Lamb tells about how Israeli lobbying fuels the sanctions against Iran and Syria.

23 December 2012: Why the US didn’t prosecute HSBC discusses why HSBC bank was fined for doing business with Iran but no criminal persecution was initiated. Basically, the fine was already power abuse. Criminal persecution would certainly have resulted in serious protests from Brittain, the home country of the bank. It might also weaken the position of the dollar as the world currency.

20 October 2012: Don't go Baghdad on Tehran reminds us how Saddam wanted to comply in order to get rid of the sanctions but stopped bothering after Albright had declared that her ultimate goal was regime change and that sanctions would not be abolished before Saddam had gone.

3 June 2012: This article ("Iranian Souq goes from busy to bare") tells how the Irian souq in Abu Dhabi is nearly empty nowadays because the visa of the Iranian business men who worked there have not been prolongated.

3 June 2012: This article (The arrogance of power) discusses how the US sabotaged the negotiations in May by refusing to do any concessions.

12 June 2012: The IAEA and Parchin: do the claims add up? by Robert Kelly of SIPRI says that the Parchin installation that the US is so eager to visit because it would have been used for research on a nuclear bomb seems rather unfit for that purpose.

America's Iran policy is looking more and more like its Cuba policy. Unfortunately it get getting some cooperation from the rest of the world in its madness.

14 June 2012: This article (Give Obama Elbow Room on Iran) claims that Obama is so obstructive in the negotiations because he is obstructed by Congress that has copied the hardline position of Netanyahu ("no enrichment at all"). To this comes the mistaken belief that sanctions might help to overthrow the Iranian regime. The article is written by Trita Parsi - president of the National Iranian American Council and the author of “A Single Roll of the Dice: Obama’s Diplomacy with Iran.”

Now it is more or less official that the US and Israel constructed the Stuxnet viris.

8 October 2012: This article (The rial world) discusses how the sanctions are doomed to fail because they can only be lifted "after the U.S. president certifies to Congress "that the government of Iran has: (1) released all political prisoners and detainees; (2) ceased its practices of violence and abuse of Iranian citizens engaging in peaceful political activity; (3) conducted a transparent investigation into the killings and abuse of peaceful political activists in Iran and prosecuted those responsible; and (4) made progress toward establishing an independent judiciary."

Why economic sanctions do not work by Robert Pape from 1997 is a the scientific standard argument against sanctions.

The heartrending story of anti-Iran sanctions gives an overview of sanctions from 1979 on.

Deadly sanctions

Many people will already have heard about the estimates of the death toll of the UN sanctions of the Iraq of Saddam Hussein. These hundreds of thousands alone made any expectation that the Iraqi population would greet the Americans as liberators ridiculous.

Now we see the first signs that the sanctions against Iran are deadly too. To counter the international gasoline embargo Iran has switched existing petrochemical plants to the production of gasoline. However, this gasoline seems to contain more aromatics and these result in particles in the air when burned. The result has been an enormous increase in smog. The health ministry estimates that there were 3600 smog related deaths in the first 9 months of this year. As the sanctions are just starting and as it takes some time before pollution does its full harm this count can only increase.

How to negotiate with Iran

According to Wikileaks the British ambassador in Tehran gave the Americans a few lessons on how to negotiate with Iran. Be tough but not aggressive. It looks like the US can use the reminder.

See here how the Wikileaks have been abused to suggest that the Arabs are in favor of an attack on Iran while they are not.

The book "Manufactured Crisis: The Secret History of the Iranian Nuclear Scare" by Gareth Porter claims that crucial documents that are used to claim that Iran aims for nuclear arms are forged.

How to talk to Iran list the errors the US made in the past while negotiating with Iran.

Building Blocks: The obsession that is preventing a nuclear deal with Iran discusses the Western demand to inspect Parchin. The accusation is that Iran should have tested there conventional explosives for use in a nuclear bomb. However, this falls outside the IAEA mandate that is only about the spread of nuclear material.

How the U.S. and Iran Keep Failing To Find a Peace They Both Want discusses how Bush and Obama failed. The article sees the election fraud as the big game changer - combined with Saudi, Israeli and other lobbies. It discusses also the calculations at the Iranian side.

As Israelis Press Obama on Iran, Let’s Remember they Urged Iraq War, Too: on his blog Juan Cole remembers us that Israel lobbied heavily for an attack on Iraq too ten years ago. Netanyahu himself wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal with the title "The Case for Toppling Saddam".

Ryan Crocker says U.S. is fumbling on Iran's nuclear program: Longtime U.S. diplomat Ryan Crocker says that when dealing with Iran, negotiations and concessions would be far more effective than tougher sanctions.

Iran nuclear negotiations: lessons from 10 years of failures

Talk to Iran, It Works by Ryan C. Crocker.

No, Sanctions Didn't Force Iran to Make a Deal

Revolutionary guard in Iran profts from sanctions

According to the Irani opposition leader Karoubi the Revolutionary Guard profits enormously profits from the sanctions:

Opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi has said Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards back sanctions against Tehran as they make "astronomical profits" from the punitive measures, a website said on Sunday.

"I believe that part of the Iranian rule as well as the Revolutionary Guards are in favour of sanctions as they make gigantic and astronomical profits from them," Karroubi was quoted as saying on opposition website Rahesabz.net.

The Guards regularly shrug off international sanctions imposed on Iran for its defiant nuclear programme, with some top commanders expressing willingness to take on projects abandoned by Western companies, including in the energy sector.

Just like with Saddam; just like with Milosevic. Sanctions are opium to make the public in the West feel good. If you really want to make a difference you need to highlight information that is negative for the regime, like corruption and incompetence.

On Iran's nuclear ambitions

One thing that puzzles me about Iran's nuclear ambitions is that it just doesn't make sense - except as a kind deterrent for a US intervention. Iran is stronger than any of its neighbors and its only neighbor with a nuclear bomb is Pakistan - what doesn't seem a threat. On the other hand it is not improbable that Saudi Arabia would see an Iranian bomb as an excuse to build its own one. And I don't think anyone in Iran or elsewhere would be happy when the country that gave us 9/11 would have its own bomb.

Given this situation I think a solution should be possible.

Iran centrifuge magnet story technically questionable: this article questions the recent claims by the Washington Post that Iran's attempt to buy ring magnets in China is a proof of continuing nuclear ambitions. The magnets have many other uses.

The AfPak ethnic border

In this blog entry I want to look at the Afghan conflict from a distance. We are regularly told about the fissure in Afghanistan between the Pasthuns and the other tribes (mainly Tajiks). But they speak closely related Persian languages. The real ethnic border is further east between the Indian and the Persian world. It is the Indus.

Pakistan can be divided in three parts. The thinly populated north houses a diversity of tribes, most of whom speak Tibetan languages. The Eastern half speaks Indian languages and the Western half speaks mainly languages related to Persian (Pashtu and Beluchi). The border between east and west is the Indus. Although there live much more people in the east (150 million) than in the west (30 million) the areas have a comparable size. Geographically too the Indus is a border: the area west of it is called the Iranian Plateau. Being a minority the Pashtuns and Beluchi are discriminated somewhat in Pakistan.

This raises the question whether Pakistan has really an interest in a stable Afghanistan. A prosperous Afghanistan might seduce the Pashtun to demand to join Afghanistan (the Beluchi are already fighting for secession). It would result in a more prosperous Western half of Pakistan that would be more oriented towards Kabul then towards Islamabad and Karachi. Pakistan's Afghanistan policy centers on religion for a good reason. Religion is the main thing they have in common and it is also the main thing where Afghanistan (mostly Sunni) differs from Iran (Shiite). However, when you focus on religion you end up supporting religious hardliners like the Taliban. An additional advantage of the Taliban for Pakistan is that its primitivity helps to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a prosperous country.

This raises the question why we ignore culturally more related Iran and Tajikistan and rely on Pakistan in our Afghanistan policy. Iran has good reasons to stabilize Afganistan that is major source of drugs, crime and unrest. Yet the religious division makes it rather certain that Iran never will have real close control over Afganistan. Iran is also a much richer country that has much more to offer to the Afghans than Pakistan.

Involving Iran in Afghanistan would have as an additional advantage that it would reduce Iran's fear for being surrounded and threatened by the US. This could result in more cooperative policies towards Iraq and regarding nuclear matters.

Money or guns

One of the luxuries of being an empire is that you seldom have to fight a war. Instead you buy proxies to do the fighting for you. Being an empire is mostly about skillfully spending money. The imperial way of fighting for the US in Afghanistan would be to buy most Taliban commanders and to buy some treachery to undermine the rest. That instead the US finds itself in a war that looks hard to win means that something is seriously wrong.

One problem the US has is a lack of knowledge. There are hardly any people who speak Pashtu or Persian in the state department, the CIA or the Pentagon. The result is inferior intelligence that has led the US to attack groups of people who had been falsely accused of being Taliban or Al Qaeda. It has also led to a flawed policy of investing money in Afghanistan. The logical policy would be to invest a lot in good roads. That is what the American military needs, but it will also improve the economy and provide the Afghans with money for other improvements. Instead the investment in roads is seriously flawed, with US firms getting the orders and then subcontracting it to Turkish firms who subcontract it to Afghan firms. A lot of money is wasted this way. But the most serious problem is that this lack of knowledge makes it difficult to discern enemies from friends and to get an accurate view of those somewhere in between.

Another problem arises when someone else is spending money to undermine your imperial plans. If you can't stop him you have a problem. That happened to the US in Vietnam, to Russia in Afghanistan and is now happening to the US in Afghanistan. In Afghanistan the money is coming from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states. All those countries are officially America's friends. But with friends like that, who needs enemies?

If you have a close look at America's friends they are all dependent on the US. The US doesn't like too independent friends, specially not outside Europe. And so it prefers the Saudi royal family above a more democratic regime that puts the interests of the people first. Given their precarious power position in their countries these "friends" get considerable freedom from the US for US hostile policies.

It could be otherwise. The US could build relations with Iran, by far the strongest country in the region. Sure, they would occasionally have to do some arm twisting and they will have to accept some policies that are not very US friendly. But together with Iran the US would have a much better chance of stabilizing the region. Not because Iran is now so harmful to US interests now (it isn't), but because Iran's knowledge of the local setting could be combined with US money.

Iran has now a bad name as "sponsoring terrorism". But when one considers how they have improved the life of the Shiites in Lebanon they certainly had a point. And their support of Hamas has finally forced the PLO to do something about its corrupt inefficiency. Compare this to China's policies towards North Korea, Pakistan, Burma, Iran and several countries in Africa that create much more fundamental trouble. And Iran may support some Shiite minorities. But should we really complain given that we ignore the "ring of fire" of Saudi sponsored insurrections by Muslim minorities around the world? So our problems with Iran are not larger than what we find acceptable with other countries. And if we build better relations with Iran we may get them to give up or ameliorate at least some of the policies that we don't like.

What is stopping the US from this? Basically, hubris and Israel. Hubris tells the US that it doesn't need anyone and that relying on really independent allies would be a sign of weakness. Israel believes that beating up any Muslim who resists is the only plausible option towards a culture that despises signs of weakness.

Trouble in Iran

I haven't posted for a while and one of the reasons was that I was puzzled what to believe about the events in Iran. Nowadays I am inclined to believe that the official election results are somewhat fair. Fraud may have exaggerated it but Ahmadinejad would probably have won anyway. For other voices see for example here, here and here. Chatham House made an analysis of the election results. Here is a journalist who doubts. Although these fraud believers have some points (about 50% of the Iranians distrust the polls, the fast results, the violent reaction to protests), on other points I get the impression that they are manipulative (the claim that Ahmadinejad would end third in honest elections sounds hollow: this is very unusual for an incumbent who can gather large demonstrations).

It looks like Iran is the next color revolution. Peter Ackerman is involved - although he doesn't believe it is a full color revolution. He "in 2006 sponsored a workshop in the United Arab Emirates for Iranians on the strategic application of civil disobedience.". Also the US spent a lot of money on "democracy promotion" in Iran and that started two years ago. But it finds it difficult to spent the money as no Iranian opposition leader wants to get caught with US money: it would devastate his reputation. The most extensive overview I found of America's anti-Iran policy was here on Cyrano's Journal. It mentions an US office in Dubai that serves as the center of US involvement. The Iranian government is well aware of this. The regime talked a lot about the risk of a color revolution months before the elections. Ahmadinejad recently received the speaker of the Belorussian parliament. I would be astonished if they hadn't talked about the success of Belarus in stopping its color revolution.

There is also some video training and there was even some conference. And then there is the 6 months old Persian television service of the BBC and the report that "a large number of Iranians with anti-government backgrounds were traveling to Iran from England in the lead-up to the elections".

One might wonder why Mousavi - a retired politician - has become the front of this would-be revolution. One reason may be that he was prime minister at the time of the Iran-Contra affair (and closely involved with it) and may have kept neocon contacts from that period.

This makes it difficult to decide what was first: a desire from the "reformist" side to fight the election results and use them as an excuse for a color revolution or the determination of Ahmadinejad and Khamenei not to let this happen and to even prevent it with violence and (possibly) election fraud.

Reports from Ukraine often mention that the color revolution didn't bring much political improvement, but at least it brought a much more open climate for political discussion. News reports on Iran now like to take the same line. They claim that the killings will undermine the legitimacy of Iran's leaders and that the enormous protests are a signal that the population wants change. It looks to me just as in the Ukraine the West is using a fight between two local clans to achieve its own goals. However, a lost revolution may mean less freedom and more repression.

I don't give a color revolution in Iran much chance. Revolutions succeed best when the regime is weak. In 1979 for example the Shah was ill and didn't take enough time for government affairs. The present regime is vigorous and has considerable support. And given the thousands who were killed by the regime in the 1980s I don't think they will feel afraid of using violence.

An interesting option was in this article. It claims the Revolutionary Guards seem destined to gain more power. And they already control a third of the economy. It would mean that Iran will look more and more like its neighbor Pakistan.

A lot has been made of the divisions in Iran's ruling elite. But these divisions have been there for a long time. Being diverse actually adds to the regime's strength.

Ahmadinejad is a populist. Populists are usually figures of transition. There policies are usually a mix that varies from very conservative to revolutionary. I have always been hopeful that the net result would be positive. Unfortunately the present upheaval makes me pessimistic about the chance for improvement.

I can only conclude that it looks like Washington's policy of blind hate against everyone who doesn't agree with them seems bound to produce once more counter-intuitive results. Counter-intuitive for the ignorant people who invented them that is. Here is an article about the situation in Israel that unfortunately is very similar to that in the US. While Israel has elevated Iran's nuclear program to diplomatic top priority it employs hardly any analist who can understand Farsi.

Postscript 1: Here an article about how the Chinese learnt from Iran's government about "information management" - in the Chinese case on the Urumqi riots.

Postscript 2: a good source for more information on the US role in Iran is the Burbank digest. It is a regularly updated blog with links to (and copies from) many articles.

Postscript 3: The US senate has allocated 50 mln dollar for browser technology to thwart Iran's web censors.

Postscript 4: The article "Quiet American behind tulip revolution" tells about the role Mike Stone from the American NGO Freedom House played in the Kirgyzian "Tulip revolution".

Postscript 5: The article Shy U.S. Intellectual Created Playbook Used in a Revolution points to the influence of Sharp and Ackerman in the Tunesian and Eguyptian revolutions.