Iran moving into the big league

Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad’s three-nation tour of Pakistan, Sri Lanka and India and the welter of agreements and understandings reached between Tehran and these governments serve notice beyond the mere issue of energy security and Iran’s expanding role in the sub-continent’s energy market; rather, these developments signify a new stage in Iran’s foreign policy that is best described as “pan-regionalism”.

From the Persian Gulf to the Caspian region, the Caucasus, Central Asia, South Asia and beyond, thanks to its unique geographical location, Iran is in many ways an ideal connecting bridge that has not until now fully exploited its advantageous “equidistance” from India and Europe.

Straddled between the two energy hubs of the Persian Gulf and Caspian Sea, Iran is a suitable conduit for trade, energy and non-energy, between the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, which are members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), and the landlocked Central Asian states. The GCC comprises Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Also, with ambitious transportation links projected under the veneer of a “north-south corridor”, Iran, Russia and India have conceived new areas of cooperation that connect northern Europe to the Indian Ocean via Iran and the Russian Federation. Already, Iran is an energy exporter to Europe through Turkey, funneling through Turkmenistan’s gas and swapping oil with Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan.

Iran has plans not to lag behind the so-called new “Silk Road” project that involves China, India and the GCC states first and foremost and yet for every conceivable reason must be considered Iran-inclusive because of the country’s proximity, its expanding trade and economic cooperation with the GCC, and its own trade liberalization policies, reflected in the expansion of free-trade zones.

This is one reason why Iran is modernizing its Persian Gulf islands of Kish and Qeshm, hoping to turn them into tourist hotspots as well as hubs for trade and even finance in the near future.

The $7.6 billion Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline (IPI), meanwhile, has the potential more than any other existing Iranian project to extend the purview of Iran’s “pan-regional” approach, by organically connecting Iran to the sub-continent on a long-term basis and by providing a new Iran-Pakistan-India nexus that could in turn be used for addressing what is lacking so far, that is, more than paltry inter-regional trade.

The poor state of Iran’s trade with South Asia is reflected in the sub-optimal trade between Iran and Pakistan, as is the case between Iran and other members of the region’s 10-nation Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO).

Yet that may change, particularly if Iran (a) is inducted in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, at which it is presently an observer, and (b) the IPI project finally gets underway, in which case Iran’s greater integration into larger entities will bolster its attempt within the ECO to make this regional organization, which is headquartered in Tehran, more effective.

It is not far-fetched to think that Iran and Iraq will one day join the GCC states in a new regional cooperative framework.

Certainly, that is how Iran wants it today, as seen in the recent unveiling of Iranian plans for cooperative security and the like put forward at their hitherto recalcitrant GCC neighbors, perhaps better pitched as part of an Islamic common market.

NEW DELHI, India, May 2–The oil Ministers of India, Pakistan and Iran will soon hold talks to sort out “safety and security issues” pertaining to the $7.4 billion India-Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline that would pass through Pakistan.

For those not paying attention, the baby steps of a serious economic and political alliance within this huge region is unfolding. The keystone here is Russia. With the Sino-Russian Treaty that followed the 911 attacks, Russia and China sought to strengthen their geo-political positions out of concern for US reactions. They saw the US opportunity to expand its “sphere of influence” for security reasons. They were correct. This was the impetus for Trans-Siberia Pipeline which includes the Eastern Siberia-Pacific Pipeline. Enter the opportunity to embrace the Iranian economy and promote the IPI pipeline. Russia encourages Ahmadinejad to step up the diplomacy within the region. The Sino-Russia-Iranian empire will naturally include India, Pakistan and dip into the entire South East Asia region. We are looking at an economic alliance that will rival the EU and anything the US may do to unite the Western Hemisphere.

The next President of the United States will have to deal with a very powerful economic force. The rhetoric of attacking Iran because we are “pretty sure” they want nuclear weapons
because they hate Israel, threatens more than just Iran. The majority of the world population is not going to allow these threats to materialize without response. Much of this world is hungry and fears for its own future. The US has alienated many of these cultures. The hand of Ahmadinejad offers hope for sustenance in a shifting global economy.

America must choose its next president carefully. The arrogance that America’s way is the ONLY way will be its doom if the rhetoric and posturing continues. We must not forget that the Third World is much larger and more desperate than the First World.

POINT OF VIEW

“The [estimate] doesn’t do anything to change my opinion about the danger Iran poses to the world — quite the contrary.”
– President Bush

“This was a final shot to those who … spread a sense of threat and concern in the world through lies of nuclear weapons.” - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

How definitive are National Intelligence Estimates? The estimates reflect the consensus opinion of the nation’s 16 intelligence agencies, and while they provide a snapshot of current judgments about future events, estimates don’t always deliver the final word on a subject. The conclusions of a 2002 Iraq estimate were wrong in part because analysts, according to a Senate investigation, were led to “ignore or minimize” evidence that Iraq didn’t have an active program to develop weapons of mass destruction.

Iran Curveball

President Bush has been scrambling to rescue his Iran policy after this week’s intelligence switcheroo, but the fact that the White House has had to spin so furiously is a sign of how badly it has bungled this episode. In sum, Mr. Bush and his staff have allowed the intelligence bureaucracy to frame a new judgment in a way that has undermined four years of U.S. effort to stop Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

This kind of national security mismanagement has bedeviled the Bush Presidency. Recall the internal disputes over post-invasion Iraq, the smearing of Ahmad Chalabi by the State Department and … The estimate didn’t revise earlier predictions that Iran could have a nuclear weapon by around 2015 and concluded with only “moderate confidence” that Iran hasn’t restarted its program. At a congressional hearing on Thursday, a senior U.S. intelligence official cautioned against the idea that Iranian ambitions were “benign.”

Wow! Don’t you think that the USA with a new, more rational administration, could accomplish some kind of equity with Iran in seven more years? Iran, like any country, would only develop Nuclear Weaponry if they perceived a “clear and present” threat to their security. This is a very expensive undertaking for any country, no matter what the motivation. If this were to happen, a more wealthy country would have to underwrite the expenses … who would that be? Who has a high stake in Iran’s welfare? Russia, China … maybe even Pakistan. Proxy wars are made from this kind of scenario. Viet Nam was a grand example of a costly Proxy War against Communist China and the Soviet Union. This could be the final REDUX!

Iran’s nuclear program began in 1959 when the shah purchased a research reactor from the U.S.

Prime examples of the US setting up and backing corrupt dictators to serve our agenda, is the Shah, Saddam, and Osama Bin Laden, not to mention many South American countries. We gave them the same weapons and technology that are killing our soldiers today. The practice of nation building and democratizing other countries is a sad ‘quick fix’ for whatever policy the US seeks. This won’t work anymore. Look at Sudan. We have allowed atrocities, as bad as or worse than Saddam and the Shah, to kill and displace millions of human beings. The US arrangement with Sudan is pitiful … as long as the impression remains that they have credible intelligence about Bin Laden, the US is ‘hands off’.

This is a puppet show. The puppeteers are following a script. The world is on to our script and won’t take it anymore. The US arms the same elements that they expect to fight in the future … they allow a crisis to evolve in order to market intervention to the American public and select allies.

History repeats …

To the populations back home the reason often given for was for “freedom”, “stability”, “containing the Soviet Union” and so on. For the people of the region that had their popular leaders overthrown and replaced with corrupt rulers, this was surely not freedom. Communism was an often used reason around the world, not just the Middle East, even if it was not the case. As Noam Chomsky details, it was often a convenient excuse, but the underlying threat was often that nations might be able to use their own resources and be an example for others to follow.

… the CIA played a considerable role in the overthrowing of Chilean President Salvador Allende in 1973 by Augusto Pinochet, who is credited with a 17-year reign of oppression and terror.

The U.S. government’s problem with Pakistan is similar to the one it had with Iran in 1979. The U.S. government placed Iranian Shah Reza Pahlavi in power in 1953, which extinguished the rising flames of democracy. This resulted in a populist Islamic revolution and extreme anti-American sentiment. Now, Pakistan’s brutal dictator, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, is facing a populist uprising.