The argument so far

Much of the opinion in Washington against negotiations with Iran is coming from people who are convinced that Iran is the mortal enemy of the U.S. People like Adm. Michael Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Mullen believes the U.S. should not extend a friendly hand to the regimes leaders in Iran. But why? If you listen to Mullen it's because he believes the Iranians are responsible for American deaths in Iraq. Ahmadinejad has not been the friendliest face in the Middle East, but his rhetoric is just that, but Iran has not undertaken any major actions against the U.S. I think America's imperial hubris is playing a large role in the misguided choice to isolate Iran and shower it with sanctions. If you take a look over the last 50 years you will find Iranian blood on U.S. hands as well and much of the blood came from Iranian civilians not soldiers. Yes, the violence has been appalling from both sides, but this tit-for-tat mentality does not seem to be a good reason to refrain from actually moving towards peace. Sure, the U.S. could choose to not negotiate with Iran and continue with ineffective sanctions and weak attempts at destabilizing the regime, but that would just be wasting more time. The U.S. needs to engage Iran in official negotiations on the nuclear weapon issue and work towards a solution. Not to mention the benefits that would come to the U.S. from Iran's help in stabilizing the region.

But, there are other people in Washington who don't believe the nonproliferation regime is capable of dealing with states like Iran. Henry Sokolski, Executive Director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, believes that the IAEA has been ineffective at monitoring and preventing states from developing nuclear weapons. Sokolski, uses the example of security cameras installed in the nuclear reactors of various states. The IAEA reported in 2005 that over a period of six years there were 12 instances were the lights were turned off for periods exceeding 30 hours. Of course, this data is from all the states currently monitored by the IAEA, not just Iran. But this situation highlights the anxiety in Washington over whether the Iranian regime is attempting to acquire a nuclear weapon. It doesn't help the situation at all to know that even if Iran is just currently pursuing nuclear energy, most of the countries that have nuclear reactors have used their reactors to produce weapons grade material, these countries include (France, U.S., U.K., Russia, India, and Pakistan). These facts help to fuel the fear that nothing short of war can be done to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. These fears are still not sufficiently compelling strategic reasons to not pursue a better relationship with Iran. The benefits at this point and in the future far outweigh whatever it is we've gained from the insecure policies pursued by previous administrations.

U.S.-Iran negotiations

Like I mentioned in my last post, the U.S. is going to have to negotiate with Iran at some point, its only a matter of time. A good place to begin negotiations is in areas of mutual interest such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Iran wants a stable Iraq and Afghanistan. Iran likes to have order in its neighbors for economic, political and security reasons. I really don't understand why the U.S. has not put more of an effort into working jointly with Iran in stabilizing the region. Iran is an expert at establishing order from chaos, just look at what they did in Lebanon and in Iraq so far.

Another area for negotiations is in regional security issues. Iran is not liked by most of their Arab neighbors (although all the Arab leaders have been traveling to Tehran more, another sign of Iran's growing influence in the region) not only is it ethnically Persian, but it's Shi'itte too. If Iran is to stop arming its proxies and supporting dissenting factions in Arab states the U.S. is going to have to grant Iran some measures to ensure Iran's security. If Iran is going to help secure American interests then America will have to help secure Iran's. There is no way around it, as long as people feel insecure there is going to be a security dilemma.

Nowrooz

Eid-eh shoma mobarak!!! A new Persian year has officially started and with it a friendly message from President Obama to Iran. Unfortunately, Iran did not take it as a serious message for change and justifiably so because the official U.S. position on Iran has not undergone any noticeable changes. President Obama's message stated that the U.S. wanted Iran to take its rightful place in the community of nations through peaceful efforts. This is a nice message and it is one that I feel Iran has tried to follow in recent years especially in their cooperation with the IAEA inspections and personnel. Iran suspended nuclear enrichment activities for over two years to boost confidence and to show their commitment to finding a mutually beneficial solution to the issue. Iran has fully complied with the IAEA and the IAEA has repeatedly declared that there is no evidence of diversion for a nuclear weapon. Even the 2006 National Intelligence Estimate stated Iran was not building nuclear weapons. So why are we still hearing news reports (that change daily) on the amount of low grade nuclear material that, after a few years, could become high grade material suitable for building a nuclear weapon? I guess I can assume that the media is just trying to sell news stories by creating more fear over Iran. Thankfully, there are smart people out there who are realizing the true power Iran is wielding in the Middle East is not nuclear, it's soft power. Part of the real Iranian threat comes from the giant power vacuum we created when we allowed Bush to topple Saddam's regime in Iraq. No other strategic blunder has allowed Iran to gain so much for so little.

As soon as Saddam's regime was gone. The Revolutionary Guard Corps quickly and easily entered into Iraq and began to work their magic just as they had done in Palestine and Lebanon. In fact, if Iran had never been so successful with Hezbollah in Lebanon we probably wouldn't have so much to worry about but since a guerrilla force defeated the most powerful military in the Middle East, Israel, Iran has taken that blueprint and applied it to Iraq. Gone from the political spotlight in Iraq are the moderate Shia clerics like Grand Ayatollah Sistani, replaced instead with people like Muqtada-al-Sadr who was not originally in league with Iran but after much fighting and violence against the U.S. in Iraq turned to Iran for safety and support. While the U.S. is in a quagmire and burning billions of dollars per month, Iran is reaping the benefits of the invasion through access to Iraqi oil, and a whole new slew of political parties and factions to be manipulated by the regime in Tehran. Through its influence on Shi'ite Muslims and its proxies in Lebanon and Iraq, its oil resources, and its control of the Strait of Hormuz, Iran is the most powerful state in the Middle East and it is only a matter of time before the U.S. must swallow its pride and begin to really negotiate with them.

Why not negotiate with Iran? Iran has much more to offer the U.S. as a strategic partner than Israel and not only that but they also comply with international laws (unlike Israel). I'm not saying don't partner with Israel, I'm saying partner with Iran too so we can actually benefit from the situation through energy security and regional stabilization. What has our alliance with Arab states and Israel gotten us? 9/11, that's what. The Arab states are Sunni and it was Sunni fundamentals that attacked the U.S. and are still attacking us in Afghanistan. The takfiris cannot be negotiated with, the Shi'ites can. Negotiation is the only rational choice the U.S. has. The only other option is an all out war that could last up to 100 years with unprecedented casualties and a cost that will drive the U.S. into the ground.

Thoughts on Iran and the World

Recently, I have been pondering over the situation between Iran and America, but not just the current situation concerning Iran's supposed nuclear ambitions. I have been thinking deeply over the way that America conducts it's foreign policy towards not just Iran but other states in general. It is well known that international relations, especially American theory of it, has been mostly dominated throughout its history by Realism. I used to think this was a sufficient answer as to why America invaded Iraq, but I have discovered that America's actions go against even the realist dominated policies, or if I am overstating that, at the very least it went against the sound advice some very prominent realist thinkers. So just whose policy was it that prompted former President Bush to invade Iraq? Whose interests were at stake? Or, was it all a big mistake? Was liberal policy to blame for advocating the relevance of globalization and interdependence and thereby suggesting an unavoidable impact one country (especially an oil producing one) can have on the rest of the world? Or was it the case of an administration and president who were influenced by more ideological and religious beliefs than sound statecraft? Was the invasion poorly planned or was it part of a bigger purpose? How did Iran come out the victor in the region despite all of America's and its allies efforts? Can Iran really be classified as an Islamofacist state as so many people in America are calling it? Is the regime in Iran just waiting to be tipped over by democratization? All these things and more shall be discussed in the future (enshallah).

My Pageflakes pagecast

I was recently introduced to a website call Pageflakes. Pageflakes is free and easy to sign up for and it is a very useful way to connect to all of your favorite sites and feeds in one place, as well as add some more interesting and fun tools and widgets. Another cool thing about Pageflakes is that it allows you to publicize your page as a pagecast. This turns out to be a great way of not only condensing and refreshing alot of information and sources on a particular subject area but also sharing your information with others as well as using other's pagecasts, some of which are pretty well built. I'm going to run you through on a little tour of my pagecast and describe some of the additional features and functions on it as well as dicuss the content and resources I have included on it. I should mention you can design as many pages as you want and you can keep them private if you want to. You can check out my public pagecast here.

Let's begin with the organization and content of my page. I have organized my page into two columns, on the right side with a main title of RSS Feeds I have included about 10 feeds from various blogs including my own an other's that I am currently reading and interested in. The blogs all have a subtitle in blue that will tell you what it is. Most of the blogs are about Iran, current events, and foreign policy but, there are a few that are on other topics such as Iranian life, arts, and culture, there is an anti-war blog and I even included the blog of President Ahmadinejad for anyone interested in reading what he has to say (since I have come to know his personality and history quite well, I find it to be quite entertaining). The feeds to these blogs will be updated everytime you access the page so with all the blogs there is always something new to read and learn about. On the left hand side of the page I have included the tags from Diigo. I have included my Iran tags as well as my social bookmarking soulmate tags related to Iran, so anytime my dear SBS bookmarks something new about Iran it will show up on my pagecast. Also on the left is two widgets I added that contain two searches, one is for a universal search for Iran blogs, and another is a universal search for Iran news. These widgets are a great way to constantly find new content. The last thing I have included on the left is my Zotero bibliography courtesy of Citeline. My bibliography includes books and articles about Iran both governmental and academic. For those of you who aren't familiar with Zotero or Citeline I suggest you check them both out if you are on the web alot.

This is a work in progress and there are still alot of features and tools I haven't even begun to delve into yet, but so far this as been an awesome way to consolidate sources on the web. You can design your page with a variety of borders and graphics. You can also link your email or Facebook to your page so you can turn your page into a one-stop web experience with all your favorite content at your finger tips. One thing that is interesting about all of my feeds on Iran and current events is that by looking at the brief feed descriptions it sort of gives you a shotgun blast of information that instantly tells you what is going on. As I scan my pagecast now I see that Rafsanjani is in Iraq, Azar Nafisi has a new book out, the Right wing is not united around Ahmadinejad, and there is an oil spill in the Karkheh River in Iran. In summary, Pageflakes is a great content aggregator and fun too.