One of the few things that’s certain about the growing Iran crisis is that the MSM, here and abroad, will cover it with a continuous stream of editorials and op-eds. I’ll be covering this public debate with an eye on assessing whether opinions are shifting and whether they are converging or diverging. To save myself the trouble of thinking up a new title for each of my posts, I’m simply going to number them. Thus, this is Iran Commentary I.
In my view, today’s editorial in The Times is unduly optimistic:
Mr Ahmadinejad appears to have overestimated Iran’s strength . . . The general speculation that a US military strike is unlikely and that oil sanctions are unenforceable may have given Tehran the impression that it is unassailable. This is far from the case. At the UN it is isolated. However critical France has been of US actions in Iraq, Paris has strongly backed a firm line against Iran. More significantly, Russia also is committed to ending Iranian nuclear adventurism, and was outspoken in its condemnation.
Yes, Iran is isolated at the UN. But so what? And is a Russia that opposes sanctions truly committed to bringing Iran’s “nuclear adventurism” to an end? Then, of course, there’s China, which The Times fails to mention and which may be more strongly opposed to sanctions than is Russia.
Noting President Ahmadinejad’s announcement that Iran has joined the nuclear club, an editorial in The Telegraph is distinctly more skeptical of the UN than is The Times:
This defiance faces the [Security Council] with a challenge similar to that presented by Saddam Hussein. Does it have the will to impose economic sanctions that will bite? Or will it shirk that option, confirming its irrelevance when it comes to maintaining international peace and security, and thus pushing America and its allies into taking action on their own?
Right now, there’s nothing to indicate that the Security Council will agree on economic sanctions that “will bite.”
Citing Seymour Hersh’s New Yorker article, The Telegraph says that the use of tactical nuclear weapons would be a diplomatic disaster of the first magnitude and puts the onus on the UN to prevent a resort to military force:
There are, however, many other, less apocalyptic, ways of putting pressure on Teheran. And, as with Iraq, it falls in the first instance on the UN to apply them.
The editorial doesn’t say what these “less apocalyptic” ways are.
After reporting that Muhammad Saeedi, the deputy head of Iran’s atomic energy organization, said Iran would push quickly to put 54,000 centrifuges on line, the New York Times says that “Western analysts” are unimpressed. They said nothing had changed to alter current estimates of when Iran might be able to make a single nuclear weapon, which says the Times, the U.S. government has estimated at 5 to 10 years.
The only analyst cited in the article is David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security.
Iran’s rulers amass fortunes through sleaze
All the discussion I have seen about sanctions and military attacks ignores the fact that most of the money in that country drains into the pockets of the top mullahs.
example:
At the top slot comes, unsurprisingly to Iran observers, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, whose family rules over a vast financial and business empire. From the pistachio farms of his hometown Rafsanjan to huge oil trading companies, the ruling theocracy’s former president has used his power and influence to expand his wealth. Conservative estimates put his fortune at well beyond the 10 trillion Rial mark, the equivalent of $1.1 billion.
Most of the powerful cleric’s enormous wealth is vested in the hands of his sons and daughters, as well as other close relatives such as his brothers, nephews, and bother-in-laws, and son-in-laws. One of his villas was sold in 2004 for roughly 29 billion Rials. His brother, Mohammad Hashemi, the former chief of the state broadcasting corporation, owns the company Taha, which imports industrial-scale printers.
Hit the ayatollah’s in their pocketbooks and the whole game changes.
Even if it gets as far as military attacks add the assets of the top ayatollahs to the target list.
marc, you are too pessimistic/impatient. it is true that the name of the game is called procedure, all kinds of steps have to be taken to tighten the rope around iran. facts are needed and not ideology. negotiations have come to an end, next is the un and sanctions. forget months, think years. whatever time you try to save first you will loose later when solving (!!) the problem (see iraq). it seems that the west is extremely unified on this issue. russia will come around, the chinese will be alone…...
Unfortunately, we don’t have years—certainly not the ten years some are speculating about. The best guesstimate that we can come up with at this time is that Iran will need
– 6-9 months to assemble and configure the centrifuges they already have
– 4 months or so to have enough materials to make a bomb
– another couple of months to produce a bomb
– they’ll be in a position to create additional weapons at the rate of about one every four months even without additional centrifuges
– with additional centrifuges (if they can get the components) they can speed up production
Consequently, immediate urgent action is needed to prevent them from obtaining additional components.
Of course, if they’ve already obtained enriched uranium from North Korea or Pakistan the timeline will be greatly accelerated.