For Iran, Putin Agrees Being Surrounded by American Nuclear Toys: After Ukraine, Baltics Next in Line

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Despite the Appearances, the Iranian Nuclear Adventure Goes On

In exchange for the US’ silence regarding Putin’s intentions to endow Iran with the nuclear bomb, after Ukraine, the Baltics are next in line to be endowed with American nuclear military technology, with Putin's consent.

This move further explains Putin's Ukrainian gas circus.

Despite the statements in the international media, claiming that no further progress has been made in the Iranian nuclear issue, with small but determined steps, Putin will probably succeed to come soon to a concrete agreement with the US on Iran, pushing for his “nuclear club” enrichment invention, according to which Russia will hopefully have exclusivity and not just priority in NPP building, in exchange for allowing the presence of the US’ nuclear military technology quite near his pillow.

"To sum up, even in the best case scenario for all, the Iranian nuclear issue will simply go into another phase, which will be less seen by the public".

http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20060227/43812877.html

In other words, we can expect that from now the Iranian issue will simply be buried in silence.

The US-backed nuclear plants that will pop up over night in Russia's neighbourhood, will be the best barometer, however.

~Vera

"Particularly, after his Feb 15 meeting with Lithuanian Foreign Minister Antanas Valionis Baramidze (Georgia) said: “This dramatic situation has been a good lesson for us. And not only for us but for the whole Europe and each European country — a lesson saying that we must be as much independent from Russia in energy as possible in order to be independent and free from the blackmail of that country, who uses energy as a weapon.” "

http://www.regnum.ru/english/592106.html

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Baltic states agree to build nuclear power plant in Lithuania

19:0627/ 02/ 2006RIGA, February 27 (RIA Novosti, Yuri Guralnik) -

The three former Soviet Baltic republics have agreed on the joint construction of a nuclear power plant, the office of the Lithuanian prime minister said in a statement Monday.

The prime ministers of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia agreed at their meeting Monday to build a nuclear power plant in Lithuania before 2015, the statement said.

The premiers concluded that the NPP construction would be the easiest way to resolve an energy crisis expected in 2009, when the Chernobyl-style Ignalina nuclear power plant in Lithuania will be closed due to the European Union's nuclear safety requirements.

Three energy companies - Latvenergo, Eesti Energa and Lietuvos energia AB - will work on the NPP project. They will have to draft an investment plan and select a contractor for the project, which will cost an estimated $3-4 billion.

Lithuania had previously expressed its interest in continuing its nuclear program beyond the closure of the Soviet-era Ignalina nuclear power plant.

http://en.rian.ru/world/20060227/43814345.html

Baltic states agree to build nuclear reactor

27.02.2006 - 19:26 CET By Andrew Rettman

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The EU could get a new nuclear reactor in Lithuania under a fresh energy security deal signed by Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn in the Lithuanian town of Trakai on Monday (27 February).

The Baltic states' energy pact does not give a schedule for the project, but "invites" the firms Lietuvos energjia, Latvenergo and Eesti Energia "to invest in the preparation and construction" of a new reactor at the Ignalina plant.

Lithuania shut down one old reactor at Ignalina in 2004 under its EU accession treaty, with plans afoot to shut down the facility's second old unit in 2009. EU public opinion does not like nuclear power, with a recent European Commission survey indicating just 12 percent of people would be happy to see more nuclear plants.

But a Lithuanian diplomat told EUobserver the Baltic states are cut off from the rest of the EU power grid and face being bypassed by a new Russian-German Baltic Sea gas pipeline.

"Of course, we are still hoping to be included in the pipeline, but we shall have to wait and see," the contact indicated.

He added that the Baltics' energy "vulnerability" is not well understood by the commission and other EU states.

More ideas for EU energy policy

The Baltics' energy plan also calls for integration of electrcity markets in the region; developing liquid gas port terminals and boosting gas reserves.

The trio welcomed EU efforts to create a common energy policy in the wake of the January Ukraine gas crunch, but stressed the need to "maintain national sovereignty over the choice of primary energy sources."

They also urged the 25-strong bloc to speak "with one strong voice" to oil and gas supplier Russia and the Middle East oil cartel, OPEC, using tools such as the G8 club and the World Trade Organisation as leverage in talks.

The commission's green paper on a common energy policy is due on 8 March with follow-up discussions at a top level summit later that month.

But member states' infighting on takeovers of national energy firms, such as Spain's Endesa and France's Suez, does not bode well for the plan.

Polish energy solidarity plan gains support

The Baltic states also backed Poland's idea of an energy solidarity pact, saying EU states should use their gas stocks to help any one member facing a supply crunch.

Poland's energy solidarity scheme is more ambitious however, extending to all 32 NATO states, with top diplomat Stanislaw Komorowski asking EU colleagues on Monday to place the "energy NATO" idea on the March summit agenda.

Polish prime minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz sent a letter with details of the project to all EU and NATO members as well as the European Commission last week.

The NATO-type pact would be overseen by an entirely new institution and could stand in parallel to any EU common energy policy, Mr Komorowski indicated.

He said that no matter what happens to the NATO idea, Poland will also push to get the word "solidarity" inserted in the March energy council conclusions.

http://euobserver.com/9/21004

Iran to give Russia priority in NPP building - minister
16:22

25/ 02/ 2006

TEHRAN, February 25 (RIA Novosti) - Iran will give Russian organizations a priority in the construction of nuclear power plants, Iranian Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance Davud Danesh-Jafari said Saturday.

"We have a very good experience of cooperation with Russian organizations in the construction of the nuclear power plant in Bushehr," the minister said. "Naturally, we will invite Russian organizations to bid for the construction of new power plants on preferential conditions."

He said all aspects of Russian-Iranian cooperation were positive expect some insignificant issues, which hampered the launch of the Bushehr NPP.

About 3,700 Russian experts are currently helping to build the $800-million plant, originally started in the early 1980s by German specialists, in the port city of Bushehr in southern Iran in accordance with a 1992 agreement between the two countries.

The Iranian nuclear program envisages the construction of 20 power units with a total capacity of 20 gigawatts.

http://en.rian.ru/world/20060225/43764413.html

Basic agreement which has no basis
17:47

27/ 02/ 2006

MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Pyotr Romanov.) - The recent visit of Sergey Kiriyenko, head of the Federal Agency for Nuclear Power (Rosatom), to Tehran did not change much the situation, which has taken shape in the last few months around Iran's nuclear program.

The question of whether this program is peaceful or potentially military has not been removed. Russia's proposal to enrich uranium at a joint venture on its territory under IAEA control has remained unanswered.

The world has heard nothing new from Tehran. After the talks Iranian Vice President Gholamreza Aghazadeh said: "Regarding this joint venture, we have reached a basic agreement. Talks to complete this package will continue in Russia during the forthcoming negotiations." He added that the question had many political aspects.

Just as before, the Iranians have reserved for themselves a possibility of retreat, and are doing everything to stall time. But there is not too much time left - the situation will clear up before a session of the IAEA Board of Governors on March 6.

As expected, the Russian-Iranian talks have evoked a reserved response both in Russia and the rest of the world. "The Russian-Iranian basic agreement to establish a joint venture on uranium enrichment on Russian territory is a positive but not final step in the solution to Iran's nuclear program," said Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the State Duma international affairs committee. "This agreement is just part of the solution to the problem, which Russia is trying to find. Russia is moving in the right direction."

U.S. President National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley has told CNN it is too early to say anything, because in such agreements the devil is always in the details, and time will show what comes out of it.

This statement is well justified, just as the intention of Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso to find out more details about the Russian-Iranian joint venture during his forthcoming trip to Tehran.

The response in other world capitals was very much the same.

Apprehensions about Iran are only natural because it itself generates mistrust with misdirected energy. Enough to mention almost 20 years of secret nuclear efforts, numerous statements by President Ahmadinejad about his desire "to erase Israel from the face of the Earth," and endless evasion of a straight answer to Russia's clear-cut IAEA-approved proposal of a joint venture.

Alarm is further fuelled by statements of Iranian officials about Tehran's intention to reserve for itself the right to engage in small-scale, experimental nuclear enrichment on its own territory, in addition to work in the joint venture. In effect, this statement disavows the very idea of the joint venture.

What's the point if uranium is upgraded both in Russia and in Iran?

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov made a very clear statement on this score: "Tehran is still linking the formation of the joint venture with limited albeit national R&D effort on its territory... Russia cannot agree to build a joint venture on such terms because its very idea will vanish, and because it contradicts the February IAEA Board of Governors resolution, which urges Iran to stop any work on uranium enrichment."

In other words, the news about a breakthrough and a basic agreement reached in Tehran by Sergey Kiriyenko is an exaggeration, to put it mildly.

This situation is not likely to change by March 6 even if the international community compels Tehran to say the final "yes" to Russia and sign a joint venture agreement. Regrettably, the Tehran regime's word and signature are not 100% trustworthy.

To sum up, even in the best case scenario for all, the Iranian nuclear issue will simply go into another phase, which will be less seen by the public.

IAEA experts and security services of many countries will be zealously controlling Tehran's compliance with its commitments.

Neither the U.S., nor Russia, nor Europe, nor Israel or any other country, for that matter, has the slightest desire to see the Iranian military carrying the "football."

http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20060227/43812877.html

See also:

Sunday, February 19, 2006

For Iran, Putin willing to let Georgia and Ukraine go in NATO

http://putinfreakshow.blogspot.com/2006/02/for-iran-putin-willing-to-let-georgia.html

Iran, Japan to discuss nuclear issues - minister
10:05

27/ 02/ 2006

TOKYO, February 27 (RIA Novosti, Andrei Fesyun) - The Japanese foreign minister said Monday his country was interested in the details of the upcoming Russian-Iranian deal to establish a joint uranium enrichment venture in Russia.

Taro Aso told a news briefing ahead of a meeting with his Iranian counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki: "We have insufficient information about the [Russian-Iranian] agreement on establishing a joint uranium enrichment venture, and I hope to discuss the details during our meeting [with Mottaki]."

During his visit in Japan from February 27 to March 1, Mottaki is also expected to meet with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Tuesday.

Japan, one of world's largest consumers of Iranian oil at 550,000 bbl/d, is deeply troubled by the possibility that economic sanctions could be imposed against Iran if the country's nuclear file is referred to the UN Security Council, and thus welcomes any compromise that would avoid sanctions.

The mooted deal between Iran and Russia, which is currently building an $800-million nuclear power plant near the southern Iranian port city of Bushehr, is seen as a potential compromise in the crisis around the Islamic Republic's nuclear program. Although Tehran has consistently said it only wants nuclear power for peaceful purposes, the United States and other nations have concerns, as enriched uranium is a vital component for an atomic bomb.

On February 26, Iranian Vice President Gholamreza Agazadeh said the decision to establish a joint uranium enrichment venture could be made before the March 6 meeting of the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN nuclear watchdog.

http://en.rian.ru/world/20060227/43800720.html

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Friday, December 30, 2005

Ignoring the US' whinning, Russia will fuel Japan with Iranian oil, but which is the price of the deal?

http://putinfreakshow.blogspot.com/2005/12/ignoring-us-whinning-russia-will-fuel.html

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Putin Threatens with Afghan War

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Quite when we thought that everything's set, that Putin sold Iran out, that Europe will be split in two in a very short time and that Afghanistan is a bygone issue,

in parallel with a decision on Iran, postponed over an over, and with the Iraqi turmoil in the background, mostly staged in order to postpone a decision on the formation of the new government and to press for boosting the Sunnis’ presence in the Iraqi political framework,

on RIA Novosti website, an article entitled: “U.S. might be dragging NATO into new Afghan war”, that claims “just an opinion” of an unknown journalist, tops the Russian news for a few days.

~Vera

U.S. might be dragging NATO into new Afghan war

17:01

22/ 02/ 2006

Moscow. (RIA Novosti political commentator Pyotr Goncharov.) – The United States, in a manner that is already becoming hard to ignore, is clearly doing its best to drag the Atlantic Alliance into a new Afghan war.

Committing to build up the NATO peacekeeping force in Afghanistan to 15,000 last October, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer left an impression that the Alliance was just going to expand the area of responsibility of its International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

This deployment had been made reluctantly under intense pressure from Washington who sought to share at least part of responsibility for Afghanistan action with its European allies and was therefore encumbered with a tight ring fence of self-imposed limitations.

In the first two to three years of the broader counter-terrorist Operation Enduring Freedom, the U.S. did not doubt its future success.

In a media questions session at the U.S. base in Bagram on Christmas Eve 2003, Joint Chiefs Chairman Richard Myers and David Barno, the allied commanding general, were very optimistic about Enduring Freedom and said the U.S. presence in Afghanistan would not last longer than the situation required. Now, in fact, the situation seems to require more ISAF contingents and a larger area of responsibility.

There is a rumor in the media that the current ISAF area of responsibility, which does not go far beyond the loyal capital Kabul and northern and western provinces bordering on Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Iran, will expand into volatile southern provinces, and the Allied Command will send around 6,000 British, Canadians and Dutch there.

Southern provinces Zabol, Kandahar, and Helmand, and eastern Paktia, Paktika, and Khost, broadly known as a “Pushtu tribal area”, have long been an engine of instability for the whole country, which comes as no surprise as its Pakistani border has been porous and insecure since the early days of the Afghan statehood, whoever was in power.

This area, where it is unclear at what point Afghanistan ends and Pakistan begins, is the most volatile; it is home to al-Qaeda leftovers and rebounding Taliban.

Of course the multinational force will all but reach its stated goal to ensure security and stability across Afghanistan if it builds on the “assistance from a moderate U.S. capability” to secure control over the south and east of the country, but that would require a huge military operation. Though the United States will doubtless take the lead in military action, it will be hard for the ISAF Canadian, Dutch, and British forces to stay firmly within their self-imposed police mandate.

Involvement in military action seems to be the last thing ISAF wants. Its carefully built peacekeeping image and hard-earned grass-root loyalty rely heavily on the public perception of their mission there as protecting peace, rather than spreading war.

Germany, France, and Spain have repeatedly denied their men in Afghanistan would be in any way involved in U.S.-led counter-terrorist military activities. But a decision in favor of an additional deployment in the south would signal that the U.S. pressure has worked, and NATO is being finally drawn into military action.

In fact, the U.S. has little choice but to get other Western countries equally involved in military operations in Afghanistan as a country that has so far remained largely out of U.S. control could turn into a crucial toehold if the looming prospect of an Iraq-style military attack against Iran becomes reality.

If Tehran finally defies European pleas and American demands and goes on with its efforts to build a full-cycle enrichment capability – which looks highly likely – the time-pressed Washington will very soon be facing a dilemma of attacking Iran and beginning a two-front war or looking impassively at the emergence of a new nuclear power. To wage a war against Iran without a secure Afghanistan in the back would be insane.

That a NATO deployment in the southern and central parts of Afghanistan will give the Alliance and the U.S. a military edge is beyond doubt, but whether the end is worth the investment remains unclear.

As the peacekeeper image evaporates, the southern NATO task force might face intense resistance and casualties (and Uruzgan province where the Dutch contingent will be deployed is no exception), which will not be welcome back home and might undermine the whole idea of bringing peace to a war-torn country.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the opinion of the RIA Novosti editorial board.

http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20060222/43712625.html

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Bogdanchikov’s Rosneft Seeks Taking Over Exporting Rights of the USSR Oil to China

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I have very little time and many of my amateur journalistic projects have been suspended, but since I’ve got a weakness for Bogdanchikov, aside of striving to overlook Putin, I will also try to be the advocate of Rosneft.

Skeduled being administered by Rosneft and filled with both Kazakh and Siberian oil, Atasu-Alashankou oil pipeline is the price Putin now has to pay for the ally status and the concrete political help provided by China.

A deal better than the BTC at least.

~Vera

Main Articles:

Rosneft mulls Kazakh-China oil pipeline

MOSCOW, Feb. 23 (UPI) -- Russia's Rosneft is considering becoming part of the Atasu-Alashankou oil pipeline from Kazakhstan to China.

Rosneft head Sergey Bogdanchikov said Thursday the company was waiting to hear the terms of the deal, but no answer was expected from Kazakhstan until April.

Russia's RBK TV said under preliminary agreements, the pipeline would be filled with equal shares of Kazakh and Russian oil.

Rosneft previously said it was interested in transporting oil to China.

Russian oil will be sent from Omsk through Pavlodar, in Kazakhstan, to the Atasu station, before going on to China.

The 600-mile pipeline, with a capacity of 10 million tons a year, opened in December 2005.

http://www.upi.com/Energy/view.php?StoryID=20060223-094400-9145r

Russia's move on energy chessboard

By Sergei Blagov

In December Nazarbayev formally inaugurated the 1,000-kilometer-long Atasu-Alashankou oil pipeline to funnel crude to China. In a message to his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao, Nazarbayev described the pipeline as a manifestation of bilateral "strategic partnership".

The Atasu-Alashankou pipeline has been seen as yet another move by Kazakhstan's toward independence from Russia, though Kazakhstan and China both reportedly planned to funnel Siberian oil through the pipeline.

The $800 million Atasu-Alashankou pipeline is expected to pump 10 million tons per year, but it could need Russian crude from Western Siberian via the Omsk-Pavlodar-Shymkent pipeline to reach its full capacity of 20 million tons by 2010.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/HB04Ag01.html

23.02 / 16:48 18

Oil export via Atasu-Alashankou pipeline to China starts in May 2006

ASTANA. February 23, 2006. KAZINFORM /Nazym Shakhanova/ - Full-scale export of oil through Atasu-Alashankou pipeline will start in May 2006, Baktykozha Izmukhambetov has said at today’s session of Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry’s collegium.

The previous year was marked by such events as the end of construction of Atasu-Alashankou pipeline and its fillup with oil, the Minister noted.

We plan to start the full-scale oil export to China in May 2006.

According to him, the Ministry works out gradual amplification of Uzen-Atyrau-Samara pipeline and Caspian pipeline consortium up to 25 and 67 million tons of oil per year accordingly.

Thus, the major problems of oil industry in the republic in 2006 are the provision of planned volume of oil extraction and realization, stable supplying of the consumers with petroleum at the acceptable prices during winter, fillup of Atasu-Alashankou pipeline and oil export to China and realization of the second stage of State Program on exploration of Kazakhstani sector of Caspian Sea.

http://www.inform.kz/txt/showarticle.php?lang=eng&id=140024

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Working to Repair Yeltsin's Mistakes - Interesting truce: Kosovo for Transdniester

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This is an interesting and, why not, quite intelligent thought.

Putin's idea (presented by Radio France International as well) - of conditioning Kosovo’s independence on Russia’s presence in Dniester and possibly in Nagorno-Karabakh and even in Georgia’s separatists provinces Abkhazia and South Ossetia, could set the basis of a truce between Russia and the US, legalizing the Russian army’s presence in the USSR’s self-proclaimed republics, whose troops, because of Yeltsin’s serious mistake made in 1999, were stationed by now without proper papers.

After all, this deal would be perfectly in line with Putin’s policy: making room to the US in Europe, by gifting it with fossil fuel made in USSR, with the condition that, under Georgia-Venezuela truce, the US observes Russia's military canons required by putin in his Soviet backyard.

Even though Zhirinovsky is renowned being Duma’s clown and therefore his statements can't be taken seriously, this Kosovo-Dniester deal seems a truce that can have a future.

I rather see Georgia in NATO, than the Russian military leaving these Soviet republics soon.

Maintaining its military presence is also a symbolic gesure - a matter of prestige and a sign of non-capitulation for Russia.

~Vera

See RIA Novosti’s article below:

Kosovo independence will set precedent - MP
12:49

22/ 02/ 2006

MOSCOW, February 22 (RIA Novosti) - If granted independence, the Serbian province of Kosovo will set a precedent for the recognition of self-proclaimed republics in the former Soviet Union, a vice-speaker of Russia's lower house of parliament said Wednesday.

Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who is also the leader of Russia's ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party, said: "If Kosovo is proclaimed an independent state, this will set a precedent for all other unrecognized states [in the former Soviet Union] - Transdnestr, Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorny Karabakh - to be given international recognition, as well."

Zhirinovsky said preparations for an international conference on Kosovo were underway and that this forthcoming forum could give sovereignty to the Serbian province.

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20060222/43701942.html

The Entangled Bundle of the European Economic Life

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While Putin keeps compromising indefinitely, hoping probably to keep Germany clenched in his entangles games, Bush takes advantage, with Merkel at the helm of a Germany now bowing and scraping to North America.

Nothing’s for certain in today’s World.

After many, including myself, thought that Gas Natural – Endesa takeover is a concluded deal, now the German company EON pops up out of the blue and entangles the things, complicating the European economic picture for an indefinite term.

Just like the proverbial Mittal-Arcelor story, EON's bid for Endesa is just another economic stone hanging on Europe’s neck and topping in an ill stand-by the bill of the European business life.

One by another, intricate deals in which the US and Russia, fighting their antagonists interests on European soil, are directly involved, push Europe in a more and more agonizing incertitude, deepening the social-financial draw-back of the old continent shattered by the most severe social protests and the most serious economic crisis experienced in the last 60 years.

Meanwhile, Chirac wanders on US-backed Indian unknown paths, pushed from behind by Hedge fund Atticus Capital (headquartered in New York), to start negotiating the sellout of Arcelor to Mittal Steel, in the name of globalization.

With two Chinese Yuans in his pockets, hoping to sweeten a bit the tragic end of Arcelor while thrusting upon India’s neck a few nuclear power plants and 43 Airbus jets, aged Chirac, screwed by the global vice, watches helpless how EDF gets slowly drawn in Europe’s turbid energetic pool of warrior and worrisome so-called “competition”.

Exceeding by far its own borders, the economic European crisis expanses over a Latin America swinging between a noisy neo-Marxism and its axiomatic capitalism dictated by the natural geopolitics.

Backfiring on the opposite meridian, the European crisis, previously fueled with Latin American rage, comes to finally hit a troublous Caucasus more and more strained from its motherland by right: Russia.

Mladic’s “surprise” unclear apparition, hours after the opening of the negotiations on Kosovo’s independence status, comes just to confirm with a political voice Europe’s ill-fated drift.

~Vera

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Why Rolling Stones concerted for free in Brazil? Still a question with no clear answers

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Hard to tell.

Because Mick Jagger has a son with Brazilian TV presenter and model Luciana Gimenez?

Because he therefore sided with Latin America in detriment of the US?

Because Mick Jagger, at odds with Bush, wants to compete with pro-Bush political activist Bono from U2, proving that HE is the one who indeed makes charity, allowing anybody to see him for free?

Or because Bush sent him there in order to do something and repair his “Sweet Neocon” mistake, promoting now the Anglo-Saxon values in a more and more socialist Latin America?

After all, Mick Jagger has recently made concessions at Detroit Super Bowl show, allowing Bush’s censure.

Why wouldn’t he make another concession now, singing at Bush’s order in Brazil?

Or why wouldn’t he now take the revenge, singing for a country whose ties with the US are more and more strained?

The contradictory facts are that the concert was sponsored by the US’ company Motorola. The “Sweet Neocon” song was not present on the Brazilian stage either.

On the other hand, the American press didn’t seem too happy about the event, maliciously accusing Rolling Stones of not playing for free, actually.

Hopefully we’ll be able to say more after U2’s concert in Brazil, scheduled for Monday.

The fact is that Bono (and not Mick Jagger) is the one who will lunch today with Brazilian president Lula da Silva.

~Vera

QUOTES:

Bush called Bono "an amazing guy," and praised him for being "a doer."

http://theage.com.au/news/world/bono-rocks-bushs-world/2006/02/03/1138836397908.html

Mick Jagger has branded President George W Bush a hypocrite in a new song 'Sweet Neo Con'.
The track, on the Rolling Stone's eagerly awaited album, 'A Bigger Bang', also criticises the American president for claiming to be a patriot
Jagger sings: "You call yourself a Christian, I call you a hypocrite
"You call yourself a patriot
Well, I think you are full of s**t!"

http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/celebrity/55032004.htm

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For Iran, Putin willing to let Georgia and Ukraine go in NATO

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The articles below come to prove it.

The question is: will the US be involved also, side by side with Russia, in the building of the Iranian nuclear “well-being”?!

Or is Putin trying to preserve Russia’s nuclear monopoly in Iran, by delivering Georgia and Ukraine to NATO in exchange? Will granting NATO membership status for Georgia and Ukraine be enough for settling the US' nuclear apetite in Iran?

I foresee a relatively early NATO membership for Georgia and a later one for Ukraine, with the Russian peacekeepers eventually remaining in place in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, while Putin hopefully gaining the right of nuclear monopoly in Iran.

I might be wrong about Russia’s nuclear monopoly in Iran, however.

The scandal around the Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia has been staged in order to try to convince us that there’s nothing Putin can do and that if he wants to preserve their presence in the breakaway region, he must allow Georgia to join NATO.

While in fact IRAN is the leverage that moves all these Georgia-Ukrainian pieces and not the gas scandals, which were even from the start a shameful circus played by Putin.

While Venezuela gets militarized, Georgia seeks getting its NATO membership.

While Iran’s nuclear fate is in limbo, Ukraine seeks going nuclear under new American standards.

New geopolitical realities occur quite under our eyes, realities that Putin desperately tries to divert our attention from.

~Vera

QUOTES:

“Mohammed ElBaradei, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), suggested that the United States supply Iran with nuclear reactors in exchange for an eight-year moratorium on nuclear research.

In turn, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke for the establishment of "a global infrastructure" that would ensure "equal and non-discriminate access of all interested countries to nuclear power, while reliably maintaining non-proliferation requirements."”

“This will be possible if there is a single security policy based on guarantees from "nuclear" to "anything but nuclear" countries and including promises of military assistance in case of external aggression.”

http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20060216/43585539.html

Russia and Iran will discuss the so-called Russian initiative of creating a joint uranium enrichment venture in Russia, with possible participation of other countries.

http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20060217/43611153.html

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Putin Finally Starts Showing His Teeth: GENERAL MOTORS TO BE OUSTED FROM RUSSIA!

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GM's Russia Joint Venture Stops Production

The Associated PressFriday, February 17, 2006; 4:08 PM

MOSCOW -- General Motors Corp.'s Russian joint venture has halted production after a parts contract with its state-controlled partner came under review, the company said Friday.
A GM spokesman, Rudiger Assion, confirmed that the plant in the Volga river city of Toligatti had been shut down for several days.

We're running short on parts, so production has been stopped," Assion told The Associated Press. "I don't know if it is caused by the new management _ it is something to do with prices for parts."

GM launched its $340 million venture with AvtoVaz, Russia's biggest car maker, in Toligatti in 2001. Since the government took control of the foundering auto giant in December, however, a parts contract between AvtoVaz and the joint venture has come under scrutiny.

Avtovaz's new chief executive, Igor Yesipovsky, has said that the plant supplies the parts to the joint venture at a considerable loss: 15 percent less than their production cost, the Vedomosti business daily reported.

Avtovaz spokesmen could not be reached for comment.

Yesipovsky said that the carmaker may reconsider its joint venture with GM _ called GM-Avtovaz, _ because it is not making a profit, Interfax reported. The venture manufactures the Chevy-Niva sport-utility vehicle.

Although Avtovaz has the largest share of Russia's auto market, it has steadily lost ground to foreign rivals whose brands appeal to domestic buyers.

By taking control of Avtovaz, the government aims to rebuild the national car industry but the growing state role in the Russian economy has attracted criticism even within President Vladimir Putin's administration.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/17/AR2006021701417.html

Production stops at GM joint venture in Russia

Report: State-owned partner seeks to squeeze out U.S. automaker

Updated: 1:15 p.m. ET Feb. 17, 2006

FRANKFURT/MOSCOW - Output at General Motors’ joint venture in Russia has halted since Monday, the world’s biggest carmaker by volume said on Friday amid media reports of a clash with its partner, AvtoVaz. “Production has stopped at GM AvtoVaz. Nothing has been built down there since Monday,” a GM Europe spokesman said.

Russian newspapers said AvtoVaz had stopped delivering parts to the venture’s plant in Tolyatti, but the GM spokesman declined to go into the reasons for the stoppage.

“We are doing everything to resume production as quickly as possible,” he said but added it was unclear when this might happen.

An AvtoVaz spokesman in Russia declined to comment and said the company would issue a statement no earlier than Monday after holding a board meeting.

AvtoVaz has taken a more assertive stance with GM since Russian state arms exporter Rosoboronexport installed new management at the automaker, which sold 720,000 cars last year.

AvtoVaz, which has long struggled to lift sales of its cheap, but clunky Lada models, announced this month it would build a new state-funded car plant and might close the joint venture with GM.

The strategy shift comes as Russia seeks to create an auto industry champion to meet the challenge of foreign rivals, whose sales of imported and locally assembled cars are booming.

The Vedomosti business daily, quoting a source close to AvtoVaz management, said AvtoVaz was losing money by supplying car kits to the venture at 15 percent below cost. That amounted to losing $20 million a year given annual output of 50,000 cars.

Russian media quoted car industry analysts as saying that Rosoboronexport was seeking to squeeze GM out of the venture and take control of the plant, which can make as many as 100,000 cars a year.

“AvtoVaz’s conflict with GM may end up in AvtoVaz buying out the Americans’ share,” Vedomosti quoted UFG analyst Yelena Sakhnova and Metropol’s Alexander Zhukov as saying.
The Tolyatti plant on the southern Volga near the border with Kazakhstan builds 50,000 Chevrolet Niva sport utility vehicles and Viva sedans a year.

GM has used the venture to fuel sales growth and win market share in Russia since 2002. It says Chevrolet is now the second-biggest foreign brand in Russia behind South Korea’s Hyundai Motor Co Ltd.

GM also imports Korean-made Chevrolets into Russia, but the joint venture plant still accounts for the bulk of GM models sold there, the spokesman said.

Sales in Russia of the Chevy Niva and Viva models fell by 14 percent last year to 46,000, industry figures show.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11409200/

Rosneft, Total and the Siberian Ghost Pipeline

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Rosneft to develop Siberian oil reserves without Total, not because there is any rift between Russia and France, especially after de Villepin's visit to Moscow.

After the severe predictions of Putin-backed alleged environmentalists on the construction of the pipeline, more likely Rosneft will never be allowed to develop any Siberian oil reserves, which are probably scheduled to remain for long from now on underground, counting as strategic oil reserves for Russia.

The Siberian oil pipeline will probably never become functional, being just a diplomatic ghost invented by Putin, in order to protect the preservation of Russia's oil reserves while avoiding the US' "democratic" comments on the issue.

In conclusion, how could Total have joined a non-existent project?!

In response, Sergei Bogdanchikov - Head of Rosneft, was served with a lawsuit by U.S. based shareholders of Yukos.

~Vera

Rosneft to Develop Siberian Oil Reserves Without Total

Bloomberg

Lucas Schifres / Bloomberg
Total had been planning to work with Rosneft to develop the Vankor deposits.
LONDON -- Rosneft intends to develop the Vankor oil and gas fields in eastern Siberia without Total, which for almost four years had planned to participate in the project.

State-controlled Rosneft will spend $3 billion by 2009 to develop the deposits, which rank among the 10 largest untapped onshore fields on Russian territory. The deposits hold 767 million tons (5.6 billion barrels) of crude, enough to supply Japan for three years, according to a Rosneft report distributed Tuesday in London. Patricia Marie, a spokeswoman for Total in Paris, declined to comment.

"We don't need Total in this project," Rosneft president Sergei Bogdanchikov said Tuesday in an interview in London. "We don't need to share risks, and we have enough money to develop Vankor on our own."

This is the second failure in Russia for Paris-based Total, which last year lost its accord to pay as much as $1 billion for a 25 percent stake in Novatek, the second-biggest natural gas producer.

Total in May 2002 announced an agreement to join the Vankor development, by paying as much as $20 million for a controlling stake in the license.

The fields are expected to extract as much as 19 million tons of oil per year (381,000 barrels per day), the report said.

Rosneft last week paid about $187 million for permits to explore three more fields close to the Vankor deposits to expand the project.

The Vankor group of fields, Rosneft's largest, will help supply an $11.5 billion pipeline, which will be built to the Pacific coast to export oil to Asia and the U.S. Russia is building a 4,100-kilometer pipeline across eastern Siberia to boost local exploration and exports.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/02/15/043.html

Yukos Shareholders in US Sue Head of Rosneft, Russia’s State Oil Company — Media

.S. based shareholders of Yukos have filed a lawsuit against Rosneft president Sergei Bogdanchikov whe was in London on Tuesday, Russian media reports, quoting a legal document distributed by British bailiffs. Rosneft, however, dismissed the news as completely untrue.Russian newspapers Kommersant and Moscow Times reported on Wednesday that Bogdanchikov was served with the lawsuit while he was in London on Tuesday.

The papers referred to to a copy of the certificate notifying the U.S. court handling the case that he had been served.

The Moscow Times wrote that Rosneft representatives were unavailable for comment on Tuesday evening, but Kommersant wrote that Rosneft strongly denied the fact that Bogdanchikov was served the lawsuit.

“In this particular case, it has nothing to do with reality,” the newspaper quoted Rosneft representative as saying. Bogdanchikov was in London to give a keynote address at an energy conference.

The court papers name him as a co-defendant in a class action initiated by Yukos ADR holders that alleges he played a key role in a conspiracy to confiscate Yukos from its owners.Bogdanchikov is now the third high-ranking Russian official to have been served papers. Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin was served last month while he was in Washington awaiting a meeting with U.S. Treasury officials.

In late October, Industry and Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko was served with papers while on an official visit to Washington. Khristenko initially denied a suit had been filed against him, but then acknowledged that it had been.

Kudrin continues to deny receiving the papersYukos’ main production unit, Yuganskneftegaz, was sold off by the government in December 2004 as payment for over $28 billion in back taxes. Just days after the auction, Bogdanchikov’s Rosneft took over Yugansk.

http://www.mosnews.com/news/2006/02/15/bogdanchik.shtml


Wednesday, February 15, 2006. Issue 3353. Page 5.

Rosneft CEO Served Lawsuit

By Catherine Belton Staff Writer

Rosneft president Sergei Bogdanchikov was served with a lawsuit by U.S. based shareholders of Yukos while he was in London on Tuesday, according to a copy of the certificate notifying the U.S. court handling the case that he had been served.

No one from Rosneft could be reached for comment on the news, which came late on Tuesday evening.

Bogdanchikov was in London to give a keynote address at an energy conference.
The court papers he was served with on Tuesday name him as a co-defendant in a class action initiated by Yukos ADR holders that alleges he played a key role in a conspiracy to confiscate Yukos from its owners.

Bogdanchikov is now the third high-placed Russian official to have been served with court papers. Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin was served last month while he was in Washington ahead of a meeting with U.S. Treasury officials. In late October, Industry and Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko was served with the papers while on an official visit to Washington. Khristenko initially denied he had been served with a suit but then acknowledged he had. Kudrin continues to deny receiving them.

Yukos' main production unit, Yuganskneftegaz, was sold off by the government in December 2004 as payment for over $28 billion in back taxes. Just days after the auction, Bogdanchikov's Rosneft took over Yugansk.

http://www.moscowtimes.ru/stories/2006/02/15/042.html

Syria switches to Euro

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Syria switches to euro amid confrontation with US.

“There have also been rumors today that Iran could switch to Euro reserves as well to protect their foreign assets”, an unknown publication says.

http://www.dailyfx.com/story/dailyfx_reports/daily_fundamentals/6708_syrias_switch_to_euros_does_little_to_stifle.html

However, no renowned publication comes to consolidate this opinion.

IMO Iran is in a completely different boat from Syria right now, Syria being set to replace Iran’s rogue state status row under the US-backed UN’ canons.

~Vera

See articles at the link below:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VladimirPutinRoundTable/message/349

Socialist International Goes On: Russia to choose European pipeline partners on political basis: French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin in Moscow

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QUOTES:

“French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said Tuesday that France and Russia must demonstrate solidarity in international affairs, according to Russian news reports.

"Today like never before, France and Russia must speak in the international arena with one voice," Villepin was quoted as saying by the ITAR-Tass news agency at a French Embassy ceremony honoring World War II airmen.”

http://english.pravda.ru/news/world/14-02-2006/75915-Russia%20and%20France-0

After his arrival Monday, Villepin visited Russia's NPO Lavochkin space design company that has cooperated with the European Space Agency on several projects.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-02/14/content_4179798.htm


Interesting: “When asked whether Total would consider partnering with Russian-British joint venture TNK-BP, de Margerie said it was possible”.

Important: “LUKoil is the world's second largest private oil company by proven hydrocarbon reserves, accounting for around 1.3% of global oil reserves and 2.1% of global oil production”.

Russia to choose European pipeline partners on commercial basis

14.02.2006, 17.24

MOSCOW, February 14 (Itar-Tass) - The choice of foreign partners in the construction of the North European gas pipeline and the development of the Shtokman deposit will be made, proceeding from commercial advantages offered and on condition of equality of all the bidders, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov told a press conference on Tuesday after a meeting of the Russo-French intergovernmental commission.

French companies, including Gaz de France that is conducting consultations with Gazprom, and the French company Total that seeks to become a Gazprom partner in the development of the Shtokman deposit, have applied to become Gazprom partners.

At present, consultations are going on at the level of the companies, and an estimation of potential investors and their commercial bids for participation in the projects has been made.

All the bidders have equal chances, and the choice will be made, depending on commercial factors.

The French companies are among possible partners, Fradkov said.

For his part, French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said that France attached particular importance to problems of security in oil and gas supply.

France is interested in the development of cooperation with Russia in this field.

France can ensure security of its energy sector by means of broadening its participation in joint projects with Russia, the French prime minister said.

France developed a memorandum on energy that envisages diversification of the sources of power supply, including the development of nuclear technologies and use of renewable energy sources, de Villepin said.

The two countries have good prospects for cooperation in the aviation and space industries, electronics and nuclear power engineering and joint ventures for engine production.

Prime Tass reported with reference to the Russian prime minister.

http://www.tass.ru/eng/level2.html?NewsID=3195620&PageNum=0

France's Total seeks 20% stake in Shtokman project

20:16

14/ 02/ 2006

MOSCOW, February 14 (RIA Novosti) - France's Total, the world's fourth largest oil and gas company, is seeking a 20% stake in the Shtokman gas project, which is owned by Russian energy giant Gazprom, a senior company official said Tuesday.

The official said the company could seek a 25% stake if Gazprom chose only two partners instead of three, but a 20% stake seemed more realistic.

Total plans to be involved in the production and sale of liquefied natural gas.

The shortlist includes Norway's Statoil and Hydro, France's Total and U.S. companies Chevron and ConocoPhillips.

Gazprom officials estimate its annual output at 100 billion cubic meters of gas, with around 30 billion at the very start, of which 22 to 24 billion cu m will be liquefied to produce up to 15 million tons of LNG for America.

http://en.rian.ru/business/20060214/43545675.html


France's Total mulls joint projects with LUKoil

20:11

14/ 02/ 2006


http://en.rian.ru/business/20060214/43545582.html

Russia, France sign deal on Soyuz missile launches

20:37

14/ 02/ 2006


http://en.rian.ru/russia/20060214/43545984.html

See more at the link below:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VladimirPutinRoundTable/message/349

Will Putin sell out his drawers for a WTO Chimera? Russia set to Ratify the Energy Charter, loosing Gazprom's Energy Grip

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Why France?! This means that there is a deal, a trick between the two allies - France and Russia.

Something will happen, then.

Something will be sold out.

What does Putin hope?

To sell his pipelines to France only?

What's de Villepin doing there in Moscow?!

I don't have TIME to check more about it!!!

~Vera

QUOTES:

That would involve Russia ratifying an international charter on the matter.

Renaissance Capital said it had heard France was expected to take the lead role in offering Moscow a deal and that this might involve offering World Bank funding for building new pipelines to deliver more gas and oil to Europe.

Russia in exchange would ratify the Energy Charter treaty, and loosen Gazprom's grip on the sector.

http://business.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=214782006

British Gas owner Centrica yesterday said it would consider buying some of Russia's export pipelines, after the country pledged to open up its international gas transmission networks to independent companies.

Centrica, which recently emerged as a takeover target for Russian state gas giant Gazprom, said it would examine the opportunities if the country offered stakes in its pipelines.
Russian finance minister Alexei Kudrin promised at the weekend to allow independent gas companies equal access to its export routes, hitherto controlled solely by Gazprom.
"We are working to create conditions for equal access to the export pipelines for all companies extracting gas or preparing to take part in tenders," he said. "We need time and technical conditions to prepare this."

The statement followed the G8 meeting of leading economies in Moscow which was dominated by the issue of energy. Mr Kudrin was grilled by his counterparts over the events at Christmas which resulted in the flow of gas being cut off to the Ukraine, resulting in a dramatic leap in UK prices.

Russia provides around a third of Europe's gas, although much of this does not reach Britain.
A Centrica spokesman said: "We took a stake in some pipelines in the Netherlands last week, and would certainly appraise the opportunity of buying similar interests in Russia."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2006/02/13/cncent13.xml&menuId=242&sSheet=/money/2006/02/13/ixcity.html

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G8: Russia plans to create a global natural gas market similar to the oil market

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The only indeed interesting thing discussed at G8 Meeting:

Russia plans to create a global natural gas market similar to the oil market.

This could create a base for challenging the US' energy supremacy on the international market.

~Vera

SEE ARTICLES BELOW published by RIA Novosti:

Russia to create global natural gas market - French finance minister

17:44

11/ 02/ 2006

MOSCOW, February 11 (RIA Novosti) - Russia plans to create a global natural gas market similar to the oil market, the French finance minister said Saturday.

Thierry Breton said after a G8 finance ministers' meeting in Moscow that new ways to transport natural gas and build new gas pipelines via both Europe and Asia were being discussed.

Breton said France would allocate a certain amount of money for the purpose via the European Investment Bank.

The German finance minister backed the construction of the North European Gas Pipeline, saying it would help stabilize gas prices.

http://en.rian.ru/world/20060211/43487619.html


France, Germany could join Russian-Ukrainian gas consortium
16:18

11/ 02/ 2006

KIEV, February 11 (RIA Novosti, Pavel Dulman) - France and Germany could join an international consortium for natural gas transport formed by Russia and Ukraine, the head of Ukraine's national energy company Naftogaz, Alexei Ivchenko, said Saturday.

According to Ukrainian TV Channel 5, France and Germany's participation was discussed at the consortium's recent meeting, attended by Russian Ambassador to Ukraine Viktor Chernomyrdin.

"We proposed that both the Germans and the French be invited to join. There were no objections from the Russian side," Ivchenko said.

The agreement on forming the international consortium for the management and development of Ukraine's gas transport system was signed by the Russian and Ukrainian prime ministers in October 2002.

Russia is represented in the consortium by energy Gazprom, and Ukraine by Naftogaz.

The consortium is currently working on the Bogorodchany-Uzhgorod pipeline project that will enable Russia to increase its natural gas shipments to Europe by 19 billion cubic meters per year.

Construction of the pipeline will begin in the first half of 2006.

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20060211/43486503.html

A New Chance for Kadima, as a Result of Putin’s Pressures?

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After Putin threatened with inviting Hamas to Moscow and, by definition, with increasing the violence in the area if the US doesn't abide by the timetable, a change in the US’ tone could be promptly remarked in the Western media.

In the aftermath of Putin’s invitation of Hamas, Sharon, the beloved Israeli leader, suddenly came under surgery, in order to remind to the Israelis that he is still there for them and to determine Israel to vote for his party Kadima.

Today’s press suddenly portrayed Kadima as a winner, while, after the violence that took place in Amona - West Bank, nobody believed that Kadima has any chance of winning the Israeli elections anymore.

Could Putin reverse the situation, applying combined pressures over the US?
God knows if even Mohamed cartoons are not strange of the Israeli elections either.

The US intended to violate the agreement with Putin on Israel when staging the West Bank violence, but apparently the things have improved now, ahead of the elections, with the US retracting most of its illegitimate claims of seizing Putin's stakes in Israel.
Hopefully Putin will get the seats in the Israeli parliament that he deserves, at the elections set to take place on March 28.

~Vera

See a few quotes below:

Israel's Olmert softens tone on Russia-Hamas talks

12 Feb 2006 14:13:09 GMT

"I think the Russian position is mistaken, as I have stated. But from what they said to us during the weekend, they will demand Hamas recognise Israel and give up terror," the official quoted Olmert as telling his cabinet at its weekly meeting.

Putin's announcement, seen by political commentators as a bid to reclaim the influential role Moscow once had in Middle East affairs, challenged U.S.-led resistance to dealing with Hamas until it recognises Israel and renounces violence.

Olmert's comments, following tough criticism by some of ministers over the weekend of Moscow's initiative, appeared aimed at avoiding a rift with Putin, who became last April the first Kremlin leader to visit Israel.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L1269835.htm

The formation of a new Palestinian national government could be weeks away, and could even come after Israel's elections March 28.

The centrist Kadima party, assembled by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon before he was felled by a massive stroke last month, holds a commanding lead in the polls, and its platform calls for steps leading to the creation of a Palestinian state.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-hamasgov11feb11,0,2486055.story?coll=la-headlines-world

With Hamas win, Israelis face crucial election Netanyahu candidacy gets boost against Sharon's successors

Matthew Kalman, Chronicle Foreign Service

Sunday, February 12, 2006

Gerald Steinberg, a political science professor at Israel's Bar-Ilan University, said the Hamas factor would give Netanyahu "a boost," while a possible renewal of suicide bombings would help Likud even more, but it would be unlikely to dent Kadima's lead.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/02/12/MNGD0H74BD1.DTL

Putin invites Hamas leaders to Moscow

Updated: 2006-02-10 08:50

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday invited leaders of Hamas to Moscow, saying his country ¡ª unlike most of the West ¡ª does not see the Palestianian group as a terrorist organization.

Alexander Kalugin, Russia's special envoy for the Middle East, said in Moscow that Russia would use the meeting to ask the militant group to recognize Israel's right to exist.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin made the overtures to Hamas to prevent "a serious deterioration" of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and to keep the path open for mediation.

"The role of the Russian federation, of President Putin, is going to be decisive to all that affects the dialogue and the peace prospects in the Middle East following the Palestinian elections, as well as the current situation in Iran," Zapatero said.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2006-02/10/content_518925.htm

Israel plays down talk of rift with US

By Jean-Luc Renaudie

However, polls show that Kadima’s lead has stood firm since the Palestinian election.

One published in Thursday’s Yediot Aharonot daily showed Kadima would win 43 seats in the 120-member Israeli parliament, while the centre-left Labour Party would win 20 seats and Likud 15 seats.

A poll in the Haaretz daily gave Kadima 40 seats, with 21 for Labour and 15 for Likud. Afp

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006%5C02%5C11%5Cstory_11-2-2006_pg4_14

Israelis focused, but not on Hamas
Militant group's victory in Palestinian elections has not shaken up Israeli politics.

Saturday, February 11, 2006

JERUSALEM — It's no surprise that the victory by the Islamic militant group Hamas in Palestinian elections last month is worrying Israelis.

But what is astonishing is that so far, this political earthquake has not become a factor in the campaigning for Israel's own parliamentary elections, scheduled March 28.

Rather than give a boost to the flagging fortunes of Israel's right-wing Likud party by tapping into Israel's preoccupation with security, as might be expected, Hamas' election success has remained a marginal issue for Israeli voters, according to public opinion polls.

Israelis have kept their confidence in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Kadima party and his deputy Ehud Olmert's policies, which mix tough talk against Israel's own extremist Jewish settlers and support for building the controversial West Bank barrier that will isolate Palestinians from Israel.

See also:

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

The Coffin Already Prepared possibly for both Olmert and comatose Sharon’s Kadima Party

http://putinfreakshow.blogspot.com/2006/02/coffin-already-prepared-possibly-for.html

"The political mood in Israel right now is separation, and not confrontation (with the Palestinians). This is what Kadima is centered on," said Danny Rubenstein, a political science professor at Jerusalem's Hebrew University.

After Sharon's debilitating stroke last month, many Israelis have rallied around Olmert as the political heir to the nation's most revered leader. Kadima remains well ahead of its rivals, the left-leaning Labor Party and its leader Amir Peretz, and the right-wing Likud and its chairman, former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

A poll published Feb. 3 in the Yedioth newspaper indicated that Kadima would win 42 seats in the 120-member Knesset, to Labor's 21 and Likud's 15. The margin of error was not given.

Some analysts have described the campaign as the political equivalent of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears," with voters viewing Netanyahu as too hard, Peretz as too soft and Olmert as just right.

Rubenstein […] predicts Labor will fall further in the polls ahead of the election.

"If Palestinians engage in another wave of terrorism, this will further strengthen Netanyahu, but I'm not sure he can overcome the huge 20-point gap," Inbar said. "Israel's a different place now than it was in 1996."

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/world/02/11israelhamas.html

See the full-length articles at the link below:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VladimirPutinRoundTable/message/346

The Other Side of the Islamic Protests: Prelude for Ousting Ahmadinejad and for further Cornering Syria

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We should get used to the idea that ever since Putin has had that private conversation with Bush SR in May 2005, Putin quitted being the relatively independent man he used to be. Ever since then, he quitted taking any political decisions on the international stage and, most of the time also on the internal one, without Bush SR’s consultation.

Although the Islamic protests look like an internationally spread rod launched by Putin, Bush must take advantage of them also, doesn't he? And so, their concrete effects begin to crystallize:

In the aftermath of the repeated violence over the French, Danish and British (!) embassies in Iran, Putin, at Bush SR’s energetic pressure, will most likely oust ultraconservative Ahmadinejad in April, with the occasion of “the forthcoming election of a new Assembly of Experts - a body of mullahs whose task is to elect the “Custodian-Theologian”, more commonly known as the “Supreme Guide”, who has virtually unlimited powers under the Khomeinist constitution””.

Ultraconservative Ahmadinejad is therefore set being replaced with Rafsanjani’s more moderate gang, willing to share with the US the Iranian oil and gas.

On the other hand, Syria - the sacrificed pawn in the Iranian game, fated to bear Iran’s punishment under the jurisdiction of Iran non-proliferation Act - will be further cornered and possibly even referred to the UN Security Council, as previously agreed:

http://putinfreakshow.blogspot.com/2005/10/putin-moves-both-earthly-and-spatial.html

Gaining political power in Palestine, as I’ve said before, is not in Putin’s advantage, as with each political point gained there, he will achieve nothing but to lose one in Israel.

Palestine is no one and, as on Brezhnev time, having predominant stakes in Palestine, while the US consolidates its position in Israel, will only weaken Russia and will isolate it further, in a financial World led by Jews.

However, with comatose Sharon getting in and out of dubious surgeries quite ahead of the elections, it is hard to say for sure what will happen in Israel at the polling stations. Most likely the US-backed candidates will win the majority, Putin, as a result, “winning” what’s left.

So, by the large, everything seems under control, following letter by letter the old agreements concluded between Bush SR and Putin in the spring of 2005 (when Europe fell apart), aside of Israel, where the US appears keen to preserve its control, in a forced move that put Sharon on a dead line.

With a WTO membership for Russia pending indefinitely, Putin tries to play out time, but he doesn’t seem to play it out very successfully.

With the US advancing with small but sure steps towards its final victory in Iraq, despite the delays caused by Putin, and with Rumsfeld accusing Iran of interference there, it is only natural that Iran and not Iraq will be the rogue state the US will focalize its attention on now.

Not much is clear about Mohamed caricatures and the only thing I see is that Putin plays out time, meanwhile the US taking advantage of them in Iran.

The Muslim demonstrations in Europe do nothing but to play out time around the Iranian issue, to soften the US’ stance around it, according to Iran extenuating circumstances and just isolating Ahmadinejad, in fact, ahead of the forthcoming elections set to oust poor Ahmadinejad clown who played his part with all his heart and to bring back the old gang of “moderate” Iranian betrayers.

The deal with the US on the WTO membership for Russia, although “very close”, according to Snow’s words, is indefinitely pending. "There are only a few remaining issues that have us apart," Snow said.

A "few remaining issues" which, by the way, provide no guarantees that Russia will ever join the WTO. The same situation is with Russia’s full G8 membership, pending for years as well.

While, with Putin’s consent, the things in Iran move forward in the US’ interest, the issue of Russia’s WTO membership could keep pending for another 11 years…

~Vera

Below you can read:

- a very interesting interview with Patrick Buchanan speaking about the US’ position on the Iranian issue. Patrick Buchanan was adviser to Presidents Nixon, Ford and Reagan and attended the summits of Reagan with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev at Geneva and Reykjavik.

- an explicit article on the political situation in Iran, posted by Eurasianet.

- and a good analysis by Amir Taheri, entitled: “Iran: the Other Clock is Ticking”

Exclusive Interview: Buchanan Argues Iran Can Be Deterred

Posted Feb 10, 2006

Former presidential candidate and author Patrick Buchanan believes that if the United States and its allies fail to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, a policy of deterrence can work against Iran just as in the past it worked against a nuclear-armed Soviet Union and a nuclear-armed People’s Republic of China

On the question of whether the U.S. should launch a preemptive war to prevent Iran from developing such a weapon, Buchanan said: “At this point, I would not say, ‘Yes.’”

Buchanan’s view contrasts sharply with that of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who told Human Events last week that the U.S. would need to go to war if no other means could be found to stop the Iranians from developing nuclear arms.

Buchanan, an adviser to Presidents Nixon, Ford and Reagan, went with Nixon to China and with Reagan to his summits with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev at Geneva and Reykjavik.

Human Events Editors Allan Ryskind and Terence Jeffrey interviewed Buchanan last week as part of a series of interviews HE is doing with leading conservatives about U.S. policy toward Iran.

Jeffrey worked for Buchanan’s 1992 and 1996 Republican presidential campaigns.

Do you have any doubt that the Iranians are seeking to develop a nuclear weapon?

I don’t have any doubt that they would probably like to have one. I don’t think they are near one. I don’t think they have, right now, the capacity or the ability to enrich uranium even to the point where they can have enough to power a bomb.

I don’t think they have the centrifuges. There is no indication that they do.

I am not sure they have mastered the technology. I think they are a long way away from enriching uranium.

But I do think in the back of their mind they have the idea that, first, they are never going to give up the right to enrich uranium, which they have under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and secondly, my guess is they are moving to become a nuclear power.

Do you believe that the current type of regime in Iran, with a nuclear weapon, is a threat to the United States?

I certainly do not think it is as great a threat to the United States as Mao Tse Tung, who got nuclear weapons and was talking about 300 million Chinese dead. I think this: It would be an act of utter insanity on the part of Iran, if it did in several years get one or two nuclear weapons, to use that on Americans anywhere.

They would invite the greatest massive retaliation in history.

I believe deterrence works. I believe it is already working against Iran. We have been hostile toward them for 26 years but we haven’t gone to war against them for a simple reason: They could have a war in an afternoon, but they don’t want a war with the United States.

Why should they?

I think you read the interview we did with Newt Gingrich that was in last week’s issue of Human Events. Gingrich argued that what he called the irreconcilable wing of Islam shows us every day that they don’t care about dying. His argument is that we now have a president in Iran and an Iranian regime that collectively think that way and that, therefore, they really are a threat to use a nuclear weapon. Do you reject the argument that there is an Islamic vision—perhaps even the Islamic vision that is embraced by the current regime in Iran—that actually would tolerate the use of a nuclear weapon even knowing they would suffer a response?

I think if al Qaeda got a hold of a nuclear weapon, they would do their best to smuggle it into the United States. But I think anybody who is in control of a state and a regime would think twice and three times—everybody in a leadership position in that country would think twice and three times—before they ever used a weapon like that on any nuclear power, the United States primarily, but secondarily Israel—which should they use it on the Israelis I think the retaliation would be massive. I believe the Iranians know that full well.

While Ahmadinejad is making a big play for the Islamic street and Arab street and succeeding, other than the rhetoric and the verbiage and the fact that he has made himself sort of a global antagonist of America and Israel, which he wants to be, I haven’t seen any action.

Even if deterrence would work with the current Iranian regime, do we have an interest, short of the use of force, in trying to prevent them from actually developing a nuclear weapon?

Of course. We certainly do. The idea of a nuclear weapon in the hands of the Iranians is a terrible idea, as it is in the hands of the North Koreans.

This is why I would not rule out talking to the Iranians. A war between the United States and Iran would be devastating to Iran, and it would be unworthwhile to the United States because of what Iran could do to our position in Iraq with the Shia, with terrorism in the Gulf, upsetting regimes there, with the Shia in the Northwest regions of Saudi Arabia.

So, I think the United States and Iran ought to talk just as Truman and Stalin talked, and Eisenhower and Krushchev talked, and Nixon and Brezhnev talked, and Reagan and Gorbachev talked, and Nixon went to China.

We have an adversary here, an antagonist, but we both have a vital interest in not letting this degenerate into all out war.

But we had diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union during all those talks. Do you believe the United States should have diplomatic relations—that we should open diplomatic relations—with Iran? Do you believe that the President of the United States ought to directly deal with the Iranian leadership?

No. Right now we do not have diplomatic relations. So it is very much like the situation with China in 1972. I think we ought to go through a back channel to the Iranian government, and the President ought to have people he trusts, who are thought-minded - Gen. Zinni is one who comes to my mind - to talk with these people and simply lay down the ground rules: Quite obviously, we don't want a war with you folks, but you don't want one with us.

And lay down the conditions for them.

I think in the long run, Iran is going to dominate the Persian Gulf one day, just as the Americans were one day going to dominate the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. Iran’s going to have 100 million people by 2050. What you want to do, I think, is work out some kind of modus vivendi with them. I don’t care about close personal relationships. If they don’t like us, that’s fine. But there is a big difference between that and having a war where you kill a lot of one another.

It seems to me the Iranians have played the United States and the Europeans for suckers on developing nuclear weapons. We are not doing anything about it. There have been a tremendous number of warnings, but Ahmadinejad says you can give us all the warnings you want, but we are still going ahead with our nuclear program—he doesn’t say nuclear weapons program. So, let’s say Zinni goes over there, but then, after a certain period of time, we decide they are not going to do what we want them to do. Then what would you do? What would be your alternative course of action?

Unless they have another secret program we know nothing about, where they have thousands of centrifuges operating and producing enriched uranium that we don’t know about—I don’t believe they do, but unless they have that—they are a long way from a nuclear weapon.

But I would agree that if you go over there and you talk to them, and you say we have to work something out here, then you are going to have to give them something as well as get something in return.

I don’t rule out the fact that we might succeed with that. But if we failed and they said, “We don’t care about any sanctions or anything, we are going to continue enriching uranium where we are doing it right now,” and we conclude that they are going to reach for a nuclear weapon, then I think you come down to the point of what you do about it militarily.

I know Sen. John McCain says keep the military option on the table—and I guess that’s correct as sort of a metaphor or whatever it is—but I would not at this point launch war against Iran.

But what would you do when you realized that they were not being serious, when you realized from the way they were acting that they were going to develop a nuclear weapon down the road, a year or two, or maybe three?
Michael Ledeen and others have talked about how we should at least help the people internally, because he believes there are pro-American forces there—

But that doesn’t answer your question either.

But it might help. If they think we are actually going to help internally those who are opposed to them—

My own view is that the Bush policy has been foolish.

He should never have gone out before the Congress of the United States and declared we have an axis of evil—Iran, North Korea and Iraq—and these, the world’s worst dictators, are not going to be allowed to get the world’s worst weapons.

But he had no policy and no program to prevent it, and he simply alerted the North Koreans and the Iranians that the United States was coming.

So, both of them have since broken out of the restraints under which they were operating their nuclear programs. That was a mistake on the President’s part.He undercut [former Iranian President Mohammed] Khatami, too.

We took no advantage of him. Let’s get to the bottom line: Should the United States launch a war against Iran if we believe they are approaching a nuclear capacity or an ability to enrich uranium to a highly enriched state? At this point, I would not say “yes.”

At this point?

At this point, I would not say “yes.” But as for Ledeen’s point, and others’ point, about helping out inside Iran, that’s fine—like we did in Poland. But this is a different situation.

We do not want to get into a situation like the Hungarian situation, where you encourage these people and push them to rise up and throw out the mullahs and get them all slaughtered, as Bush’s father did with the Shias, and as we supposedly did with the Hungarians, although that may be exaggerated.

That would call for an engagement with Iran, quite frankly. If you want to get in there and help their pro-Western people, that calls for a measure of engagement with Iran. We can’t do that with Radio Free Tehran.

Should we have a level of engagement with Iran, beside this back channel you’re talking about?

Buchanan: If it were up to me, I believe that the United States and Iran, even with this radical regime, have strategic interests in avoiding a war and avoiding a cut-off of oil from the Gulf and avoiding a general explosion in that region, and that we ought to sit down and talk about it.

Now, when the United States invaded Afghanistan, the Iranians were with us in overthrowing the Taliban. I also understand they were willing to help in picking up pilots, over-flights, and things like that.

They’re also delighted by the fact that we overthrew Saddam Hussein, because that helped bring to power the Shia, their friends.

So, they owe us, so to speak. But the point is there are issues on which the United States and the Iranians have common ground even though their ideology despises what we are and what we believe.

I think when you have those, you deal with people rather than go to war with them.

Condoleezza Rice has condemned Ahmadinejad. What ought she be doing?

Well, you have to condemn what he said.

What he said is outrageous, even though what he is doing is what [Venezuelan President] Hugo Chavez is doing and [Bolivian President] Evo Morales is doing. They are ticking off the United States because when the United States responds it builds them up with the masses, with the street.

But you don’t know precisely what is going on inside Iran?

Well, we do know this: When the United States was hit on 9/11 there was a tremendous sympathy for this country among young Iranians.

We do know that they voted 70% twice against the mullahs, to throw them out, and put in Khatami.

We do know that the young people in Iran—no one under 35—has knowledge of Savak or the Shah.

To them, the thugs that are pushing them around and denying them freedom and restricting them are the mullahs. So, you have something on which to build.

This is where I do agree with Ledeen.

But I am not sure that deliberately confronting them and telling them you are going to be the only nation under the Non-Proliferation Treaty that has no right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes is the way to do it, when all Iranians are united that they are going to retain that right.

But the deal that is being offered, supposedly, is that the Russians will actually enrich their uranium for them.

The Iranians invited the United States to do it about four or five months ago. They said, “Why don’t you Americans come over and do it?”

But I would rather have the Russians do it, so we would have a diplomatic free hand. We could judge it. But why can’t they do that?

The Iranians don’t want these sanctions either. That’s why they are opening the door, a little bit, that maybe the Russians have a good idea. I would favor that. So does the President. I think it is a good idea. I think the President is handling this now pretty well.

Unlike Newt.

Do you think there’s a little bit of a mismatch between the President’s rhetoric, including in the State of the Union, that we are going to end tyranny in the world now, and what appears to be the President’s realistic approach to Iran?

Well, it is a realistic approach to Iran. And his approach to North Korea, I think, is the best he can do given the circumstances. But this idea that we are going to end tyranny in the world is Wilsonianism on steroids. It is absurd.

We are not going to end tyranny in this world. Maybe in the next.But I think when the President talks about that what he is trying to do is what Presidents have always done—Lincoln, Wilson.

They get into a war for reasons of national interest, and then the war becomes a horrendous, bloody mess, and so then you have got to move it into this much broader concept, where you are fighting for universal ideas and great goals, so even if it goes badly he can say we dared greatly, and this was what was coming anyhow, and he was ahead of his time.

I understand what the President is doing—as long as he is realistic about the idea of ending tyranny on this earth. It is not going to happen in his administration.

I think something different has happened. I believe Bernard Lewis, the Middle East historian, is behind all this, even more than Natan Sharansky and others. Because Lewis went down to the White House, and he has talked about bringing democracy to this area of the world, and I think they believe democracy is the big pot at the end of the rainbow in the Middle East.

We are going to get Iraq, we are going to turn it into a democracy, and it’s going to change the entire Middle East. I believe they bought into it. It is not just rhetoric.

I agree with you. I believe the neo-cons sold Bush a bill of goods about Iraq: that we are going to march up to Baghdad. It’s not only going to be a cakewalk, but when Saddam goes down they are going to welcome us with flowers and sweets, and democracy is going to break out there, and not only there, it is going to spread to Iran and Syria, and the Palestinians and the Israelis are going to sit down together. The President bought into this, and he was horribly misled. In a way, it has turned to ashes in our mouths.However, the President has come to believe, has been converted to the idea, that democracy is the cure for terrorism, and that when democracy comes to the Middle Eastern people, they will vote to live in peace and security because that’s what people do. Now, I think the President in the short run is mistaken, terribly mistaken. Some of us warned him against this because we said elections will empower people who according to the polls would like to do two things: Throw us out of the Middle East, and throw the Israelis into the sea.So what we have is that the Muslim Brotherhood won more than 50% of the elections it contested. The Hizballah won in South Lebanon. Hamas has swept the West Bank and Gaza. The Shiites are winning in Iraq. Ahmadinejad wins in Iran. And even the party in Turkey is a Muslim party beautified. And in those provinces of Pakistan next to Afghanistan, Islamic fundamentalists are in charge.The President has started a revolution. He has ignited a revolution in the Middle East and what is going to come to power is Islamic fundamentalism.However, here is where I am more helpful than a lot of people. Any revolution, such as the French Revolution, all the revolutions, reach Thermidor, where the revolutionary fervor is gone and they have to run the show and operate the state, and they become responsible and they become accountable, and at that point, I think, you can come to deal with them.I think the Iranian revolution was reaching that point before the Axis of Evil stuff, because you had 70% of the people voting repeatedly to throw these people out. But I think we have re-inflamed that situation over there with the invasion and the rhetoric and all the rest of it. But I do think the President has ignited a revolution, and you can’t walk this cat back.

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=12348


IRAN SPINS NUCLEAR CRISIS BUT ’ELITES’ HAVE QUESTIONS

Bill Samii 2/11/06
A EurasiaNet Partner Post from RFE/RL

Now is a good time for the Iranian government to appeal to nationalist sentiments. The country is marking the 27th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, devout Shi’ite Muslims are commemorating Ashura, and there is an ongoing furor over a Danish newspaper’s publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

But Tehran is reluctant to leave anything to chance.

On February 4, the governing board of the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) voted to report Iran to the UN Security Council over continued concerns about its nuclear program.

Wasting no time, the Iranian government the same day instructed the national media on how it should portray the country’s nuclear diplomacy.

Some of the country’s political elites, however, have raised questions about this issue, suggesting that Iran is heading down a potentially dangerous path.

Offering Comfort Through the Official Line

The media advisory on covering the nuclear issue was issued by the Secretariat of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, roozonline reported. Referring to the IAEA decision, the advisory said the media must not portray the country’s diplomatic efforts as unsuccessful or say that the country suffered a loss.

Warning against discouraging the Iranian people, the advisory called for stories that avoid stirring fear or worry, and that in no way suggest diplomatic efforts had reached a dead end. The impact of the media advisory soon became evident.

Mustafa Kavakebian, the managing director of the reformist "Mardom Salari" daily, said on February 7 that Iran was being reported to the Security Council for political rather than legal reasons, the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported. Kavakebian was cited as adding that "hegemonic powers" were trying to block Iran’s rightful access to nuclear technology.

Rajabali Mazrui, the head of the Iranian Journalists Guild, said in a similar spirit that the country had not closed the door to negotiations. IRNA cited him as saying: "We should hold talks with the world and European states. The atmosphere of talks should be one that would build confidence on both sides."

In Vienna on February 8, Iran’s envoy to the IAEA downplayed the issue even more, saying at most, the Security Council would call on Iran to continue its cooperation with the UN nuclear agency, but no more.

Ali Asqar Soltanieh went on to say that the council in fact cannot do anything if IAEA Director-General Muhammad el-Baradei’s report on Iran is not presented at the March meeting of the agency’s governing board, IRNA reported. There has been no indication, however, that the report will not be delivered as planned.

Few Friends in Moscow and Beijing

Soltanieh went on to tell IRNA on February 8 that Russia and China oppose Security Council involvement in the issue. But some observers might have reason to doubt Soltanieh’s confidence: Tehran miscalculated by counting on Moscow and Beijing to block its referral.

Nevertheless, it is reasonable for Iran to suggest that, Security Council referral notwithstanding, options still remain.

Officials in Russia and China have stressed they would like to keep the issue under the purview of the IAEA.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said on February 4 the Security Council is simply being notified, RIA Novosti reported.

Ivanov also referred to a planned February 16 meeting with Iranian officials to discuss the possibility of uranium being enriched in Russia, used as fuel in Iran, and then returned back to Russia for reprocessing or storage.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made a similar point on February 6, Interfax reported.

Russian legislator Andrei Kokoshin, who chairs the State Duma CIS Affairs Committee, said on February 8 that Russia and China, as well as India, have not given up on persuading Iran to resolve the situation, Interfax-Military News Agency reported.

Kokoshin emphasized the importance of Iran accepting the Russian nuclear fuel proposal, saying, "It is now important that Tehran makes a final decision on this project as soon as possible."

Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said on February 7 that he hopes for a diplomatic solution, Xinhua reported.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan added on the same day that Beijing hopes to see the crisis resolved through negotiations that take place within the "IAEA framework," and went on to call for "restraint," "patience," and "flexibility," Xinhua reported.

Kong explained China’s vote in favor of the resolution, saying, "We believe this resolution is asking Iran to fulfill its obligations and commitments, but it is not transferring the IAEA’s responsibility on handling the Iran nuclear issue to the UN Security Council."

Kong added that a Foreign Ministry colleague, Zhang Yan, traveled to Tehran on February 1 to discuss Beijing’s stance and expectations.

Iranians Question Foreign Policy

Iran’s leading officials and political figures are united in the desire to master the peaceful use of nuclear energy. There is less unity, however, regarding the diplomatic efforts of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad’s administration.

Hojatoleslam Hassan Rohani, who was secretary of the Supreme National Security Council for 16 years and who still serves on the council as a representative of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was for some time Iran’s top nuclear negotiator.

He made it clear at a February 9 speech in Tehran that he is unimpressed with the current state of affairs.

"Shouting alone will not help us to achieve our goals," he said, according to the Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA).

He added, "To stand up to our enemies, we need a multidimensional, proactive and dynamic strategy."

Rohani recommended widening Iran’s "circle of consultants" -- in other words, bringing in people with better experience, diplomatic skills, and negotiating abilities.

This is not the first time that Rohani has disparaged the diplomatic gaffes of Ahmadinejad’s team.

Rohani and Expediency Council Chairman Ayatollah Ali-Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani raised similar doubts about the executive branch in October, giving voice to the concerns of many Iranians.

And these two are not alone. The National Trust Party, which was established by former Parliament Speaker Hojatoleslam Mehdi Karrubi after the 2005 presidential election, has held several meetings recently to discuss the nuclear issue.

The outcome, National Trust spokesman Ismail Gerami-Moqaddam said in the February 7 "Etemad-i Melli" party newspaper, is that the country can resolve its diplomatic difficulties by turning to elder statesmen like Hashemi-Rafsanjani, Karrubi, and Hojatoleslam Mohammad Khatami, the former president.

National Trust also called for a switch from the policies initiated by the current Supreme National Security Council secretary and chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, to the previous policy of "active diplomacy."

Even before the February 4 IAEA decision, concern in Iran was palpable.

The reformist minority in the legislature met with Hashemi-Rafsanjani on January 31 and urged him to act.

Parliamentarian Mohammad Reza Tabesh said he and his colleagues told Hashemi-Rafsanjani they believed that under the previous administration, the nuclear issue had been developing normally, "Sharq" reported on February 1.

"At a time when an opportunity to reach some agreements was starting to [take] shape, the process was disrupted... and previous strategies were disregarded as new developments unfolded," Tabesh said.

Another prominent reformist, Mohsen Armin of the Mujahedin of the Islamic Revolution Party, also spoke dismissively of Iran’s diplomatic efforts.

"It was perfectly obvious from the start that countries like Russia and China would advertise support for Iran until the last minute to take the greatest possible concessions from America and Europe and ultimately make deals with the two powers and advance their national interests," he said in the February 1 edition of the reformist "Sharq" paper.

Armin said anybody with a basic knowledge of international relations could have figured this out, and added the Ahmadinejad government must adopt the strategies followed by its reformist predecessor.

Concern emanated from the other side of the aisle, as well.

A conservative legislator from Tehran, Mohammad Khoshchehreh, said the country’s diplomacy and crisis management must be reviewed, the reformist paper "Etemad" reported on 1 February. Management should be the primary concern, he said, because this will facilitate threat-reduction efforts.

Khoshchehreh called for amending the "optimistic perspective that believes nothing will happen" and reviewing the "group that speaks in simplistic terms of world affairs." It is simplistic, he continued, to think of Russia and China as Iran’s allies.

http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/pp021106.shtml

Iran: the Other Clock is Ticking

10/02/2006

Amir Taheri

While the world is focused on the clock of Iran’s nuclear programme, the other clock, that of the nation’s domestic politics, is all but ignored by most commentators.
Both clocks have their alarms set.

That of the nuclear clock is expected to ring within the next three to five years, unless something is done to interrupt the military aspects of the programme.

The alarm of the domestic politics clock, however, could be set off within the next few months as the power struggle in Tehran enters a new and more intense phase.

The event to watch is the forthcoming election of a new Assembly of Experts, a body of mullahs whose task is to elect the “Custodian-Theologian”, more commonly known as the “Supreme Guide”, who has virtually unlimited powers under the Khomeinist constitution.

The election, to be completed in April, will not be open to all citizens.

As always in the case of elections in the Islamic Republic all candidates must be approved by the authorities.

And once the results are in, the Council of the Guardians of the Constitution, a body of 12 mullahs, can cancel part or all of them. In other words these elections resemble primaries held inside the same political party.

The dominant group in the current Assembly of Experts consists of mullahs with business interests and old ties to the incumbent “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenehi and the former Presidents Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Muhammad Khatami.

The interest of the coming election is whether or not there will be a change of majority in the assembly. Such a change would be the logical continuation of the presidential election which swept a new generation of radical revolutionaries to power under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

And if change does happen there is no guarantee that the new ruling elite would not want one of its own to become “Supreme Guide”

The common assumption in Tehran is that Khamenehi, the current “Supreme Guide”, will be confirmed in his position at least for the time being.

But, when it comes to Iranian politics, common assumptions often prove wrong.

In last summer’s presidential election, for example, many had expected Rafsanjani to sweep to victory. The more knowledgeable had speculated that Mohsen Qalibaf, a retired police chief and the favoured candidate of Khamenehi, would win. As it turned out , Ahmadinejad won in a landslide.

During the presidential election Khamenehi was astute enough to adjust his tactics. Having backed Qalibaf in the first round he switched to Ahmadinejad in the second. Ahmadinejad, however, feels he owes nothing to Khamenehi.

By putting the focus on the “Hidden Imam” Mahdi as the sole source of power in the Islamic Republic, Ahmadinejad has tried to marginalise the “Supreme Guide.” In many of his speeches he puts the Mahdi ahead of all prophets and claims that he has “ a private personal channel” to the “Hidden Imam.”

Theoretically, only the most learned of the Shi’ite clerics are supposed to be considered for the position of “Supreme Guide”.

In practice, however, not a single senior ayatollah is showing any interest in the job. In fact the overwhelming majority of Shi’ite clerics in Iran now believe that their participation in government was a mistake, and that Khomeini had been more of an ambitious politician than a proper religious leader.

Some senior mullahs want the post of the “ Supreme Guide” abolished and its political responsibilities transferred to the President of the Republic. The religious aspects of the post would then become the responsibility of a five-man council of theologians.

Both Rafsanjani and Khatami had supported that formula, albeit indirectly. And some analysts believe that, had Rafsanjani won, he would have pressed fort the merger of the two top posts of the regime.

The new ruling elite, symbolised by Ahmadinejad, however, appears determind to maintain the post of “Supreme Guide” while divesting it of some of its political and administrative powers. In that context the new elite’s ideological guru, Ayatollah Muhammad-Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi could emerge as the leading candidate for “Supreme Guide”, if and when Khamenehi is forced out.

The contrast between the two men could not be greater.

While Khamenehi was unable to complete his theological studies before the revolution because of frequent spells in the Shah’s prisons, Mesbah-Yazdi steered clear of politics and received on the most sophisticated education that the Shi’ite clergy could offer.

Those who know him claim that he is one of the leading experts in Shi’ite philosophy.

But they also insist that he is a hardliner on social and cultural issues and a feeling of profound contempt for the modern civilisation led by the Western democracies.

Because he didn’t get a chance to train as a mullah, Khamenehi became a politician.

After the revolution he first worked as an aide at Khomeini’s office in charge of distributing cash to needy mullahs throughout the country.

He then became head of he office for military procurement and , later, Deputy Defence Minister under the Lebanese-Iranian militant Mostafa Chamran. In 1989 he caused a surprise when the Assembly of Experts declared him to be “Interim Supreme Guide”, days after Khomeini’s death.

The next assembly turned his “interim” position into a permanent one.
Mesbah-Yazdi, however, has virtually no political experience and, if elected “ Supreme Guide”, might be content with providing Ahmadinejad with clerical cover only and allowing him to run the political show.

Although Mesbah-Yazdi has shunned the limelight he has been at the centre of most debates within the Khomeinist establishment for the past six or seven years, arousing often violent passions both for and against.

The reason is that he is totally against both “taqiyah” (obfuscation) and “kitman” (dissimulation) which have been perfected into veritable arts by the mullahs over the centuries. Thus he often says aloud what most mullahs think in silence.

A disciple of the late Iranian philosopher Ahamd Fardid, Mesbah-Yazdi is full of contradictions. On the one hand he talks of “ the direct link between believers and the Hidden Imam”.
On the other he claims that most believers lack the wisdom to distinguish right from wrong, and thus need to be led and looked after like children.

He speaks of his dream of a universal Islamic state which would lead the way out of the “deadly maze of greed and corruption created by the West”. And yet he insists that non-Shi’ite Muslims are “ deviants” and, as such, cannot participate in the conquest of the world for “true Islam.”

Whatever its outcome the coming election could have a major impact on the course of Iranian politics over the next few years.

If the new radical elite do not win a majority, the old guard, led by Rafsanjani, could forge an alliance with Khamenehi and oust the new guard, led by Mesbah-Yazdi and Ahmadinejad out in the next parliamentary election in two years’ time.

If , on the other hand, the new guard captures control of the Assembly of Experts, it may well launch a major reform of the Islamic Republic’s political structures with the aim of “full mobilisation for the coming clash of civilisations”, as foreseen by Ahmadinejad and Mesbah-Yazdi.

As for the nuclear clock neither the old nor the new guard wish to stop it. But it requires little imagination to see that a nuclear bomb in the hands of messianic luminaries like Ahmadinejad and Mesbah-Yazdi would be more frightening than in the hands of mullahs like Rafsanjani and Khatami with business interests and contacts in the West.

http://aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=2&id=3730

See other articles on the topic at the links below:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VladimirPutinRoundTable/message/343

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VladimirPutinRoundTable/message/344

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VladimirPutinRoundTable/message/345

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http://putinfreakshow.blogspot.com/2006/12/most-important-articles-and-documents.html

In very short:

Although Putin, trying to divert people's focalization on him and at the same time taking the necessary precautions needed in this case (by indirectly accusing the US in RIA Novosti's article: "Cartoonists and Provocateurs" of being responsible for the caricatures' first publication in the Danish press), IMO the caricatures were in fact published at Putin's initiative.

http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20060208/43426558.html

See the judgement below:

In Europe there are two poles: France and the UK, the representatives of the two absolute World poles: Russia and respectively the US, which in their turn are the representatives of the two antagonist systems: socialism and capitalism.

France has published and re-published the original and also new caricatures, while the UK claimed that: These cartoons don't defend free speech they threaten it."

http://www.editorsweblog.org/print_newspapers/2006/02/uk_major_papers_decide_not_to_publish_mo.php
http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoonprotests/story/0,,1705221,00.html

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-02/07/content_4145080.htm

This Islamic turmoil helps Putin first of all to play out time (his specialty) and to postpone all the agreements that he has made with Bush, threatening him at the same time with the unknown. After all, violence can take colossal proportions, although probably Putin himself wouldn't be advantaged by an almost alienating World turmoil, which, as he states, would give too much grist to the US' mill that could rely its anti-Iran war preparations on this scenario.

On the other hand, a war in Iran is a final solution, practically, so Putin doesn't fear that much that it could indeed happen, not so soon, however, especially that this week Putin had a private phone conversation with buddy Bush, at Bush's initiative, where issues like the renewal of the nuclear Cold War in concrete terms have been discussed.

Moreover, caricatures or any other trivial scenarios won't fundamentally change Bush's approach of the Iran issue. If he will opt for war, he will do that anyway, never mind the scenario behind.

Bush's nuclear energetic speech was a sham. In fact the whole nuclear business was that the US, in exchange of "allowing" Russia to endow Iran with the nuclear bomb, wants Putin to make concessions and to allow the US to install nuclear bombs almost under Putin's pillow: in Ukraine for instance (where Putin, on the other hand, insists also a Russian nuclear infiltration himself).

Putin's speech about the "one uranium nuclear center" is a nonsense as well, taking into account that Iran, with the natural resources it owns, is in absolute no need for peaceful nuclear energy.

Hence, Putin's rhetoric about how the World should switch to nuclear energy is no more than a circus play, in the present context gravitating around the Iranian nuclear issue.

Russia needs only one uranium enrichment center - official

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20060208/43431747.html

So the questions that remain are:

-HOW will the two share the World from the nuclear standpoint?

(Uzbekistan, for instance, seems to have voted with Putin: Putin welcomed Uzbekistan into an emerging nuclear alliance )

-But what about Iran? Will the US be allowed to "assist" Iran's nuclear activities side by side with Russia? In other words, will the US deploy its nuclear equipment on Iranian soil as well, sharing Iran's nuclear dream with Russia, or will the fresh US-Russia nuclear deal be just an exchange of territories meant to hold nuclear equipment, deal that stipulates that, from a nuclear point of view, Iran will remain exclusively in Russia's custody?

For instance, Ukraine is clearly a candidate, or I should say a "beneficiary" already, of the US' nuclear military assistance:

The USA to allocate $85 mln to Ukraine

http://en.for-ua.com/news/2006/02/07/123042.html

Senator Richard G. Lugar Address to the UNSC

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0602/S00119.htm

Who's next to fall into the US' and also into Russia's basket, in order to "peacefully" help the two World masters to "promote" the universal "nuclear dream"?

...And the final question: will the US allow Russia to join the WTO, or will it opt for a military solution in Iran instead?

With Bush SR's bloody temper and with so much at stake, I incline to think that despite Putin's struggle to postpone a fatal fate for Iran, the US will, in the end, opt for the second variant, like it did in Iraq, although from that very moment the proverbial "friendship" between the two ex-spies will have no more logical grounds and Bush SR will see himself in the situation to "kiss good bye" the nice energetic gestures Putin has made all these years in the benefit of the US, in the name of a future WTO membership.

Here we'll see if Putin's diplomatic skills can indeed make miracles and save Iran from a military catastrophe.

Moreover, as weird as it might sound, Putin is not the only one interested in Iran's stability, as the "global superpower" might not necessarily fear Russia's multihead defensive missiles allegedly able to cheat any defense shield, as it fears its own potential fuel shortage and inevitable general internal paralisis in front of which it is so vulnerable.

And not negligeable either is that behind the two political titans an Europe hungry for oil and gas awaits being fueled.

While for Putin this wouldn't be quite a stringent problem, especially from the moment the Northern European gas pipeline will become functional, starting a war in Iran would jeopardise the US' own tiny chances to be able to control Europe by energetic means, at least on a relatively short term.

~Vera

Putin’s counterattack over the WTO member states, disguised in Muslim rage

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The key words of the current political trend remain “Iran” and Russia’s “WTO” membership.














After years of peaceful “cooperation” during which Putin only offered and Bush just received, the Bush- Putin chess game has reached the climax.

With Russia deluded for 11 years in joining the World Trade Organization (WTO) and with the US craving bad for the Iranian gas to allow it to re-seize half of Europe, none of the two – Bush or Putin - seem now too eager to make any more concessions.

In essence, Putin seems to play out time on a final decision on Iran, probably in exchange of the US’ backing of Russia’s WTO membership that Bush is not eager to give green light on.

The problem is that one of the two HAS to make the first step.

The question is: Who will be that one?

If Bush OK-s Russia’s WTO membership first, Putin has reached his goal and since then on, he can do whatever he wants (in the limits of the WTO restrictions, of course), fully or partially breaking his previous commitments on Iran. He can delay indefinitely a final decision on Iran’s and hence on Europe’s partition.

The Iranian issue is more complex and, with small steps, Putin goes ahead with the compromises (see Georgia).

Mirroring the situation, a final decision on the Iran-Europe pipeline taken by Putin before Russia joins the WTO, would jeopardize for good Russia’s hopes to gain a seat into the trade organization.

If Putin makes the final step on Iran first, once the US will see its plans fulfilled, it will forget about Putin’s WTO requests and will therefore postpone indefinitely Russia’s accession into the WTO.

Putin has proved that, even if Russia is not a WTO member, he can harm the WTO members (who happen to be close US’ military allies - see Denmark), relying on a simple, even childish scenario, materialized by the Danish caricatures.

Although Putin seems keen to postpone a final decision on the Iran-Europe gas pipeline, his spirit of compromise could exceed our expectations.

In his recondite kind-heartedness, he could go ahead with the US-backed Iranian energy project, hoping that his subsequent fight that would require “terrorists” to damage the Iranian pipeline after its completion, would make Bush to think twice and to back the WTO membership for Russia afterwards.

In my opinion, that would be a wrong calculus, which would simply end the game with a defeat for Russia.

Georgia further departs from Russian influence and the possibility for Georgia of joining NATO is not excluded.

These are steps that Putin makes ahead, easing the US’ awaited partition of Iran and the respective partition of its pipelines scheduled to fuel the US’ half of Europe with fossil energy resources.

Putin does small steps further, in the hope that the US will cede once for all and will give its OK on Russia’s WTO membership.

Meanwhile, the things don’t look so well and peaceful on the planet.

The fact that Putin must put additional pressure on Bush SR, in order to determine him to make up his mind and to observe his commitments, is obvious.

The Arab world is on fire and on fire is also a ferryboat that may jeopardize Mubarak’s image (who heavily backed Putin on the Danish anti-Muslim caricature issue) and could provoke an ugly turmoil in Egypt (Russia’s ally).

Although Bush seems worried over the latest events the Danish caricatures have produced in the Islamic World (see Bush-Putin phone call initiated by Bush), he chooses to respond to Putin’s pressure with pressure, not with concessions.

The only thing that Bush knows and that he probably summoned Putin with, in their phone conversation, is to tell Putin to hurry with the Iranian gas pipeline.

It’s too close to tell if the ferry accident in Egypt was an accident or was an anti-Mubarak scenario staged by the US.

Also it’s too early to tell if the ferry accident in Egypt has anything to do with the boycott of the Danish goods.

Also connecting the boycott of the Danish goods with Putin’s pressures on the US for Russia to be allowed to join the WTO is pure speculation.

The only thing that is pretty clear is that we assist to a political global deadlock that turned into violence and that could last until June at best, a deadlock that could have a happy end for both sides, or could hurt badly Russia, if Putin makes further reckless concessions on Iran;

This deadlock could, at worst, put an end to the fragile “friendship” between Putin and Bush, which was based by now only on Putin’s extreme spirit of sacrifice, rather than on the compromises that both sides should’ve made.

~Vera

See the articles related to this topic at the links below:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VladimirPutinRoundTable/message/339

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VladimirPutinRoundTable/message/340

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The Coffin Already Prepared possibly for both Olmert and comatose Sharon’s Kadima Party

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The violent scenario today in the West Bank does nothing else but to sharply shrink Kadima’s party popularity and eventually to prepare the coffin for Sharon‘s heir Olmert ahead of the elections.

While in Palestine the US’ puppet Abbas still stands, I’m not so sure that the same will happen with Olmert.

Either Olmert the individual will be atomized and pulled out of any governmental structure, or the percents of Kadima centrist party will sharply shrink in the elections set to take place so soon, or both Kadima and Olmert will go to the drain.

Putin will probably have a symbolic presence in the Israeli parliament, same as Fatah has in Palestine.

But the desired US-Russia balance in the Israeli leading class will look rather unbalanced after the elections, with Putin re-withdrawing in his Palestinian shell and waiting for better days that will most likely never come for real.

Sharon’s coma is a dubious story, but definitely the US has sought to remove him from the leading Israeli framework and it did it pretty brutally, whether his coma was a scenario or, worse, the sad truth.

The idea is that Putin loses continuously. While in Iran the only thing that he does is to play out time, with Israel his chess game didn’t come out winning.

While the US openly pledges that it will continue gearing even more engines for defending the “chief of the planet” title, Putin’s speeches are hesitant and over-defensive.

He looks off the beam and consciously seeking for recoil.

The game is not over, but what Putin does and which is more and more obvious is to just postpone the dead end. We, dinosaurs, die, but slowly. This is the slogan.

With Bush brazening out about how he will continue to hunt for Bin Laden in Iraq, Putin’s speech seasoned with sad jokes looks hopeless.

At his annual conference, instead of standing for a more offensive approach in defending his country’s borders and interests, calling for a multipolar World and openly preaching the communism he believes in, Putin cowardly puts his worlds in the Latin American puppets Chavez and Morales’s mouths, meanwhile calling himself a “liberal” who makes reverences in front of Bush SR, selling out Russia to American banks and promising Shtokman and Yuzhnorusskoye gas fields, while, in full World energy depletion crisis, uttering the perplexing phrase: “Russia's energy resources (are) still underrated” (!?).

Everything was ahead of the WTO membership negotiations with the US. Which negotiations? The ones that lasted 11 years? What will Putin do about it? Will he blackmail with Iran? He hardly has the strength to do that.

And then, let’s purely theoretically suppose that Russia will be allowed to join the WTO. What about it? Without Israel and its Jews to help Russia in the World financial games, that piece of paper has no value.

Severely missing the approach of the winner, not even at the basic theoretical and rhetoric levels, Putin can never win even the USSR’s immediate pre-perestroika status.

The snake just drags itself in the puddles, biting from time to time and hiding its cowardly tail from the eyes of the potential aggressors.

At a global scale it just doesn’t work this way. Each day that passes by comes to prove that.

~Vera

See the articles related to this topic at the link below:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VladimirPutinRoundTable/message/338