Narco Politics

The British alternative is what? More civilian deaths from air strikes?

British diplomat opposes legalized Afghan poppy crop

Britain’s top diplomat in Canada has dismissed a poll, commissioned by the international think-tank that is championing the legalization of Afghanistan’s contentious opium poppy crop, which shows that Canadians overwhelmingly support for the use of Afghan opium for medicinal purposes.

Cary was responding to the release of an Ipsos Reid survey of 1,000 Canadians, conducted on behalf of the Senlis Council, which found that nearly eight in 10 Canadians (79 per cent) want Prime Minister Stephen Harper to get behind an international pilot project that would help transform Afghanistan’s illicit opium cultivation into a legal source for codeine, morphine and other legitimate pain medications for the international market.

Oh so you could do it just that after six years you don't have the infrastructure.....right-o that's why Harper sent our troops into the Opium Fields. The effectiveness of the Provincial Reconstruction Teams can be measured in opium production.

Cary noted that while opium production has been licensed in such places as Thailand and Turkey, it took 15 years to achieve such a system. Afghanistan simply lacks the infrastructure and regulatory framework to cultivate opium legally and to keep it out of the hands of drug dealers, he said.

And for the British who created this problem in the 19th Century in order to expand their Empire to be telling us they oppose legalization, well that is a bit rich isn't it. They have a history of creating infrastructure and regulations for opium production.

It was not until the British Empire started organizing and commercializing opium production in the 19th century that the opium poppy became entrenched in the world economy. The opium produced in British India was the first drug to become integrated into the then emerging globalization.

Tea, which was then only grown in China, was bought by British merchants with silver extracted from South American mines.

This triangular trade went on at least until the British Empire, together with the East India Company it had set up, created a thriving opium market in China, first through illegal smuggling and then through forced imports.

The two so-called “opium wars” (1839-1842 and 1856-1860) waged by the British to impose their opium trade onto China resulted in “unfair treaties” that not only made Hong Kong a British colony but also provoked, in China, the biggest addiction ever to happen in world history.

Chickens, home, roost.

And after all this is a British problem, which they created back then and again today in Afghanistan.

Britain is stoned at home and sold out in Helmand

The vast increase in opium poppy farming in Afghanistan is indicative of an inability to grasp a basic law of economics

The British government for sure knows how to do one thing. It knows how to help farmers in need. Since it arrived in Afghanistan in 2001 and was put in charge of the staple poppy crop, ministers have spent hundreds of millions of pounds on promoting it. On Monday the United Nations announced the result. Poppy production in Afghanistan has soared since the invasion, this year alone by 34%. The harvest in the British-occupied protectorate of Helmand rose by 50% in 12 months. This is a dazzling triumph for agricultural intervention.

Ministers may deny this was their policy, but they cannot be that inept. They faced a heroin epidemic at home. Suddenly finding themselves charged with controlling almost all the world's opium production, they must have known what they were doing. By alienating farmers and forcing them into the arms of the Taliban, they would drive up illicit production and encourage oversupply. While that would increase heroin consumption in Britain in the short term, as it has done, oversupply would eventually cause prices to collapse. At that point, the British policy of "poppy substitution" with wheat and other crops would start to bite and supply would be stifled. What happened when that stifling drove prices back up again was someone else's concern.

I cannot think of any less daft explanation for a policy that otherwise defies every law of economics. Kim Howells, the Foreign Office minister responsible for flooding British streets with cheap heroin, may squabble with his American colleagues over whether poppy eradication is better than substitution, but one thing is certain. Since Nato arrived in Afghanistan, opium has become to the local economy what oil is to a Gulf state. It is roughly 60% of the domestic product and 90% of exports, with productivity per hectare rising by the year.

Those into conspiracy theories might be forgiven for thinking this might also be a policy of the CIA to destabilize Iran by increasing the number of heroin addicts in that country.

Despite US suspicions, Iran - which has one of the world's highest drug addiction rates - argues that it has legitimate interests in combating the influx of heroin and opiates from the poppy fields of Afghanistan. More than 3,000 Iranian police and security personnel have been killed in clashes with drug smugglers along the Afghan border since 1979.

Legalization would of course cure this problem by recognizing drug addiction as a medical problem, a curse of capitalism, rather than a crime.

The year 2009 will mark the centennial of the Shanghai Opium Conference, the first world-wide agreement on the reduction of opium use and production. China, then still an extremely poor feudal nation, was spending most of its foreign exchange on opium it imported through British traders. The British sold their cheap Indian Opium for pure silver to the Chinese, and had almost two centuries of opium fortune-making behind them. The fledgling United States of America tried to conquer a share of the profits in this lavish market, at a time when prohibitionist ideas about alcohol and opium control were expanding all over the globe. It was time for the American Disease to be born.

But don't expect support for that from Bush or Harper. They represent the traditional prohibitionist culture of social conservative Christians. The folks who oppose heroin legalization used to oppose the 'demon rum'.

In later analyses of the history of drug and alcohol controls other names for the American Disease have been coined. The most appropriate one, not tied to any nationality per se, is the 'Temperance Movement'. It was comprised of a collective of local movements prevalent in a group of nations. Later these nine nations would be identified as a special group, the nations where the temperance culture would endorse far reaching control policies in the attempt to regulate medical and recreational drugs. The global impact of these temperance cultures has varied from almost nothing to considerable.

Meanwhile it is telling that not only are Afhgani's the largest producers of opium they are also its victims.

Afghanistan is hooked on opium. The drugs trade has become the largest employer, its biggest export and the main source of income in a land devastated by decades of war. Opium is grown on 10 per cent of the farmland and employs 13 per cent of the population as labourers, guards and transport workers.

The ubiquity of the drug has now created the world's worst domestic drug problem, a crisis threatening to engulf any hope of economic revival. The first nationwide survey on drug use, by the Afghan Ministry of Counter-Narcotics and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, estimated that one million in this nation of 30 million were addicts, including 100,000 women and 60,000 children.

Defending the rights of Afghani women and children, the mantra of the Harpocrites used to justify their warmongering. And their war efforts have resulted in increased addictions amongst women and children. That surely is a measure of success of this mission.




SEE:

Two Canadians In Afghanistan

Say It Ain't So

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Opiate Of The Masses

Iran suffers from being the conduit for Afghanistan opium and heroin. It more than any other country is directly affected by the increased narcotic production in Afghanistan.

While the Canadian media hyped the latest UN Drug Report on the increased opium production in Afghanistan quoting the RCMP claim that we are getting more heroin from there than from the old Golden Triangle.

The Golden Triangle; Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, etc. was the result of the CIA's involvement with black ops there during the Viet Nam war as Afghanistan production is a result of CIA involvement during the anti-Soviet offensive. The fact remains that NATO and American operations against opium production in Afghanistan have been a failure because they have no real alternative to the value of this agricultural product a historic crop in the region. A product first used by British Imperialism to spread its power through out Asia in the 19th Century.

However, in Afghanistan as in other parts of the world, in Burma for example, opium has long been at stake in armed conflicts as its trade has allowed these conflicts to be prolonged. As the complex history of opium in Asia demonstrates, opium production and trade have been central to world politics and geopolitics for centuries and the role of the opium economy in Afghanistan does not represent a new trend. In many ways, history reinvents itself.

It was not until the British Empire started organizing and commercializing opium production in the 19th century that the opium poppy became entrenched in the world economy. The opium produced in British India was the first drug to become integrated into the then emerging globalization. Tea, which was then only grown in China, was bought by British merchants with silver extracted from South American mines. This triangular trade went on at least until the British Empire, together with the East India Company it had set up, created a thriving opium market in China, first through illegal smuggling and then through forced imports. The two so-called “opium wars” (1839-1842 and 1856-1860) waged by the British to impose their opium trade onto China resulted in “unfair treaties” that not only made Hong Kong a British colony but also provoked, in China, the biggest addiction ever to happen in world history. Eventually, opium consumption and addiction also spurred tremendous opium production in China. In response to the Chinese national consumption that drained its silver reserves, China became the world’s foremost opium producer.

This trend emerged first in Laos and in Burma, then in Afghanistan in what came to be known as the Golden Crescent. In both Southeast and Southwest Asia, the Central Intelligence Agency’s anti-Communist covert operations and secret wars benefited from the participation of some drug-related combat units or individual actors who, to finance their struggles, were directly involved in drug production and trade. To cite just two, the Hmong in Laos and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar in Afghanistan.

Today, Afghanistan’s opium production is the direct outcome of Cold War rivalries and conflicts waged by proxies who helped develop a thriving narcotic economy in the country. Afghanistan has been the world’s leading opium-producing country for years now, with Burma and Laos ranking second and third respectively.

And NATO has not engaged the Iranians in controlling the border and transit points used by the opium producers in Afghanistan. And they will continue to fail until they engage the Iranians as allies in the fight against opium.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is a major transit route for opiates smuggled from Afghanistan and through Pakistan to the Persian Gulf, Turkey, Russia, and Europe. The largest single share of opiates leaving Afghanistan (perhaps 60 percent) passes through Iran to consumers in Iran itself, Russia and Europe. There is no evidence that narcotics transiting Iran reach the United States in an amount sufficient to have a significant effect. There are some indications that opium poppy cultivation is making a comeback in Iran, after a long period during which poppy cultivation was negligible. There are an estimated 3 million opiate abusers in Iran, with 60 percent reported as addicted to various opiates and 40 percent reported as casual users. With record levels of opium production right next door in Afghanistan, the latest opiate seizure statistics from Iran continue to suggest Iran is experiencing an epidemic of drug abuse, especially among its youth.

And contrary to the RCMP reports in the press, the United States government report above states that NO Afghani opium is getting into North America. Now do ya think the RCMP may be doing a bit of PR for their pal the PM to justify his war in Afghanistan?

NATO has relied upon American forces practicing large scale opium field eradication supported by air strikes which has led to large scale civilian deaths and friendly fire deaths to NATO forces.

Joanna Nathan
International Crisis Group analyst

Aerial eradication of poppies is not the solution. While some ground-based manual eradication is important as a stick, to discourage particularly new growers, it hits the poorest hardest. Aerial eradication can be too indiscriminate and would enrage a large sector of the population possibly driving them into the arms of the insurgents. On the other hand the proposal to license opium for medicinal use is unfeasible at this stage. Most of the drugs grown in Afghanistan are in Helmand which they haven't been able to stop when it is completely illegal. How would you then insert a massive licensing bureaucracy there and stop those who continue to grow for the black market? The price differentials would be so large there would be no incentive to grow for a licensed market.

The American war on opium production, like the rest of its Afghanistan mission, has been a failure, since it is America's allies in Helmand Province that turn out to be the opium producers themselves.

Eradication in Helmand

This season, the governor of Helmand asked the AEF to eradicate in Helmand. Despite making progress due to the AEF's heavy use of mechanized eradication, insecurity and waning political will hindered the AEF's efforts. Helmand will likely continue to be Afghanistan's largest opium cultivating province. Any future eradication strategy for Helmand needs to first account for security and political will.

It should be noted that 75% of the opium poppy cultivation in Helmand is new cultivation that did not exist two years ago. By definition, then, at least 75% of the poppy in Helmand is not being grown by poor farmers who lack licit economic alternatives-two years ago these farmers were doing something else.

In other words, the vast majority of the poppy in Helmand is not being grown by poor farmers who have been growing poppy for generations and lack economic alternatives. The reality is that cultivation has expanded rapidly in the past two years as opportunists have scrambled to exploit Helmand's lawlessness for profit. Many of Helmand's poppy growers are wealthy land-owners, corrupt officials, and other opportunists. Helmand's land is fertile; infrastructure and access to markets is good, and alternatives to poppy are available. Moreover, if Helmand were a country, it would be the fifth largest recipient of U.S. development aid in the world, having received over $270 million in USAID funds in recent years. Opium poppy grown by wealthy land-owners and corrupt officials funds the insurgency. There is no reason to avoid eradicating their poppy fields aggressively.

SEE:

Two Canadians In Afghanistan

Say It Ain't So

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Wolfowitz Timetable

After a month long pout of misplaced indignation, Paul Wolfowitz has declared a time table for his voluntary withdrawal from the World Bank. Now how about a time table for withdrawal from Iraq.

Staff group says Wolfowitz should leave before planned date of June 30

After all no one is claiming the World Bank would be thrown into chaos after he withdraws. Unlike the excuses for staying in Iraq; we made a bad situation worse but it might get even worse if we leave.

"This is a prescription for chaos and confusion and we must not impose it on our troops," Bush said in a nationally broadcast statement from the White House.

And then there is the irony of this.....

Meanwhile, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday that Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has offered the US Tehran’s cooperation in developing an exit strategy from Iraq.

It quoted Araghchi as saying the US and Iran had the same interests in a stable Iraq and that direct talks leading to a “face-saving withdrawal” were possible. “(The US-led) invasion was a disaster — let there not be a disastrous withdrawal,” he told the newspaper in an interview.

“Yes, immediate withdrawal could lead to chaos, civil war. No one is asking for immediate withdrawal of foreign forces. But there should be a plan,” he said.

Take it, take it just like Wolfowitz had to because it could have been much worse, sort of like the current American surge in Iraq.

Wolfowitz's negotiated departure averted what threatened to become a bitter rupture between the United States and its economic partners at an institution established after World War II. The World Bank channels $22 billion in loans and grants a year to poor countries.

By all accounts, the terms of Wolfowitz's exoneration left a bitter taste with most of the 24 board members, who represent major donor countries, as well as clusters of smaller donor and recipient countries. Most had wanted to adopt the findings of the special board committee that determined he had acted unethically on the matter of Riza.

Also angered was the bank's staff association, which had called for Wolfowitz's resignation in early April. The bank's internal blogs were filled with denunciations of the action on Thursday evening.

Late in the evening, the association issued a statement saying, "Welcome though it is, the president's resignation is not acceptable under the present arrangement," and that it "completely undermines the principles of good governance and the principles that the staff fight to uphold."

Many European officials previously indicated that they would go along with the United States' picking a successor if Wolfowitz would resign voluntarily, as he now has.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr. said Thursday that he would "consult my colleagues around the world" before recommending a choice to Bush, in what seemed to be an effort to assure allies that the United States would not repeat what happened in 2005 when Bush surprised them by selecting Wolfowitz, then a deputy secretary of defense and an architect of the Iraq war.

SEE

Criminal Capitalism: Office Romance

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India Not Iran The Nuclear Threat

India is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) but Iran is. Making India a far more dangerous nuclear power.

An Indonesian passenger jet was forced to turn around over Indian airspace after a nuclear-capable ballistic missile streaked across the sky, the Foreign Ministry said Friday, demanding an explanation from New Delhi.

But the outrage will be muted since India is America's new nuclear ally.

And amongst the conspiracy mongers in the Middle East this will be seen as a covert threat against Muslims by Hindus.

And like North Korea these tests show that India's ability to deliver nuclear weapons is still limited.

New Delhi: India's showpiece nuclear capability, the Agni-III was successfully test fired on Thursday. But behind the glitter of this success lies a money-guzzling missile programme which has dragged on for 24 years and still counting.

After a national investment of Rs 1,700 crore over a period of 24 years, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has the Prithvi, the Agni and other missile celebrities to flaunt.

What the organisation set out to do and promised to develop by 1995 also included the Akash, the Nag and the Trishul.

Despite a time overrun of 12 years and a cost overrun of almost Rs 1,400 crore, completion of these projects is still nowhere in sight.

The success of the nuclear-capable Prithvi and the Agni series has created a semblance of assurance in the face of technology denials. But there's a worry here as well: insufficient testing

Major powers have tested their strategic missile hundreds of times to demonstrate their reliability. But the Agni series of missiles - the mainstay of India's nuclear deterrence - have been declared operational on the basis of just three tests each.

So, should the world believe that India has a reliable delivery system for its nuclear weapons? Opinion is divided.

See:

No Nukes

Did Nuke Cause Earth Quake

North Korea Discovers TNT

Nyah, Nyah

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Goldbug

Now this is either a good reason (for investors) to invade Iran or a very bad reason to invade.....

United States Invasion of Iran Could Put Gold Over $1,000



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Poll Predicts War On Iran

It's a good thing that the Bush White House doesn't develop its policies and strategies based on polling. American Majority Predicts War with Iran


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Iran


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Did They Or Didn't They

Was a Iranian nuclear scientist assassinated by Israel? Or is this another disinformation campaign?

Radio Farda, which is funded by the US State Department and broadcasts to Iran, reported that nuclear physicist Ardeshire Hassanpour, 44, had died in mysterious circumstances.

Whose lying here, and why?

Israeli Mossad ‘assassinates’ Iran’s N-scientist

Tehran denies reports on scientist's "assassination"

Was it just an accident, that resulted from the push for rapid development of nuclear power in Iran, which is fraught with danger. Haste makes waste....of nuclear plant workers. And the Iranian government is covering up a nuclear accident.

Is the U.S. is using an accident to create a disinformation campaign that Israel was capable of assassination in Iran to destalize the regime. Since Israel has assassinated nuclear scientists before.


A senior nuclear physicist involved in Iran's nuclear program who died under mysterious circumstances two weeks ago was killed by the Mossad, according to a report released in a U.S. website this weekend. The website - Stratfor.com - features intelligence and security analysis by former U.S. intelligence agents.

Read between the lines.

See:

Iran

Israel




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Iran Arrests Women Bloggers

Iran censors feminist blogs and arrests the bloggers. Outrageous.

Once again Iran shows why monotheistic religion and Theocracy is an anathema to womens freedom and liberation.

And why identity politics in the West like this article are anti-feminist and anti-liberation despite their assertions to the contrary.

As I have said before Womens Struggle for Liberation is Class Struggle.

Three women's rights activists and journalists were arrested at Tehran's Imam Khomeini Airport en route to a journalism workshop in India and now face prosecution. Two of the three, Talat Taghinia and Mansoureh Shojai write for online journal Zanestan (which translates to "City of Women"), an Iranian web-based journal that advocates for women's rights. The third woman, Farnaz Seify, runs a popular feminist blog, farnaaz.com.

In early June, Zanestan -- an Iran-based online journal -- announced a rally in Haft Tir Square, one of Tehran’s busiest, to protest legal discrimination suffered by Iranian women. The demonstration was also called to commemorate two landmark events in women’s struggle for equality in Iran. The first was the Constitutional Revolution of 1906, when women agitated for emancipation. The second was the June 12, 2005 women’s rally for revision of the constitution of the Islamic Republic. According to Zanestan, the June 12, 2006 reprise would raise specific demands: a ban on polygamy, equal rights to divorce for women and men, joint custody of children after divorce, equal rights in marriage, an increase in the minimum legal age of marriage for girls to 18, and equal rights for women as witnesses. The protesters would call, in other words, for redress of the gender inequalities embedded in the dominant interpretations of Islamic law upon which the constitution is based.

See

Nazanin

Class War In Iran

Islam And Class War

Anti Islamism Manifesto

The Need for Arab Anarchism

The War Against Women

Feminism

Censorship

Iran




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Israeli Rabbi Says Wipe Out Arabs

I wonder if this comment will generate the same world wide outrage and denounciation as comments made by the President of Iran.

The spiritual leader of Israel's ultra-orthodox Shas party, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, has provoked outrage with a sermon calling for the annihilation of Arabs."It is forbidden to be merciful to them. You must send missiles to them and annihilate them. They are evil and damnable," he was quoted as saying in a sermon delivered on Monday to mark the Jewish festival of Passover. Rabbi Yosef is one of the most powerful religious figures in Israel, He is known for his outspoken comments and has in the past referred to the Arabs as "vipers".

And while there are apologists attempting to excuse his comments let us not forget that in Israel the law is too stike ones enemies first.

The Iranian nuclear threat is uppermost in the minds of many Israelis and Jews around the world who care for their coreligionists living in Israel . However, it seems that the case for a preemptive strike against Iran has not been properly made. From a Jewish legal standpoint it is clear according to Halacha (Jewish law) one must rise first and strike a person who clearly intends to deliver one a fatal blow.

Even if that threat is only 'percieved' and not a real one. Such was the case of Israels attack in the past on Iraq. An act that was a violation of international law.

And with the ramping up of politics of fear, which is what the War on Terror really is, Israelis are getting an itchy trigger finger.

Israel’s powerful deterrent is continually being downplayed by those who insist that the Israeli state is essentially as vulnerable as the Jews of Europe were in 1939.

Of the dozens of articles and speeches which express that fear, one stands out. It is by Benny Morris, one of Israel's top historians who made his name by exploring the origins of the Palestinian refugee problem. He is no right-winger (although he has moved rightward lately) which makes his words especially significant.

In an essay in the "Jerusalem Post," called "This Holocaust Will Be Different," Morris offers this prediction.

"One bright morning, in five or 10 years, perhaps during a regional crisis, perhaps out of the blue, a day or a year or five years after Iran's acquisition of the Bomb, the mullahs in Qom will convene in secret session, under a portrait of the steely-eyed Ayatollah Khomeini, and give President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, by then in his second or third term, the go-ahead.

"The orders will go out and the Shihab III and IV missiles will take off for Tel Aviv, Beersheba, Haifa and Jerusalem, and probably some military sites, including Israel's half dozen air and (reported) nuclear missile bases….

"With a country the size and shape of Israel (an elongated 20,000 square kilometers), probably four or five hits will suffice: No more Israel. “

The most distressing part of Morris's analysis (or prophecy) is its utter fatalism. “America will do nothing. Iran will get the bomb. Iran will use it on Israel. Israel will be destroyed. It's all inevitable.”

But Israel may not have to go it alone as the United States has ramped up its rhetorical hysteria over Iran in preparation for a potential attack, either by it or Israel.

Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday, Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national security adviser in the Carter administration, delivered a scathing critique of the war in Iraq and warned that the Bush administration’s policy was leading inevitably to a war with Iran, with incalculable consequences for US imperialism in the Middle East and internationally.

The United States is planning what will be a catastrophic attack on Iran. For the Bush cabal, the attack will be a way of "buying time" for its disaster in Iraq. In announcing what he called a "surge" of American troops in Iraq, George W. Bush identified Iran as his real target. "We will interrupt the flow of support [to the insurgency in Iraq] from Iran and Syria," he said. "And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq."

Like WMD the evidence of Iranian involvement in Iraq is also suspect.

Evidence is still inconclusive on Iran involvement in Iraq

Bush administration officials acknowledged Friday that they had yet to compile evidence strong enough to back up publicly their claims that Iran is fomenting violence against U.S. troops in Iraq.

Administration officials have long complained that Iran was supplying Shiite Muslim militants with lethal explosives and other materiel used to kill U.S. military personnel. But despite several pledges to make the evidence public, the administration has twice postponed the release — most recently, a briefing by military officials scheduled for last Tuesday in Baghdad.

As far as Tehran's involvement in Iraq is concerned, Lionel Beehner of the Council on Foreign Relations wrote Wednesday that " enormous controversy" still swirls around the issue of Iranian influence.

...much of the evidence the United States cites as proof of Iranian involvement remains secret and in some cases is disputed by the Iraqi government, too. This has created an uncomfortable analogy to the period before the Iraq invasion, when secret intelligence ultimately discredited pushed the United States toward war.

With the Real Politick of Fear, evidence does not matter to Israel of the United States, the mere use of pompous rhetoric and inflamatory statements by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is being used as an excuse to prepare for war with Iran by chicken hawks in both countries.

When Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared last week at the Herzliya conference that Israel could not risk another "existential threat" such as the Holocaust, he was repeating what has become the dominant theme in Israel's campaign against Iran – that it cannot tolerate an Iran with the technology that could be used to make nuclear weapons, because Iran is fanatically committed to the physical destruction of Israel. The internal assessment by the Israeli national security apparatus of the Iranian threat, however, is more realistic than the government's public rhetoric would indicate. Since Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to power in August 2005, Israel has effectively exploited his image as someone who is particularly fanatical about destroying Israel to develop the theme of Iran's threat of a "second Holocaust" by using nuclear weapons. But such alarmist statements do not accurately reflect the strategic thinking of the Israeli national security officials. -antiwar

As usual what is forgotten is that the President of Iran does not run Iran, like the President of the United States runs America. He is only one voice which is controled by the Mullahs and their councils.

The Baltimore Sun, in an editorial : "Iran is hardly a monolithic, march-in-step country; everything Iranian is not evil. But that's a hard sell to make in Washington...Iran's interests, in fact, are in some ways parallel to America's. Iran would not benefit from an Iraqi collapse into total anarchy, or from a wider sectarian war. Right now, Iran and the Sunni regime of Saudi Arabia, one of America's traditional allies in the region, have been trying to mediate a settlement in Lebanon.

The fact that this whole issue arose from Irans need to develop nuclear energy, not a bomb, in order to expand its infrastructure is completely lost in the whole chicken little reaction that nuclear energy = nuclear weapon. It is a deliberate obfustication of what Iran wants, which is nuclear power contracts like Pakistan and India have, not weapons, but access to nucelar technology and uranium.

They need an alternative energy source to grow their capitalist infrastructure since their domestic reliance on gas and oil is now restricted because of export demand.

At the meeting with Secretary of the Russian Security Council Igor Ivanov in Tehran over the past weekend, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said: "Our countries could set up an OPEC-type organization on gas cooperation."

Judging from the initial response, the majority of analysts think that this proposal is rooted in politics rather than economics.

This is not the first time the idea has been put forward. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad offered to Russian President Vladimir Putin at their meeting in Shanghai in June 2006 to establish what he described as cooperation "in fixing gas prices, and major flows in the interests of global stability."

Indicatively, the same idea was discussed during the recent Algerian visit of Viktor Khristenko, Minister of Industry and Energy: Algeria and Qatar could join the two countries. The resources of this potential cartel are very impressive - they account for more than 30% of the world's gas production, and their aggregate proven reserves exceed 60% of the total, which is comparable to OPEC's respective share in the global oil reserves - about 68%. The would-be cartel could include other members as well.

Malaysia has warned it will drop free trade talks with the US if it is asked to scrap a multi-billion-dollar gas deal with Iran, a news report said yesterday.

US House of Representatives' Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos has urged the suspension of negotiations to forge a free trade agreement with Malaysia until it halts a US$16 billion deal to develop gas fields in southern Iran.

The proposition of war with Iran is saber rattling by Israel and America, because their very visible military failures in Lebanon and Iraq have given strength to their regional enemies, which have increased not decreased thanks to Bush's War On Terror.

Now they must strike back, at least rhetorially, ramping up the threat that they will take unilateral action. Whether that threat will come to pass is another question. But it bodes ill for any resolution to the crisis of Middle East. Chickens, home, roost.

See:

Oil the New Silk Road

US Declares Economic War On Iran

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SDA a year late

Kate at SDA discovers Nazanin Afshin-Jam campaign to free an Iranian girl from a death sentence, a year late and a dollar shy. Canada's Most Relevant Womens Rights Activist

I reported on this last June when the MSM missed the press confernce Nazanin held on Parliament Hill with women MP's from all parties raising the issue of her namesake in Iran being sentenced to death for defending herself and her cousin from rapists.

And shock of shocks Kate also says something nice about Belinda Stronach.

Of course thats a cheeky headline, denying that there are other relevant womens rights activists in Canada but what do you expect from a rightwhingnutbar. Most of the Blogging Tories have ignored this important campaign.

And while she praises Nazanin Afshin-Jam and Belinda I wonder how much Kate donated for Nazanin Fateh's release. Since this is the first time she even bothered to blog about this important Canadian initiated campaign. Put money where mouth is.

Islamic Court Frees Iranian Teen From Death Sentence
CNW Telbec (Communiqués de presse), Canada - 5 hours ago
31 /CNW/ -- After two grueling years in prison, Iranian teen Nazanin Fatehi was released today and spared from her original death sentence following an ...
Former Miss Canada helps free jailed Iranian teen CBC British Columbia
Canadian-led campaign wins Iran teen's freedom Toronto Star
Islamic Court in Iran Spares Teenage Girl From Death Penalty

What is important to remember about this campaign is not just that it was about sexism of Sharia law in Iran but also about racism in Iran. Nazanin Fatehi is Kurdish.


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