GlennFrazier.com

If you get the time, you really, really should read the U. S. Army War College's Getting Ready for a Nuclear-Ready Iran, edited by Henry Sokolski and Patrick Clawson and just released last month.

More and more, I've found the headline news links at Glenn Beck's website to be a very good resource. Today I noticed a link there to the World Tribune article, "U.S. Army report: Israel can't stop Iran nukes":

Geopolitical limitations render Israel's air force militarily incapable of halting Iran's nuclear weapons program according to a new report published the by U.S. Army War College.

The report asserts Israel lacks the military capability to locate and destroy Iranian nuclear assets. The report said the Israel Air Force cannot operate at such long distances from its bases.

After reading the article, I went to the amazingly informative and provocative Strategic Studies Institute of the U. S. Army War College, and found the report in question. The download page for the publication has an abstract:

As Iran edges closer to acquiring a nuclear bomb and its missiles extend an ever darker diplomatic shadow over the Middle East and Europe, Iran is likely to pose three threats. First, Iran could dramatically up the price of oil by interfering with the free passage of vessels in and through the Persian Gulf as it did during the l980s or by threatening to use terrorist proxies to target other states’ oil facilities. Second, it could diminish American influence in the Gulf and Middle East by increasing the pace and scope of terrorist activities against Iraq, Saudi Arabia, other Gulf states, Israel, and other perceived supporters of the United States. Finally, it could become a nuclear proliferation model for the world and its neighbors (including many states that otherwise would be more dependent on the United States for their security) by continuing to insist that it has a right to make nuclear fuel under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and then withdrawing once it decides to get a bomb.

The synopsis goes on to comprehensively list the possible U. S. responses, which are quoted completely below, but broken out into a list format:

To contain and deter Iran from posing such threats, the United States and its friends could take a number of steps:

• increasing military cooperation (particularly in the naval sphere) to deter Iranian naval interference;
• reducing the vulnerability of oil facilities in the Gulf outside of Iran to terrorist attacks, building and completing pipelines in the lower Gulf region that would allow most of the non-Iranian oil and gas in the Gulf to be exported without having to transit the Straits of Hormuz;
• diplomatically isolating Iran by calling for the demilitarization of the Straits and adjacent islands, creating country-neutral rules against Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty state members who are suspected of violating the treaty from getting nuclear assistance from other state members and making withdrawal from the treaty more difficult;
• encouraging Israel to set the pace of nuclear restraint in the region by freezing its large reactor at Dimona and calling on all other states that have large nuclear reactors to follow suit;
• and getting the Europeans to back targeted economic sanctions against Iran if it fails to shut down its most sensitive nuclear activities.

You can (and should) directly download the 322 page report in PDF format and read it, if you really want to understand the matters surrounding the crisis we are blithely rushing into with Iran.

From the first chapter of the report itself:

When it comes to Iran’s nuclear program, most U.S. and allied officials are in one or another state of denial. All insist it is critical to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Yet, few understand just how late it is to attempt this. Iran is now no more than 12 to 48 months from acquiring a nuclear bomb, lacks for nothing technologically or materially to produce it, and seems dead set on securing an option to do so. As for the most popular policy options―to bomb or bribe Iran―too few analysts and officials are willing to admit publicly how self-defeating these courses of action might be.

This report, based on commissioned research and 2 years’ worth of meetings with the nation’s leading experts on Iran, the Middle East, and nuclear proliferation, is intended to highlight sounder policy options. It makes seven recommendations designed to reduce the
potential harm Iran might otherwise do or encourage, once it gained
nuclear weapons or the ability to have them in a matter of days. The report reflects analysis done at a series of competitive strategies workshops that focused on the next 2 decades of likely competition between America and Iran and what comparative strengths the United States and its allies might use to leverage Iranian behavior.

Read the rest if you get the time. I'm not (necessarily) endorsing all of the recommendations in the report, but it certainly is one of the more clear and complete examinations of a problem that, frankly, the people of the United States do not appear politically/emotionally prepared to face.

Posted by Mac at 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From the Economic Times of India: "Bomb blasts rock Iran".

Bomb blasts struck Iranian government buildings in the capital of an oil-rich border province, followed within hours by two other bombs in central Tehran, killing nine people, days before presidential elections.

According to the article and other sources, a car bomb was set off outside the Governor's office in Ahvaz, the capital of the Arab-majority province of Khuzestan in southwestern Iran. Additionally, multiple bombs went off in the city's Housing and Planning departments, and a fourth bomb was discovered in a handbag outside the home of the head of the regional TV and radio stations. According to Radio Free Europe and other sources, two bombs also went off about the same time to the north, in Tehran, the nation's capital.

The national government is blaming pro-Saddam Baathists that allegedly entered Iran from the Basra region of Iraq. Local (to Ahvaz) authorities are blaming pro-Arab protestors angry over plans to relocate more Persians to the region in an attempt to eliminate the local majority of Arabs. (Iran is largely a Persian nation, with only a minority of Arabs overall.)

I haven't heard anything from my own scant contacts in the Iranian pro-democracy movement to indicate that there is a direct connection between these seemingly well-coordinated bombings and the upcoming national sham elections being run by the religious council there. As far as I know, the people I know there are not supportive of terrorist methods of revolution.

I also cannot confirm any connection between the timing of the bombings and the protest against gender-apartheid planned for yesterday, 5pm local time, in Tehran, in which Iranian women were planning on gathering and removing required veils as an act of defiance. I'm not even certain if that rally went off as planned, at all.

Folks, I'd like to relaunch the Iranian Liberty Index, but I can't run the operation on my own. I'm looking for possible contributors, and I'm looking at a couple of different editorial and technological means of making contributions possible. Anyone interested, can drop me a comment via this site, or directly via email.

Posted by Mac at 11:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I am constantly fascinated by the symphony of contradictions that is Iran. Case in point: Laleh Seddigh.

This 28 year old woman living in Iran successfully petitioned for the right to compete against men in the sport of auto racing. She is the first woman ever allowed by the theocracy there to compete against men in any sport, and was asked to not excite her women fans and to not wave to the crowd. Ten years ago, women couldn't even watch male sports.

If that wasn't enough, she won. After winning the national competition, however, state-run television refused to broadcast images of her on the winner's dias. Still photographers, happily, captured the moment so the rest of the world can enjoy it nonetheless:

Posted by Mac at 6:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Iranian journalist Hossein "Hoder" Derakhshan recently posted a link to a wonderful site: Women in Iran. The site is run by a relatively new organization of, well, women in Iran, and is dedicated to advancing human rights by giving voice (in Farsi and in English) to the struggle for women's rights in the Islamic Republic. From the site's English translation of the "About Us" section:

The Iranian Women website is trying to open a window, however small, to the life of Iranian women, this always hidden half of our society.� This site, with the slogan of �Women�s Right is Human Right�, tries to tell the story of struggles, issues, and successes of Iranian women, and in this way, would like to shake the hand of all who believe in the social and intellectual equality of women and men.�

They appear to just be starting on the English translation of the site, but what is already available in English is definitely worth your time to visit.

Tomorrow (well, technically, today) is Thanksgiving here in the United States, a time for remembering the good in our lives, and for giving thanks for it. It's commonly said that we do not know what is truly valuable until we have lost it. There's some truth to that, but sometimes it is enough for us to see others who have less than us of something good in order to know that we should be grateful for having it at all.

So I've been looking around, and I've been thinking.

Slavery was an ancient evil, accepted by cultures and governments across the world and down through the millenia, only to be chased from the earth in the last few centuries. Its destruction as an institution was the greatest achievement of its age and one of humanity's greatest achievements ever.

In this age, we are more and more awakening to another ancient stain on humanity's soul. In many cultures and in all ages the role, dignity and value of half our species has been denied and assaulted. Whether "feminine" has been interpreted as "worthless" or merely "less", the abuse and suppression of women has crippled societies and crushed lives. Whether argued as divine revelation or as natural law, the mostly unthinking, widespread acceptance throughout history of the supposed inferiority of women has fouled many of our accomplishments and fed many of our atrocities. If one believes in a just, rational and loving Creator, surely one must know how great and deep an insult it is against the Divine that we have permitted such evil for so long.

Considering the breadth of the world and the depth of history, what progress has currently been made against this ancient iniquity is isolated and so far brief. In many places, now, the equality and value of women is recognized. In the Civilized world, even those who in their hearts do not yet see the worth of women are at least likely to be embarrassed should their neighbors find out their "backwardness". For a short time, in some cultures, a little progress has been made.

You may live in a world in which issues of gender are framed in terms of "equal pay for equal work", "equal access to opportunity" and "empowerment": you are living in the enlightened part of the world. There are many places, in which many millions of women live, in which such discussions have no context, in which women have many rights only through consent of their husbands, in which women may be purchased and sold, in which murdering or raping a woman "for honor" is an accepted tradition.

But there is now an enlightened part of the world. There is civilization. And, as happened in the previous centuries' war against general slavery, those cultures and realms outside of today's definition of civilization will soon relent in their assault on the feminine, whether due to evolution, revolution, or extirpation. The war against slavery is in this sense unfinished...but not abandoned.

Any culture that makes of itself an enemy of its own wives, mothers, and daughters is an enemy of all of civilization. Thankfully, any such culture has but a short time left in this world. Civilization spreads. The denigration of women, like all other evils, will likely exist eternally within the hearts of poor individuals, but its cultural acceptance cannot long stand against the wave of change now breaking upon it. Some cultures will change. Some will end.

It's heartbreaking to look out into the darkness beyond civilization. But, looking out, I can see the light spreading. This year, that is what I am thankful for. I am thankful that humanity is waking up, that civilization is spreading, that the world is, though painfully, becoming a better place.

On a more personal level, I am thankful for the women in my life. Each one has been a gift, right down to the most recent of all, my new little daughter. Most particularly, that my daughter will grow up free from fear of slavery, fully in charge of her own rights and person, in a culture in which such is simply assumed, is something I am most thankful for indeed.

Posted by Mac at 12:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)