Salmiya

The realities in international chess-playing Iran are analyzed today by Bernard Avishai and Reza Aslan for the Washington Post . While the notorious Bush Administration seems to be less willing in its last days to launch an attack on nuclear facilities in Iran, Israel still tackles the pros and cons. The arguments again and again circulate around the Iranian President and his unacceptable rhetoric. But that wiping-off-the-map ado has long been debunked as an intentionally wrong translation of a president’s not really diplomatic show-off who is not really the leader of the country. As Avishai and Aslan correctly state, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who alone commands Iran’s military and dictates foreign policy, has adopted a much softer tone with regard to nuclear negotiations with the West. Through his Vice President Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie, a close confidant of the President, the US was described recently as “one of the best nations in the world”. “Today, Iran is frien...

There is a lot of talk about a missed deadline these days when it comes to Iran’s nuclear issue. On July 19, the 5+1 talks with Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili took place with a surprise appearance of William J. Burns, America’s new Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. Unfortunately, he was not supposed to take part in the discussions. But anyhow, the mere fact that he listened to the Iranian standpoints was quite a sensation after almost 30 years of the American-Iranian ice age. The talks had been characterized as very constructive by both parties although the 5+1 did not get a definite answer with regard to their rather generous offer in case of freezing the uranium enrichment by the Iranians. According to Reuters, Javier Solana and Saeed Jalili agreed upon further telephone contacts within the next two weeks or so. There was no deadline set or mentioned. A self-fulfilling prophecy: that is what most observers expected when Burns had been sent to Geneva. Let hi...

No ‘green light’, of course. Amber means, go ahead with your preparations. Even worse is that President G. W. Bush has told the Israeli government “that he may be prepared to approve a future military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities if negotiations with Tehran break down”, TimesOnline is quoting a senior Pentagon offical today . This is despite Bush’s own generals’ reservation as regards foreseeable disastrous military, political, and economic consequences of a new adventure in the Middle East. Running out of time for a President of the sole superpower can definitely not be a good reason for Israel of waging war on Iran. There are hardly believable rumors even saying that the last time window for destroying nuclear plants in Natanz, Esfahan or Arak is after the U.S. presidential election on November 2, 2008 and before adjuration of the elected President on January 20, 2009. That would, in fact, be hijacking the elected President’s own initiatives. Completely bizarre and irrational....

"The attack was especially dramatic because the Israelis used bright magnesium illumination flares to light up the target before the bombing. Night suddenly turned into day." Seymour Hersh has given an interview to Al Jazeera about his investigation of the September 6, 2007 Israeli bombing of a Syrian site long suspected of being nuclear. On Monday next week, his article will be published in The New Yorker . What was actually the meaning of that air strike doesn’t become clear at all. IAEA DG Mohamed ElBaradei expressed his frustration after the strike, saying: “If a country has any information about a nuclear activity in another country, it should inform the I.A.E.A.—not bomb first and ask questions later.” But there wasn’t a nuclear facility to be built. There wasn’t any construction site for producing chemical warfare. There were North Korean workers, but most probably they were engaged in constructing missiles. One possible reason for Bashar al-Assad better keeping pret...