Making Plutonium, Secretly & Openly

European diplomats have indicated that Iran is now willing to allow inspections of its sensitive Arak heavy water reactor. These rumors are reported by Press TV, still a step short of official Iranian confirmation. It would do no harm to laud Iran’s cooperation and suggest an Israeli or Pakistani quid pro quo. If true, this encourages Iran; if false, this pressures Iran. Seize the moment.

According to an ISIS summary,

Iran’s heavy water production plant was commissioned in August 2006. The location of this facility was first revealed publicly by the opposition group, NCRI, in August 2002. Iranian officials speaking at a March 5-6, 2005 conference in Tehran said that the first stage of the plant was operating. As of 2008, imagery of the heavy water production plant analyzed by the IAEA indicates that it is operating.

Under traditional safeguards, heavy water production facilities are not subject to IAEA safeguards or inspection. Under the IAEA Additional Protocol, however, they are subject to declarations and complementary access. Because Iran does not adhere to the Additional Protocol, the IAEA monitors the status of the facility via satellite imagery.

Beneath the Surface

We may wish the NNP had been written with more care, but if “traditional safeguards” do not cover heavy water production facilities, we cannot blame Iran for refusing to grant coverage for nothing. Rather than condemning Iran, when nuclear Israel offers no transparency at all, effort to determine Iran’s price should be made. Logically, mutual Iran-Israeli inspections would seem a reasonable price.

What kind of inspections would be significant?

The Press TV report refers only to the reactor (still under construction), not the heavy water production plant (working).

Israel, Pakistan, North Korea, India, the U.S., and Russia have, according to Wikipedia, all used heavy water reactors to produce plutonium

The visit reportedly occurred a week ago, but the IAEA is not talking. Why the secrecy? Is Ahmadinejad embarrassed?

Is there a standard procedure (yes, I am joking) for inspecting plutonium production facilities around the world? Well, whether a country joins the NPT or not, might this be a reasonable idea, with sanctions? There really is not much purpose in creating plutonium except to permanently poison some portion of the biosphere.

Iranian Opposition Takes Initiative

The Iranian opposition seems suddenly bolder, their use of legal channels more sophisticated, and public discourse more outspoken in challenging the regime.

On August 19, Deputy chief of Karroubi’s Etemade Melli (the National Confidence Party) Rasool Montajabnia effectively challenged the new head of Iran’s Judiciary to serve as the defender of democracy:

Failure of law enforcement authorities to respect the law themselves would only encourage some officials to continue their illegal and ugly practices.

In case his point was missed, the Mehr News report added the following explanation:

Elsewhere, Montajabnia referred to actions by plain clothes, attacking demonstrators who protested the results of the June 12 election including a night attack on Tehran University dormitory, urging the Judiciary chief to bring to justice the perpetrators of such acts.

Recalling the unfortunate death of detainees in the notorious Kahrizak prison and the conditions of detention centers, Montajabnia said, “All detention centers should come under the close supervision of the Judiciary to prevent repeat of such ugly incidents in the future.

In spite of the harsh attacks of regime supports such as Ahmad Khatami, the critiques of torture by opposition leaders Karroubi and Mousavi, as well as civil society spokesmen such as Grand Ayatollah Sane’i appear to be having a fundamental impact on public political discourse in Iran. Montajabnia could be expected to support his boss, but the treatment of his remarks in Mehr News was supportive to the point of treating the opposition charges as fact.

On August 20, the opposition masterfully adopted one of the regime’s favorite methods of oppression, suing to have a defamatory newspaper banned. In a perfect response to the closing on Sunday of Etemade Melli, the opposition selected Kayhan, mouthpiece of Khomenei, and, far more surprising, won their case by default when Editor Shariatmadari, longtime nemesis of moderates, did not even bother to show up in court. It is hard to imagine that this ruling could stand, but the mere fact that it has gotten this far changes the political landscape of Iran. Regime defenders have repeatedly charged the opposition with being outside the law; now the opposition is using the system against the regime.

Will new Judiciary chief Larijani countenance the arrest of the offending judge just as he takes office or might this just possibly lead to a compromise strengthening freedom of the press in Iran? And exactly how can a regime claiming its legitimacy comes from god survive in a land with real freedom of press?

Conceiving of Peace (Iran & Israel)

Here is a proposition to consider:

The key to resolving the Iranian-Israeli nuclear dispute is to shift from demands for unilateral Iranian concessions to bargaining: namely, a long-term process of joint, low-keyed, incremental steps to discover a mutually-acceptable compromise.

People tend to react with fear (concealed by sneering or pretend outrage) when confronted with new ideas. Breathe slowly, and give the above proposition some thought.

If anyone knows of a time when Israel made a serious effort to negotiate a positive-sum outcome to its dispute with Iran, please inform me. In fact, for a generation Israel seems to have followed a fairly consistent policy of trying to back Iran into a corner from which it would have no choice but to accept a humiliating defeat...without even attempting the obvious alternative approach of trying to cut a mutually beneficial deal.

Do you agree? Do you disagree? Can you cite any evidence?

Second proposition:

Israel has such overwhelming military superiority that at this moment it could attempt to negotiate a deal at no security risk to itself.

So, why not?

Honesty in Debate (Yeah, About the Mideast)

Some American politicians make no bones about their pro-Israeli feelings: they want Israel to own Palestine and probably to rule the Mideast (at least to the degree of having total military dominance). Call this racism, religious bias or whatever, at least you know where they stand. Several recent gubernatorial and Congressional visitors to Israel belong to this club. They define "Israel" as all the land the current clique of rightwing Israeli politicians (backed by the fundamentalist faction of Israeli rabbis) want - certainly all of Israel, certainly all of Palestine except Gaza (which Israel is trying to erase from the earth or at least destroy and pass off to Egypt for clean-up). There is no point in trying to reason with this group; they are committed to one side and uninterested in justice or compromise; they want victory. Fair enough. We understand their position. Many Muslims have the mirror-image position: al Qua'ida, perhaps the Mesbah-Ahmed Khatami types in Iran, probably some Taliban although certainly not all, probably a faction within Hamas.

More dangerous is another group, those who pretend to be fair, reasonable, moderate but then make arguments such as this:

"Israel is an independent country; who are we (Americans) to tell it what to do, where its citizens should live, how it should negotiate?"

That, we must all admit, is a perfectly beautiful sentiment. If those who mouth these words to conceal their obsequiously Likudnik beliefs only believed what they say!

If the U.S. adopted a neutral position, then this might indeed be a logical and just stance for the U.S. to take. But that would require either that we stop fueling the Israeli military machine and stop underwriting the Israeli economy (not to mention making up for all the advantages Israel has accrued through past U.S. pro-Israeli bias). Then, yes, who would we be to tell independent Israel what to do?

But the reality is that there is no such entity as "the independent state of Israel." When Israeli storehouses are stocked with American bunker-buster weapons of mass destruction provided by the U.S. and U.S. long-range jet bombers; when the U.S. rushes jet fuel to Israeli jets attacking Lebanon; when the U.S. pretends it does not see Israeli collective punishment of 1.5 million Gazan civilians under the thumb of Hamas...to speak of an "independent" Israel is simply mendacious.

There are Israelis who would like to be independent. There are Israelis who recall the original pioneering spirit. There are even Israelis who at least know that far in the past (the 1930s and even in 1948 as the Zionist military units were starting the ethnic cleansing campaign), Jews and Arabs lived together as neighbors in villages across Palestine.

To care about Israel is not the same as to support a rightwing, bellicose military machine demanding hegemony over the Mideast. And if the U.S. is determined to sponsor such a machine, then it absolutely has the right to tell it what to do. If Israelis prefer independence, then let them stop asking for handouts.

Shi'ite Morality at Its Best

Grand Ayatollah Sanei has set a standard for moral critique of abuse of authority...and done so in an elegant and dispassionate manner the likes of which is seldom seen in the "advanced" democracies of the West.

Grand Ayatollah Yousef Sanei, who retired from his official position in government in 1988, has denounced the Iranian regime, placing himself squarely in the camp of the opposition, despite the threats of bodily harm that they have come under from regime supporters. The eloquence of his speech puts to shame not only the morally compromised Iranian hardliners but also those American politicians who have in recent years tried so hard to find excuses for torture and military brutality toward Islamic societies.

Highlights:

1. Dear clerics, you know Arabic, go read our texts. No one is allowed to torture prisoners. Even if by law, a criminal is condemned to a certain punishment, we are not allowed to punish him if he is sick. Read the words of Imam Ali. Imam Ali said that any prisoner who is being held captive, is tortured or hurt, and who has no access to the outside world, can not be forced into confession. Torture is not allowed.

2. I told one of the officials who came to see me, who was there on behalf of a very high official, I told him: annul the election result. Hold a new election. The sky isn’t going to fall. This is a knot that is easily undone. A knot that can be undone with the hands, we don’t undo with our teeth. He said no, there’s been no fraud. I told him, there’s been no fraud, o.k. This sounds like the story of the man who told another man, I’ll give you 70 reasons why there’s no water in the pool. The other said, I’ll give you only one reason that there is, and he picked up the first man and threw him in the pool. They’ve acted so horrifically that now, even an election annulment will not do them any good.

3. I remember going to Tehran from Qom when I was a student, to protest. The friends of the Imam were careful to see where they could go that would be in the benefit of the Imam. Now you must do the same. You must see where you can be present that can help you achieve your aims. Go there, participate.

4. Pity the nation whose daily news is not that of their pain and suffering. The pain today is the suffering of the prisoner who is held hostage by the tyrants. The pain is that confessions are forced. Pain is not letting them sit at the grave of their loved ones to say a prayer. Pain is attempting to free these prisoners. That is what we must focus on.

In a world where Western politicians try to justify nuclear aggression, Sanei stated in a 2003 interview:

There is complete consensus on this issue. It is self- evident in Islam that it is prohibited to have nuclear bombs. It is eternal law, because the basic function of these weapons is to kill innocent people. This cannot be reversed.

He also stated in the same interview:

You cannot deliberately kill innocent people.

Both remarks could have been interpreted as following a self-serving party line at that time, but they are consistent with his recent remarks in a completely different and much more threatening context.

Transparency Is a Two-Way View

Israeli critics of Iran's alleged lack of nuclear transparency would have a very strong case if Israel were not itself the world's master at nuclear obfuscation. "Plausible deniability," albeit now a bit long in the tooth, has been Israel's official nuclear policy for decades; too cute by half, Israeli leaders amuse themselves by pretending that "don't ask, don't tell" is a legitimate policy for the region's only nuclear power (if we define Pakistan as being out of the region).

If the IAEI is concealing information that would show or even suggest Iranian deception, then it is undermining its critical role as a neutral agency working for the interests of mankind and it should be forced to amend its ways. But Israel has no grounds for complaints until it amends its own ways and starts working for a non-nuclear Mideast rather than Israeli nuclear hegemony.

Mideast nuclear transparency would be a goal worth striving for. The lack of transparency on the part of both Israel and Iran provoke widespread distrust and stimulate destabilizing armament efforts by antagonists. Transparency could offer a basis on which to negotiate a stable regional national security agreement. Israel could make history and seize the initiative (not to mention the high moral ground) by realizing that you can look through a transparent window from both directions.

Lifting an Extremist Stone to Drop on One's Own Foot

To understand how hardline Israeli policies are self-defeating, you simply must read the details in this hard-hitting, taboo-breaking Israeli review in Haaretz by Nehemia Shtrasler of the last four years of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict:

Analysis / Israel wrecked Arafat, crowned Hamas, and gave birth to Al-Qaida in Gaza

Shtrasler's key analysis for an international audience:

This week marked four years since the Gaza disengagement, and it seems that the Strip is becoming increasingly radical - that peace is more distant and the settlers who were removed from the enclave are more embittered. Did Ariel Sharon and the majority of the Israeli public that supported the move make a bad deal? …
The evacuation could have been handled differently. It could have been used to enhance the status of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, but Sharon didn't agree to speak with him. He didn't allow Abbas to gain any advantage from it and carried out the evacuation in an arrogant and unilateral manner, even though Abbas is the most moderate Palestinian leader ever.

At a meeting of the Kadima party leadership a few months after the disengagement, Sharon confidant Dov Weissglas said: "We will put the Palestinians on a diet, but not make them die of hunger." Everyone present burst into laughter. But when the Palestinians discovered that Abbas hadn't managed to ease the suffering and that there was no chance of a normal life on the horizon, they opted for a more extreme leadership - Hamas.

During the entire period of our rule in the territories, we have destroyed the existing leadership, which led to the rise of more extreme leaders. We destroyed the Palestinian Authority and Yasser Arafat, who had agreed to a two-state solution and was capable of "delivering the goods." And we brought about Hamas' seizure of the Gaza Strip. Now we are cultivating the third stage: Al-Qaida.

That's because on our side people don't want to understand that when the oppression increases and there is nothing to lose, the adversary doesn't surrender and grovel. Just the opposite. He becomes more radical. Hate wins out and the desire for revenge becomes the only hope. So when poverty in Gaza increases and unemployment is on the rise, Al-Qaida will take control. It will happen either in a coup or through elections, and we will long for that terrible Hamas.

The Gaza withdrawal was the right decision. It relieved us of a huge burden and could have been a significant step leading to a permanent peace agreement. But the withdrawal was wasted because we carried it out negligently and poorly. But maybe all this was planned in advance, because when Al-Qaida people from Pakistan and Afghanistan take over Gaza, we will be able to say with full confidence that there is no one to talk to. Then we can live by the sword until the end of days, because, in the words attributed to early Zionist leader Yosef Trumpeldor, "it's good to die for our country."

The parallels between Israeli policy toward Palestine and Israeli policy toward Iran are mind-boggling: the empowerment of extremism blindly used to justify more of the same in an endless insistence on lifting stones and dropping them on one's own feet.

Iran Nuclear Crisis: A Matter of Psychology

Voicing an important and seldom considered perspective, two years ago, Armand Erchadi, a Sorbonne researcher, described the nuclear crisis between Iran and the West as psychological, a result of a culture of fear:

la crise nucléaire actuelle entre l’Iran et la communauté internationale repose entièrement sur une question psychologique. La véritable urgence est de dénouer ce psychodrame fondé sur la peur et dont les acteurs se situent aussi bien au Moyen-Orient qu’en Occident.

His thesis is ever more persuasive. Ahmadinejad and his allies have played the fear card to the max since the recent election in Iran. Fear is the centerpiece of the Netanyahu clique. And in the U.S. since 9/11, fear has sold so well that the nation seems to have accepted a permanent war against it, a war that has never let Iran out of its sights, regardless of the lack of evidence of connections between that country and the gang of fearmongers that brought the terror to New York.

Erchadi describes Iran as filled with fear:

La peur est devenue depuis 1979 le fondement de la société iranienne. Malgré les mille et une résistances qu’elle oppose à l’État - des mouvements étudiants aux émeutes contre le rationnement de l’essence, des résistances ouvrières aux luttes féministes - les mollahs ont partiellement réussi à créer ce dont les régimes fascistes avaient à peine rêvé : un « homme nouveau ». Encadré, rééduqué, intoxiqué, l’homo iranicus est soumis à une constante surveillance biopolitique, qui vise, par la violence et par la peur, non seulement à remodeler son esprit, mais jusqu’à son corps même et sa façon de se vêtir. À l’intérieur des appartements, c’est la liberté d’expression, l’ouverture aux autres cultures, la chaleur des rapports humains. Mais dès que le seuil de la porte est franchi, les peaux se couvrent, les visages se ferment et les bouches deviennent muettes.

Perhaps he is overstating his case just a little. Now, two years later, we see thousands of Iranians rejecting that culture of fear. Nevertheless, Erchadi makes a serious and important point that merits careful consideration.

He makes the same general point about the West:

La peur ne se trouve pas d’un seul côté. Dans le monde occidental, elle est nourrie par l’ignorance de va-t-en-guerre néo-conservateurs…. Avec, comme souvent, un temps de retard sur leurs collègues américains, une coterie d’intellectuels français en appelle à mots couverts à la reprise des saintes croisades.

I won’t spoil the rest of his essay; read it all – especially the last paragraph.

We are all trapping ourselves in psychoses of our own making.

Government Lying to "Preserve Our Way of Life"

Governments lie to conceal embarrassing truths and justify it as "preserving our way of life." This justification is quite sincere. The confusing comes from misunderstanding the word "our." The officials are, of course, not referring to the national way of life but to their own personal way of life. Be it Obama and the neo-cons hiding pictures of U.S. torture of Muslims arrested without being allowed trial, earlier U.S. administrations "classifying" news reports about the American crime of dropping nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or Ahmadinejad's boys denying the rape of female demonstrators in Iranian jails, both the thinking of officials and the excuse for concealing information from their own people are the same.

The issue is clear: is transparency about political actions so that the people can judge their leaders more important or is the avoidance of "embarrassment" more important? The word "democracy" is just so much hot air without information.

Some politicians in Israel and the U.S. even go so far as to say that nuclear war is justified against a country that does not provide the international community with sufficient "transparency." I support the goal of transparency. National security is not possible without nuclear transparency; similarly, democracy is not possible without political transparency. No one claims Iran is actually doing anything warranting an attack; rather, the claim is that we lack the evidence that it might not be developing the capability to do something. Nuclear war, the ultimate crime that a human is capable of committing, is justified as a response to the lack of information!

At least the extremist politicians in Iran are consistent: they oppose transparency about their nuclear research and about their abuse of Iranian protestors. It is harder to understand American politicians who claim that photos of bomb damage, photos of torture, photos of the caskets of dead soldiers should be concealed from the American people but demand nuclear transparency from Iran. They demand that Iran freely share critical national security information with the world (as it should, as should Israel) while claiming the right to conceal information about their abuse of authority.

They would be on much firmer ground demanding transparency from others if they provided transparency about themselves.

Ahmadinejad Consolidates Security Agencies

Ahmadinejad is steadily building his structure for political dominance, his proponents able to insult the opposition freely (reminiscent of Republican behavior toward Democrats after 9/11). The opposition seems slightly strengthened by a reaction to the viciousness of Ahmadinejad's supports but remains on the defensive, just barely retaining access to the media.

The way to run a government is to get the military, the intelligence (the part that spies on citizens), and the judiciary all working together: that way, you can find out what your enemies are doing, beat them up on the streets, and safely convict them in show trials. The process of governing is clean, secure, and free of surprise. Li Si, minister to the man who unified China two thousand years ago, knew that long before Machiavelli, as did many others, from Stalin to Saddam.

Ahmadinejad nominated a guy connected to both Khomenei and the IRGC to head the Ministry of Intelligence and Security – defining the core of a nice, tight little coalition to dominate the political process. Presumably this will be a winner, so it will be interesting to see what the reaction of the Majlis will be. Folks might be uneasy about the power that is emerging at the pinnacle of Iranian power, but who’s going to challenge this?

Hojjatoleslam Heydar Moslehi, nominated to head the Intelligence Ministry, is a representative of the Leader of the Islamic Revolution in the ground forces of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), as well as the Iranian Charity Organization. Press TV

Meanwhile, the judiciary, now under new management, will investigate the incendiary charges of prisoner abuse, even though former judiciary chief Ayatollah Mahmoud Shahroudi, Majlis speaker Ali Larijani (since the election Iran’s most meticulously silent leading figure), and hardline cheerleader Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami have all ominously prejudged the issue by flatly dening it.

Amid a persistent volley of opposition allegations that protestors had been raped in Iranian prisons, Iran's Judiciary tasks a committee to obtain evidence on the claims.

Iran’s Judiciary will now be under Hojatoleslam Mohammad Sadeq Larijani (replacing Mahmoud Shahroudi), a member of the Guardian Council and the Assembly of Experts, as well as a brother of Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani. Since Speaker Larijani voiced some very pointed criticism of Ahmadinejad’s policies during the campaign, this appointment seems out of step with the tightening of IRGC wagons. Media highlighting of Rafsanjani’s attendance at Larijani’s swearing-in ceremony further suggests distance between him and Rafsanjani. Does Larijani’s appointment have anything to do with Speaker Larijani’s post-electoral circumspection? Does it hint at further in-fighting within conservative ranks, with a potential split between Intelligence and the Judiciary?

Larijani is assuming a delicate position, given that Prosecutor General Ghorban Ali Dorri Najafabadi has already admitted that abuses have occurred. The attitude of the IRGC, whose leaders have felt that it was their duty to speak out regularly since the election on politicial and judicial issues, was made crystal clear by Brigadier General Yadollah Javani, head of the IRGC's political bureau. Javani called for the trial of Khatami, Mousavi, and Karroubi.

At his swearing-in ceremony, Larijani advocated the rights of oppressed people. His actual remarks were apparently even stronger than the quote carried by ILNA:

Nobody should dare ... to violate rights or security of citizens….I announce that I will not forgive anybody in this regard and violators will be put on trial.

Although safely vague, in the current Iranian domestic context, that would appear to put him on the side of the arrested protestors. Nevertheless, with a reputation as a conservative critique of ex-President Khatami, Larijani seems more like a smooth talker than a reform leader. It may be worth noting as well that a third Larijani brother, Mohammed-Javid, is a Judiciary official and recently issued a harsh condemnation of the opposition, evidently calling the whole Reformist faction traitors. The Larijani brothers may or may not be cooperating, and on the whole seem a likely base for an anti-Ahmadinejad faction, but they hardly represent defenders of democracy, much less any sort of pro-Western attitude.

In his effort to consolidate control, Ahmadinejad cannot forget the Ministry of the Interior, which, in Iran, runs the police, not parks, though the Basij serve a similar purpose and much more effectively. Last year he appointed an ally, Sadegh Masouli, to head Interior, which also controls elections.

While Ahmadinejad consolidates power, the opposition seems barely holding on to its access to the media. In an Aug. 16 report sympathetic to the opposition, Press TV quoted ex-President Khatami claiming that the opposition are the “real protectors” of the Islamic Republic and alleging that “certain ongoing moves run counter to legal principles.” The report stated:

Among the opposing voices are influential cleric Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani and Mir-Hossein Mousavi, whose credentials are well-known since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, as well as Khatami, a two-time former president, and Mehdi Karroubi, a former Parliament speaker.

In a separate report, Press TV quoted Moussavi saying:

We are confident that an atmosphere of mistrust would not have been created in the country if a fair attitude had been adopted (during the election course), to the demands of the Iranian people, and if the media had been prevented from attributing the nation's will to foreigners and diverting facts.

It is notable that in contrast to the explicit accusations by name and harsh rhetoric of the pro-Ahmadinejad partisans, opposition spokesmen still seem afraid to speak clearly and charge individuals by name. Pro-Ahmadinejad speakers are pushing bluntly for the political destruction if not death of their opponents, while the opposition is merely advocating its right to participate. For example, Hassan Bayadi, the Young Developer Society’s chief, called the factions of the right and left two wings of a bird and asserted that “no government can be run by only one faction, unless it is a dictatorial regime.” The report, in Tehran Times, concluded with a strong defense of a free media:

Nowhere in the Constitution is mentioned that the national television must be used only by one special party, but it is emphasized that the media belongs to the public and that it must serve national unity and interests.

Clues to watch for:

• Sadeq Larijani’s attitude toward pre-trial torture of arrested protestors;
• Ali Larijani’s public remarks relative to the electoral and torture controversies;
• The outcome of the official investigation into torture;
• Whether or not regime spokesmen assert the right to control the media;
• Whether or not anyone makes a distinction between protestors arrested by the judicial system and protestors arrested by the IRGC/Basij;
• Whether or not the Etemed Melli newspaper owned by opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi, just banned by the Judiciary from publishing in a clear administration attempt to coerce the media, will be allowed back on the streets. (Note that a US website with contacts inside Iran is reporting rumors that Etemed Melli just had “printing problems,” which have already been corrected; perhaps Larijani greased their wheels.)

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For further details on Iran's Judiciary, see Muhammad Sahimi's Iran's Crumbling Judiciary. Sahimi notes:

By law, all the jails and detention centers must be controlled by the judiciary. In practice, this has not been the case. The Ministry of Intelligence and the intelligence unit of the IRGC have their own detention centers, completely out of the judiciary’s control. The reformist leaders who are not jailed have accused the judiciary of total incompetence.