Tag: Iran

Coercive Sanctions and Military Threats Push Iran Closer to the Nuclear Threshold

The former US embassy in Tehran
The former US embassy in Tehran. Photo: Örlygur Hnefill/flickr.

Iran’s nuclear activities are being portrayed in an alarmist and irrational way in the United States, and political rhetoric only pushes Iran closer to creating a nuclear weapon, said David Cortright, Director of Policy Studies at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies and an expert on nuclear dangers and sanctions.

The international community needs to do everything possible to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons capability, said Mr. Cortright in a phone interview with the Global Observatory, cautioning that “…it’s a very dangerous game, because the very act of threatening military action against Iran is likely to eventually motivate them to go ahead and build the bomb.”

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Asia and a Post-American Middle East

Ambassador Corbin bids farewell to Secretary Kerry
US Secretary of State John Kerry leaves the United Arab Emirates. Photo: U.S. Department of State/flickr.

KUWAIT CITY – When the consequences of the United States-led invasion of Iraq ten years ago are fully assessed, the importance of the subsequent rise of political Islam there – and throughout the wider Middle East – may well pale in comparison to that of a geostrategic shift that no one foresaw at the time. That shift, however, has now come into view. With America approaching energy self-sufficiency, a US strategic disengagement from the region may become a reality.

The Middle East, of course, has experienced the withdrawal of a great power, or powers, many times before: the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire after World War I; the fraying of the French and British imperial mandates after World War II; and, most recently, the nearly complete disappearance of Russian influence following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Each time, monumental changes in the region’s politics, particularly its alliances, quickly followed. If America attempts to wash its hands of the Middle East in the coming years, will a similar rupture be inevitable?

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The Pyongyang Persian Pickle

Image by Podknox/Flickr.

In English slang, “pickle” means a bad situation or a state of disorder. The provenance is Shakespeare’s “The Tempest.” And pickle well applies to the nuclear ambitions of North Korea, Iran and U.S. policy.

Last week, Pyongyang announced it had exploded a nuclear device measuring about 10 kilotons, smaller than the bombs that fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. How close North Korea is to “weaponizing” a bomb is unknowable as is whether this test remains a highly dangerous science experiment.

Despite the huff and puff of the second Bush administration over preventing North Korea from exploding a nuclear device, today no one seems terribly perturbed. China is in a key position to restrain North Korea but hasn’t so acted. While Japan and South Korea have a nuclear “breakout” capacity, there are no signs that an arms race will follow.

So, no matter the rhetoric, North Korea has become the newest, uncontested member of the nuclear club nearly two decades after Pakistan joined.

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Iran’s New Stealth Fighter Soars Across Fake Sky

News photo of Iran’s Qaher-313 flying across a photoshopped sky.

Iranian bloggers revealed earlier this month that an official photo showing Iran’s recently unveiled stealth fighter, the Qaher-313, in flight is in fact a fake photoshopped image. Despite claims by the Iranian government that the aircraft is patrolling the skies, sharp-eyed bloggers spotted that the image was taken from the unveiling ceremony in Tehran and superimposed onto a different background.

While many Iranians (possibly including the military) have taken to Facebook to excitedly promote the Qaher-313,  many bloggers view the image as an opportunity to mock the Tehran regime.  Adding substance to their mockery are allegations that the photograph of a monkey that Iran supposedly sent into space is also a fake.

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Obama’s Year of Iran

Sailors from USS Kidd assist an Iranian-flagged fishing dhow
Sailors from USS Kidd assist an Iranian-flagged fishing dhow. Official U.S. Navy Imagery/flickr.

PRINCETON – As US President Barack Obama begins his second term, he will have to devote much of his attention to figuring out how to get America’s domestic finances in order. But foreign-policy issues loom large as well, and, notwithstanding the ongoing conflict in Syria and the possible spread of war across Africa’s Sahel region, the consensus in Washington is that 2013 will be the “year of decision” on Iran.

Obama began his first administration with an offer to engage with the Islamic Republic; as he memorably put it in his first inaugural address in 2009, “We will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.” He repeated that commitment, although much more obliquely, in his second inaugural address: “We will show the courage to try and resolve our differences with other nations peacefully – not because we are naive about the dangers we face, but because engagement can more durably lift suspicion and fear.”

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