In his first comments about the current peace talks taking place between Israel and Palestine, Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claims that they will almost certainly fail. During his address at the annual pro-palestinian rally, Ahmadinejad supported Palestinian resistance of the Israeli occupation saying that it should continue. He implied that talks in Washington between the two sides had no value and that the conclusion would only ever be reached in Palestine. Will a solution ever be reached?

Plans for the construction of 10 new unranium enrichment plants are going ahead following a fourth round of UN sanctions. This is occurring amid growing unease surrounding Iran's nuclear programme.
Despite insistance by Iranian authorities that their nuclear developments are of an entirely peaceful nature, these proposed additions to Iran's intensifying focus on nuclear projects are bringing further cause for concern for Western governments. David Cameron has been quoted as saying, 'The reports that we have seen certainly do not give us any comfort that Iran is moving in the right direction.'
The director of Iran's atomic energy organisation believes that they will not come up against military intervention as the international community has previously expressed suspicion regarding Iran's nuclear agenda.
Iran continues to defy the UN's ongoing requests for cooperation and its call for a nuclear fuel deal.

Seems unlikely that Israel will indeed strike Iran this evening - but Iran's big Russian built nuclear power station goes online tomorrow. Clearly the matter has been discussed in Israel's cabinet and clearly there are those who argue that tomorrow's switch on should not go ahead.  Say a prayer and keep your fingers crossed. We live in interesting times:
Iran entitled to peaceful nuclear energy, says Russia Gulf Today - 20 August, 2010Russia’s nuclear chief said on Thursday that the planned startup of Iran’s first nuclear power plant will demonstrate that Iran is entitled to peaceful use of nuclear energy under international supervision.

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Current attempts at dealing with Iran are based on the aim of isolating it from the rest of the international community. This is why the UN, as well as the US and EU, have imposed sanctions which seek to harm Iran’s international trade. The EU sanctions, approved on the 17th of July, seek to hit investment in Iran’s major source of income, the oil and gas industry. As a result of the UN sanctions, the UAE Central Bank told financial institutions in the UAE to freeze 41 Iranian bank accounts. Indeed, under pressure by the international community, the Dubai Financial Services Authority further warned companies to conduct risk assessment when dealing with banks and other clients domiciled in Iran. This is significant because trade between Iran and Dubai has historically been highly profitable for both countries. The effect of such sanctions and international pressure can be seen in the fact that trade between Iran and the UAE will halve to $6 billion in 2010 from 2008, according to Dubai’s Iranian Business Council. The US has imposed some of the harshest measures aimed at stopping any lucrative investment in to Iran. For example, any company that provides Iran with refined petroleum products will not have access to US markets. Such measures have meant that major companies have stopped investment in to Iran; we recently saw BP refusing to supply Iran Air with jet fuel.

However, the West has also tried more political and diplomatic measures in trying to isolate Iran. It has increasingly tried to undermine the alliances which Iran has made with other countries. China and Russia were the biggest thorns in the side of the West over dealings with Iran. The US soon realised that any attempt to isolate Iran would be severely damaged without the cooperation of these two powers. This is because they can block UN sanctions (through their veto in the Security Council), supply Iran with more investment (compensating for the effect of sanctions) and trade military goods with Iran. Indeed, in February this year, the Financial Times reported that China was set to overtake the EU as Iran’s largest trading partner. Equally alarmingly for the West, Russia has continued to supply Iran militarily; in 2005 Russia and Iran signed a £386 million contract for Russia to sell it 29 Tor-M1 missile systems. Russia has sold Iran a vast array of military equipment, including T-72 tanks and MiG-29 aircraft. Let us also not forget that the nuclear reactor at Bushehr is Russian built! It is therefore unsurprising the both Russia and China were initially reluctant to support sanctions on Iran. Early in 2010, China’s foreign minister Yang Jiechi said, "Pressure and sanctions are not the fundamental way forward to resolving the Iran nuclear issue.”

However, both these countries did give in to international pressure and voted for the latest (tougher) UN sanctions. Russia in particular has recently been happier to tow the American line. Russian president Dmitry Medvedev even conceded on the 12th of July that Iran was closer to being able to make nuclear weapons. It is still unclear whether the planned shipment from Russia to Iran of S-300 anti-aircraft missiles (which would make an Israeli/US strike on nuclear targets in Iran much more difficult) is going ahead. China has maintained opposition to any unilateral imposition of sanctions such as the US ones. It is unclear where China will go from here but it seems unlikely, given economic ties, that China will allow any further measures against Iran. One effect of cooperation by Russia and China with the UN sanctions, however, is that the role of Brazil and Turkey has become an increasingly important issue. It is yet to be seen what impact they will have on resolving the nuclear issue, having both voted against the latest round of sanctions.

But whether or not the policy of isolating Iran is working, it is simply the wrong policy to adopt in the first place. What the West has not understood is that support for Iran’s defiant attitude is premised on the idea that Iran is surrounded by enemies. Since the early days of Western meddling in Middle Eastern affairs, many Iranians have felt manipulated, feeling that everyone always to get something out of Iran. An early sign of this was the British and American backed coup which removed Mussadiq from power in 1953. This was clearly linked to the nationalisation of the oil industry and led Iranians to believe that the West would do anything to maintain its strategic interests in Iran. The event which still generates anger amongst Iranians today is the Iran-Iraq war of 1980. This was a war which Iran fought in self defence, in which up to 1 million Iranians ended up dead and yet the US publicly supported Iraq and bankrolled their war effort. Not only this, but the USA actually attacked an Iranian civilian airliner (Iran Air Flight 655) in 1988, murdering 290 civilians. It is no wonder that Iranians feel that it is the West which is aggressive and threatening in light of these events. More recently, the US have surrounded Iran with its military. The US now has a military presence in Iraq, Afghanistan, Turkey, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, UAE, Oman, Saudi Arabia as well as use of military facilities in Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan. From an Iranian perspective, they are surrounded by around 200,000 US troops. In addition to this, members of the Arab GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) continue to buy large amounts of weapons from the US and the UK, further militarising the Persian Gulf.

In essence, the Iranian psyche is one of victimhood. It is the notion that Iran continues to suffer the shrewd attempts of the West to exploit it and remove its sovereignty. This is coupled with the fact that Iran is surrounded by Arab countries who all (except Syria) backed Iraq’s aggressive military expansion in to Iran in 1980. This is why trying to isolate Iran does not work as a policy in trying to stop their nuclear development, because it is that isolation which drives them to defy the West in the first place.

Last week international media was united in condemning the Iranian government for sentencing Sakineh Mohammadi Astiani to death for adultery. Correctly the execution to be carried out by stoning was loudly criticized and under international pressure was halted. Fears are now growing for the safety of her son who was integral in starting the campaign to free his mother from the shackles of a regime that day-by-day is isolating Iran from the international community in a manner unprecedented since the darkest days of the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s.

Whilst it is easy for the Western media to portray Iran as a soon to be nuclear pariah, care must be taken to remember that the regime is not always representative of the people. Some samplings of recent Iranian blogs testify powerfully to this:


Fariborz Shamshiri on Rotten Gods today writes:<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Ayatollah Paul the octopus Paul the octopus had eight correct predictions in 2010 FIFA World Cup so if there is anyone or anything deserve to be called Ayatollah, it is the octopus.Blogger Bingala:Tuesday, June 01, 2010Election School June, the cheating season.DR02 on sweethallucinations:
While these useless summits are held around the planet, Iran has become the only country in the world to go totally Green & we are proud of it.

Yet these comments are rare. I decided to do this blog on humour amongst Iranian bloggers. The website where Iranian bloggers write in English is pooled on http://www.iranianbloggers.com/.

However, whilst I found these three comments what is clear is that many of the blogs have simply ceased to be updated. Whilst many bloggers lose interest, many of the blogs on the website were critical and then just stopped being updated. Such developments could be innocuous, yet it must be the case that at the very least, a climate of fear has enveloped some would-be Iranian bloggers who are critical of their government.

A rough survey of the English blogs on the above mentioned website show that:

· There are 67 Iranian blogs writing in English.

· Of them only 15 have been updated in 2010.

· Five of them are writing on non-political topics - for example, technology and tourism.

· Two are writing from a pro-government stance.

· Only eight are active and critical of the government.Therefore, only eleven per cent of the blogs are active and simultaneously critical of the government.

No doubt this is not definitive analysis, the reasons to stop blogging are numerous. Nevertheless, combined with endless reports documenting the tightening of the media in Iran - this statistic seems to confirm these trends.

Well here's good news. The girl who was slated to be stoned for adultery is to be spared. Stonings are rarer in Iran these days which is good.

Sakineh was convicted of adultery, like all the other 12 women and one of the men awaiting stoning. But her children and lawyer say she is innocent and that she did not get a fair trial -- they state her confession was forced from her and, speaking only Azerbaijani, she did not understand what was being asked of her in court.
Despite Iran's signing of a UN convention that requires the death penalty only be used for the "most serious crimes" and despite the Iranian Parliament passing a law banning stoning last year, stoning for adultery continues.
Sakineh's lawyer says the Iranian government "is afraid of Iranian public reaction and international attention" to the stoning cases. And after Turkey and Britain's Foreign Ministers spoke out against Sakineh's sentence, it was suspended.
Sakineh's brave children are leading the international campaign to save their mother and stop stoning. Massive international condemnation now could finally stop this sickening punishment. Let's join together today across the world to end this brutality. Sign the petition to save Sakineh and end stoning here:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_stoning/?vl

Ambassador Hambley was the first to raise this issue. Then Mehrtash, the famous Iranian blogger, raised the same matter. We will do what we can to follow it up. Mehertash writes:

• Zeinab Jalalian: Based on her membership of a Kurdistan political party she was accused of Fighting God and was given the death penalty. Correction: to be hanged, not stoned.
• Sakineh Mohammadi: To be stoned for having sexual relations with a man outside of wedlock - as they put it 'illicit relations'.

Mehrtash writes: Quite frankly, no 'breach of law' is deserving of death; let alone death by stoning. I suspect the world will sit idly by as two more defenseless women have their flames extinguished by the malicious cold of the IRI regime.
Mehrtash Rastegar LLB (Hons); LLM International Human Rights Law
http://www.seektruthandjustice.blogspot.com/

We get our knickers in a twist about all sorts of things in the West. But now we are uptight about nations having radar? Really for goodness sake.
Iran moves radar to Syria: US official
Agence France-Presse - 03 July, 2010
Iran has moved radar to Syria that could provide early-warning against a possible surprise Israeli air attack against Tehran’s nuclear sites, a US defense official said on Friday.

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Well the USA has signed up to its own tougher sanctions regime to crush the people of Iran. They have even added refined petroleum products though everyone told them not to because it would hurt ordinary people and not the government and be grossly counter-productive. It seems Obama is a little short on wisdom these days:
Obama signs toughest-ever US sanctions on Iran - Agence France-Presse - 02 July, 2010President Obama signed into law the toughest ever US sanctions on Iran, which he said would strike at Tehran’s capacity to finance its nuclear program and deepen its isolation.   >>>>>>>>>>>> CLICK HERE

So the sanctions are going to matter says the USA. Dream on. What will matter will be the incompetence of the IRGC as managers of the economy now that they own so much of it.
Gates sees potential in Iran economic sanctions:

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Sunday that targeted economic sanctions on Iran had "real potential" to pressure Teheran to halt its nuclear program . . . .

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So Iran will have its way - as ever. Be happy world. That's the way it is: Iran expects a posistive reaction from the world regarding its nuclear fuel deal with Brazil and Turkey says Foreign Minister Moutaki. No wonder he looks self-satisfied.