I suspect that this is a diversionary tactic. I wouldn’t dismiss the possibility that the Iranians are playing ball, too. It worked for Reagan.
My reasoning is that it would be just too dangerous to get into a hot war in the gulf. Ledeen and Co. might get their rocks off, but $150 oil and big shortages would not be good for November. On the otherhand, a war of words and the rhetoric of war pushes the national security arguement to the front for the elections.

Posted by: Dick Durata | Jan 24 2006 2:49 utc | 4

I guess time will tell, Antifa. I feel like I’m trying to read tea leaves, or better, intestines, to predict the future. The ‘roll the dice’ syndrome may be alive and well, and still hold sway over the Cheney Administration.

Posted by: Dick Durata | Jan 24 2006 5:35 utc | 6

Their biggest worry

European and American diplomats said it was possible that Dr. ElBaradei could deliver an interim report to the board sufficiently condemnatory of Iran’s activities to lead to a referral. But their bigger worry was that Iran would cooperate with international inspectors just enough to delay any action for months.

West’s Push to Refer Iran to U.N. Hits Snags

Posted by: b | Jan 24 2006 7:10 utc | 8

I’m starting to think that the Iranian bourse may not be able to trade in euros.
this story:
UBS says cutting ties with all Iran customers

ZURICH – Swiss bank UBS is cutting ties with all of its clients in Iran because the business is unattractive, a spokesman said today.
The move comes as a global conflict over the country’s nuclear policy is heating up.
High costs deriving from uncertainty about security and regulatory matters in Iran meant the business was no longer worth continuing, the spokesman said. The decision was not driven by political motives, he added.
“We started to exit customer relationships with counterparties in Iran in autumn last year,” UBS spokesman Serge Steiner said. UBS is the world’s largest asset manager and its decision will be closely watched by rivals.
“This holds true for all our business units and for all UBS’s regions around the world,” he added…..
…..Iran’s Foreign Ministry on Sunday flatly denied that any currency had been transferred to shield funds from possible UN sanctions, contradicting previous statements from central bank Governor Ebrahim Sheibani…..
…..Credit Suisse, Switzerland’s second-biggest bank, also indicated on Sunday that it was considering terminating relationships with Iran.
“We are closely looking at the developments and we’re increasingly worried,” a spokesman said.
Iranian clients hold 1.4 billion Swiss francs ($1.6 billion) in assets in Swiss banks, according to central bank data. Most of that money is with the country’s two biggest banks, UBS and Credit Suisse.
Both UBS and Credit Suisse had declined to comment on Friday about their relationships with clients in Iran.
Separately, a source close to UBS said the world’s sixth-largest bank was also severing relationships with clients in Syria, which was blamed by the UN for the killing of a Lebanese politician last year. UBS declined to comment….

Then true to form the swiss bankers claim:

UBS’s Steiner said that the decision to pull out of Iran had been made after finding that high compliance costs were not likely to be outweighed by benefits it expected from business with clients in the country.
But he rejected the idea that the world’s sixth-largest bank had made the decision in order to protect ties with the United States, where it does a huge part of its business and which is one of Tehran’s fiercest opponents in the global political arena.

Then take a look at this story from last Friday:

NEW YORK (Reuters) – UBS AG said on Thursday it has settled with U.S. regulators and enforcers for $54 million, in the latest bank agreement over improper mutual fund trading.
UBS neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing, and said it will take charges for the deal in the fourth quarter.
The bank’s settlement with the New York Stock Exchange and the states of New Jersey and Connecticut concerns a practice known as market timing, where a bank trades rapidly in mutual funds for the benefit of clients like hedge funds.
The practice can harm individual investors. It is often considered improper, but is not necessarily illegal.
NYSE said that between January 2000 and December 2002, brokers in at least seven UBS branch offices including Paramus, New Jersey, engaged in deceptive market-timing to benefit their hedge fund customers.
The brokers used methods such as concealing their identities and using multiple customer accounts.
In total, the firm made over 300,000 market timing transactions, the NYSE said.
UBS failed to properly supervise employees and maintain adequate records, the NYSE said in a statement.

Anyone else finding 4 after adding 2 and 2?
Somehow BushCo have managed to lever a lot of Europe onside. I still don’t believe that they will be able to get European nations to go to war, however the USuk must be pulling out every stop to arm twist this much co-operation.
It’s pretty clear that neither Russia nor China will support any sanctions so the anti-chinese and anti-russian pressure hasn’t worked.
Perhaps Iran will find a suitably stable commodity to trade in rather than use a currency.
Maybe that is the driver behind gold price rises although typically that is the first sign of imminent collapse as ‘those in the know’ cash out.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 24 2006 8:20 utc | 10

A good monbiot column on nukes:
Building bigger nuclear weapons will make us even less secure

In nuclear politics, every action is justified by the response it provokes. The US explains its missile defence programme by claiming that other states are developing new weapons systems, which one day it might need to shoot down. In response, Russia has activated a new weapons system, the Topol-M, designed to “penetrate US anti-missile defences”.
Israel, citing the threat from Iran, insists on retaining its nuclear missiles. Threatened by them (and prompted, among other reasons, by his anti-semitism), the Iranian president says he wants to wipe Israel off the map, and appears to be developing a means to do so. Israel sees his response as vindicating its nuclear programme. It threatens an air strike, which grants retrospective validity to Ahmadinejad’s designs. And so it goes on. Everyone turns out to be right in the end.
…
When Iran is referred to the UN security council, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be able to turn every accusation it makes back on his accusers. He will insist that the council’s members are asserting a monopoly of ultimate violence; that while there is as yet no definitive evidence that he is in breach of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, no one can doubt that they are. He will point to America’s tacit endorsement of Israel’s nuclear status and its overt endorsement of India’s. He will assert that the enforcement of the global nuclear regime discriminates against Muslim states. And though he is wrong about many things, he will be right about all that.
…

Posted by: b | Jan 24 2006 10:25 utc | 12

Over at the Washington Note there is a good discussion on Iran a couple I’ve lifted here:
Walker’s World: Living with Iran’s nukes
By MARTIN WALKER
UPI Editor
“There may be one or two more moves to be made in Tehran’s cat-and-mouse game with nukes. But few serious observers can remain in much doubt that Iran is determined to become a nuclear power, and that its current government is prepared to lie, cheat, smuggle, obfuscate, bully, bribe, threaten and resort to just about any maneuver in order to win nuclear status.
Who can blame them?
The Iranians are surrounded by nuclear powers. On the eastern front, Pakistan has nukes and missiles to deliver them. Just beyond Pakistan, India is another nuclear power, and this is a dangerous neighborhood. The part of Pakistan that borders Iran is Baluchistan, and the Pakistani government is currently accusing India of stirring up separatist militants — just as the world was breathing a sigh of relief that the Indo-Pakistani dispute over Kashmir was easing.
To the North lie two more nuclear powers, Russia and China, whose current intentions toward Iran seem entirely amicable. Russia is prepared to sell Iran just about anything, including nuclear reactors, Kilo-class submarines and the very latest S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems. Russia also last December signed a billion-dollar deal to sell Iran the new Tor-M1 air defense system, designed to shoot down cruise missiles and laser-guided bombs.
And China is prepared to buy just about anything that can help fuel its booming economy, witness Sinopec’s 30-year deal to buy 250 million tons of Iranian natural gas, to explore and develop Iran’s Yadavaran field and buy its oil. When announced in November, 2004, it was said to be worth $70 billion. It is now worth over $100 billion, and will take Iran from a 13 percent share of China’s energy imports in 2003 to a 20 percent share by the end of this decade.
To the West lies the undeclared nuclear power of Israel, the only Middle Eastern country that has nuclear weapons, and also one of the few with the full triad of delivery systems. Just like the really big boys, Israel can deliver its nukes from land-based Jericho missiles, from its F-15I long-range fighter-bombers, or from the cruise missiles aboard its Dolphin-class submarines.
This means that Israel has a wholly survivable deterrent, capable of delivering second and third strikes even if Israel itself were destroyed. (One complication for any imams or mullahs pondering Israeli target options would be the theological implications of destroying the al-Aqsa mosque in the heart of Jerusalem, the most holy site in Islam after Mecca and Medina.)”
[snip]
“If Iran, as an oil-rich sovereign state, is determined to become a nuclear power there are no obvious steps short of all-out war and occupation that could prevent it eventually from doing so. So just as the world has learned to live with the Soviet-American nuclear balance, and with the Indo-Pakistani nuclear balance, it may soon start to accept that it will probably have to live with the balance of nuclear terror between Tehran and Tel Aviv.
Curiously enough, with the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem giving the Mullahs pause for thought, until the Iranians become very certain of the accuracy of their Shahib missiles, the Iran-Israel standoff may ironically prove to be rather stable”
More:
http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20060111-051246-6378r
Posted by ronny at January 23, 2006 10:12 PM
………………………

Posted by: anna missed | Jan 24 2006 11:07 utc | 14

@DiD – very good find on UBS
What the Iran ‘nuclear issue’ is really about (Chris Cook is a former director of the International Petroleum Exchange. He is now a strategic market consultant, entrepreneur and commentator.)
Interesting internals from Iran – though the article doesn´t fit the headline.

Posted by: b | Jan 24 2006 14:04 utc | 16

I’ve read some very scary stuff about the threat to the dollar if the Iranian petro-euro bourse proceeds in March. And why the MSM won’t discuss the topic. And why the Bush admin prefers to use the excuse of a nuclear-armed Iran as its public rationale for bombing Iran.
What I don’t understand is why the Iranians themselves are going along with the Bush meme by sticking to the nuclear energy script instead of pointing out the bourse as the real target. Ditto for Saddam back in 2002 and in his court “trial”.
If it’s really about the petro-euro, then why aren’t the Iranians pointing that out?

Posted by: gylangirl | Jan 24 2006 18:01 utc | 18

@gylangirl I agree the issue of why Iran is letting the argument be about nuclear weapons rather than energy or culture or religion or any of the myriad of supposed grievances the US has claimed in the past deeply puzzles me.
The article in Bernhard’s link to The Asia Times above claims that both sides are deliberately using the nuclear issue to conceal the real reason for the alleged ‘looming conflict’. The reasons given for the US wanting to conceal it’s true motives are credible but although the writer doesn’t really state what Iran’s reasoning may be he does hint at a possible motive.
The article, written by a leading oil broker who tells us he was invited to submit proposals for the Iranian bourse. He claims that the big issue with the Iranian bourse isn’t the currency denomination:

I pointed out that the structure of global oil markets massively favors intermediary traders and particularly investment banks, and that both consumers and producers such as Iran are adversely affected by this. I recommended that Iran consider as a matter of urgency the creation of a Middle Eastern energy exchange, and particularly a new Persian Gulf benchmark oil price.
It is therefore with wry amusement that I have seen a myth being widely propagated on the Internet that the genesis of this “Iran bourse” project is a wish to subvert the US dollar by denominating oil pricing in euros.
As anyone familiar with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will know, the denomination of oil sales in currencies other than the dollar is not a new subject, and as anyone familiar with economics will tell you, the denomination of oil sales is merely a transactional issue: what matters is in what assets (or, in the case of the United States, liabilities ) these proceeds are then invested.

We really need an economist of PCR’s calibre to verify this because I’m sure that the lack of transperancy around oil trading does enable the middlemen to corruptly profit, the writer is an unabashed main chancer and he may just be repeating the self-justification he has developed for biting the hand which has fed him for so long.
However if the writer is correct then what followed may partially explain Iran’s reasoning for obfuscating the real issue.
According to the writer the bourse idea wasn’t necessarily that well received in Iran either. The existing subterfuge around transactions had enabled some of the Iranian players, particularly those in the oil ministry, to stick their hands in the till as well:

In the second quarter of 2005 the real opposition from within the Oil Ministry – from factions opposed to shedding any light on the sales regime – was becoming apparent. However, as the battle was about to be joined, Khatami’s period in office came to an end and the presidential election in August intervened.
Neither we, nor anyone we knew, expected the result of the election, still less the events after it. Three times over a period of three months an oil minister was nominated by the new president, Mahmud Ahmadinejad, from among his trusted colleagues and three times they were turned down by the majlis (Iranian parliament), until finally an experienced insider was appointed in early December. Only now are further levels of appointments being made by the new minister.
Ahmadinejad is on record as saying that he favors transparency in the Iranian oil market. As anyone familiar with the City of London and Wall Street will know, transparency is the enemy of private profit, and it is this factor that was behind the delays in developing the bourse project.

So Ahmadinejad may be playing two games of cat and mouse simultaneously. The first with the west is proceeding predictably and every outrageous statement from BushCo makes the Iranian people even more determined to stick to their guns and not kowtow to these ignorant fools.
This will also serve to keep the Iranian people onside and make any further humiliation by the corrupt Iranian establishment, such as the oil minister fiasco, difficult to attempt.
There is one other and to my mind rather more optimistic scenario.
It goes something like this. Ahmadinejad witnessed the Iraq squeeze play and observed that every time the Hussein administration tried to placate the US on an issue, the US simply levelled another charge. eg When it was about WMD, Iraq’s accomodation of outrageous weapons inspector demands simply moved the debate to what a despot and tyrant President Hussein was, that no deal could be done until he was unconstitutionally dismissed. In other words, ‘we want that oil and we’re gonna take it no matter what you say’.
By keeping the discussion on nuclear weapons and seeming to never give a inch, Ahmadinejad is encouraging BushCo and lackeys to follow him further and further up the nuclear issues path. Right when it all seems hopeless, the world is in terror, real terror this time, as it seems a nuclear conflict is inevitable, Ahmadinejad tosses the towel.
This is performed in a way that makes any attempt by the US to shift the debate seem churlish and it will be shouted down in condemnation throughout the globe.
BushCo and lackeys would be left standing naked with the sheeple laughing and pointing at their love handles and saggy asses.
It never hurts to remember that the Persians invented chess or to read Xenophon’s Anabasis The Story of the Ten Thousand if you imagine it may be possible to decypher Iranian gameplay.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 24 2006 21:18 utc | 20

@Gaianne-
Nice post. It is true that the world power structure and alliances are much more fluid than at any time in the past 75 years. And it does seem that the world is girding for the next world war. The current spate of shuttle diplomacy, deal and alliance making, and resource securing seems to me unprecedented.
Now much can happen, but it does seem that many bad things could happen to the USAans–assassination of a puppet, domestic terrorist attack, another Katrina, to name a few.
We are already engaged in a covert war in Iran as the most recent spate of suspicious bombings again testify to. Whether Bushco chooses to escalate this to a real war is an open question. And perhaps more a political one this election year than strategic. It does seem strange and contradictory that they are pushing to escalate in Iran at the same time that they appear to be giving in to enormous pressure from many fronts to disengage from Iraq.
It does seem that they are working much more assiduously behind the scenes to build alliances. What Canada and Western Europe expect to achieve by support for this is beyond me. Perhaps they are consciously encouraging an increase in domestic terrorism to push through even more restrictive “security” laws.
It seems to me that the world has not seen a group of leaders less representative of the actual desires of their populaces in my lifetime, if not longer. Something is rotten in more than just Denmark; the entire world is beginning to stink.
The planned de-industrialization of the United States is without precendence in world history (Yes, it happened in India in the 1800’s, but that was a colony, not the imperial throne). The country is rapidly becoming a shell, where the only opportunity is to join the imperial guards. That this is happening surreptitiously, completely without comment by the political classes, is chilling. The Americans are the world’s most propagandized people–that they are not conscious of it is proof of success, not degree–hence the term, sheeple, yet it seems that the country, and indeed the entire world, is being maneuvered into revolutionary conditions rather rapidly.
Leaders may feel that they are more secure than previous historical standards because of technology and weaponry, but when revolutionary conditions set in, change can come rapidly and unexpectedly. What do I mean by revolutionary conditions? Mass unemployment, starvation, hunger, lack of a convincing set of solutions put forth by leaders.
We certainly live in interesting times. It is quite possible that thirty years hence the map of the world will look quite different than it does now. And one of the differences will be the reemergence of frontiers; however, in this case, it will not be frontiers that have not been explored, but frontiers that cannot be explored because of the unsurvivable condition of radioactivity.

Posted by: Malooga | Jan 25 2006 1:17 utc | 22

@gylangirl
Same old same old really, although after a treatment it’s pretty common for me to be incredibly fatigued yet unable to sleep for a couple of days.
I dunno about the quality, I have been trying to put less of myself in the posts last coupla days.
And although BushCo may not care if they are seen wanting, which I’m not that sure, as BushCo is all front and no back, that wasn’t the point.
The Iranian reasoning post point was if it is obvious to the rest of the world that Iran is not going to be a nuclear threat, the US will be on their own and left with no way to legitimise their murder.
One thing Iran has on it’s side that Iraq didn’t was there is absolutely no UN resolution that has been passed which could later be twisted for self justification.
Then after the fact when all was done and dusted, the US put the weights on the rest of the world to accept the fait accompli.
So far, unlike US mates India and Pakistan, Iran hasn’t come close to breaching the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Although it is a signatory to the NPT unlike Israel. If memory serves there is a couple of resolutions passed in the US legislature which means Israel should really be between a rock and a hard place on this. That is if you’re not an NPT signatory you’re ineligible for aid. On the other hand if you are a signatory to the NPT but have breached it; then there isn’t a shovel big enough to dig you outta the shit yer in.
Back to the point. Iran watched the strategy for the legitimization of the rape and pillaging of Iraq very closely. In fact it could be said they got it to play out exactly as they desired since so far they appear to be the only ‘winners’.
USuk took the security council a resolution on Iraq full of teeth and couldn’t get it through. Instead they got this half-assed motion about consultation and then coming back again. Everyone heaved a sigh of relief, there was no authority for anyone to do jack shit there. Nobody twigged it made no difference.
USuk had got what they wanted, which was a motion specifically about Iraq that was critical of Iraq.
What it actually said didn’t matter, cause the old ‘what was really in the minds of those who passed this motion’ trick would negate any specifics.
The strategy which has been keeping repugs on the wrong side of the law but on the right side of law enforcement for yonks* could be played out. Cast yer mind back to that security council resolution.
Everyone knew deep down from the way Dubya and Bliar carried on that this rez was gonna be the proverbial pig’s ear made outta a silk purse.
It’s amazing the way that the sheeple have been convinced that what a law may say in black and white is in fact irrelevant. If one can drag in a bunch of emotive and unsubstantiated balderdash about the legislators true intent then the suckholers in the black gowns will cry “game over. Next please!”
If Iran plays it’s cards correctly by waltzing to the brink and back, but never giving the USuk enough room to get the security council to pass a motion which specifically singles Iran out, then BushCo are up the creek without a paddle.
True ,it doesn’t mean they won’t attack; because after all, we’re dealing with blokes who have a few kangaroos loose in the top paddock. It does mean that an attack would be far more likely to be a solo effort and that even some who had always been ‘team players’ within the US might worry about decency, honor, and the chances of doing life at Spandau prison for being part of a suicidal damn fool errand.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 25 2006 1:50 utc | 24

Susan R just posted something to a very old thread. This got me knocking about the archives and I found this post by b from July 19, 2004: Discussed in the last Open Thread there are rumours of an Israeli/US american air attack on Iranian infrastructure. The last days there have been several leaks to the press by “sources” who claim that the 9/11 commission finds links between Iran and Al Qaeda.
I didn’t realize this was dragging on so long.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose?

Posted by: Malooga | Jan 25 2006 4:47 utc | 26

whoops , you have to scroll down a post on that last link

Posted by: annie | Jan 25 2006 7:59 utc | 28

Just because a proposed war with Iran (or any other pursuit) is plainly folly does not enter into the equation of whether the US White House will pursue it. One of their defining characteristics has been the pig-headed denial of everything that they don’t want to hear… even when the bad news comes from their own analysts and can not be attributed to partisanship or “obstructionism”. They have consistently demonstrated every bit as much ability to reason as a squalling six-year old in a toy store who thinks that screaming “BUT I WANT IT!” trumps every argument to the contrary.
If this hostile takeover of Iran’s resources is to be pursued, it can clearly not be done with the conventional forces that are currently at the United States’ disposal. Unless they are gambling that two or three tactical nuclear strikes will suddenly make the Iranians compliant to US demands (in the model of Hiroshima and Nagasaki), some occupying force must be implemented to oversee the maintenance and supply of Iranian oil into US hands. Without a policy of military conscription, this can not be done at this time. Outsourcing our military to private companies like KBR is not sufficient to control a country like Iraq; I hasten to remind everyone that Iran has roughly three times the population and geography.
The argument that academics have levelled against the implementation of a policy of military conscription is that it would invalidate the “legitimacy” of an occupation and turn domestic opinion against the war. Once again, this does not rule it out. It would simply not be called conscription or a draft. The application of euphemisms have helped to inure the public to institutionalised torture and disappearings, robbed them of their hard-won privacy and other civil liberties (such as protection against illegal search and seizure), and cost them their voice and their ability to hold their leadership accountable.
If war with Iran is pursued (and I am not weighing in about whether it will be), then military conscription must follow. It will likely be called the “Patriotic Duty of all Non-Evildoers Act” or some such twaddle and after a month of heated and outraged talk by people like ourselves, it will become eclipsed and forgotten by the next outrage. The Great Capitulation has already occured; the frog has been boiled. Welcome to the new order.

Posted by: Monolycus | Jan 25 2006 22:06 utc | 30