The Iranian menace

We are celebrating Succot or Sukkot also known as Sukkos or Succoth.
Urban based Israelis often invest in a prefabricated fold-away-after-use Succah sold in various home improvement stores. Here at Ein Harod planks and palm fronds are distributed to all Succah builders. I usually compromise by covering the sides of our patio with palm fronds and hanging a few decorations prepared by our grandchildren. I know it isn’t a bona fide kosher Succah, nevertheless it meets family approval. .
Many Israelis are unaware that the United Church of God is holding its own Succot festivities.
This annual Christian event starts on Friday night and is being promoted heavily as an international gathering bringing fervent supporters of Israel to Jerusalem.
The series of seminars, Christian worship, celebration and a march through Jerusalem is known as the Feast of Tabernacles. It has been sponsored by the International Christian Embassy of Jerusalem, self-described as the world's largest Christian Zionist organisation. The ICEJ calls its celebration, which is slated for October 2-8 this year, "the vanguard event within Israel for the worldwide Christian Zionist movement."
Regularly attended by tens of thousands of Christians from around the world, it is said to be "Israel's largest annual tourism event." Hundreds of similar events inspired by the ICEJ Feast of Tabernacles take place outside Israel as well during the week of celebrations.
It’s good to have ardent supporters at a time when spokespeople of the Islamic Republic of Iran repeat the Holocaust denials and threats to annihilate Israel.
The Iran dilemma is not only Israel’s problem; however Israel appears to be more immediately threatened than any other country.
At a time when our government is remarkably reticent about the military option a number of journalists have seen fit to mention it. For example Micah Zenko wrote in the Los Angeles Times last month that “Israel Has Iran in its Sights.”
He repeated a speculation voiced many times in the international news media.
“If Israel decides that Iranian nuclear weapons are an existential threat, it will be deaf to entreaties from U.S. officials to refrain from using military force. Soon after the operation, Washington will express concern to Tel Aviv publicly and privately. The long-standing U.S.-Israeli relationship will remain as strong as ever.”
By contrast a cautious and tempered editorial in Ha’aretz this week entitled “Facing Iran with Obama,” advised our government to give the US engagement with Iran a chance - “Israel should support Obama and give him the chance to exhaust the move combining dialogue with the threat of sanctions. This is not the time for Jerusalem to threaten and badger. The Iranian threat is not only Israel's problem, it's that of the entire international community. It's best for Israel if the issue is dealt with on an international level with continued close diplomatic, economic, intelligence and military cooperation.”

Why is Israel suddenly praising Iran sanctions? Asks Ha’aretz correspondent Amos Harel,
“Israel, from its point of view, now needs to show the Obama administration and the international community that it is a team player, one that supports exhausting all non-military options. At some point in the future, there will come a time when it would make sense once again to apply pressure by threatening to attack Iran, but now is still the time for negotiations.”

Former National Security Council staff members Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett doubt if sanctions will be effective . In an article they wrote for the New York Times they explain,
“Iran will have to agree to pre-emptive limitations on its nuclear program or face what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton calls ‘crippling’ sanctions.
However, we believe it is highly unlikely Iran will accept this ultimatum. It is also unlikely that Russia and China will support sanctions that come anywhere near crippling Iran. After this all-too-predictable scenario has played out, the Obama administration will be left, as a consequence of its own weakness and vacillation, with extremely poor choices for dealing with Iran.” Then instead of pummelling Iran the Leveretts suggest,
“The administration should seek a strategic realignment with Iran as thoroughgoing as that effected by Nixon with China. This would require Washington to take steps, up front, to assure Tehran that rapprochement would serve Iran’s strategic needs.” Neither realignment nor engagement is going to buy anything more than time for Iran.
New York Times columnist Roger Cohen also claims sanctions won’t work. Quoting Ray Takeyh, who worked on Iran with Dennis Ross at the State Department ,“Sanctions are the feel-good option.” He says
“Yes, it feels good to do something, but it doesn’t necessarily help. In this case, sanctions won’t for four reasons.
One: Iran is inured to sanctions after years of living with them and has in Dubai a sure-fire conduit for goods at a manageable surtax. Two: Russia and China will never pay more than lip-service to sanctions. Three: You don’t bring down a quasi-holy symbol — nuclear power — by cutting off gasoline sales. Four: sanctions feed the persecution complex on which the Iranian regime thrives.
Last week a senior German Foreign Ministry official told an American Council on Germany delegation : “The efficiency of sanctions is not really discussed because if you do, you are left with only two options — a military strike or living with a nuclear Iran — and nobody wants to go there. So the answer is: Let’s impose further sanctions! It’s a dishonest debate.”

“Iran's nuclear 'nightmare' is a few months away” warns - Kirsty Buchanan in
The Daily Express
“The ‘nightmare’ scenario of a ‘cascade of proliferation across the Middle East’ with up to 13 other countries battling to keep pace with Iran’s nuclear ambitions.”
“There’s a need for targeted sanctions. The ¬regime’s ‘Achilles heel’ is refined oil. Iran still ¬imports 40 per cent for domestic use.
The US, Britain and France could threaten oil and gas sanctions if Tehran does not suspend the enrichment of uranium, but those threats carry little weight without Russian backing.”
Benjamin Weinthal in an article published in the Wall Street Journal quotes from Emanuele Ottolenghi’s book "Under a Mushroom Cloud: Europe, Iran and the Bomb,"
“European trade with Iran is a topic one dares not broach in Rome or Berlin when discussing how to bring Iran to its knees.
Mr. Ottolenghi delves into this largely unexamined traffic, which has racked up roughly €40 billion in transactions since 2006. He identifies the E.U. as a recalcitrant force in addressing the Iranian threat, noting that its "flourishing trade relations with Iran... constitutes a potential conflict of interest in the context of the nuclear crisis."
Mr. Ottolenghi opts for "economic pressure—rigorous, intrusive, extensive and sustained. Deep enough to threaten the very survival of the Islamic Revolution and make continued nuclear activity unfeasible." He pushes for a European full-court press of sanctions against critical Iranian industries, and notably for an embargo targeting Iran's energy sector.”
Gal Luft is executive director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (IAGS) a Washington based think tank focused on energy security and co-founder of the Set America Free Coalition, an alliance of national security, environmental, labour and religious groups promoting ways to reduce America's dependence on foreign oil. He reveals a lesser known insidious Iranian scheme.
Iran’s pipeline strategy could make it an indispensable energy supplier to hundreds of millions of people.
Luft describes how Iran signed an agreement to connect its economy with Pakistan via a 1,300-mile natural gas pipeline. “Both Iran and Pakistan hope to extend the pipeline into India and perhaps even into China. This would not only give Iran a foothold in the Asian gas market and ensure that millions of Pakistanis, Indians and perhaps Chinese are beholden to Iran’s gas, but it would also provide Iran with an economic lifeline and the diplomatic protection energy-dependent economies typically grant their suppliers.
In July, an Iranian spokesman announced that by the end of 2009 it will be connected with its northern neighbor, Turkmenistan, Central Asia’s largest gas producer, via a pipeline. Turkmenistan’s interest in pumping its gas to Iran stems from its desire to diversify its export market. Two-thirds of Turkmenistan’s gas flow to Russia, and the dependence on one major client allows Moscow to take advantage of its former republic. But why would energy-rich Iran want to import gas from its neighbor? The answer is the Nabucco pipeline.
For some years, a number of European governments and a consortium of energy companies have been lobbying for the construction of a pipeline from Central Asia via Turkey and the Balkan states to Austria, aimed to ease Europe’s dependence on Russian gas. Last July an intergovernmental accord on Nabucco was signed in Ankara. Scheduled to be completed by 2014 at a cost of over $11 billion, the 2,000-mile pipeline is estimated to supply between 5-10 percent of the EU’s projected gas consumption in 2020.
The problem, though, is that it is far from certain where the gas for Nabucco would come from. To date, not a single gas-producing country has signed on to the project. The U.S. position toward Nabucco has been supportive, with the caveat that no Iranian gas should supply the pipeline. But this is an exercise in self-delusion. Even if the 10-15 billion cubic metres of gas per year projected to be tapped from Azeri fields were to become available, much gas would still be needed to meet the pipeline’s capacity of 31 billion cubic metres of gas a year. No doubt about it: Nabucco would have to access both Turkmen and Iranian reserves.
This inconvenient truth is well known to all those involved with the project. But in order to maintain U.S. support, European governments, Turkey—the main transit state—and the consortium of companies which have undertaken to build the pipeline have made sure to drop Iran’s name from any official document or statement related to Nabucco. Tehran, so it seems, does not believe in denial. Its President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad knows well that making Europe beholden to his gas is the best insurance for his regime and that Iran is an appealing alternative to Russia for those for whom Vladimir Putin is a far bigger menace than he is. Once Nabucco is constructed, it will be only a matter of time before Iranian gas will be requested. Hence, the pipeline to Turkmenistan will also make Iran a conduit for Turkmen gas.
In Iran’s effort to bring its gas into the heart of Europe, it has another project: a 1,100-mile pipeline currently being constructed from Iran’s South Pars gas field through Turkey and onward to Greece, Italy and other European countries. This pipeline is expected to deliver 20.4 billion cubic metres a year.
Whether Iran’s natural gas ends up powering turbines in New Delhi, Karachi or Vienna, one thing is certain: Iran will be richer and more geopolitically indispensable. As in the case of U.S. dependence on Saudi Arabia, China’s on Sudan or Germany’s on Russia, energy dependency is a major driver of foreign policy. Once these new gas conduits are established, it will be far more difficult for the United States to gather international support for policies aimed to reign in Iran.
But all’s not lost. The Obama administration should actively promote alternative energy corridors which will prevent Iranian gas from reaching major markets while addressing Asia’s and Europe’s energy needs. One potential gas-pipeline project is the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline. The project can supply Pakistan and India as much gas at a lower construction cost, while providing the impoverished Afghan government with a steady revenue stream in the form of transit fees. Most important, TAPI would allow Turkmenistan to sell its gas to India, enriching two U.S. allies (Afghanistan and Pakistan) rather than selling the same gas to Europe, enriching a U.S. enemy (Iran).
Washington should therefore impress upon Islamabad, recipient of $1 billion-plus yearly of U.S. aid, to adopt TAPI rather than the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline.”
Gal Luft presents a convincing argument, however the Nabucco pipeline won’t be completed till 2014. Iran’s nuclear ambitions are of more immediate concern.

Chag Sameach

Beni 1st of October, 2009.